A.N.D. Haksar

If the original tradition of India is contained in the Vedas, the Vedanta, epics, Puranas and the Kathasaritsagar (“Ocean of Stories”), its Buddhist corpus is the Tripitaka. In a way, the counterpart of the Kathasaritsagar is the Jatakas consisting of 547 stories of past births of the Buddha as Bodhisatva (‘enlightened being’) in animal and human form.


Reviewed by: Pradip Bhattacharya
Archana Prasad

The author argues that two significant aspects Elwin’s advocacy of protectionism for tribal people have contributed to the construction of an anti-modern tribal identity. First it was based on an ecological romanticism that glorified the past and held that “tribal people had been living in harmony with nature since ancient times (p xv)….


Reviewed by: Savyasaachi
Jaya Arunachalam and U. Kalpagam

Starting from the inception of women’s studies at a visible level after 1975, the primary focus of scholars in South Asia has been the identification and examination of certain aspects of society which situated women in a different context from those of the western countries.


Reviewed by: Paramjit S. Judge
Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar

At a time when minorities and women of different classes are facing all manner of threats in the name of nation, culture and religion it is important for historians and non-historians alike to revisit the complex dynamics of social reform and the ‘women’s question’ in modern India.


Reviewed by: Sumi Krishna