Inscriptions and Agrarian Issues in Indian History: Essays in Memory of D.C. SIRCAR

Contents: Foreword. Introduction. I. On D.C. Sircar: 1. D.C. Sircar as the Govt. epigraphist in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu/Gouriswar Bhattacharya. 2. The bird and the worm-the relevance of D.C. Sircar in the twenty-first century/Kumkum Roy. II. Inscriptions and agrarian issues: region oriented studies: I. Central and Western India, and the Deccan: 1. Transfer of agrarian resources and the functions and structure of the state apparatus as evident in the land charters of the pre-imperial branches of Rastrakutas (c. AD 500 c AD 750)/Shyam Narayan Lal. 2. Aspects of agrarian history in Gujarat and Rajasthan: reading the Maitraka and Guhila inscriptions/Nandini Sinha Kapur. 3. Agrarian issues in the Indravati Valley: a study of some Nagavamsi inscriptions/Sayantani Pal. 4. Changing the gaze: facets of sub-regional agrarian economies in early medieval Orissa/Bhairabi Prasad Sahu. II. South India: 1. Shift of trust from words to deeds: implications of the proliferation of epigraphs in the Tamil South/Rajan Gurukkal. 2. Landholders, cultivators, and slaves in the cola state/Y. Subbarayalu. 3. Landlordism in medieval Keala: its origin and development/Kesavan Veluthat. III. Eastern India: 1. Agrarian society of Kamarupa: early medieval period/Chitraekha Gupta. 2. Agrarian society and social groups in early medieval Bengal from a study of inscriptions/Ryosuke Furui. IV. North India: 1. Nature of Gahadavala land grants: a preliminary study/Suchandra Ghosh. This book is a collection of essays on agrarian history studied through the lens of epigraphy by scholars of early Indian history. The essays published here were presented at a seminar organized by the Asiatic Society to mark the birth centenary of Professor D.C. Sircar, the doyen of Indian epigraphy, in 2007. The rationale behind the choice of agrarian history lay in the fact that the single area of major historical debate in which Sircar participated was undoubtedly related to Indian agrarian history. Individual contribution has regional focus and the major themes addressed were agrarian economy, agrarian society, landlordism, landholders, agrarian resources and other relevant subjects. In a sense for the first time issues and perspectives related to agrarian history in different regions of early India are put together in the book. (jacket).…