History General works:

The Cambridge History of India, 5 vol. (1922-37); and VINCENT A. SMITH, The Oxford History of India, 4th ed. edited by PERCIVAL SPEAR (1981), offer accounts that were written during the period of British rule and that reflect to some extent the British imperial point of view. Many of the volumes in The New Cambridge History of India (1987- ) are cited individually in their respective periods below. The articles in R.C. MAJUMDAR (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, 11 vol. (1951-69), some vol. available in later editions, offer scholarly treatments but tend to present an Indian--and sometimes a Hindu nationalist--point of view. INDIAN HISTORY CONGRESS, A Comprehensive History of India (1957- ), is an ongoing, multivolume series on various historical periods. A History of India, vol. 1 by ROMILA THAPAR (1966, reissued 1985), covers prehistory to 1526; vol. 2 by PERCIVAL SPEAR (1965) covers the period from 1526 to the 1960s. Other recent overviews include A.L. BASHAM (ed.), A Cultural History of India (1975, reissued 1989); D.P. SINGHAL, A History of the Indian People (1983); and STANLEY WOLPERT, A New History of India, 3rd ed. (1989).

India from the Paleolithic Period to the decline of the Indus Civilization (1750 BC):

General surveys of the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent include BRIDGET ALLCHIN and RAYMOND ALLCHIN, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan (1982); and D.P. AGRAWAL, The Archaeology of India (1982). For the Paleolithic Period, BRIDGET ALLCHIN, ANDREW GOUDIE, and KARUNAKARA HEGDE, The Prehistory and Palaeogeography of the Great Indian Desert (1978), contains a study of climatic and environmental changes in relation to human activity; and H.M. RENDELL, R.W. DENNELL, and M.A. HALIM, Pleistocene and Palaeolithic Investigations in the Soan Valley, Northern Pakistan (1989), describes research and dating of prehistoric human activities in northern Pakistan.

GREGORY L. POSSEHL (ed.), Ancient Cities of the Indus (1979), contains surveys of earlier publications on the early Harappan and Indus civilizations, and Harappan Civilization (1982), is a collection of later papers. SHEREEN RATNAGAR, Encounters: The Westerly Trade of the Harappa Civilization (1981); and DILIP K. CHAKRABARTI, The External Trade of Indus Civilization (1990), are both detailed discussions of the trade between the Indus Civilization and Mesopotamia. Few books cover the archaeology of the period from the end of the Indus Civilization to the rise of cities in the north, other than the general archaeological works referred to above, although RAM SHARAN SHARMA, Material Culture and Social Formations in Ancient India (1983), is useful.

The development of Indian civilization from c. 1500 BC to c. AD 1200:

Survey histories of the period include A.L. BASHAM, The Wonder That Was India, 3rd rev. ed. (1967, reissued 1985); and D.D. KOSAMBI, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline (1965, also published as Ancient India, 1966). HEMCHANDRA RAYCHAUDHURI, Political History of Ancient India, 7th ed. (1972), remains a standard work. For economic history, see U.N. GHOSHAL, The Agrarian System in Ancient India (1930, reissued 1973); and G.L. ADHYA, Early Indian Economics (1966), which covers the period 200 BC to AD 300. The period from about 1500 to 500 BC is analyzed in N.R. BANERJEE, The Iron Age in India (1965); GEORGE CARDONA, HENRY M. HOENIGSWALD, and ALFRED SENN (eds.), Indo-European and Indo-Europeans (1970); and MADHAV M. DESHPANDE and PETER EDWIN HOOK (eds.), Aryan and Non-Aryan in India (1979). A more up-to-date historical enquiry of this period is ROMILA THAPAR, From Lineage to State: Social Formations in the Mid-First Millennium B.C. in the Ganga Valley (1984).

The beginning of the historical period (c. 500-150 BC) is treated in BIMALA CHURN LAW, Some Ksatriya Tribes of Ancient India (1924, reissued 1975), and Geography of Early Buddhism (1932, reissued 1979); and in the more recent N.K. WAGLE, Society at the Time of the Buddha (1966). Works on the Mauryan period include K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI (ed.), Age of Nandas and Mauryas, 2nd ed. (1967); ROMILA THAPAR, Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 2nd ed. (1973), and The Mauryas Revisited (1987); and G.M. BONGARD-LEVIN, Mauryan India (1985; originally published in Russian, 1973). Political histories for the period from 150 BC to AD 300 are, for northern India, A.K. NARAIN, The Indo-Greeks (1957, reissued 1980); and J.E. VAN LOHUIZEN-DE LEEUW, The "Scythian" Period (1949); and for southern India, GHULAM YAZDANI (ed.), The Early History of the Deccan, 2 vol. (1961, reissued 1982); and K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI, A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar, 4th ed. (1976).

On the period from 300 to 750, political histories include R.C. MAJUMDAR and A.S. ALTEKAR (eds.), The Vakataka-Gupta Age, Circa 200-500 A.D. (1946, reissued 1986); B.P. SINHA, The Decline of the Kingdom of Magadha (cir. 455-1000 A.D.) (1954); and D. DEVAHUTI, Harsha: A Political Study, 2nd ed. (1983). Surveys of social and economic history include DWIJENDRA NARAYAN JHA, Revenue System in Post-Maurya and Gupta Times (1967); DIPAKRANJAN DAS, Economic History of the Deccan, from the First to the Sixth Century A.D. (1969); VIJAY KUMAR THAKUR, Urbanisation in Ancient India (1981); and NIMANSHU PRABHA RAY, Monastery and Guild: Commerce Under the Satavahanas (1986). Among works on the political history of the period from 750 to about 1200 are ANANT SADASHIV ALTEKAR, Rashtrakutas and Their Times, 2nd rev. ed. (1967); H.C. RAY, The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period), 2 vol. (1931-36, reprinted 1973); R.C. MAJUMDAR, The History of Bengal (1943, reissued 1971); NEMAI SADHAN BOSE, History of the Candellas of Jejakabhukti (1956); DASHARATHA SHARMA, Early Chauhan Dynasties, 2nd rev. ed. (1975); PRATIPAL BHATIA, The Paramaras, c. 800-1305 A.D. (1970); K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI, The Colas, 2nd ed., rev. (1955, reissued 1975); and J. DUNCAN M. DERRETT, The Hoysalas (1957). See also ANDRÉ WINK, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. 1, Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, 7th-11th Centuries, 2nd rev. ed. (1991); T.V. MAHALINGAM, South Indian Polity, 2nd ed., rev. (1967); NOBORU KARASHIMA, South Indian History and Society (1984); and, on northern India, RAM SHARAN SHARMA, Indian Feudalism, c. 300-1200, 2nd ed. (1980); D.N. JHA (ed.), Feudal Social Formations in Early India (1987); and BRAJADULAL CHATTOPADHYAYA, Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India (1990).