ANCIENT INDIAN POLITICAL HISTORY: POSSIBILITIES AND PITFALLS 37 that it recovers some of its old prestige as early as possble. He shows an awareness of advances made in the West and is firmly against Indian historians lagging behind much longer. To achieve this he suggests a substantial change in the content and character of the discipline. Political history, in his opinion, should be viewed as the study of political activity in the total situational context; forces and factors which profoundly influence people in society and condition events deserve adequate attention; and 'why' and 'how' are considered not less important than 'what' in any serious and worthwhile recounting of the past.3 As a corrective to the persisting malaise, it is suggested that different aspects of history—political, social, economic, religious and cultural—should be studied as facets of an integrated reality and not in isolation from each other; the focus of study should shift from individuals to institutions,4 political structure, power and environment; and developments in other branches of knowledge such as Economics, Demography, Anthropology, Sociology, etc., should be made use of to gain insights and enrich perspectives for political history. The need for interdisciplinary approach to comprehend the complex reality of the past has been repeatedly stressed by scholars before. As early as 1963 D.D. Kosambi commended this approach in his famous article, 'Combined Methods in Indology'.5 Even so, the formulation is quite sensible and valid and Professor Goyal's reiteration of its intrinsic worth helps to drive home the point further among serious researchers. With the help of examples from his own works and those of other historians. Professor Goyal shows how, through proper handling, the extant sources can be made to yield more data and add new meaning to political history. Thus a careful study of ceremonials, symbols and motifs in their historical context is likely to shed more light on political institutions and ideologies of the ancient period. Similarly political history can be enriched through an in depth exploration of themes like the relationship of education to power, of religious and social groups to state structure and of geographical background, landed property and economic resources to wide-ranging political developments. These are only illustrative samples and do not exhaust the scope of political history. More themes and areas of research in political history can be identified by individual scholars on the basis of their expertise and specialization, range and depth of scholarship, vision, reflection and imagination. Professor Goyal deserves credit for stressing the need for change and improvement in ancient Indian political history and for his readiness to discard the stale and the puerile and to receive and welcome the best from both West and East, old and new. There are, however, some points of reservation. To begin with, I am surprised to find Professor Goyal suggesting that the geographical boundaries of Independent India should determine its geographical boundaries in the past also for the purpose of historical investigation and the regions presently within Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and adjoining territories should be scrupulously