The Many Worlds of Indian Historiography

Abstract

The birth of Indian historiography has been a lookout of draconian criticism and surveillance. Historiography in modern times needs to be addressed in a crucial and meaningful way, especially when we confabulate about those countries which have a colonial past. In this paper we fancy to ruminate and canvass the case of making of Indian historiography. For an extensive and dominant phase, India struggled to extricate between literature and historical writing, clouding itself into indecisive dividing lines to demarcate periods. The advent of the British sculptured and synthesized the inception of Indian historical writing, craftily attempting it to periodize and document it. Indian historiography found itself dichotomizing into religious premises and kept thriving and coalescing bit by bit from rationalist to nationalist to economic paradigm. There is beyond any shadow of doubt, a dire role of the British in cobbling up Indian historiography. This paper assays to radiate how Indian historiography crept in to augment itself into glorifying the ancient glorious past which was once placed in juxtaposition to the glory of the Roman and Greek. This paper also delves into the saga of catechizing the profound quest in the making of the Indian historical consciousness.