A Comprehensive Overview of Indian History: Sources and Influential Writers, Assignments of History of War

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Amity law School

History

Dr. SAROJ CHOUDHARY (Asst Prof, ALS)

• (^) History is the branch of knowledge dealing with past events,political,social,economic of a country ,continent or the world. History relates of two points- collection of facts and interpretations.
• (^) In Greece,Herodotus,who belonged to sixth century B.C.is recognized as ‘the father of history.’
• (^) Indian history can be traced in Vedas, Upanishad and Puranas.
• 12 th^ century A.D.have a real historical chronicle in Kalhana’s Rajatarangani.
• (^) Numismatics is the study of coins. The earliest coins were known as the punch-marked coins.

• (^) According to E.H.Carr,”the scope of history is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and the facts, and an understanding dialogue between the present and the past.”
• (^) The study of history helps in understanding the culture of different societies,religion,social systems.
• (^) It also helps to learn lessons from the past for the betterment of present and future.

Sources of Indian history

• (^) There are two main categories –literary and archaeological.
• (^) Literary sources-indigenous (national) and foreign
• (^) 1.National sources- Hindu sacred sources- vedic,epic,smriti and puranas
• (^) The Vedic literature-aryans,around 1500 BC, four VEDAS - Rig,yajur,sama and atharva.All the vedas are full of historical information of siksha(phonetics),kalpa(rituals),vyakarana(gramm ar),nirukta(etymology)chaanda(metre)and jyotisha(astrology)

• (^) Among the foreign writers the Greeks were the first to visit India. Scylax was the first Greek writer to write about India. Alexander’s invasion of India inaugurated a new era of Indo- Greek relationship. The mighty Greek conqueror was accompanied by many historians like Nearchus, Onesicritus etc. These historians recorded remarkable information about North-Western India and of course about Alexander’s campaign. However, the most remarkable Greek historian was none other than Megasthenes. Megasthenes was the ambassador of the Greek General Seleukos Nikatar to the court of the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya. His book on India called Indika is of immense historical value.

• (^) Foreign Literature
• (^) Foreign literature generally includes the writings of the foreigners some of whom came to India with diverse purposes and left accounts of their travel of this country. There are some other historians like Herodotus and Taranath who never visited India, but gathered information from different sources and mentioned it in their writings. Taranath is a Tibetan historian. His books named Dulva and Tangyur are important sources for the history of Buddhism.

• (^) The Chinese pilgrims came to India to study Buddhism in the land of its birth. During the reign of the Gupta monarch Chandra Gupta II , Fa Hien visited India and stayed here far a period of about fifteen years. He left a very descriptive account of his visit to this country. I Tsing was another notable Chinese traveller. He composed a number of books on Buddhism in India. However, the most renowned Buddhist scholar to visit India was undoubtedly Hiuen Tsang. Hiuen Tsang came to India during the reign of Harshavardhan. He made a wide travel through out India and his travel diary called Si-Yu-Ki forms an important source for the socio- religious history of that period. Although Buddhism was his main focus, Hiuen Tsang left some information regarding the contemporary political situation too.

• (^) Al-beruni , came to India with Sultan Mahmood of Ghazni. In his book called Tahaqiq-i-Hind , he gives a beautiful account of the Hindu manners, science and literature. Another important work is the Tabaqat-i- Nasiri of Minhajuddin Siraj. Among the other Mohammedan writers mention may be made of Al-masudi, Nizamuddin, Hasan Nizami etc.