M.A.

History (Semester 1st)

Syllabus

Paper: Core. Sources of Ancient Indian History

Unit-I
A. Archaeology

I. Archaeology and its Significance

II. Exploration, Excavation, and Dating Operation.
III. Archaeological Sites and Finds

B. Monuments

I. Religious II. Secular

Unit-II

A. Epigraphy

I. Classification and Dating of

Inscriptions II. Study of Early Indian
Inscriptions.

B. Numismatics

I. Evolution and Growth of Coinage; Punch Marked Coins, Indo-Greek, Kushan and Gupta
Coins
II. Coins as Sources of Information

Unit-III
Literary Sources

I. Classification of Literary Sources: Language, Genre, and Content

II. The Vedas, Epics, Puranas, and Dharmashastras
III. The Buddhist and Jain Literature
IV. Sangam Literature
V. Secular Literature
VI. The Accounts of Foreign Writers

Unit-IV
I. Source Criticism- Internal and External Criticism with Illustrations from Relevant Sources
II. Relative Significance of the Variety of Sources
III. Perceptions of the Past; Reading of the Source Texts and the Perceptions of the Past.
 Selected Readings

 B.N.Mukherjee, 1997. The Techniques of Minting Coins in Ancient and Medieval India.
 Chakrabarti, D. K., 1988, A History of Indian Archaeology from the beginning to 1947. New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
 Chakrabarti, Dilip. K., 2001, India: An Archaeological History, Oxford.
 D.D.Kosambi., Indian Numismatics, ed. B.D.Chattopadhyaya
 Dani, A. H. ([1986] 1997). Indian Epigraphy. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
 Goldman, Robert P., ed.1984. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India, Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
 Guha-Thakurta, Tapati, 2004. Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India,
Permanent Black, Delhi.
 J. Grant, et.al. 2005. The Archaeology Course Book. Routledge: London and New York.
 Mortimer Wheeler. 1954. Archaeology from the Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Nilakanta Sastri, K.A., Sangam Literature: Its Cults and Cultures, Madras, 1972.
 P.John Casey, 1986. Understanding Ancient Coins: An Introduction for Archaeologists and Historians 
Parmeshwari, Lal Gupta, 1981. Coins: The Source of Indian History.
 Philips, C.H., ed., Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, London, 1961. Oxford University Press.
 Romila Thapar, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories, Kali for Women: New Delhi, 1999.
 Sharma, R. S. 2003, Perspectives in Social and Economic History of Ancient India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
 Sharma, R. S. 2003. Perspectives in Social and Economic History of Ancient India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
 Sharma, R. S., 2005, India‟s Ancient Past, Oxford University Press.
 Singh, Upinder, The Discovery of Ancient India: Early Archaeologists and the Beginnings of Archaeology. Delhi,
2004. Permanent Black.
 Singh, Upinder. 2009. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India from the Stone Age to the 12th century.
Delhi: Pearson Longman.
 Smith, John D. 2009. The Mahabharata. Penguin.
 Sreedharan, E., 2009, A Textbook of Historiography. Orient Blackswan,
 Srivastava, K. M, New Era of Indian Archaeology, Cosomo Publication, New Delhi.  Srivastava, K. M., 1982,
New Era of Indian Archaeology, Cosmo Publications.
 Thapar, Romila, Interpreting Early India, Delhi, 1999. Oxford University Press.
 Thapar, Romila, Interpreting Early India, New Delhi, 1992.
 Semester I
Themes in European History-I
Unit 1: The Empire and the Civilization

1. Rome: Making and Unmaking of an Empire

2. Greece: Classical and Hellenistic period; Growth of Greek Philosophy

Unit 2: Transition from Ancient to Medieval

1. Understanding the European middle ages and the idea of ‘Medieval’: Historiographical debates
2. Transition from ‘Ancient’ to ‘Medieval’ in Europe: Growth of Germanic tribal settlements and Frankish kingdoms.
Unit 3: Feudalism in Europe
1. Growth of feudalism in Western Europe up to 10th century.
2. European economy and social change between 11th and 14th centuries and the age of feudal ‘dynamic
Unit 4: Crisis in Feudalism, Church and Popular Culture
1. The fourteenth century crisis and beginning of the decline of feudalism in Western Europe.
2. The growth and expansion of Christianity in Medieval Europe; State and Church; Crusades; popular culture and
mentalities

Select Readings:

J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Rome: The Story of an Empire, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1970.
A.H. M. Jones, The Decline of the Ancient World, Longman, New York, 1966.
Shaw and Richard Saller, eds., Economy and Society in Ancient Greece, NY, 1982.
Morris Bishop, The Middle Ages, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, [1968], 2001.
R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1953.
A. Gurevitch, Categories of Medieval Culture, London, 1985.
Carlo M. Cipolla (ed.), The Fontana Economic History of Europe: The Middle Ages, Vol.1, World of Books,
London, 1972.
George Duby, France in Middle Ages 987-1460, Blackwell, Oxford, 2000.
George Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, tr. Cynthia Postan, Edward Arnold, London,
1968.
George Duby, The Early Growth of European Economy: Warrior and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth
Century, tr. Howard B. Clrake, Cornell University Press, New York, 1974. George Duby, The Three Orders:
Feudal Society Imagined, tr. Arthur Goldhammer, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,1984
HarbansMukhia(ed.), The Feudalism Debate, Manohar, New Delhi, 1999.
Henry Pirenne, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade with New Introduction by Michael
McCormik, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2014.
Jacques Le Goff, Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, Blackwell, Oxford, 1993.
Jacques Le Goff, Medieval Civilization, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1997.
Jacques Le Goff, My Quest for the Middle Ages, Edinburg University Press, Edinburg, 2003.
Marc Bloch, Feudal Societies, 2 Vols., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1989. Perry Anderson,
Lineages of the Absolutist State, Schocken Books, Lincoln, 1979.
Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, NLB, London, 1996.
Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, tr. Arthur Goldhammer, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1980.
Jacques Le Goff, Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in Middle Ages, New York, 1988.
 Semester: I
Core Paper: HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MODERN WEST
Unit I: Meaning, Scope and importance of History
1. Definition, Nature, Scope, Object and Value of History.
2. History, Science and Morality.
3. History and its Allied disciplines-Archaeology, Geography, Anthropology, Sociology, Politics and
Literature
Unit II: Traditions of Historical Writing
1. Greco-Roman Traditions- Herodotus, Thucydides
2. Medieval Understanding: Western- St.Augtine; Arabic- Ibn Khaldun
Unit III: Early Modern Historiography
1. Introductory Survey: From the Renaissance to the Eighteenth Century
2. Scientific History: Vico, Hegel, Ranke, Croce, Collingwood, Marx
Unit IV: Context for the Writing of History
1. Approaches: The Historical Narrative
2. The Annales Experiment
3. Women and Gender

Select Readings:
 R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Hesperides Press,2008
 M.I. Finley, The Greek Historians, Penguin,1997
 J.W. Thompson, A History of Historical Writings 2 vols, The Macmillan Company, 1942
 G.A. Cohen, Karl Max’s Theory of History: A Defence, OUP, (1978),2000
 Pieter Geyl, Debates with Historians, Collins ,1962
 Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution , Stanford University Press,1990
 Immanuel LeRoy Ladurie, The Territory of the Historian, The HarvesterPress,1979
 Lawrence Stone, The Past and the Present, Routledge and Kegan Paul,1981
 Keith Jenkins (Ed), The Post Modern History Reader, Routledge,1997
 Gertrude Himmalfarb, The New History and the Old, Harvard University Press,1987
 Bentley, M., Modern Historiography, London, Routledge,1998.
 Boyd, K., (ed.) Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, 2 volumes. London
andChicago,FitzroyDearborn,1999.
 Carr, E. H., What is History? Harmondsworth, Penguin,1964.
 Collingwood, R. G., The Idea of History, London, 1946.
 Collingwood, R. G., The Philosophy of History, London, 1930.
 Gottschalk, L. Understanding History. New York : Alfred A. Knopf. 1951.
 Lambert, Sir Henry C. M., The Nature of History, London, 1933.
 Shafer, R. J. A Guide to Historical Method. Illinois : The Dorsey Press. 1974.
 Stanford, M., A Companion to the Study of History. Oxford, Blackwell,1994.

Tosh, John (ed.), Historians on History: An Anthology, London, 2000

Semester 1
DSC Paper: Gender and Ancient World

Unit 1: Conceptualizing Gender

1. Understanding Gender and Related Concepts
2. Gender as a category in Historical analysis
3. Understanding social relations in society.
Unit 2: Gender in World History
1. Ancient Mesopotamia: Sumer and Akkad.
2. Ancient Greece: From Archaic to Classical up to Hellenistic periods.
3. Ancient Rome: Pre- Roman Etruscan. From Republic to Empire.
4. Early Byzantine empire
Unit 3: Gender in Ancient Indian History
1. Harrapan Civilization
2. Vedic Period
3. Period of Empires
Unit 4: Gender in Ancient Kashmir History
1. Gender before the Karkotas
2. Gender during the period of Karkotas, Utpalas and Loharas
Select Readings:
Coontz and Henderson (eds), Women’s Work Men’s Property: The Origin of Gender & Class,
Verso1986. Rita Wright (ed.), Gender and Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
A. Burguiere et.al. (eds), A History of the Family: Distant Worlds, Ancient Worlds,Polity, 1996.
Halperin, Winkler and Zeitlin (eds), Before Sexuality, Princeton, 1990.
Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity,Schocken Books 1995.
Archer, Fischler and Wyke (eds), Women in Ancient Societies, Routledge,1994.
Rabinowitz and Richlin (eds), Feminist Theory and the classics,Routledge 1993.
Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, OUP, 1986.
Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia,Routledge 2001.
Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt,Stanford University Press 1993
 Syllabus: Historical Traditions in Ancient World
DSC Paper Semester I
UNIT 1:
Understanding Ancient historical traditions in chronological and cultural contexts; their comparative
features and interactions;
Myth, hagiography, biography and history.
UNIT 2:
The Graeco-Roman Historical Tradition
Early Judeo-Christian Traditions
UNIT 3:
China: Dynastic, Institutional and ‘Private’ histories.
UNIT 4:
Early India: Puranic, Sramanic (Jain and Buddhist) and Bardic (Poetic) Traditions

Select Readings:
Berlin, Isaiah, Vico and Herder Collingwood, R.G. [1946] 1994. The Idea of History. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Jones, A.H.M. ed. 1968-70. A history of Rome through the fifth century: Selected Documents, vols. 1 and
2. New York: Harper and Row.
Kelley, Donald R. 1991. Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Marincola, John, (1997). Authority and Traditions in Ancient Historiography, Cambridge: University Press,
pp. 3-19, 3- 127, (‘Introduction’ ‘Myth and History’)
Philips, C.H. ed. [1961] 1967. Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon. London: Oxford University Press.
Pulleybank, E.G. and Beasely, W.G. eds. 1961. Historians of China and Japan. London: Oxford University
Press.
Thapar, Romila. 2013. The Past Before Us- Historical Traditions of Early North India. Permanent Black:
Harvard University Press.
Warder, A.K. 1972. An Introduction to Indian historiography. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
Wiseman, Timothy Peter. (1991). Historians and Imaginations: Eight Essays on Roman Culture, Exeter:
Exeter Press, pp. 1-37, (Chapters: “The origins of Roman Historiography”, “Roman Legend and Oral
Tradition”).