2nd Edition
Negotiating Cultural Identity Landscapes in Early Medieval South Asian History
This volume breaks new ground by conceptualizing physical landscapes as living cultural bodies. It redefines dynamic cultural landscapes as catalysts in which the natural world and human practice are inextricably linked and are constantly interacting.
Drawing on research by eminent archaeologists, numismatists and historians, the essays in this volume
• Provide insights into the ways people in the past, and in the present, imbue places with meanings;
• Examine the social and cultural construction of space in the early medieval period in South Asia;
• Trace complex patterns of historical development of a temple or a town, to understand ways in which such spaces often become a means of constructing the collective past and social traditions.
With a new chapter on continuity and change in the sacred landscape of the Buddhist site at Udayagiri, the second edition of Negotiating Cultural Identity will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of archaeology, social history, cultural studies, art history and anthropology.
Introduction. Part 1: The Archaeology of Space 1. India Cartographica: Some Roman Sightings Grant Parker 2. Cartography and Cultural Encounter: Conceptualisation of al-Hind by Arabic and Persian Writers from the 9th to 11th Century ce Noemie Verdon 3. Self, Other and the Use and Appropriation of Late Roman Coins in South India and Sri Lanka (4th–8th Centuries ce) Rebecca Darley Part 2: Defining Cultural Landscapes 4. Sacred Spaces of the Middle Ganga Valley: A Case Study of Varanasi Vidula Jayaswal 5. Transforming the Landscape: Questions of Medieval Reuse and Worship at Ancient Jain Rock-Cut Sites near Madurai Lisa N. Owen 6. Of Saffron, Snow, and Spirituality: Glimpses of Cultural Geography in the Rajatarangini Shonaleeka Kaul 7. ‘Space for Change’: Reviewing ‘Paucity of Coins’ in Early Medieval India with Regard to Data, Methodology and Interpretation Shailendra Bhandare 8. Colonial Imagination and Identity Attribution: Numismatic Cues for Defining Space Mamta Dwivedi 9. Shrines as ‘Monuments’: Issues of Classification, Custody and Conflict in Orissa Umakanta Mishra 10. Continuity and Change in the Sacred Landscape of the Buddhist Site of Udayagiri, Odisha Umakanta Mishra
Biography
Himanshu Prabha Ray is Honorary Professor of the Distant Worlds Programme, Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. She is former Chairperson, National Monuments Authority, Ministry of Culture in New Delhi, India, and former Professor in the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. Her research interests include Maritime History and Archaeology of the Indian Ocean, the History of Archaeology in South and Southeast Asia and the Archaeology of Religion in Asia. Her recent books include Archaeology and Buddhism in South Asia; edited volume, Decolonising Heritage in South Asia: The Global, the National and the Transnational; Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections; Susan Verma Mishra and Himanshu Prabha Ray, The Archaeology of Sacred Spaces: The Temple in Western India, 2nd century BCE–8th century CE; The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation; and The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia.
