EXPLORING THE HISTORICAL CONJUNCTURE 17 Yet another domain of study which is most promising is the history of migrations in India. It is generally believed that the social formation of Indian civilisation took place through a creative interaction between two factors: the evolution of indigenous communities; and the integration into these communities of migrating groups from the highlands of central Asia. Equally fascinating would be studies of migration of communities from one region to another within India; or Indian diasporas to the rest of the world in the past, remote or recent. In a brief essay, it is possible to do little more than to give a glimpse of what historical scholarship has already achieved in its exploration of south Asia, and the prospects for the future. If in doing so, I have ventured to make a few observations about the genesis of modern historiography in Europe, then it was necessary to do so because of the close connection between the human condition, on the one hand, and the manner in which societies explore the past and come to terms with it, on the other. For history occupies a pride of place in the wide array of disciplines which constitute the human sciences. Moreover, this central placement of history enables it to play a pivotal role in man's growing understanding of himself no less than his growing understanding of the means whereby he can move towards the 'good society.' NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. For a scholarly appreciation of Ranke see C.P. Gooch, History And Historians In The Nineteenth Century (London, 1967), pp. 72-122. 2. Lord Acton, 'Letter to contributors to the Cambridge Modern History/ in W.H. McNeill (ed) Essays In The Liberal Interpretation Of History (Chicago, 1967), pp. 396-399. 3. For a critique of the positivist bias which scholars like Ranke introduced in tnodern historiography see p. Geyl, Debates With Historians (London, 1970), with special reference to the article on Ranke. 4. Perhaps the best illustration of the growth of history, in range and depth, is reflected in the work of the so-called Annales School. 5. For a recent and comprehensive study of temporality in the Indian tradition, see Navjoti Singh, Temporality And Logical Structure (New Delhi, 1990). 6. F.G. Bailey, 'The Peasant View of the Bad Life,' Advancement of Science Vol. 23.No.ll4.1966. 7. I owe the notion of 'fuzzy' time to Professor Sudipta Kaviraj of the Centre For Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. 8. Edward Said's classic work on Orientalism has been a decisive influence on Third World scholarship everywhere. For a recent critique by him see his 'Figures. Configurations, Transfiguration, in Race And Class, Vol. 32, No 1. 9. See Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed (London, 1968). 10. See Burton Stein, Peasant. State And Society in Medieval South India (Delhi, 1980). 11. H.R. Gupta (ed) Life And Letters of Sir Jadunath Sarkar (Hoshiarpur, 1957). See particularly 'Introduction' by the author.