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Unknown Civilization of Prehistoric India by Subhashis Das

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The book Unknown Civilization of Prehistoric India is kind of a sequel to Subhashis Das’ previous book Sacred Stones in India Civilization. It deals with the unknown civilization of India, i.e. of the proto-austroloid Kolarian tribes, and their archaeological relics, the megaliths. The book delves into the realm of the myth that all megaliths are burials and finds out that it isn’t necessarily so. The ancient megalithic tribes apart for funerary reasons built their megaliths for various purposes among which a few were for astronomical observations and calendrical uses. The book reveals the knowledge of astronomy and mathematics prevalent in the prehistoric era of India among a section of its megalithic denizens. The book substantiates this claim by describing the surface architecture of a few astronomical megaliths across the country as that of Chano, Punkri Burwadih and Nilurallu by demonstrating how mathematics and astronomy were used in their construction. The book also deals with the now defunct fertility cult once practiced by these tribes in the yesteryears. It thereafter pursues their folklores in search of their original homeland and finds it to be ancient Sumeria/ Chaldea as believed by the Santali scholars and Gurus. The book discovers parallels between the names of people, towns and rivers of present day austric adivasis and the ones mentioned in the Old Testament and discovers that the Horites of Bible and the tribal Hors of India are of the same lot. The book also finds a lot many austric Mundari words still in use in many European languages. The stunning similarities among the architectures of megaliths of Britain, Europe and India may startle the readers but the book discloses that such a phenomenon could only be the fall out of a contact between the far flung lands during hoary times. The book also has description of a quite many megalithic sites in the country. Until or unless megaliths are accepted as true relics of India’s ancient history, their makers; the tribals and their folk tales accepted as oral history the real ancient history of India can never surface. The book Unknown Civilization of Prehistoric India does just that. The book also includes a single complimentary chapter by the eminent author and ex- archaeologist Terrence Meaden of the Oxford University.

The book is priced at Rs 1500 and it will soon be available in many prominent book stores of the country and on the web.

The book can also be obtained from the publisher:

Kaveri Books

4832/34 Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi 110002.

Email: kaveribooks@gmail.com

Phone Numbers: 011 23288140, 23245799.

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

What is Performance Studies?

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Richard Schechner

Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

 Download PDF Version

Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and open to new possibilities, no one can actually grasp its totality or press all its vastness and variety into a single writing book. My points of departure are my own teaching, research, artistic practice, and life experiences.

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Examining select Anglo-Indian advice manuals written after the Indian Mutiny in 1857and during the ‘high imperialism’ period of the British Raj, the essay proposes that this cultural artefact served the purpose of constructing and naturalizing the English Memsahibs’ gendered racial identity. By reiterating the performance of gender, class and race imperatives to construct a unique identity prerequisite for the Anglo-Indian community as well as the Indian colony, these texts aimed at the crystallization of this identity that will strengthen the idea of the British Raj. Such reiteration- apart from revealing the imperial anxiety of the subversion of the Memsahib identity- were useful to caution the English women new to the colonial environment.  Reading these Anglo-Indian advice manuals produced for the consumption of the Anglo-Indian community, what the essay further proposes is that the performance of gendered-racial identity of the English women in India constituted not only the governance of their bodies and the Anglo-Indian spaces, but also their management of travel and material consumption including food.  Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter provide useful insights to study the performance of the “politically correct Memsahib” identity and its attendant relation to the imagining of the homogenous British Raj.    Keep Reading

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Vikash Kumar

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Rajdeep Konar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

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