Book Review: Somnatha - The Many Voices of a History
In 1026, Mahmud of Ghazni raided the temple of Somnatha. The history of this raid and subsequent events at the site have been reconstructed in the last couple of centuries largely on the basis of the Turko-Persian sources. There were other sources that also refer to events at Somnatha throughout a period of almost a thousand years, but these have rarely been quoted when reconstructing this history.
Book Information
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Somnatha – The Many voices of a history is a detailed research work by Romila Thapar with an attempt to weave these numerous voices using a comparative outlook of an unbiased researcher to reconstruct the history of Somnatha and to place each narrative, often resembling fantasy, in their own historical contexts. Romila Thapar narrates and analyzes these accounts dividing the book in unequal distinct sections. The Turko Persian narratives typically resembles the conquerer’s voice of telling the history while the Sanskrit sources focus on activities related to the Somnatha in the later period. Romila Thapar present both and also an alternative Jain perspective of the situation.
This book is a good book but demands lot of attention and patience. This is not a book for light reading. Somnatha – The Many voices of a history is a research work that required huge effort from the author, and aims to present what had happened based on the sources available on thousand years old events. Although a brilliant research work, I rated it above average because of its dense presentation which demands huge attention span from the reader.
You can buy this book at amazon or at flipkart , in case you live in India.
About the Author
Romila Thapar was born in India in 1931 and comes from a Punjabi family, spending her early years in various parts of India. She took her first degree from Punjab University and her doctorate from London University. She was appointed to a Readership at Delhi University and subsequently to the Chair in Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is now Emeritus Professor in History. Romila Thapar is also an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Collège de France in Paris. In 1983 she was elected General President of the Indian History Congress and in 1999 a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. [Source: flipkart]
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