Negotiating Cultural Identity : Landscapes in Early Medieval South Asian History

This volume breaks new ground by conceptualizing physical landscapes as living cultural bodies. It redefines dynamic cultural landscapes as catalysts in which the natural world and human practice are inextricably linked and are constantly interacting. Drawing on research by eminent archaeologists, numismatists and historians, the essays in this volume • Provide insights into the ways people in the past, and in the present, imbue places with meanings; • Examine the social and cultural construction of space in the early medieval period in South Asia; • Trace complex patterns of historical development of a temple or a town, to understand ways in which such spaces often become a means of constructing the collective past and social traditions. With a new chapter on continuity and change in the sacred landscape of the Buddhist site at Udayagiri, the second edition of Negotiating Cultural Identity will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of archaeology, social history, cultural studies, art history and anthropology. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Copyright Contents List of figures List of maps Notes on contributors Preface Introduction PART 1 The archaeology of space 1 India cartographica: some Roman sightings 2 Cartography and cultural encounter: conceptualisation of  al-Hind by Arabic and Persian writers from the 9th to 11th centuries CE 3 Self, other and the use and appropriation of late Roman coins in peninsular India (4th–7th centuries CE) PART 2 Defining cultural landscapes 4 Sacred spaces of the middle Ganga valley: a case study of Varanasi 5 Transforming the landscape: questions of medieval reuse and worship at ancient Jain rock-cut sites near Madurai 6 Of saffron, snow and spirituality: glimpses of cultural geography in the Rājataraṅgiṇī 7 Space for change: evaluating the ‘paucity of metallic currency’ in medieval India 8 Colonial imagination and identity attribution: numismatic cues for defining space 9 Shrines as ‘monuments’: issues of classification, custody and conflict in Orissa 10 Continuity and change in the sacred landscape of the Buddhist site of Udayagiri, Odisha Index This volume breaks new ground by conceptualizing physical landscapes as living cultural bodies. It redefines dynamic cultural landscapes as catalysts in which the natural world and human practice are inextricably linked and are constantly interacting. Drawing on research by eminent archaeologists, numismatists and historians, the essays in this volume • Provide insights into the ways people in the past, and in the present, imbue places with meanings; • Examine the social and cultural construction of space in the early medieval period in South Asia; • Trace complex patterns of historical development of a temple or a town, to understand ways in which such spaces often become a means of constructing the collective past and social traditions. With a new chapter on continuity and change in the sacred landscape of the Buddhist site at Udayagiri, the second edition of __Negotiating Cultural Identity__ will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of archaeology, social history, cultural studies, art history and anthropology. This volume breaks new ground by conceptualizing landscape as a dynamic cultural complex in which the natural world and human practice are inextricably linked and are constantly interacting. The work will be especially useful to scholars and researchers of archaeology, social history, art history and anthropology.