Resources for the study of rural India

General sources

Digital South Asia Library http://dsal.uchicago.edu/

South Asia Resource Access on the Internet: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/southasia/cuvl/

The Asia Society: http://www.asiasociety.org/

 

Architecture

Archæological Survey of India. Annual Report, 1902-03. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1904.

H. Blochmann, Contributions to the Geography and History of Bengal (Muhammedan Period). Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1968 (1873).

Sir John, Marshall, ed. Annual Report of the Archæological Survey of India, 1923-24. Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1926.

 

Arts

Stephen Huyler, Painted Prayers: Women's Art in Village India. New York: Rizzoli, 1994.

Frederick Asher, The Art of Eastern India: 300-800. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1980.

 

Banaras/Varanasi/Kashi

Diana Eck, Banaras: City of Light. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.

Jonathan P. Parry, Death in Banaras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Christopher Justice, Dying the Good Death: The Pilgrimage to Die in India's Holy City. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Nita Kumar, The Artisans of Banaras: Popular Culture and Identity, 1880-1986. New Delhi: Orient Longman Limited, 1995 (1988). University of New York Press, 1997.

 

Bihar

Ran Chandra Prasad, Bihar. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1992 (1983).

Arvind Das, The Republic of Bihar. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1992.

Census of India 1991, Series-1 India, Paper 1 of 1992, Volume I, Final Population Totals. New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1993.

P.C. Roy Chaudhury, Bihar District Gazetteers: Shahabad. Patna: Superintendent Secretariat Press, 1966.

Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Bengal. Vol. 2. New Delhi: Usha Publications, 1984 (1909).

 Manosi Lahiri, The Bihar Geographic Information System. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1993.

 

Previous visitors to Bihar

Mildred Archer, Early Views of India: The Picturesque Journeys of Thomas and William Daniell, 1786-1794. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.

Francis Buchanan, Journal of Francis Buchanan. C.E.A.W. Oldham, ed. Patna: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1926.

W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, Vol. 1. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968 (1896).

Alexander Cunningham, "Report of a Tour in the Central Provinces and Lower Gangetic Doab in 1881-82," Archaeological Survey of India, XVII.

George Abraham Grierson, Bihar Peasant Life, Being a Discursive Catalogue of the Surroundings of the People of that Province. Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975 (1885).  

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India. V. Ball, trans. Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Company, 1977.

 

Economics

Anand A. Yang, Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State in Bihar. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

The World Bank Group, The India Poverty Project Poverty and Growth in India, 1951-94: http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/data/indiapaper.htm

 

Education

 

Gender

Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffery. Don't Marry Me to a Plowman! Women's Everyday Lives in Rural North India. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.

Lindsey Harlan and Paul Courtright, ed. From the Margins of Hindu Marriage: Essays on Gender, Religion, and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

 

Festivals

S. B. Singh, Fairs and Festivals in Rural India: A Geospatial Study of Belief Systems. Varanasi: Tara Book Agency, 1989.

 

History

Comprehensive History of Bihar, 3 volumes in 6 parts. Patna: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, 1983.

S.M. Burke and Salim Al-Din Quraishi, The British Raj in India: An Historical Review. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 (1995).

R.R. Diwakar, Bihar through the Ages. New Delhi: Orient Longmans, 1959.

Joseph E. Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992 (1978).

Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation: India's Muslims Since Independence. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.

Edward Said, Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.

 

India

An Atlas of India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Census of India &endash; 1991 http://www.censusindia.net/

 

Languages

Lachman M. Khubchandani, Plural Languages, Plural Cultures: Communication, Identity, and Sociopolitical Change in Contemporary India. United States: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.

Amrit Rai, A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Paul Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1974.

 

Medicine

Sudhir Kakar, Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994 (1982).

 

Narratives & Storytelling

Kirin Narayan, Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.

Stuart Blackburn, Peter Claus, Joyce Flueckiger, Susan Wadley, eds. Oral Epics in India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

 

News Sources

The Hindustan Times: http://www.hindustantimes.com/

India Today: http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010924/index.shtml?

The Newspaper Today: http://www.thenewspapertoday.com/index.phtml?

Politics

Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. Routledge, 1998.

Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

 

Religion

 

Primers

David Knipe, Hinduism: Experiments in the Sacred. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

W.H McLeod, Gur¨ Nånak and the Sikh Religion. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996 (1968).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Religions of India in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University, 1995.

Islamic Resources, Middle Eastern Network Information Center, University of Texas at Austin: http://menic.utexas.edu/menic/islam.html

 

Reference

Mircea Eliade, ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1986.

 

Sacred texts - Hindu

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, ed. Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism. Totawa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble, 1988.

Wendy Doniger, trans., The Rig Veda. New York: Penguin, 1981.

Patrick Olivelle, Upanisads. New York: Oxford University, 1996.

Wendy Doniger with Brian K. Smith, trans., The Laws of Manu. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Wendy O'Flaherty. trans., Hindu Myths. New York: Penguin, 1976.

Cornelia Dimmitt & J.A.B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A reader in the Sanskrit Puranas.New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1983.

 

Sacred texts - Islamic

A. Yusuf Ali, trans. The Holy Qur'ån: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Brentwood, Maryland: Amana Corp., 1983.

Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, trans. Sahih Muslim, 4 volumes. Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1990.

 

Beliefs

John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. Devi: Goddesses of India. Berkeley: University of California, 1996.

Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981.

 

Bhakti

Linda Hess, trans. The B¥jak of Kabir. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986 (1983).

Charlotte Vaudeville, A Weaver Called Kabir: Selected Verses with a Detailed Biographical and Historical Introduction. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997 (1993).

Nirmal Dass, trans. Songs of Kabir from the Adi Granth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

David N. Lorenzen, Kabir Legends and Ananta-das's Kabir Parachai. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

 

Communalism

Peter Van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Ashgar Ali Engineer, Lifting the Veil: Communal Violence and Communal Harmony in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Sangam Books, 1995.

Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Sudhir Kakar, The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Gerald James Larson, India's Agony over Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.

Bipan Chandra, Communalism in Modern India. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1984.

Veena Das, ed. Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Sandria B. Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arena and the Emergence of Communalism in North India. New Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 1984. Basu, Tapan and Pradip Datta, et. al., Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right. New Delhi: Orient Longman Limited, 1993.

Sarvepalli Gopal, ed. Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhumi Issue. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1991.

 

 

Rituals

Ann Grodzins Gold, Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Jonathan P. Parry, Death in Banaras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Death and Death Ceremonies. Karachi: Peermahomed Ebrahim Trust, 1972.

Christopher Justice, Dying the Good Death: The Pilgrimage to Die in India's Holy City. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Philip Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text: Performing the Råmcartmånas of Tulsidas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

 

Study of Religion

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Other People's Myths: The Cave of Echoes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination. Paula Wissing, trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988 (1983).

 

Sufism

Richard Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995 (1986).

Arthur Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

Asim Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Michael Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.

Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

 

Society

S.P. Jain, The Social Structure of Hindu-Muslim Community. Delhi: National Publishing House, 1975.

Caste

Satadal Dasgupta, Caste, Kinship and Community: Social System of a Bengali Caste. Hyderabad: Universities Press, 1993 (1986).

 

 

Historical

William Crooke, A Glossary of North Indian Peasant Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989 (1879).

W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, Vol. 1. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968 (1896).

George Abraham Grierson, Bihar Peasant Life, Being a Discursive Catalogue of the Surroundings of the People of that Province. Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975 (1885).

 

Non-fiction

Susan Wadley, Struggling with Destiny in Karimpur, 1925-1984. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

"Looking Behind Mud Walls: The Village of Karimpur, 1925 - 1998" (a slide show based on 74 years of ethnography in a North Indian village) http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/southasiacenter/karimpur/

Ronald Inden, Imagining India. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1990.

 

Fiction

Premchand, The Gift of a Cow. Gordon C. Roadarmel. London: Lokamaya Press, 1968 (1936).

Mudra Rakshasa, The Hunted. Robert A. Hueckstedt, trans. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1992 (1987).