It is often stated and the common people made to believe that the people of what was anciently called pragjyotisha and its surroundings in the North-East were outside the mainstream of Indian life and culture, and the Aryans attempted to colonise them and impose upon them their alien culture. The utter falsity of this motivated propaganda has been amply demonstrated in the present work with strong evidences. It has been shown that the word arya had originally no racial or linguistic connotation and that in the past it was employed in purely cultural sense. It was given, evidently deliberately, a racial sense by the Europeans with a vested interest to sow the seeds of dissension among their Indian subjects and thereby perpetuate their rule which has confused large sections of people. It has been shown that from the earliest recorded times the people of the North-East and those of the rest of India were aware of and had a close interaction with one another. And with the passage of time these contacts grew more and more intimate and the region in question and the rest of the country contributed to the common cultural development enriching each other. The monograph thus seeks to trace chronologically and in a pan-Indian perspective the politico-cultural contacts that the region had with the rest of the Indian people.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ajay Mitra Shastri
Prof. Ajay Mitra Shastri (b. 1934), a reputed historian, epigraphist, numismatist and indologist, has retired recently as Professor of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology from Nagpur University. A former Editor of the Journal of the Numismatic Society of India, he is currently Editor of the Numismatic Digest. Formerly Chairman of the Indian Coin Society, he is now Vice-Chairman of the Epigraphical Society of India, Convener of the Inscriptions of India, Programme of the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, and Chairman of the Advisory Board (Ancient Period) and as such a member of the National Commission for History of Science, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. Professor Shastri has been Sectional President of the Indian History Congress (1978), Andhra Pradesh History Congress (1980), Maharashtra Itihas Parishad (1986) and the All-India Oriental Conference (1994) and General President of the Numismatic Society of India (1981), Epigraphical Society of India (1987), Third International Colloquium of 'Coinage, Trade and Economy at the Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies, Nasik, Tamil Nadu Numismatic Society, Indian History and Culture Society (1991), the Vidvat Parishad of the Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Samiti (1994), South Indian Numismatic Society (1997), Member of the History panel of the University Grants Commission (1980-82), UGC National Lecturer (1985) and UGC National Fellow (1987-89) and is currently UGC Emeritus Fellow. He has been felicitated by the Numismatic Society of India with its Akbar Silver Medal (1984) and Altekar Gold Medal (1995); presented with a plaque of honour by the Coin Study Circle, Calcutta (1989), a copper-plate by the Epigraphical Society of India (1992), James Campbell Memorial Gold Medal by the Asiatic Society of Bombey (1996), Jijamata Vidvat Puraskar of the Chhatrapati Pratishthan, Nagpur (1997) and honoured with a couple of festschrifts: one published from Indore (1988) and the other in two tomes from Delhi (1989). He has also delivered numerous prestigious endowment lectures.
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