Indian Interpreters in the Making of Colonial Historiography: New Light on Mark Wilks’s Historical Sketches of the South of India (1810–1817)*

2019 ◽  
Vol 134 (569) ◽  
pp. 821-854
Author(s):  
Su Fang Ng
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Early History ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The South ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Events ◽  
Anglo Indian

Abstract A forgotten archive at Oxford, the working library of Mark Wilks (1759–1831), sometime Resident of Madras who wrote the influential Historical Sketches of the South of India (1810), offers evidence of Anglo-Indian collaboration in the early colonial period following the 1799 defeat of Tipu Sultan. Examining new manuscript evidence, this article shows how Wilks, a friend of Colin Mackenzie, the surveyor of Mysore, used texts from the vast Mackenzie Collection to compose his history, abstracting selected translations for his own library. Wilks had the help of Mackenzie’s assistants, in particular Kavali Venkata Lakshmayya. Lakshmayya (and others) provided Wilks with translations of land grants and genealogical narratives, both of which were used to establish historical chronology. Because the British saw themselves as restorers of ancient Indian practices, chronology was as important for public policy as for historiography. Working with Wilks, Lakshmayya compiled a large manuscript folio that was at once a table to convert dates among western, Islamic, and Indian calendars, and a historical abstract giving a timeline of key events. This and other manuscripts show Wilks’s use of the Mackenzie Collection beyond only inscriptions. Historical chronology was established through a mix of sources: inscriptions, narrative accounts, and published works. Moreover, Wilks incorporated narratives written by native interpreters into Historical Sketches. Indian history was the result of Anglo-Indian collaboration. Native interpreters contributed significant intellectual labour, and their historiographical work laid the foundation for the writing of the early history of South India.

Caste-Less Tamils and Early Print Public Sphere: Remembering Iyothee Thass (1845–914)

2021 ◽  
pp. 026272802110348
Author(s):  
Dickens Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of

Responding to the history of Dalit invisibility in print public sphere, this article explores one of the earliest Dalit articulations in print in South Asia during the colonial period. Extending studies on anti-caste thought by foregrounding the Tamil cosmopolis, this conceptualises how the most oppressed by caste engaged with print in the early twentieth century, through studying the works on and of Pandit Iyothee Thass and his movement. The article proposes that these experiments with print opened the chance of a political to emerge, which was otherwise foreclosed, towards wording a caste-less community at this earlier time in Indian history.

The Chronology of the Sena Kings of Bengal

1930 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
P. C. Barat
Keyword(s):  
Great Powers ◽  
Early History ◽  
Late Professor ◽  
Indian History ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of

Since the beginning of the present century students of Indian history have been making strenuous efforts to collect such materials as would help them to reconstruct the early history of Bengal. But so far they have not succeeded in ascertaining definitely even the dates of those kings of the Sena Dynasty who governed dominions of large extent and took rank among the great powers. The discovery of the era with which is associated the name of Laksmana Sena Deva induced several well-known archaeologists to bring its initial date to bear on the history of Bengal. From the scanty data which were then available the late Professor Kielhorn after much laborious calculation definitely settled that the Lakṣmaṇa Samvat or La-Sam began in A.D. 1119–20. According to him the La-Sam was an ordinary Southern (Kārttikādi) year with Amānta scheme of lunar fortnights; and the first date of the era was October 7, A.D. 1119. As this date has not been made use of in reconstructing the chronology of the Sena kings, it may be accepted for the present; and time will show whether the conclusion of the learned doctor is right or wrong. But the assertion of the historians that the initial date of the Lakṣmaṇa Sena era synchronizes with the commencement of Lakṣmaṇa Sena's reign is quite untenable and can never be accepted as true. In Indian history there is no era which does not commemorate some epoch-making event which affected the people of the country in general. And ordinary succession to the throne in its normal course, as was the case with Lakṣmaṇa Sena Deva, does not justify the inauguration of an era in place of the usual regnal years to which the people in those days were accustomed.

Protogeometric Vases from Amorgos in the Museum of the British School

1989 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 177-185
Author(s):  
R.W.V. Catling ◽  
R.E. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Analysis ◽  
Early History ◽  
The Other ◽  
The South ◽  
South West ◽  
British School ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

Two vases, a cup and an oinochoe, from Arkesine in south-west Amorgos are published for the first time. It is argued that both are probably Middle Protogeometric, one an import from Euboia, the other from the south-east Aegean; chemical analysis supports both attributions. Their implications for the early history of Amorgos are discussed.

A Brief History of Singapore

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Tarulevicz
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
First Century ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of

This chapter provides an account of Singapore's recent history, interwoven with key culinary and gastronomic developments. The conventional periodization of Singapore's history into the pre-colonial, Japanese occupation, merger, and independence eras highlights some of the forces that have shaped the nation, but it also privileges state actors. From the early colonial period onward, the ordering of space and place has been a priority that has been demonstrated at the bureaucratic, regulatory, and physical levels. In the past 200 years, Singapore has been radically remade; technological innovation has been one of the mechanisms by which order is achieved. Indeed, Singapore's engagement with the global economy—be that the economy of the British Empire or of the twenty-first-century world of food security fears—has been relentless, and food has been central to the process.

On the Early History of Perfective “Present” Participles in East Slavic

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 243-259
Author(s):  
Bill J Darden
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
The South ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
History Of

Birchbark letters from Novgorod from the 11th and 12th centuries show distinctions in the use of the two perfective active participles in Old Russian, a distinction thought to have been lost very early. Examination of the use of these participles in chronicles shows that the loss of this distinction began in the South in the 11th century, became more prevalent there in the 12th, but did not affect the Novgorod Chronicle until the late 12th century, so the Birchbark data are not surprising.

I.—Belgic and Roman Silchester: the Excavations of 1954–8 with an Excursus on the Early History of Calleva

Archaeologia ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 1-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Boon
Keyword(s):  
Field Work ◽  
Early History ◽  
Total Evidence ◽  
The South ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Ordnance Survey ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

SummaryThe excavations were undertaken by the Silchester Excavation Committee supported by donations from public and private bodies and from individuals and by permission of the Duke of Wellington, K.G., F.S.A. Their purpose was the investigation of (a) a previously unsuspected polygonal enclosure of about 85 acres, here named the Inner Earthwork, which lay partly inside and partly outside the line of the familiar Roman town wall; and (b) a western extension to the known line of the Outer Earthwork, which increased the size of this enclosure from about 213 to 233 acres. With the assistance of the Ordnance Survey, the aerial traces of these earthworks, first observed and recorded by Dr. J. K. St. Joseph, F.S.A., were confirmed and extended by field-work and excavation, and have been planned as appears on pl. I.The excavations showed that the Inner Earthwork was a defence of Gaulish ‘Fécamp’ type, and that it was erected, on the south, over an area of late pre-Roman occupation, the first clearly identified at Calleva Atrebatum, but one with strong ‘Catuvellaunian’ influences in its pottery-series. It is claimed that the Inner Earthwork was constructed by the client King Cogidubnus in or shortly after A.D. 43–4, as the defence of this, the most important settlement in the north-west of his dominions. It is further suggested that the Inner Earthwork was replaced by the Outer Earthwork also during the reign of Cogidubnus.The excursus attempts to collate with the results of excavation the earlier discoveries of pre-Conquest material. The total evidence is finally related to the Belgico-Roman topography of Silchester and its neighbourhood, within the historical framework of the century and a half which separated the arrival of the earliest Belgic immigrants in the region from the death of Cogidubnus and the consequent emergence of the Roman Civitas Atrebatum.

The Early Intercourse of the Danes and Franks

1877 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 147-182
Author(s):  
Henry H. Howorth
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
The South ◽  
History Of

The early history of Denmark may be divided into two portions. For the first we have as materials only the native sagas and legends, which have been preserved for us by Saxo Grammaticus and others. The second portion, which covers a period when Denmark had entered into relations, sometimes hostile and sometimes diplomatic, with the great Frankish empire to the south, is illustrated by occasional notices in the contemporary monastic annals. These notices are of course of the highest value and interest. It seems clear that, if we are ever to glean any profitable materials about the earlier period, we must first gain a firm foothold upon the later, where we can check tradition by contemporary narrative; and I now propose to re–examine the history of the Danes from the time when they first appear in the Frankish chronicles, down to the death of their famous King Godfred.

The Indo-Roman Pepper Trade and the Muziris Papyrus

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico De Romanis
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
South India ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
South Indian ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Trade ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Commercial Relationships

This book offers an interpretation of the two fragmentary texts of the P. Vindobonensis G 40822, now widely referred to as the Muziris papyrus. Without these two texts, there would be no knowledge of the Indo-Roman trade practices. The book also compares and contrasts the texts of the Muziris papyrus with other documents pertinent to Indo-Mediterranean (or Indo-European) trade in ancient, medieval, and early modern times. These other documents reveal the commercial and political geography of ancient South India; the sailing schedule and the size of the ships plying the South India sea route; the commodities exchanged in the South Indian emporia; and the taxes imposed on the Indian commodities en route from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. When viewed against the twin backdrops of ancient sources on South Indian trade and of medieval and early modern documents on pepper commerce, the two texts become foundational resources for the history of commercial relationships between South India and the West.

scholarly journals ‘History has many cunning passages’: Kwasi Apea Nuama between the Asante and the British

Africa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-237
Author(s):  
Tom McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Order

AbstractThis article, a companion piece to that on Kwame Tua, traces the life history of his elder full brother Kwasi Apea Nuama (c.1862–1936) as he too sought purchase and place in the new colonial order in Asante. Temperamentally a very different man from his brother, Kwasi Apea Nuama set out to make himself indispensable as the interpreter of Asante history and custom to the uncomprehending British. Both brothers, then, were mediators or translators between the old and new worlds in which they found themselves. Their heyday was the often anarchic early colonial period. Thereafter, and most especially after the British restored the office and some of the prerogatives of Asante kingship, their influence fell away. They found themselves caught between a colonial order that had little further need of their services, and a restored Asante polity that demonized them as collaborators.

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