<p>The Islamic world in the fourteenth century differed in extent and outward splendour but little from the magnificent empire ruled by the Caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad in the eighth. If in the West it had been shorn of its outposts in Spain and Sicily it could justly claim to have more than balanced the loss of its extension in India and Malaysia. When in 1325 Ibn Battuta set out on his journeys the political conditions in the Islamic lands were relatively stable and unusually favourable for travel. In the present selections which have been translated from the Arabic original Ibn Batuta is treated as a traveller and not as a writer of geography. Sufficient indications have been added in the text and the notes to enable the course of his journeys to be followed in detail on any large-scale atlas. This classic translation by H.A.R. Gibb first published in 1929 introduced to the wider circle of English readers one of the most remarkable Islamic travellers of his own or any age. About the Author Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (1895-1971) known as H.A.R. Gibb was a Scottish historian on Orientalism.</p>

<p>This book attempts to reintegrate women into the socio-political milieu of early medieval Orissa. Its sources are inscriptions, mostly Sanskrit, that date from the seventh century ad to the end of the reign of the Imperial Ganga ruler, Anantavarman Codagangadeva (AD 1078-1147). The evi­dence indicates that royal and non-royal women had varying but undeniably important roles to play in the socio-political fabric of this prominent regional entity. The Bhauma-Kara dynasty (c. mid-eighth/ninth-late tenth century) that witnessed the rule of six women, four of them in succession, is a case in point. In addition, the palpable presence of several other royal and non-royal women is consistently documented in the epigraphic record. This is an aspect that has received very little attention in secondary works, thereby rendering this study a pioneering one. The work follows on from Rangachari’s earlier Invisible Women, Visible Histories: Gender, Polity and Society in North India (7th to 12th Century AD), which had focused on important gendered aspects of early medieval north India through an analysis of literary and epigraphic sources of Kashmir, Kanauj, Bengal and Bihar. The invisibilization of women, whereby their presence is routinely ignored or trivialized, was, similarly, its underlying essence.</p>

<p>Nepal which nestles in the loftty terrains of the Himalayas had an area of 147181 sq kms and an estimated population of 18.25 million in 1991. In the north the majestic Everest and other high mountains separate it from Tibet but in the south the Nepalese Tarai is distinguished from the Gangetic plains only by the boundary pillars along the boundary from extreme East to extreme West. And all Nepalese rivers flow down ultimately to join the Ganges sacred to the Napalese and the Indians alike. The social history part of the book examines the impact of several social factors on Napalese history like geography racial complexion society and religion the Nepalese personality art and literature communications trade and commerce music dance and drama the position of women and the army etc. The political history part of the book starts with the ancient period and after covering the medieval period addresses itself to more recent events e.g. Nepal’s relations with the East India Company the role of the queens and Ranas political awakening King Tribhuwan’s revolution and the quest for parliamentary democracy King Mahendra’s opting for personal rule King Birendra’s legacy of the partyless panchayats. It then goes on to examine Nepal in the 1980s and the final chapter ‘A New Beginning’ brings the narrative upto the end of 1991. The book is fairly different holds its own amongst other histories of Nepal. This indepth and impartial study brings out the abiding influences of social traditions and values on historical development and treats the subject in its geopolitical setting. About the Author Bhairava Dat Sanwal was born at Lohaghat in Pithoragarh district of Uttar Pradesh. He was awarded an Honours Degree in History in London. He later joined the Indian Civil Service and retired in 1975 from the post of Chief Secretary to the U.P. Government.</p>

<p>This classic study of the Punjab province of British India focuses on the role which it played as a bastion of imperial interests and the resulting legacies for its politics. The province was both the ‘sword arm’ and the ‘breadbasket’ of India. The British recruited into the Indian Army Punjabi Muslims Sikhs and Hindus from the so-called ‘martial castes.’ They were rewarded with tracts of lands in the new canal colonies which were created in a massive irrigation development from the 1880s. The social engineering which accompanied the transformation of the barren ‘waste’ of the West Punjab formed part of the economic and political entrenchment of loyalist landowning elites. The 1901 Punjab Alienation of Land Act stemmed their expropriation by urban moneylenders as a result of rising indebtedness. The resulting provincial particularities of an urban-rural divide which cut across communal identities forms an important counter-narrative to the ‘inevitability’ of Partition in the province which Jinnah dubbed the ‘corner-stone’ of Pakistan. The volume describes both the rise of the cross-community Unionist Party and the historical contingencies attendant on the Second World War which eventually enabled the Muslim League's crucial breakthrough in the region. About the Author Ian Talbot is Professor of Modern British History at the University of Southampton where he was formerly Head of Department and Director of the Centre for Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies and Director of the Humanities Graduate School. He has published extensively in the fields of Colonial Punjab History the Partition of India and the History of Pakistan. His works on Partition include Divided Cities: Partition and Its aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar 1947-1957 (2006); and The Partition of India (with Gurharpal Singh 2009). His first major publication Punjab and the Raj (1988) set the region's division in the wider sweep of colonial administration of the province. His most recent publications include: A History of Modern South Asia: Politics States Diasporas (2016) and (with Tahir Kamran) Lahore in the Time of the Raj (2016); Pakistan: A New History (2012); Pakistan: A Modern History (2009).</p>

<p>Political change through the ages has created refugees: groups of people who because of the conjunction of some element of their identity and shifts in power relationships are uprooted from their native place and forced to migrate to new abodes. One of the more tragic developments of the twentieth century has been that the rapidity and scale of political changes such as partitions independence civil wars and changes of regime have resulted in large numbers of refugees mainly in the developing areas of Asia and Africa. Despite the vast number of refugees in the world (over 40 million according to some estimates) there has been until now no systematic study of the refugee experience. Stephen Keller in this book integrates earlier studies of victims of natural disasters and nuclear explosions with actual accounts of Punjabi refugees from what is now Pakistan to develop a dynamic psychological model of the trauma of becoming a refugee. Through the use of extensive interviews and psychological tests he proceeds to show how 25 years after the event the experience still affects the personalities and attitudes of the refugees. These long-term effects can help us understand much of the economic and political change that has occurred in areas of heavy refugees concentration. About the Author Stephen L. Keller (1937) received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in engineering before shifting his field and receiving his Ph.D. in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. Dr. Keller’s interest in refugees stems from his first visit to India as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Punjab. Among other things Dr. Keller has worked as an engineer directed large scale survey research and taught university courses relating to India.</p>

<p>The Story of Integration of the Indian States by V.P. Menon was actually the concluding chapters of a story that began much earlier. It began as early as 1921 when the Indian National Congress entered the states arena with clear intentions of using the spontaneous native democratic movements in the princely states towards their own objective of integration without in turn committing themselves to the states people’s own programmes for ‘responsible government’. In this the policy of the Indian nationalists towards the states’ people’s movement was dictated not so much by the needs and aspirations of the states people but by their own necessities to counter the machinations of the British Government which sought to counterpoise the princes against them. This study marks a new approach by treating the subject not as a mere projection of the national movement nor as a study of the democratic movement in the princely states in isolation but as an interaction of different elements – the states people the states administration the Indian nationalists and the British administrators – moving towards their different aims. The spontaneous character of the movement in the states is brought out by going back to a period much earlier – the very beginning of the century – than 1921 the date of the entry of the Congress in the states. Again the movements in the three ‘model’ states chosen for this study Mysore Travancore and Cochin were typically illustrative of this character as it was in these three states neither ‘Congress inspired’ nor as on the Political Department’s own noting ‘sporadic’ but mor ‘sustained’ than ‘elsewhere’. About the Author Vanaja Rangaswami obtained her Ph.D degree from the University of Delhi on which this book is based. She has made the princely states her special subject of research.</p>

<p>It is a record of the first hand experiences of an English lady who occupied the exceptional position of membership of a Mussulman family. She does not tell anything of her own friends in Lucknow but she had free access to the houses of respectable Sayyids and thus gained ample facilities for the study of the manners and customs of Mussulman families. Much of her information on Islam was obtained from her husband and his father both learned travelled gentlemen and by them she was treated with a degree of toleration then unusual in a conservative Shiah household. Her accounts of the religious feasts and fasts description of the marriage ceremonies and that of a surrounding native household are according to William Crooke ‘trustworthy and valuable’. Not much was known about the author till Crooke surveyed massive literature in India and England to give some background of the versatile lady. In the present edition the text of the original edition (1917) has been reproduced without change even the curious transliterations of the ver­nacular words and phrases having been preserved. The correct forms of these so far as they have been ascertained have been given by Crooke in his notes and a new index glossary. He has also added an introduction containing an account of the author and compiled some notes illustrating questions connected with Islam and Mussulman usages. The book is full of colourful descriptions of the life of Lucknow of those days but that is not its exclusive concern. We get useful accounts of the state of affairs in Delhi and Kannoge (Kannauj) and her experiences during the travel to Calcutta via Patna. It is invaluable for any student of Indian Islamic history and sociology. About the Author William Crooke (1848-1923) was a British orientalist and a key figure in the study and documentation of Anglo-Indian folklore. He joined the Indian Civil Service. While an administrator in India he found abundant material for his researches in the ancient civilizations of the country. He found ample time to write much on the people of India their religions beliefs and customs. He was also an accomplished hunter. He has several landmark publications to his credit.</p>

<p>This volume contains Siddheswar Chattopadhyay’s selected essays on Ancient Indian Theatre. The essays include ‘Mat_rgupta: A Forgotten Author on Indian Dramaturgy’; ‘The Hero in the Mudrarak`sasa’; ‘A Note on Anthopak`sepaka’; ‘The Theory of Alienation Effect and Sanskrit Dramaturgy’; ‘The Actor and Aesthetic Experience’; ‘Pusta and Ancient Indian Theatre’; ‘Two Anyonymous Percepts of Sanskrit Dramaturgy’; ‘Glimpses of Ancient Indian Folk Theatre’; ‘Stage and Stagecraft as Revealed in Some Sanskrit Plays’ and ‘The Later Phase of Sanskrit Theatre in Eastern India’. About the Author Siddheswar Chattopadhyay a freedom fighter from his school days retired as professor and head of the department of Sanskrit at Burdwan University West Bengal.</p>

<p>Nationalism in India developed unevenly in different regions and drew upon varied cultural traditions and diverse socio-political conditions. This work analyses the interplay of Indian nationalism and Bengali regionalism from the later nineteenth century to 1940 in one of India's most troubled areas. As large in population as France and Germany combined, Bengal has always been an area of major importance in the Indian subcontinent. Calcutta, its principal city, was the capital of the British Indian Empire for nearly a century and a half, during which time it grew considerably in size and influence as a centre of both government and business. Thus by reason of proximity the Bengali people were more closely involved with British rule than any other specific group in India. They also had more opportunities for education and developed a greater political awareness. Today the region is split into West Bengal, which is part of India, and Bangladesh, which was formerly part of Pakistan. This division, largely along Hindu/Muslim lines, was made at the end of British rule in 1947. The total population now is well in excess of 115 million and there is a great deal of both national and regional consciousness in both parts of Bengal. Based on nationalist sources, government records, and interviews, the present volume traces the emergence of professional politicians attempting to mobilize the masses, and revolutionaries devoted to violent upheaval. A general account of the national movement in Bengal is interwoven with detailed portraits of such important leaders as R.C. Dutt, Aurobindo Ghose, C.R. Das, and Subhas Bose. Politically-conscious Bengalis passed from early pre-eminence in the movement to a much more limited role once Mahatma Gandhi gained control over the Indian National Congress. The final and longest section of the book deals with the years from 1918 to 1940 when Bengal was out of step with the main line of the Gandhian movement, and examines Bengali ambivalence and hostility toward Gandhi and Gandhians. The two major revolts against Gandhi's leadership in these years were led by C.R. Das in the 1920s and Subhas Bose in the 1930s. These crises of national movement versus regional sentiment are analysed to clarify the cultural, political, and psychological factors in the Bengalis’ position. It is essential to see these historical roots, Professor Gordon feels, if one is to understand the conflicts in which the Bengalis have recently been and are now engaged.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Mythology is a body of traditional stories involving supernatural persons and events and expressing the moral and cultural beliefs of a people. It is the result of the primitive man’s encounter with the universe and of his efforts to come to terms with it. As such a study of mythology is of the utmost importance for understanding the religion culture and history of the society producing them. The focus in this book is on Buddhist mythology or rather the early or Hinayana mythology as depicted in Pali literature and also its links with the later Mahayana mythology. The Buddha based his teachings on reason but a careful examination of the Pali works shows that early Buddhism was not free from mythology. This mythology does not acknowledge any creator-god. Still Pali literature contains the early Buddhists’ speculation about the cycles of destruction and renovation of the universe which according to the author remind us of some of theories of modern science. The author then goes on to deal with the Buddhist ideas of heavens and hells as the ethical consequences of the aforesaid notions of creation and destruction. Thereafter he describes the Buddhist myths about higher beings including gods and goddesses spirits and semi-divine beings. But the primacy is given to the Buddha who is regarded as omnipresent omniscient and omnipotent. This belief gave rise to the deification of the Buddha in the later period. Lastly the author shows how the later Mahayana mythology is indebted to Hinayana. Dr Haldar’s research will be found invaluable by all those interested in the study of Buddhism and mythology. About the Author Jnanranjan Haldar (1942) did his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Advanced Study in Ancient Indian History and Culture Calcutta University from 1972 to 1975.</p>