(The) Historian and her craft : collected essays and lectures. Volume II : pre-Mauryan and Mauryan India / by Romila Thapar

Includes index.

Introduction / Kumkum Roy -- STARTING UP : A possible identification of Meluhha, Dilmum and Makan -- Society in ancient India : the formative period -- ARCHAEOLOGY AND TEXTS : The Rigveda : encapsulating social change -- The archaeological background to the Agnicayana ritual -- Archaeological artifacts and literary data : an attempt at co-relation -- STATE AND EMPIRE : The evolution of the state in the Ganga valley in the mid-first millennium BC -- The early history of Mathura : up to and including the Mauryan period -- Towards the definition of an empire : the Mauryan state -- State weaving-shops of the Mauryan period -- INSCRIPTIONS : Ashok and Buddhism as reflected in the Ashokan edicts -- Raya Ashoka from Kanaganahalli : some thoughts -- Literacy and communication : some thoughts on the inscriptions of Ashoka -- BEYOND THE EMPIRE : Epigraphic evidence and some Indo-hellenistic contacts during the Mauryan period -- Text and context : megasthenes and the seven castes -- The role of the army in the exercise of power in the early India