scholarly journals Art. I.—The Iron Pillar of Delhi (Mihraulī) and the Emperor Candra (Chandra)

Author(s):  
Vincent A. Smith

The project of writing the “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments” has long occupied my thoughts, but the duties of my office do not permit me, so long as I remain in active service, to devote the time and attention necessary for the execution and completion of so arduous an undertaking. There is, indeed, little prospect that my project will ever be fully carried into effect by me. Be that as it may, I have made some small progress in the collection of materials, and have been compelled from time to time to make detailed preparatory studies of special subjects. I propose to publish these studies occasionally under the general title of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History.” The essay now presented as No. I of the series is that which happens to be the first ready. It grew out of a footnote to the draft of a chapter on the history of Candra Gupta II.

Author(s):  
Vincent A. Smith

The following history of the reign of the great conqueror, Samudra Gupta, who was emperor of Northern India, and made extensive, though temporary, conquests in the south, about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era, is offered as a specimen of the author's projected “Ancient History of Northern India from the Monuments.” Though that projected history may never be completed, I venture to think that fragments of it may not be altogether valueless, and that they may suffice to prove that even now the materials exist for the construction of an authentic and fairly readable “History of Ancient India.”


1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 335-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Athar Ali

AbstractThe medieval period of Indian history, as conventionally fixed by historians, c. 1000 to c. 1750 had so deep an imprint of Islam, that during much of the period, India could be held to belong culturally to the Islamic World, not on its periphery, but close to its core. It is, of course, the uniqueness of India's situation, that at the very same time, strictly in terms of its Hindu component, it could be said to be a world in its own right, with Islam only as a peripheral phenomenon. Yet, since the Islamic connexion greatly influenced the political structure, the fiscal system and even much of the network of internal commerce and external trade, it is crucial to understand the background that Islam provided to Indian history, or in other words, to understand Islamic history till the arrival of Islam in Northern India, c. 12001). A splendid effort to do so was provided by Professor Mohammad Habib in his introduction to a reprint of Vol. II of Elliot and Dowson's History of India as told by its Own Historians, Aligarh, 1952. A year later Hamilton Gibb came out with his well known essay, "An Interpretation of Islamic History", published in Journal of World


Author(s):  
M. L. Nigham

The Gurjara-Pratihāras were the last Hindu power of early Indian history who strove to unify the whole of Āryāvarta under one parasol, and the dynasty produced a brilliant galaxy of monarchs such as Nāgabhaṭa, Mihira-Bhoja, Mahendrapāla and Mahipāla who, apart from their military genius, were great patrons of learning and art. The archaeological remains of this dynasty have been brought to light from Pihova (Pṛthūdaka) in the north to Deogarh and Gwalior in the south, and from Kathiawar in the west to Bihar and Bengal in the east. Rājaśēkhara, the great Sanskrit poet-dramatist, was the spiritual preceptor (upādhyaya) of Mahendrapāla alias Nirbhayanarendra. He continued to grace the Pratihāra court till the reign of Mahipāla, the son and successor of Mahendrapāla, in whose presence the play Bālabhārata was staged. Besides the Bālabhārata, three other dramas, Bālarāmāyaṇa, Karpūramañjarī and Viddhaśālabhañjikā, and Kāvyamīmāṃsā, an elaborate work on poetics, were written by the same author. Being closely associated with the political life of the court, Rājaśēkhara's dramas, although based on conventional themes of love, give us glimpses of the political condition of northern India at that time.


1897 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-910
Author(s):  
Vincent A. Smith

The following dissertation is the second in my series of “Prolegomena to Ancient Indian History,” of which the first was the essay entitled “The Iron Pillar of Delhi (Mihraulī) and the Emperor Candra (Chandra)” published in this Journal in January, 1897. The article entitled “Samudra Gupta,” published, in the same number of the Journal, gives in narrative form the history of the Emperor Samudra Gupta. The present paper is devoted to the detailed technical discussion of the authorities for the statements of that narrative. I may perhaps be pardoned for inviting attention to the proposed identification of King Acyuta; the justification of the reading Mahendragiri as a king's name; the probable identification of the kings Viṣṇugōpa and Hastivarman; the certain identification of the kingdom of Pālakka; the suggested identifications of the kingdoms of Devarāṣṭra and Kustbalapura; the probable identification of King Candravarman; the location of the Ābhīra tribe; and the attempted identification and differentiation of the Ṣāhi, Ṣāhānuṣāhi, and Daivaputra kings.


Author(s):  
Vincent A. Smith

The four epochs into which, the political history of ancient Northern India is naturally divided are marked by four imperial dynasties — (I) the Maurya, (II) the Kusana or Kushān, (III) the Gupta, and (IV) the Rājpūt line of Harṣavardhana. The date of the Maurya, the earliest of the four dynasties, was practically determined more than a century ago by Sir William Jones, and we know that Candra Gupta Maurya, the first emperor of India, and grandfather of Aśoka, ascended the throne in or about the yearb.c.321.


1890 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-481
Author(s):  
J. F. Hewitt

In the previous papers of this series I have tried to trace in outline a truthful sketch of the general course of early Indian History. The evidence I have consulted and set forth has led me to believe that the government, social institutions, and the fundamental principles of the religion of the country all originated among tribes for the most part of Dravidian race, who came into India from the Euphrates valley. In dealing with this evidence I have tried to trace the origin of the tribes who successively and simultaneously ruled India, the races to which they belonged, and the religious beliefs they held. In doing this I have also adduced proofs to show that the same races who introduced civilized and stable government into India performed the same task in the countries of Western Asia, in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. In the course of my argument I have laid stress on the value of early religious and astronomical history as a guide, not only to the social history of India, but to that of all countries ruled by immigrant tribes of Akkadian race. My conclusions as to Indian history were formed chiefly from a study of the Mahābhārata and Rigveda, and these authorities were largely supplemented by references to Greek and Latin historians, to Akkadian and Assyrian history, and by information derived from the present state of the country, its religious movements and social institutions.


1903 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-570
Author(s):  
A. F. Rudolf Hoernle

It has long been a puzzle to me that no coins of the two great emperors Vikramāditya and Harsha Vardhana should have survived, when we have, in comparatively large numbers, coins of most minor kings before and after them. I believe, however, that coins of these two emperors do exist, though they have not been recognized hitherto. My attention was drawn to them recently, while writing a sketch of the ancient history of India.


Author(s):  
Jed Z. Buchwald ◽  
Mordechai Feingold

Isaac Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, published in 1728, one year after the great man’s death, unleashed a storm of controversy. And for good reason. The book presents a drastically revised timeline for ancient civilizations, contracting Greek history by five hundred years and Egypt’s by a millennium. This book tells the story of how one of the most celebrated figures in the history of mathematics, optics, and mechanics came to apply his unique ways of thinking to problems of history, theology, and mythology, and of how his radical ideas produced an uproar that reverberated in Europe’s learned circles throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The book reveals the manner in which Newton strove for nearly half a century to rectify universal history by reading ancient texts through the lens of astronomy, and to create a tight theoretical system for interpreting the evolution of civilization on the basis of population dynamics. It was during Newton’s earliest years at Cambridge that he developed the core of his singular method for generating and working with trustworthy knowledge, which he applied to his study of the past with the same rigor he brought to his work in physics and mathematics. Drawing extensively on Newton’s unpublished papers and a host of other primary sources, the book reconciles Isaac Newton the rational scientist with Newton the natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian, and chronologist of ancient history.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Dilbar Abdurasulova ◽  
◽  
Akbar Màjidov

This article provide that Uzbekistan is one of the oldest centers of culture, in particular, the works of Greco-Roman historians, Arab and Chinese travelers and geographers serve invaluable source for studying the ancient history of Jizzak


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