India: After Independence

Abstract

History as an interpretative reconstruction of the past on the basis of reliable evidence was virtually introduced in India by western scholars in the later part of the eighteenth century. The Hindus, for reasons not altogether clear, seem generally to have neglected the discipline; Kalhana's Rdjatarangini (twelfth century AD) is the only significant attempt at true history in Sanskrit literature. The Muslims had a stronger sense of chronology, topography, and persons. But with one or two possible exceptions Indo-Muslim chroniclers generally viewed the past 'as a succession of time instants or of untouching moments rather than as a story of change, of process, of becoming'.1 They were not researchers but scribes, to whom history was 'a collection of examples from which one may learn lessons for a successful and virtuous life'.2 Critical and systematic study of India's past truly began with the founding of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 under the versatile leadership of Sir William Jones (I746-94).3 Using the methods of inquiry already largely developed in Europe, western Indologists laid secure foundations for Indian historiography in