Mechanics of City and Village in Ancient India

This book seeks to unravel the nexus between the city and the villages in India, the mechanics of it, on the basis of the volume of archaeological evidence in the form of excavations, field studies and analyses of the data related to them, in a manner that its own heritage, both traditional and materialistic, had exemplified. It goes into the roots of the formation and vicissitudes of the bi-polar entities, demographically speaking, that the meandering stream of Indian culture displays on its urbanand rural sectors. Amply diversified by a variety of charts and maps, besides photographic illustrations, an in=depth analysis of the process that had gone into the making of the panorama of Indian countryside is presented in the seven and more chapters, bringing out the main thrusts in the argument. It is also designed to divulge the contrasts of the cultural pattern, the grass-roots manifestations and the complementary values that are evoked by the urban and rural ‘ethos’ in India, which seemingly have a note of predestination already in what they had constituted in its ancient settings. The geo-political, intellectual, economic and other strains of the socio-cultural spectrum of India is woven into a plausible fabric which we own-with its strength and weakness-as our cultural mantle. The development and spectacular display of civic institutions garnering the stamina of the power centers in the capital cities, and the unobtrusive yet patent ethico-moral slants in the philosophy of life that the rural institutions and their earthy wisdom had bestowed, have been read into the very mechanics of the wholesome relationship the rural and urban India had always sustained, are all sympathetically portayed in the background of the traditional pattern of religion, caste-system and economic need-based doctrines which had their own limitations but did hard. It provides the guidelines for a holistic understanding of the growth of material cultures in India, reciprocally with its age-old traditional thought and its industry, pragmatism and conservatism. It is a welcome addition to the dissertations on this absorbing study which archaeological evidence has the unique capacity to reinforce.