A 'Mental Programme' of the Medieval Indian

In recent years studies in medieval history of India have begun to raise important questions beyond the political and economistic approaches that appear to have dominated history writing of this period. Works by eminent historians in India and elsewhere have underlined the necessity of bringing the social and the cultural into the mainstream history writing by pointing towards the manner in which cultural practices were deeply enmeshed in the premodern political domain. Using a wide variety of epigraphic, textual and archival sources these works point towards the enormous social and cultural flux generated in medieval India with the emergence of Indo-Islamic states and society. Eugenia Vanina’s book Medieval Indian Mindscapes adds to this growing body of work. The book attempts to map a “mental programme” of the medieval Indian man by creating a rich cultural landscape through the analysis of a wide variety of texts written in medieval India. In the process Vanina attempts to raise some important questions about historical consciousness in and about medieval India.

Four Dimensions