Re-Searching Transitions in Indian History

Radhika Seshan is Professor and Head at the Department of History, Savitribai Phule Pune University, India. Her main area of research is maritime and urban history. Her recent publications include Narratives, Routes and Intersections in Pre-modern Asia (2017).

This book contains essays that re-examine and re-define the concept of transition by looking at a range of subjects: religion, culture, gender, caste and community networks, maritime and mercantile modes, ideas of nationalism and historiographies, and films across geographical and temporal settings.

Introduction Part I: Locating Transitions 1. Questioning Transitions Part II: Early India 2. Transitions in Early Historic South India: A Theoretical Perspective 3. Evolution of Political Institutions and Culture in Karnataka, 400-1300 CE 4. Another Transition Debate? Charting the Movement Towards the Early Medieval and Out of It 5. Transitions in Early Tamilakam: Gender and Religion Part III: The Sea 6. Transitions at Sea: Maritime Orders and the 18th-Century Indian Ocean 7. Alterations in Indian Mercantile Modes from the Pre-modern to the Modern Period 8. Introduction of the British Consular Jurisdiction into Zanzibar: Indian Merchants in a Judicial Transition Part IV: Numismatics 9. Understanding Transitions in Indian History: In the Light of Numismatics Evidence Part V: Colonial India 10. The Consolidation of Jati in Colonial India 11. Relocating Caste: The Politics of Communalism in Early 20th-Century Bombay 12. Marathi Theatre in Transition 13. Shaming the Self, Negating History: Advent of Evangelicals and Transformation of a Community in Colonial North East India Part VI: Regions 14. Transition in Tibet: The End of Bon and a Warrior Nation and the Rise of Buddhism 15. Transitions in Malabar: Rethinking History