Rajan Gurukkal
Biographic Data
| ID | 1380473 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rajan Gurukkal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rajan |
| FAMILY NAME | Gurukkal |
| SIGNATURE | GURUKKAL R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indian Institute of Science Bangalore |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
K N Panikkar (1936–2026)
,
Making of Merchant Chiefdoms in Early Medieval Kerala
The article has, as its basic source, three royal charters of the ninth- to thirteenth-century period from Kerala. The royal need for precious metals to issue currency alone explains the rulers’ anxiety to give concessions to merchants engaged in overseas trade. The article examines how this policy was conducted and how far it was successful. Inscriptions form our major source for the period thirteenth century, and these form the main source for …
Archaeologists’ Micro-cultures
This article is a critical appraisal of archaeologists’ classification and typology of artefacts, which lead them to the construction of micro-cultures in early Indian archaeology. The central argument is that these archaeological micro-cultures in Indian civilization are archaeologists’ constructs, based on artefactual classification and typology in time and place. Arguably, early Indian archaeological micro-cultures based on ceramic typology ar…
Identifying Archaeological Cultures in India
From a critical review of excavation reports and narratives on the Bronze Age sites, it turns out that archaeological cultures in Indian civilisation are mostly archaeologists’ constructions, resulting from the archaeologists’ subjective classification and typology. It notes inconsistencies of typologies, their ineffectiveness in comprehending the past and failure to establish the structure of the total culture as well as the main features of peo…
Ports, Marts, and Ship Technology in Early South India
This chapter examines the features, structure, constitution, level of urbanism, local base inhabitants, and functions of contemporary ports and marts of north-western, south-western, and south-eastern coasts of India. It analyses the role of ports as multi-cultural assemblages and camps of foreign merchants. An appraisal of the level of shipping technology of early India, especially of the regions of peninsular India against the background of the…
Exchange Relations in Early Peninsular India
The chapter analyses the nature, modes, and forms of exchange against the character of the social formation of early northern India in general and the Deccan and the Tamil region in particular. It provides an overview of the overland exchange networks of the Mauryan Empire, the subsequent situation of the Deccan, and a detailed analysis of the forms of exchange, coins, currency, and nature of markets of the Tamil region. It does a comparative stu…
Sources and Historiography
This chapter is a detailed review of the source material and historiography. It involves discussion of the different categories of the source material such as the archaeological that consists of the excavated remains of port-sites, Roman coins, Indian inscriptions and Egyptian inscriptions including the Muziris Papyrus, as well as the literary sources that consist of direct and indirect types such as the classical Graeco-Roman maritime writings a…
History in Early Indian Traditions
Romila Thapar, The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2013, i–xvii + 758 pp., Harvard University Press, 2013. Hardcover: ₹3684, Paper Back: ₹945
Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade
The book is a critical rethinking of the nature of the classical eastern Mediterranean exchange relations with the coasts of the Indian subcontinent. It examines in the light of the extant source material and theoretical insights whether the expression 'Indo-Roman trade' is tenable. Characterizing the nature of contemporary exchanges in detail, the book maintains that the expression 'Indo-Roman trade' is inappropriate. It starts off with the theo…
The Making and Proliferation of Jāti
The article seeks to argue that the making of jāti was homologous with the opening up of deltas for agriculture, involving integration of agro-pastoral descent groups into hereditary specialists of occupational identity, and formation of stratified relations of production transcending kin labour. It emphasises that productive relations in the deltas had preconditions such as hereditary occupations, asymmetrical social relations, amenability to di…
Classical Indo-Roman Trade
It is an attempt to reconsider in the light of the extant sources including the latest archaeological findings in India, Red Sea coast and Egypt, some of the long sustained assumptions about the In
Shift of Trust from Words to Deeds
This article seeks to examine the social implications of the proliferation of epigraphs from a specific point of time onwards in the Tamil South. Though the presence of writing goes back to c. 200 b.c., it was during the fourth-fifth centuries that inscriptions in the form of brahmadēya deeds begin to appear indicating the emergence of a stratified agrarian society and its political structure, namely the consecrated monarchy. Through the sixth-se…
In search of Muziris
The importance of Muziris in Roman trade with India does not need any underlining. The port on the Malabar coast of modern Kerala figures prominently in the descriptions of classical geographers, it receives mention in the earliest Tamil poems, and it has come into the news more recently through the publication of a Greek papyrus from Egypt. It is also clear from the amount of Roman silver and gold coin found in S India — which gives some substan…
When a Coalition of Conflicting Interests Decentralises
The paper seeks to make a theoretical critique of the ongoing politics of democratic decentralisation in Kerala by problematising why it largely remains a constitutional reform of development administration stabilising the status quo rather than leading to alternate institutional development, rise of people-centred politics and the entailing empowerment oriented praxis triggering struggles over access to, and distribution of critical resources, a…
Writing and its Uses in the Ancient Tamil Country
Towards the Voice of Dissent
The Political Abuse of History
Forms of Production and Forces of Change in Ancient Tamil Society
Aspects of the Reservoir System of Irrigation in the Early Pandya State
Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade
The book is a critical rethinking of the nature of the classical eastern Mediterranean exchange relations with the coasts of the Indian subcontinent. It examines in the light of the extant source material and theoretical insights whether the expression 'Indo-Roman trade' is tenable. Characterizing the nature of contemporary exchanges in detail, the book maintains that the expression 'Indo-Roman trade' is inappropriate. It starts off with the theo…
In search of Muziris
The importance of Muziris in Roman trade with India does not need any underlining. The port on the Malabar coast of modern Kerala figures prominently in the descriptions of classical geographers, it receives mention in the earliest Tamil poems, and it has come into the news more recently through the publication of a Greek papyrus from Egypt. It is also clear from the amount of Roman silver and gold coin found in S India — which gives some substan…
The Political Abuse of History
Classical Indo-Roman Trade
It is an attempt to reconsider in the light of the extant sources including the latest archaeological findings in India, Red Sea coast and Egypt, some of the long sustained assumptions about the In
Forms of Production and Forces of Change in Ancient Tamil Society
Shift of Trust from Words to Deeds
This article seeks to examine the social implications of the proliferation of epigraphs from a specific point of time onwards in the Tamil South. Though the presence of writing goes back to c. 200 b.c., it was during the fourth-fifth centuries that inscriptions in the form of brahmadēya deeds begin to appear indicating the emergence of a stratified agrarian society and its political structure, namely the consecrated monarchy. Through the sixth-se…
When a Coalition of Conflicting Interests Decentralises
The paper seeks to make a theoretical critique of the ongoing politics of democratic decentralisation in Kerala by problematising why it largely remains a constitutional reform of development administration stabilising the status quo rather than leading to alternate institutional development, rise of people-centred politics and the entailing empowerment oriented praxis triggering struggles over access to, and distribution of critical resources, a…
Towards the Voice of Dissent
Aspects of the Reservoir System of Irrigation in the Early Pandya State
Forms of Production and Forces of Change in Ancient Tamil Society
The Political Abuse of History
Towards the Voice of Dissent
Writing and its Uses in the Ancient Tamil Country
In search of Muziris
The importance of Muziris in Roman trade with India does not need any underlining. The port on the Malabar coast of modern Kerala figures prominently in the descriptions of classical geographers, it receives mention in the earliest Tamil poems, and it has come into the news more recently through the publication of a Greek papyrus from Egypt. It is also clear from the amount of Roman silver and gold coin found in S India — which gives some substan…
When a Coalition of Conflicting Interests Decentralises
The paper seeks to make a theoretical critique of the ongoing politics of democratic decentralisation in Kerala by problematising why it largely remains a constitutional reform of development administration stabilising the status quo rather than leading to alternate institutional development, rise of people-centred politics and the entailing empowerment oriented praxis triggering struggles over access to, and distribution of critical resources, a…
Shift of Trust from Words to Deeds
This article seeks to examine the social implications of the proliferation of epigraphs from a specific point of time onwards in the Tamil South. Though the presence of writing goes back to c. 200 b.c., it was during the fourth-fifth centuries that inscriptions in the form of brahmadēya deeds begin to appear indicating the emergence of a stratified agrarian society and its political structure, namely the consecrated monarchy. Through the sixth-se…
Classical Indo-Roman Trade
It is an attempt to reconsider in the light of the extant sources including the latest archaeological findings in India, Red Sea coast and Egypt, some of the long sustained assumptions about the In
The Making and Proliferation of Jāti
The article seeks to argue that the making of jāti was homologous with the opening up of deltas for agriculture, involving integration of agro-pastoral descent groups into hereditary specialists of occupational identity, and formation of stratified relations of production transcending kin labour. It emphasises that productive relations in the deltas had preconditions such as hereditary occupations, asymmetrical social relations, amenability to di…
Ports, Marts, and Ship Technology in Early South India
This chapter examines the features, structure, constitution, level of urbanism, local base inhabitants, and functions of contemporary ports and marts of north-western, south-western, and south-eastern coasts of India. It analyses the role of ports as multi-cultural assemblages and camps of foreign merchants. An appraisal of the level of shipping technology of early India, especially of the regions of peninsular India against the background of the…
Exchange Relations in Early Peninsular India
The chapter analyses the nature, modes, and forms of exchange against the character of the social formation of early northern India in general and the Deccan and the Tamil region in particular. It provides an overview of the overland exchange networks of the Mauryan Empire, the subsequent situation of the Deccan, and a detailed analysis of the forms of exchange, coins, currency, and nature of markets of the Tamil region. It does a comparative stu…
Sources and Historiography
This chapter is a detailed review of the source material and historiography. It involves discussion of the different categories of the source material such as the archaeological that consists of the excavated remains of port-sites, Roman coins, Indian inscriptions and Egyptian inscriptions including the Muziris Papyrus, as well as the literary sources that consist of direct and indirect types such as the classical Graeco-Roman maritime writings a…
History in Early Indian Traditions
Romila Thapar, The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2013, i–xvii + 758 pp., Harvard University Press, 2013. Hardcover: ₹3684, Paper Back: ₹945
Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade
The book is a critical rethinking of the nature of the classical eastern Mediterranean exchange relations with the coasts of the Indian subcontinent. It examines in the light of the extant source material and theoretical insights whether the expression 'Indo-Roman trade' is tenable. Characterizing the nature of contemporary exchanges in detail, the book maintains that the expression 'Indo-Roman trade' is inappropriate. It starts off with the theo…
Identifying Archaeological Cultures in India
From a critical review of excavation reports and narratives on the Bronze Age sites, it turns out that archaeological cultures in Indian civilisation are mostly archaeologists’ constructions, resulting from the archaeologists’ subjective classification and typology. It notes inconsistencies of typologies, their ineffectiveness in comprehending the past and failure to establish the structure of the total culture as well as the main features of peo…
Archaeologists’ Micro-cultures
This article is a critical appraisal of archaeologists’ classification and typology of artefacts, which lead them to the construction of micro-cultures in early Indian archaeology. The central argument is that these archaeological micro-cultures in Indian civilization are archaeologists’ constructs, based on artefactual classification and typology in time and place. Arguably, early Indian archaeological micro-cultures based on ceramic typology ar…
Making of Merchant Chiefdoms in Early Medieval Kerala
The article has, as its basic source, three royal charters of the ninth- to thirteenth-century period from Kerala. The royal need for precious metals to issue currency alone explains the rulers’ anxiety to give concessions to merchants engaged in overseas trade. The article examines how this policy was conducted and how far it was successful. Inscriptions form our major source for the period thirteenth century, and these form the main source for …
K N Panikkar (1936–2026)
,
History (14 works) · History (11 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Geography (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works)