History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer
Kalhana’s Rajatarangini is the best example of history writing tradition in early India. Discuss.
- UPSC 2022
- Themes in Early Indian Cultural History
Colonial-era scholars such as Alberuni and V.A. Smith held that ancient India lacked a genuine "sense of history," producing storytelling and myth rather than critical chronicle. Against this backdrop, Kalhana's Rajatarangini ("The River of Kings," 12th century CE), a Sanskrit verse chronicle of Kashmir in eight Tarangas, is routinely cited as the closest early Indian…
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What the full answer covers
- The Historiographical Backdrop: Did Early India Have a "Sense of History"?
- Kalhana's Historiographical Self-Consciousness
- Method: Chronology and the Use of Evidence
- Objectivity and Its Limits
- Testing the Claim: Rival Candidates
- Buddhist Chronicles — Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa
- …and 3 more sections, with a conclusion
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