T. K. Venkatasubramanian

Recent scholarship on the history of music in South Asia has examined the processes by which music as an art form was reinvented for nationalist purposes, yet, the disciplined study of music (and its aesthetics) remains only a few centuries old. Studying music through a historical lens has opened new approaches to interdisciplinary studies. Music as History in Tamilnadu examines how history can be interpreted through aesthetics and music and vice versa. Musicologists focus on the study of musical activity, while ethnomusicologists examine this activity first-hand using the 'field' research methods of cultural anthropology. The historian's task, then, is to interpret the musical past as part of cultural production and thereafter relate music to general historical trends. This collection of essays seeks to establish the interdisciplinarity between music (the Karnatak system) and the history of Tamilnadu, south India.

Music as History in Tamilnadu

Biswamoy Pati

Bhairabi Prasad Sahu

This book is in memory of Professor Partha Sarathi Gupta, who taught at the Department of History, Delhi University, from 1962 till 1999. He passed away on 10 August 1999, a few days after his retirement. A dedicated historian with a zeal for exactitude, an erudite scholar and a committed teacher, Professor Gupta was an institution within an institution and a source of inspiration for generations of students, including many of the contributors to this volume.The essays collected in the book weave together issues and concerns of different scholars from the world of Indian history. The themes they examine reflect a common desire to understand historical processes over time and from the perspective of different regions, without losing sight of the broader historical context. Through this attempt, the book, perhaps, demonstrates not only the fascinating possibilities of India s historical scholarship, but also the fact that it has indeed come of age. The fifteen essays included here, covering the early medieval and modern periods of Indian history, are organized under three thematic sections: ideology, legitimacy and the state; environment, exchange and economic transactions; and social change and resistance. Together, they present ways of negotiating India s past .Biswamoy Pati teaches at the Department of History, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi. Bhairabi Prasad Sahu teaches at the Department of History, University of Delhi. T.K. Venkatasubramanian teaches at the Department of History, University of Delhi.

T. K. Venkatasubramanian

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