Historiography : Indian Tradition

(1) (a) Alexander Cunningham

Alexander Cunningham was the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Explanation – After conducting several excavations and explorations of the ancient sites in India under the British rule, in 1861, Alexander Cunningham was appointed as the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

(2) (b) Friedrich Max Muller

Friedrich Max Muller translated the Sanskrit text of ‘Hitopadesh.’

Explanation – According to Friedrich Max Muller, Sanskrit is the ancient language. He expressed his interest in Sanskrit literature. Thus, he translated the Sanskrit text of ‘Hitopadesh.’

The correct pair is ‘The Indian War of Independence 1857’ – Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Explanation - Nationalist historiography led to the movement by the Indian people against the British rule. Related to this, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar wrote the book called ‘The Indian War of Independence 1857’ which explains in detail about the revolt of 1857 which Indians fought against Britishers.

Nationalist historiography is one of the schools of historiography which includes all those historical writings which is related to India’s war of independence, and the related events. These are the writings of the Indian historians who wrote about the nationalistic movement held in different parts of India. This led to the emergence of the regional history describing the particular state or city. Example – the Nationalistic writings of Maharashtra written by various historians who discuss in detail about the people of Maharashtra fighting against the British rule.

Bakhar is a historical document of the medieval period. It is important because it contains the history of kings, battles, great men, historical events and many more. It is considered to be a part of Marathi literature and is of various types, examples- Sabhasad Bakhar, Panipatachi Bakhar, etc.

Emperor Babur wrote his autobiography titled ‘Tuzuk-i-babari’ in which he gives us details about the battles he fought during his reign. Also, he included what he observed during his journey to various cities and regions like the customs, traditions, local economy, etc.

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, also known as ‘Svatantrya veer Savarkar’ contributed greatly to nationalistic historiography by writing about the regional history which is based on the struggle of the Indians against the British rule of the particular region. Because of this, historians started taking into consideration the history of south India and other geographical locations.

the Marxist theory is the school of historiography which considers the effect that occurs from the particular social event and its significance in the society. The Marxist writings include the need for the means and the modes of production and industrial relations. In India, the Marxist writings include the caste system as the main theme, and the changes happened in the caste system. The Indian scholars who adopted a Marxist method of writing history are – Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, Ram Sharan Sharma, SA Dange, etc. Comrade Dange wrote the book titled ‘Primitive communism to slavery’ which considers the Marxist method of writing history.

Itihasacharya V.K. Rajwade wrote history on various topics in Marathi. He also compiled, edited and wrote various scholarly works. He contributed to historiography through various means such as:-

(i) He suggested that the individual should write his own history.

(ii) According to him, history should include all the aspects of the past human societies.

(iii) History should be collected from the various sources which should be authentic in nature.

Orientalist school of historiography includes the thoughts of the Europeans who showed interest in the civilisations, and the countries of the east as they encouraged and respected their history too. These scholars came to be known as the Orientalist. Their focus was on Sanskrit literature, Vedic culture, and traditions. They found the similarities between the Sanskrit and the European languages which helped them in formulating the belief that ancient language is the mother of all the Indo-European languages. The notable Orientalist is Friedrich Max Muller who expressed his interest in Sanskrit literature and translated the Sanskrit text of ‘Hitopadesh.’

Nationalist historiography is one of the schools of historiography which includes all those historical writings which are related to India’s war of independence, and the related events. These are the writings of the Indian historians who wrote about the nationalistic movement held in different parts of India. They wanted to reveal the ancient history and the golden era of India. They opposed those British scholars who wrote about the history of ancient India in a biased manner and for avoiding the objective truth of the historical events. Some of the notable scholars under Nationalistic historiography are Mahadev Govind Ranade, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Radha Kumud Mukherjee and many more.

The term subaltern means ‘bottommost ranks.’ It was Antonio Gramsci who considered important that history should also include the bottommost rank of the society. Thus, subaltern school of historiography came into existence. Subaltern history became an important academic school of historiography after Ranjit Guha included this concept in his writings. Before this, this idea of including bottommost ranks in the history was taken into consideration by the scholars like Mahatma Phule. The term ‘shudras’ or the ‘atishudras’ is used for the bottommost rank. The writings of the BR Ambedkar also consider the subaltern school of historiography in his book entitled ‘who were called the shudras’ and ‘The Untouchables.’