Multiple Histories: Culture and Society in the Study of Rajasthan

The book embodies the idea that Rajasthan’s past – and hence its present – cannot be adequately comprehended from the limited perspective of any single academic discipline or approach. Instead, it celebrates the notion that the region’s past is subject to many constructions, each of which can contribute to a fuller understanding of its present-day cultural and social diversity. The authors of the papers presented here represent a wide variety of disciplines – history, anthropology, art history, religious studies, and political science – and the papers deal with the region’s past as seen from both highly contrastive and complementary points of view. Each paper is a substantive and important contribution to the study of Rajasthani culture and society. Together they illustrate the idea that Rajasthan has many pasts and many histories, that this multiplicity is a basic feature of the region’s cultural landscape, and that it is an essential component of continuing scholarship.