Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c2: Foreword
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c2
- Language
- English
Foreword
c2.1
THIS book has been written on the basis of the Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji Lectures which Dr. H. D. Sankalia delivered under the auspices of the University of Bombay in December 1960. The author since then revised and elaborated the original text and prepared the present work which is now being published by the University.
c2.2
Dr. Sankalia, who is in charge of the Department of Ancient Indian Culture and Archaeology, University of Poona, and who is Professor of Proto-Indian and Ancient Indian History, Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Poona, has been actively associated with archaeological expeditions and field work connected with discovering pre-historic finds over vast areas and a protracted period. Basing his conclusions invariably on first hand knowledge of relevant material and a study of available literature, he presents here a synthetic summary and analytical survey of the important findings in the major pre-historic sites in India, Pakistan and the neighbouring countries.
c2.3
Pre-historic studies proper are known to be a hundred years old in India. But there was a rare moment in this period when understanding took a long leap forward with the spectacular discovery of an entire proto-historic civilization—that of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, which has since become a focal centre of research. And it is the spade, inter alia, of Dr. Sankalia that gave convincing testimony of the spread of Indus Valley civilization. In this work, Dr. Sankalia has preferred to concentrate more on one comprehensive topic, the study in its totality of the pre-historic background of Indian culture. Three valuable qualities are revealed in this work: detailed knowledge of the facts of Indian archaeology; craftsmanlike standards of accuracy, organization, and scholarship; critical caution towards generalised schemes of interpretation and interpolation of archaeological data.
c2.4
A number of years have gone into the making of this comprehensive work. The result is an excellent review of the contributions, including his own, to the pre and proto-history of India and Pakistan from its early beginnings, together with the presentation of recent developments that have brought a new surge of progress and changed many past concepts. He has sifted information and arranged it in the proper perspective on the basis of accepted methods. In this process emerges a full length picture of transitions from pre-historic barbarism commencing with early paleolithic (150,000 B.C.) through the middle paleolithic (25,000 B.C.) down to the 'modern' (circa 500 B.C.) periods: neolithic chaleolithic and bronze age, and the highly individually patterned beginnings of civilized life.
c2.5
Wide in scope, for the general well-informed reader as well as the scholar, abounding in rich details, intellectually stimulating, the lectures have the authority that comes from an expert writing in his own speciality and bring the picture of Man-in-India's earliest beginnings into a sharp focus.
c2.6
A comparison of the results of excavations and comparative studies integrated in this study with the pitiably small knowledge we had of the pre-history of India and Pakistan little more than forty years ago will clearly show the vast strides forward that have been made in this field. I have little doubt that this ambitious undertaking, built on painstaking field work and scholarly study will be welcome to all concerned and that it would greatly help and stimulate comparative research in this field.
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University of Bombay Bombay, 9th March, 1963
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R. V. SATHE Vice-Chancellor