Full Description
This book is a detailed account of the multi-faceted history of the Deccan. Beginning with its historical foundations it goes on to delineate how it is the key to understanding its social, economic, political and ideological evolution.
Containing nine essays, this volume attempts to look at regional history from the perspective of given localities that provides the many facets of early Deccani society and culture. Hitherto, this was mainly articulated in terms of the broad categories of language and religion in the many historical studies of present-day linguistic states. In focussing on local spatial contexts as the primary layer of historical reality, the book has relied on multiple sources of information, largely extant archaeological material while also drawing information from inscriptions, textual material and oral memory. The book also reflects on the important events of various periods by placing them as part of larger social and economic processes emanating from the local.
The essays in this collection have been presented thematically moving from general issues discussed in Part I to the more particular in Part II and finally, to reflect on the multiplicity and simultaneity of different kinds of processes in a constant state of negotiation, in Part III. The historical sensibilities of people in various locations right from Kotalingala and Dhulikatta to Phanigiri, Patancheru, Kondapur and Nanakramguda and from Thotlakonda to Nagarjunakonda, Amaravati, Vaddamanu and Shravan Belgola have been recounted.
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Contents
Introduction PART I: Establishing the terrain 1. Defining the Early Deccan: A Re-think 2. Local Polities and State Formation 3. Sub-Regions and Urban Centres PART II: Standing on the particular 4. Kondapur: A Forgotten City on the Deccan Plateau 5. Viharas and Water Storage: Thotlakonda and Phanigiri 6. Patancheru: Cultural Heritage of an Ancient Market Town PART III: Accessing the other 7. Conversations at Nagarjunakonda 8. Renunciation and Jaina T$ûrthas 9. Nanakramguda: Inhabitants from Village to a Megapolis
