The Origins of Modern Historiography in India: Antiquarianism and Philology, 1780-1880 (Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History)

Intellectual encounters abound in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century India comprising surveyors, collectors, antiquarians, philologists and their Indian assistants. The Origins of Modern Historiography in India uncovers everyday practices surrounding acts of collecting, surveying, and antiquarianism in the early period of British colonial rule in India. The new historical method construed by antiquarians, philologists and their assistants profoundly shaped access and perception of the Indian past. By examining early imperial strategies of producing historical knowledge, this book traces the colonial conditions of the production of "sources," the forging of a new historical method, and the ascendance of positivist historiography in nineteenth-century India.