Between The Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE/edited by Patrick
Olivelle. Reprint. New Delhi, Oxford, 2007, xiv, 524 p., plates, tables,
figs., ISBN 0-19-568935-6.
Between The Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE/edited by Patrick
Olivelle. Reprint. New Delhi, Oxford, 2007, xiv, 524 p., plates, tables,
figs., ISBN 0-19-568935-6.
Contents: Abbreviations. Contributors. I. Digging the past : Archaeology and History: 1. Relating history to the land: urban centers, geographical units, and trade routes in the Gangetic and Central India of circa 200 BCE/Dilip K. Chakrabarti. 2. New perspectives on the Mauryan and Kushana periods/J. Mark Kenoyer. 3. Early Indian art reconsidered/Frederick M. Asher. 4. Numismatics and history: the Maurya-Gupta interlude in the Gangetic plain/Shailendra Bhandare. 5. Inscribed pots, emerging identities: the social milieu of trade/Himanshu Prabha Ray. 6. The tidal waves of Indian history: between the empires and beyond/Harry Falk. II. Reading the past: texts and history: 7. Explorations in the early history of Dharmasastra/Patrick Olivelle. 8. Women "Between the Empires" and "Between the Lines"/Stephanie W. Jamison. 9. Changing perspectives in the Sanskrit grammatical tradition and the changing political configurations in ancient India/Madhav M. Deshpande. 10. The Narayaniya and the early reading communities of the Mahabharata/Alf Hil Tebeitel. 11. Negotiating the shape of "Scripture" : new perspectives on the development and growth of the Mahabharata between the empires/James L. Fitzgerald. 12. Systematic philosophy between the empires: some determining features/Johannes Bronkhorst. 13. A well-Sanitized shroud: Asceticism and institutional values in the middle period of Buddhist Monasticism/Gregory Schopen. 14. Recent discoveries of early Buddhist Manuscripts and their implications of the history of Buddhist texts and canons/Richard Salomon. 15. A non-imperial religion? Jainism in its "Dark Age"/Paul Dundas. 16. Naming and social exclusion: the outcast and the outsider/Aloka Prasher - Sen. 17. Brahmanical reactions to foreign influences and to social and religious change/Michael Witzel. Index.
"This volume is the result of an international conference organized by the South Asia institute at the University of Texas. The purpose of the conference was to bring together the world's leading Indologist representing a variety of disciplines to discuss and share recent research on a hitherto neglected period of Indian history (300 BCE to 400 C). Patrick Olivelle has collected and edited the best papers to emerge from the conference. Part 1 of the book looks as what can be construed from archaeological evidence. Part 2 concerns itself with the textual evidence for the period. Taken together, these essays offer an unprecedented look at Indian culture and society in this distant epoch."