A Source Book of Indian Civilization

Formerly Bagisvari Professor of Indian Art and Culture, now Emeritus Professor at the University of Calcutta and Founder-Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, Niharranjan Ray is today one of the foremost interpreters of the history, tradition, art and culture of his country and people. His most significant contribution has been his introduction to historical writing in India, of the approaches, tools and techniques of social analysis, and presentation of historical events and situations in a sociological framework free from any ideological straight-jacket. In the late forties, the doyen of historical research in India, Jadunath Sarkar, welcomed this new departure initiated by Niharranjan Ray, as the promise of a new direction in Indian historiography. Equally significant has been his contribution to the interpretation of India’s artistic activity through the ages in terms of her changing social process. He has salvaged art history and art criticism from the hidebound formulae of archaeology and iconography on the one hand and from emotional effusions and pseude-metaphysical cobwebs on the other.

Ranabir Chakravarti , Professor of Ancient History, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, specializes in the social and economic history of early India, with a particular interest in India’s maritime trade in the Indian Ocean during the AD 1500-period. His publications include A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization, Hyderabad, 2000 (one of the Associate Editors), Trade in Early India (edited), New Delhi, 2001, Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, New Delhi, 2007, (second ed.) and Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-first Century: A View from the Margins, (one of the Editors) New York, 2007. A regular contributor to international research journals, Chakravarti has also authored/edited three books in Bangla.