Material Culture and Childhood in Harappan South Asia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Supriya Varma
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
Household Chores ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Harappan Civilization ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
Wheeled Vehicles

The Harappan Civilization came up in the mid-third millennium bce over an area that extended over much of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. This chapter will specifically focus on two major cities, Mohenjodaro and Harappa, to discuss material culture and childhood in Harappan South Asia, including the wide range of arguably child-related objects found at these sites which provide a lens through which we can get a glimpse of quotidian activities within these two cities. Many of the artefacts that have been categorized as toys represent household chores that took place around children as well as objects (such as wheeled vehicles), animals, and birds that they routinely encountered.

Translating the Scribe: Lithographic Print and Vernacularization in Colonial India, 1857–1915

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 281-300
Author(s):  
Amanda Lanzillo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
North India ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Book Production ◽  
Manuscript Culture ◽  
Arabic Script ◽  
Literary Cultures ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Focusing on the lithographic print revolution in North India, this article analyses the role played by scribes working in Perso-Arabic script in the consolidation of late nineteenth-century vernacular literary cultures. In South Asia, the rise of lithographic printing for Perso-Arabic script languages and the slow shift from classical Persian to vernacular Urdu as a literary register took place roughly contemporaneously. This article interrogates the positionality of scribes within these transitions. Because print in North India relied on lithography, not movable type, scribes remained an important part of book production on the Indian subcontinent through the early twentieth century. It analyses the education and models of employment of late nineteenth-century scribes. New scribal classes emerged during the transition to print and vernacular literary culture, in part due to the intervention of lithographic publishers into scribal education. The patronage of Urdu-language scribal manuals by lithographic printers reveals that scribal education in Urdu was directly informed by the demands of the print economy. Ultimately, using an analysis of scribal manuals, the article contributes to our knowledge of the social positioning of book producers in South Asia and demonstrates the vitality of certain practices associated with manuscript culture in the era of print.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

scholarly journals Ontology in Neolithic Britain and Ireland: Beyond Animism

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 249
Author(s):  
Chris Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Ontological Difference ◽  
Wide Range

A combination of new animism and new materialism has influenced recent interpretations of the Neolithic archaeology of Britain and Ireland, including decorative and figurative productions often referred to as ‘art’. This article critiques the appeal to animism in some of this work and considers four alternative ways to address the critique. First it considers contextualizing animism by discussing Descola’s identification of four kinds of ontologies—animism, totemism, analogism and naturalism–outlining examples of practices and material culture involved in each. After examining the effect of applying these to the Neolithic archaeology of Britain and Ireland, it then considers identifying Neolithic practices which seem at odds with animism without boxing these as indicative of other categories of ontology. After noting the wide range of Indigenous ontologies such models attempt to characterize, the article advocates an emphasis on ontological difference and attends to ontological diversity within the Neolithic.

The lens of firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal culture as cosmos-sign

Semiotica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (221) ◽  
pp. 143-173
Author(s):  
Steven Bonta
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
New World ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Australian Aboriginal ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aboriginal Culture

AbstractHaving identified previously (Bonta 2015) the Peircean Category Firstness as the semiotic basis (or cultural Prime Symbol) for Australian Aboriginal culture, this paper examines the “lens” of Firstness as it is manifest in a variety of aboriginal (or “Shamanic”) cultures worldwide. By studying the semiotic contours of religion, language, social organization, and art, we find systemic prioritization of Firstness in its various manifestations, across a wide range of aboriginal cultures from Australia to the Indian Subcontinent to aboriginal Siberia and the New World. Shamanic culture, despite its ethnic and geographic variety, may therefore be represented as a semiotic type – and, in addition, one that, in its pristine form, is nearly extinct.

scholarly journals Adverse events with ayurvedic medicines- possible adulteration and some inherent toxicities

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Buddhi Paudyal ◽  
Astha Thapa ◽  
Keshav Raj Sigdel ◽  
Sudeep Adhikari ◽  
Buddha Basnyat
Keyword(s):  
Rheumatoid Arthritis ◽  
Nephrotic Syndrome ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Liver Injury ◽  
Adverse Events ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Ayurvedic Medicine ◽  
Gold Salt ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
Wide Range

Ayurvedic medicine, a traditional system of medicine practiced in the Indian subcontinent is considered to be devoid of adverse events. We report three cases which highlight the possibility of adverse events related with the use of ayurvedic products. A 35 year old woman with hepatitis took ayurvedic powder medicine and swarnabhasma (gold salt) and had her liver injury worsened, possibly due to alkaloids, and developed nephrotic syndrome, possibly due to gold salt. A 57 year old hypertensive man was taking ayurvedic medicine containing reserpine which had long been withdrawn from the allopathic system of medicine due to wide range of side effects. A 47 year old woman with rheumatoid arthritis was taking an unknown tablet containing steroid as an adulterant for 2 years and developed side effects typical of steroid excess. We would like to highlight the fact that ayurvedic medicines do have propensity to cause adverse events due to adulteration or inherent constituents like alkaloids, and hence may not always be completely safe.

scholarly journals Book review: The prehistoric apprentice: Investigating apprenticeship, know-how and expertise in prehistoric technologies; L’apprenti préhistorique: Appréhender l’apprentissage, les savoir-faire et l’expertise à travers les productions techniques des soci

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manek Kolhatkar
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Technological Organization ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
French And English ◽  
Culture Variability

Describing cultural change and variability and inferring sociocultural dynamics about past people and communities may be among archaeology’s main goals as a field of practice. In this regard, the concept of skill has proved its usefulness to, time and again, expand the breath of archaeologists and lithic technologists’ analyses. It covers a wide range of applications, from apprenticeship, cognition, paleo-sociology, spatial organization. It is one of the main causes for material culture variability, up there with raw material constraints, design, technological organization or cultural norms. Yet, while skill has certainly been the focus of some research in the last decades, it remains quite peripheral, when considering how central the concept should be to technological inquiries. Whatever the reasons may be, this book, edited by Laurent Klaric and fully bilingual (French and English), aims at changing that, and argues for skill to become a central concern in lithic technology. Its chapters do so strongly and the end-result is a book that should become a reference for lithic technologists, whatever their research interests or schools of thought may be.

scholarly journals Understanding the social determinants of TB and HIV in South Asia

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bishwajit Ghose ◽  
Cheng Zhaohui ◽  
He Zhifei
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Asian Population ◽  
Major Public Health Problem ◽  
South Asian Population ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Mdr Tb

South Asian population suffer a particularly wide range of infectious diseases among which TB and HIV appear to produce most profound influence across various dimensions of social life, healthcare and the economy. Although the countries in this region have a relatively lower prevalence of HIV/AIDS compared to other developing regions until now, the future looks rather bleak in terms of preparedness for emerging healthcare realities. Tuberculosis on the other hand, has always been a major public health problem plaguing the healthcare system and the economy for decades. Moreover, the emergence of the drug resistant (MDR-TB & XDR-TB) strains are making the existing intervention and prevention strategies less effective and posing ever-growing threats to the underdeveloped healthcare infrastructure. Understanding the underlying social-determinants of these diseases can prove crucial to design more comprehensive intervention approaches. This article aims to clarify why the healthcare system in South Asia needs to adopt a social-determinants-of-health (SDOH) approach as a long-term strategy for more efficient prevention and control of TB and HIV infection.

scholarly journals Asian monsoon projection with a new large-scale monsoon definition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingang Dai ◽  
Yang Yang ◽  
Ping Wang
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Summer Monsoon ◽  
Moisture Transport ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Asian Monsoon ◽  
Monsoon Season ◽  
Northwest China ◽  
Winter Monsoon ◽  
Climate Simulation ◽  
Northwestern Part

Abstract This paper focuses on Asian monsoon projection with CMIP5 multi-model outputs. A large-scale monsoon herewith is defined as a vector field of vertically integrated moisture flux from the surface to 500 hPa. Results demonstrate that the model ensemble mean underestimated the summer monsoon and overestimated slightly the winter monsoon over South Asia in both CMIP5 historical climate simulation and the monsoon projection for 2006–2015. The major of the bias is the model climate drift (MCD), which is removed in the monsoon projection for 2016–2045 under scenarios RCP4.5 for reducing the uncertainty. The projection shows that two increased moisture flows northward appeared across the Equator of Indian Ocean, the first is nearby Somalia coast toward northwestern part of South Asia, leading to excess rainfall in where the wet jet could reach, and the second starts from the equatorial Sect. (80°E–100°E) toward northeastern Bay of Bengal, leading to more rainfall spreading over the northwestern coast of Indochina Peninsula. In addition, a westward monsoon flow is intensified over the Peninsula leading to local climate moisture transport belt shifted onto South China Sea, which would reduce moisture transport toward Southwest China on one hand, and transport more moisture onto the southeast coast of the China mainland. The anomalous monsoon would result in a dry climate in Northwest China and wet climate in the coast belt during summer monsoon season for the period. Besides, the Asian winter monsoon would be seemingly intensified slightly over South Asia, which would bring a dry winter climate to Indian subcontinent, Northwest China, but would be more rainfall in southeast part of Arabian Peninsula with global climate warming.

scholarly journals On C-E Translation of Culture-Specific Items from the Perspective of Eco-translatology—A Case Study of Howard Goldblatt’s Red Poppies

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaojun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Three Dimension ◽  
Translation Study ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Free Translation ◽  
Ecological Culture ◽  
Translation Methods ◽  
New Perspective

<div>This thesis researches the translation of Chinese culture-specific items in <em>Red Poppies</em> from the perspectives of Eco-translatology. Eco-translatology, which was put forward by Chinese scholar Hu Gengshen, adopts some concepts of ecology in translatology and provides a new perspective for translation study and practice. <em>Red Poppies</em> is a novel by Alai whose contents covers a wide range of Tibetan culture and history, which is praised as Tibetan encyclopedia. On one hand, the study focuses on the definition and features of culture-specific items, and their classification of in Red</div><div>Poppies. Based on Nida’s classification of five categories of sub-culture, those culture-specific items are classified into five groups, namely linguistic culture-specific items, material culture-specific items, ecological culture--specific items, social culture-specific items and religious culture-specific items. On the other hand, this thesis explores how Goldblatt deal with those culture-specific items from the perspective of three-dimension transformation in eco-translatology, and it finds translator adopts a combination of foreignization strategy and domestication strategy, and the former plays a dominating role. Besides, various translation methods are adopted such as free translation, transliteration, transliteration plus annotation, and amplification and so on.</div>

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