Introduction to History: Sources and Methods (MDC History)

Course Type	Course Code	No. Of Credits
Discipline Core	NSGA1MDC203	4

Course coordinator and team: Dr. Mizinksa Daimari

Course coordinator email: mizinksa@gmail.com

The course gives a basic understanding of the past and history through oral, written and material sources. When trying to arrive at an understanding of the idea of history in an earlier period, a distinction has to be maintained between how the past is understood and represented, and a perception of the past as specifically historical. The first module will begin with EH Carr’s classic text that suggests History is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past. The second module will draw from the Vedic corpus and Sangam literature to reflect on the on the Indian past. Initially most of the knowledge was transmitted orally and later compiled in a written form. Epics, when not composed as a formal literary genre, carry an element of embedded history. Many were often oral compositions, until they are collated and connected through a narrative and presented in the written form later. Another form of writing is biographies and chronicles which gained prominence with the spread of Jainism and Buddhism. The biographical genre required the subject to be presented in a historical form for the narrative to be authentic. The written traditions of the past will be contrasted to the fluid oral and bardic traditions of ancient and medieval India to bring out the various interpretations of the events. The third module will look at material or tangible remains of the past. Coins, epigraphs, Inscriptions and archaeological objects not only provided information on dynasties and chronologies but land grants recorded property transactions, and reflected a significant change in the economic structure of kingdoms. This gradually led to reading them as texts. The next module will throw light on the act of writing itself and how it can be used as an ideological ploy to convey a specific understanding of the past. The final module will bring together the representation of past through exhibitions in various forms.

Objectives
- To understand the distinction between, past and history,
- What is the role of fact and interpretation in writing history
- To gain an awareness about the kind of ‘sources’ (written, material, oral)
Overall structure:

This course is organized around five units.

	Topic / Unit	Duration
1.	Sources, facts and interpretation	2 weeks
2.	Oral traditions and written texts	3 weeks
3.	Artefacts and archaeology	2 weeks
4.	Historiography	3 weeks
5.	Exhibiting the past	2 weeks

Unit 1. Sources, facts and interpretation

It is important to distinguish between past and history. The past includes all the events that have taken place from beginning until now but the word’ history’ is derived from Greek historia (inquiry or investigation) which seeks to find out the experiences of people who lived in the past. The past comes to us in fragments, on the basis of which histories are written. The introductory module will acquaint students with the understanding of the past through the Chinese historical genre ‘shi’, the ‘itihasa’ tradition in India and the Arabic representations through ‘khabar’ and ‘tarikh’. There will be a discussion on the linear and cyclical concept of time. The past has occurred and cannot be changed but history is a narration based on representation of facts which is open to discussion, change and revision. In Greece, Herodotus made a mark by systematically investigating historical events rather than presenting a glorified dynastic history. Hence sources of information, the facts gathered and the meaning added to them becomes the bedrock of historical writings.

Required Readings

EH Carr, What is History? 1961, Chapter 1, 2 and 4. Herodotus Histories (select chapters)

Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay, Historiography in the Modern World, 2014, pp.1-67

Unit 2. Oral traditions and written texts

This unit will trace both literate and non literate vernacular traditions. The past before writing (prehistory) and eras in which written sources are unavailable can be explored through non textual evidence. In the case of Indus Valley civilization—a literate culture with an undeciphered script becomes part of protohistory and the Vedic period which followed it contains an orally transmitted literature based on shruti and smriti, but no evidence of writing. Sangam literature and epics prised open the historical culture of Tamil language and grammar. The genres including ballad, folklores, myths, legends and epics will be discussed in this module. Moreover rich traditions of history writing in the form of Vamsa and Charita, bardic and poetic compositions of Charanas, chronicles and manuscripts of Buranji, prose literature of Bhakhar and Kalhan’s Rajtarangini will be explored that depict the socio- cultural and political legacy of their times.

Required Readings

Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, 2008 (pp.1-80)

Sentila T. Yanger, Vignettes on Nazhu The Festival of the Pochury - Naga of Müluori , ITRHD, 2017 pp.55-60

Tanuja Kothiyal, Persistence of memory, never mind history: Padmavati is as real for Rajputs as their famed valour, Scroll, Jan 29, 2017

https://scroll.in/article/827966/persistence-of-memory-never-mind-history-padmavati-is-as- real-for-rajputs-as-their-famed-valour

Thapar Romila, The past before us. 2013. (Select Chapters)

Burling, R. (2007). Language, Ethnicity and Migration in North-Eastern India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 30(3), 391–404. doi:10.1080/00856400701714039

Unit 3. Understanding Material evidence

This unit will dwell upon the material evidence of the past in the form of stone tools, inscriptions, epigraphs, coins, buildings, art and architecture. The discovery of stone tools laid the basis of understanding prehistory. The code of Hammurabi composed between 1755- 1750 BC on the basalt stele is a well preserved Babylonian legal text in near East. Epigraphy and numismatics have contributed in figuring out political, economic and social history. Archaeology as a discipline helped in studying the past human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The Archaeological Survey of India was established in 1871 and it has made an important contribution towards unearthing ancient and medieval towns and cities. The carbon dating of material remains, preservation and conservation of dilapidated monuments is a significant task attributed to ASI. Hence the tangible remnants of the past will help supplement the information from the textual sources based on the same period.

Required Readings

The code of Hammurabi https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17150/17150-h/17150-h.htm D N Jha, Ancient India, A historical outline 2006, (Introduction)

Hazarika Manzil, Prehistory and Archaeology of North East India 2017. Sunil Kumar, The present in Delhi’s past: five essays 2011.

T V Mahalingam, Studies in South Indian Archaeology, Epigraphy, architecture and sculpture 1978.

Unit 4. Historiography

The scholarly activity of writing history is also a process of reconstruction of the past based on available evidence or the choice of facts used by the historian to narrate the story. Hence history writing is a project that is susceptible to bias or presenting a specific ideological standpoint. This module will look at approaches to the past through historical writings like biographies, hagiographies, foreign traveller’s accounts, court chronicles in the Indo Persian traditions by Ziauddin Barni and Abul Fazal. The students will be made familiar to history writing trends in the west like the Annales school of thought (Braudel’s work focussing on vast complex expanse in the Mediterranean) and the ones which emerged in Modern India representing colonialist, nationalist, Marxist and subaltern historiography.

Required Readings

Braudel, La Mediterranee 1949.

E.Sreedharan: A text book of historiography 500BC to AD 2000, 2004. (select chapters) Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay, Historiography in the Modern World, 2014, pp.411-571

Unit 5: Exhibiting the past

The past comes to us through its various representations. The visual depiction of artefacts in a museum and the preservation of documents in the archive is another way in which official records were preserved to showcase events or cultural and social practices of an era gone by. The last module will tease out ideas from the pressing need to exhibit the past to remain relevant in the present times. A visit can be organised to National Museum, Rail Museum, Rashtrapati Sanghralaya Teen Murti or private museums representing popular culture, natural museums, botanical gardens and sites can be chosen from in and outside Delhi (partition museum in Amritsar).

Required Readings

Kavita Singh, ‘The museum is national’, IIC 2002.

Kavita Singh’s book included in Last section : No touching, no spitting, no praying: The Museum in South Asia. 2015

Tapti Guha Thakurta, Monuments, objects, histories, 2004 (select chapters)

डॉ. बी. आर. अम्बेडकर विश्‍वविद्यालय दिल्ली
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi
Established by The Government of NCT of Delhi