A REVALUATION OF VALMIKPS RAMA 49
great pain? Or did his cruel words to Sita truly express his "innermost thought"? If the latter was true, then the epic narrative was overpowered in the hands of the Shastras.
These days we find a fierce attempt to artificially receive the vision of Ramarajya in popular consciousness. Is that vision truly desirable, even after the experience of Deorala and Arwal? Do we subscribe to the oppression of Shudras and women, do we endorse the killing of a Shudra, the banishment of an innocent, pregnant woman?
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In this volume the author proposes that the key concept that will help us understand the structure and function of local society in later medieval western India is the Vatan system British colonial rule precipitated far-reaching changes in the social fabric in western India The most prominent was the gradual disintegration of the Vatan system Structural changes were also affected in the caste community caused by the so-called caste autonomy policy of the Bombay government
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Ramknshna Mukherjee diagnoses the deficiency of the leading approaches relating to caste and class in sociology and anthropology and, then, offers a more appropriate alternative Binay Bhushan Chaudhun's focus is on tribe-caste relationship His analysis reveals that such concepts as 'Hinduization', 'tribe-caste continuum', 'tnbalization', etc , used in anthropology and history prove to be rather weak in representing this relationship Sabyasacht Bhattacharya deals with 'regional' history He analyses the concept of region and the way it is used in historical studies He suggests regional-national approach in this context to which Surendra Gopal introduces 'local' history and demonstrates the meaningfulness of local-regional-national approach K S Singh's study of a fourteenth century work further contributes to this perspective The book contains incisive thoughts and arguments regarding the courses of social sciences and history in India Hetukar Jha, a teacher in the Department of Sociology. Patna University ISBN 81-7304-422-8 2002 Demy8vo 126p Rs 250
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