Commerce and the Agrarian Empires: Northern India

Author(s):  
Bhairabi Prasad Sahu

This article focuses on the shifts in the ways of seeing the history and historiography of the emergence of agrarian landscapes, manufacture of crafts, and trade and commerce in north India, during the mid-first millennium bce to the 13th century. Continued manifestation of settled agrarian localities, or janapadas, with its attendant concomitant processes, is visibly more noticeable from the middle of the first millennium ce onward, though their early beginnings can be traced back to the later Vedic times. The study of the janapadas or localities and regions, as distinguished from earlier regional studies, focusing on the trajectory of sociopolitical developments through time is a development dating to around the turn of the 21st century. It has much to do with the recognition of the fact that historical or cultural regions and modern state boundaries, which are the result of administrative decision-making, do not necessarily converge. Simultaneously, instead of engaging in macro-generalizations, historians have moved on to acknowledge that spaces in the past, as in the present, were differentiated, and there were uneven patterns of growth across regions and junctures. Consequently, since 1990 denser and richer narratives of the regions have been available. These constructions in terms of the patterns for early India have moved away from the earlier accounts of wider generalizations in time and space, colonization by Gangetic north India, and crisis. Alternatively, they look for change through continuities and try to problematize issues that were earlier subsumed under broader generalizations, and provide local and regional societies with the necessary agency. Rural settlements and rural society through the regions are receiving their due, and so are their networks of linkages with artisanal production, markets, merchants, and trade. The grades of peasants, markets, and merchants as well as their changing forms have attracted the notice of the historian. This in turn has compelled a shift in focus from being mostly absorbed with subcontinental history to situating it in its Asiatic and Indian Ocean background.

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1773-1781
Author(s):  
S. K. Arya ◽  
Amit Raj ◽  
Jyoti Deswal ◽  
Piyush Kohli ◽  
Raghavendra Rai

Abstract Introduction Nearly 6.8 million people in India have vision less than 6/60 in at least one eye due to corneal diseases; of these, about a million had bilateral involvement. Purpose To identify the challenges faced; the trends in collection, storage and utilisation of corneal tissues in an eye bank in north India. Materials and methods The past records of Eye Bank linked to a tertiary hospital in northern India were analysed from November’1999 to October’2015 with respect to number of eye donations per year, donor demographics and utilisation of corneal tissues. Results The number of donations during the first 6 years were 100, 279 in the next 5 years and 473 in the last 5 years. The mean donor age was 63.2 ± 19.5 years. The percentage of donors less than 30, 31–60 and more than 60 years was 10%, 28% and 62%. Forty-two percent donations were from the hospital. The average time between the death and enucleation was 4.74 ± 5.31 hours. The percentage of corneas used in the donor age groups less than 30, 31–60 and above 60 years was 61.9%, 61.6% and 53.8%, respectively. The usability rate of the corneas from home and hospital was 63.7% and 55.3%, respectively. Conclusions The eye bank had a lukewarm response in the beginning, but gained momentum with time. The myths and beliefs prevalent in our society deter people from donating eyes freely. Each eye bank needs to individualise its problems and find solutions for adequate procurement and utilisation of tissue.


Author(s):  
К.А. Панченко

Abstract The article examines the conquest of the County of Tripoli by the Mamelukes in 1289, and the reaction of various Middle Eastern ethnoreligious groups to this event. Along with the Monophysite perspective (the Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebraeus’ Continuator and the work of the Coptic historian Mufaddal ibn Abi-l-Fadail), and the propagandist texts of Muslim Arabic panegyric poets, we will pay special attention to the historical memory of the Orthodox (Melkite) and Maronite communities of northern Lebanon. The contemporary of these events — the Orthodox author Suleiman al-Ashluhi, a native of one of the villages of the Akkar Plateau — laments the fall of Tripoli in his rhymed eulogy. It is noteworthy that this author belongs to the rural Melkite subculture, which — in spite of its conservative character — was capable of producing original literature. Suleiman al-Ashluhi’s work was forsaken by the following generations of Melkites; his poem was only preserved in Maronite manuscripts. Maronite historical memory is just as fragmented. The father of the Modern Era Maronite historiography — Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî († 1516) only had fragmentary information on the history of his people in the 13th century: local chronicles and the heroic epos that glorified the Maronite struggle against the Muslim lords that tried to conquer Mount Lebanon. Gabriel’s depiction of the past is not only biased and subject to aims of religious polemics, but also factually inaccurate. Nevertheless, the texts of Suleiman al-Ashluhi and Gabriel ibn al-Qilaʿî give us the opportunity to draw conclusions on the worldview, educational level, political orientation and peculiar traits of the historical memory of various Christian communities of Mount Lebanon.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Prakasam ◽  
R. Saravanan ◽  
M. K. Sharma ◽  
Varinder S. Kanwar

AbstractAs the surface water in northern India is the main water resource for regional economic and also supply for drinking and irrigation purposes. However, deficiency of water quality leads to serious water pollution in the Pandoh river basin (PRB). Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to evaluate the quality of surface water. With this objective, surface water samples were collected from the PRB of northern India, and analyzed for pH, EC, turbidity, alkalinity, total dissolved solids, and total hardness. Moreover, geographical information system (GIS) tools were used to prepare the geology, drainage pattern, and location maps of the study region. Surface water quality observed from the PRB has an alkaline nature with a moderately hard type. Further studies are encouraged to better understand the water quality in northern India.


1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert M. Joseph ◽  
Allen Wells

The past decade has witnessed a rich harvest of regional studies of the Mexican Porfiriato. There are two predominant currents in the recent literature. One group of scholars has focused attention on the political sphere, examining the process whereby the Porfirian central state increased its power at the expense of the regional peripheries. Invariably, the federal cause was advanced by Don Porfirio's ability to manipulate local factional struggles, playing off contending parentescos or élite family networks. Another group of historians has explored the external dimension of the Porfirian regional economy, examining patterns of cooperation and conflict between local élites and foreign investors. The contradictory nature of such transnational alliances and their impact on non-élite groups have now been analyzed for several important Porfirian regions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Smiljan Gluščević

The article deals with the archaeological material recorded over the past decade on the island of Silba and on its seabed. The island is located on the most important seafaring route that led from the northern to southern Adriatic. The source of the earliest – albeit scarce – information about its population is the island’s prehistoric hill-fort. As for the life on the island in Antiquity and Late Antiquity, the graves and sarcophagi recorded there can be used as evidence of it. In terms of the number of finds, the seabed off Silba is much richer than the island itself, particularly the area near Sveti Ante Cove and Cape Arat, where Antiquity remains and Modern Age glass objects were found. Grebeni – the neighboring group of three reefs – were also included in the excavations. They were fatal for numerous ships of the Antiquity, as well as for one Late Medieval ship and one Modern Age ship. The most important finds include those from a mid-1st-century AD ship (a large quantity of material which is mostly unique for the Adriatic), a bell from the second half of the 13th century, and a ship with mid-17th-century cannons, anchors and ceramics. We should add to these the find of a shipwreck with Baetical amphorae (type Dr. 20) – the first such find on the Adriatic seabed. 


2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Appleton

Oxford UniversityJātakas—stories about the past lives of the ‘historical’ Buddha—are often associated with specific locations, both within the land of Buddhism’s birth, and in other parts of Asia. There are records suggesting that such locations became early pilgrimage sites; contemporary sources also make reference to ‘local’ jātakas, which in many cases help to assimilate Buddhism into the local culture through its geography. In this article I will argue that it is the structure of jātaka stories that allows this localisation to take place all over Asia. I contend that since the jātakas themselves are lacking in specific external referents they can easily be given a location, whilst their framing in the ‘present’ time of the Buddha’s teaching career grounds the stories in both time and place, without infringing on the flexibility of the individual stories. This ability to provide centrally legitimated relevance for each and all contributes greatly to the popularity and endurance of the jātaka genre. The layering of meanings must remain if the stories are to accomplish this: if the stories become formally localised, for example by 19th century scholars who celebrate the jātakas’ worth as records of life in early India, the power of the stories to transcend boundaries of time and place for their multiple audiences is lost. Yet if the jātakas were not anchored in the Buddha’s teaching career in the 5th century BCE North India, their significance for Buddhists would in any case be negligible.


Author(s):  
Zenija Kruzmetra ◽  
Dina Bite ◽  
Ginta Kronberga

The renewal of society is a broad term in its original sense but in the context of the article, it is linked with issues of depopulation, territorial polarization, and shrinking processes in Latvia. One of the “hot points” for local governments has been finding ways to attract people and promote the development of rural territories for the past decades. Both theoretical and practical solutions for maintaining rural society and promoting the renewal of society are the development of the cultural environment. Cultural activities directly affect public participation, cooperation among the population, the development of creativity, and promotion of inclusive society, health and society renewal. As recent investigations show, cultural environment is broadly developing in rural territories of Latvia. The research of cultural environment as a potential for the renewal of society of Latvia is a novelty due to the beginning of the National Research Program for the period 2014–2017 funded by the Government of Latvia (EKOSOC LV projects 5.2.4., 5.2.8.). The aim of the article is to analyze cultural environment as a potential for renewal of society in rural territories of Latvia. The research object is planning and development documents of local governments, different agents of rural territories. The results of the study reveal development of cultural environment in rural regions in Latvia. However, these practices are fragile yet and need support. They can bring forth new social and economic structures and serve as promoters of the smart development of rural territories in Latvia. For this reason, local governments should create their strategies to appreciate and support cultural activities as their potential for renewal of rural society.


2007 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
pp. 2006-2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomonori Sato ◽  
Fujio Kimura

Abstract The roles of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) upon the transition of precipitation in the south Asian summer monsoon are investigated using a simplified regional climate model. Before the onset of the south Asian monsoon, descending flow in the midtroposphere, which can be considered as a suppressor against precipitation, prevails over northern India as revealed by the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data. The descending motion gradually weakens and retreats from this region before July, consistent with the northwestward migration of the monsoon rainfall. To examine a hypothesis that the dynamical and thermal effects of TP cause the midtropospheric subsidence and its seasonal variation, a series of numerical experiments are conducted using a simplified regional climate model. The mechanical effect of the TP generates robust descending flow over northern India during winter and spring when the zonal westerly flow is relatively strong, but the effect becomes weaker after April as the westerly flow tends to be weaker. The thermal effect of the TP, contrastingly, enhances the descending flow over north India in the premonsoonal season. The descending flow enhanced by the thermal effect of the TP has a seasonal cycle because the global-scale upper-level westerly changes the energy propagation of the thermal forcing response. The subsidence formed by the mechanical and thermal effects of the TP disappears over northern India after the subtropical westerly shifts north of the plateau, the seasonal change of which is in good agreement with that in the reanalysis data. The retreat of the descending flow can be regarded as the withdrawal of the premonsoon season and the commencement of the south Asian monsoon. After that, the deep convection, indicating the onset of the Indian summer monsoon, is able to develop over north India in relation to the ocean–atmosphere and land–atmosphere interaction processes. Northwest India is known to be the latest region of summer monsoon onset in south Asia. Thus, the thermal and mechanical forcing of the TP has great impact on the transition of the Indian monsoon rainfall by changing the midtropospheric circulation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-302
Author(s):  
Korinna Schönhärl ◽  
Mark Spoerer

Abstract The following issue arose from a section at the Congress for Economic and Social History in Regensburg in March 2019 and focuses on fiscal conflicts in Europe from the early modern period until today. Distributive fiscal conflicts are seen here as a probe into the past which can increase our understanding of historical social structures. Fiscal history is analysed as a central arena of the modern state. The introduction provides an overview of current research into fiscal history in Germany and of the contributions presented in this focus issue.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Hammer ◽  
Jason Ur

AbstractRecently declassified photographs taken by U2 spy planes in the 1950s and 1960s provide an important new source of historical aerial imagery useful for Eurasian archaeology. Like other sources of historical imagery, U2 photos provide a window into the past, before modern agriculture and development destroyed many archaeological sites. U2 imagery is older and in many cases higher resolution than CORONA spy satellite imagery, the other major source of historical imagery for Eurasia, and thus can expand the range of archaeological sites and features that can be studied from an aerial perspective. However, there are significant barriers to finding and retrieving U2 imagery of particular locales, and archaeologists have thus not yet widely used it. In this article, we aim to reduce these barriers by describing the U2 photo dataset and how to access it. We also provide the first spatial index of U2 photos for the Middle East. A brief discussion of archaeological case studies drawn from U2 imagery illustrates its merits and limitations. These case studies include investigations of prehistoric mass-kill hunting traps in eastern Jordan, irrigation systems of the first millennium BC Neo-Assyrian Empire in northern Iraq, and twentieth-century marsh communities in southern Iraq.


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