A book such as this celebrates two things simultaneously—the range of interests of Kumkum Roy, in whose honour the scholars have come together, and the extent of engagement of the scholars and of Kumkum Roy with aspects of early Indian history. Divided into six parts, on Reflecting on Roy, ‘Crocodiles, Conmen’, ‘Geese and Gluttons’, ‘Subtly Subverting Strīdharma’, ‘Queens and Questioners’, ‘Beyond Textual Sources’ and ‘Writing for a Wider Audience’, the book brings together twenty excellent papers on a variety of themes. I must particularly commend the headings of the various sections that invite the reader to delve deeper into the various chapters. But from the point of view of a reviewer, it is very difficult to do justice to this wealth of research!
Celebrating a Scholar and a Teacher
Radhika Seshan
OF THIEVES AND THERĪS, POTTERS AND PATIVRATĀS: ESSAYS ON EARLY INDIAN SOCIAL HISTORY FOR KUMKUM ROY by Uma Chakravarti, Naina Dayal, Bharati Jagannathan, and Snigdha Singh (Ed.) Primus Books, 2023, 465 pp., INR 1995
August 2023, volume 47, No 8