Drawn from a variety of academic disciplines and perspectives, this volume approaches ancient India both historically and geographically. The primary temporal focus lies in India's "Early Historic" period, from the mid-first millennium BCE through the mid-first millennium CE. The geographic focus is shifted landward rather than seaward and is centered on South Asia rather than the Mediterranean. Contributors examine power and material culture; Mediterranean image making, which looks at Greek and Roman understandings of India; and language and otherness, which explores Indian knowledge and understandings of outsiders. The volume as a whole directs us to the complex webs and networks that throughout Indian history have linked South Asians to each other and to the world beyond the subcontinent. A very wide world indeed.
Contributors are Shinu A. Abraham, Madhav Deshpande, Grant Parker, Alka Patel, Himanshu P. Ray, James Romm , Martha Ann Selby, and Thomas R. Trautmann.
Grant Parker is Assistant Professor of Classics, Stanford University.
Carla M. Sinopoli is Professor of Anthropology and Curator and Director, Museum of Anthropology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan.
