Week I: Introduction: The Origins of Indian Civilization

Jan 23: Introduction to the course; Ancient India: geography and history
Jan 25: The foundations of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism

Reading:
Embree, 1-113
Thapar, 15-49

Images:
Shiva Lingam/Yoni Shiva as Lord of the Dance Buddha from Gupta Period

Week II: Classical India

Jan 28: The Mauryas and the Greeks; Early Western perceptions of India
Jan 31: Indian culture, religion, and state formation in late antiquity
Feb 1: Discussion

Reading:
Embree, 201-273
Thapar, 50-91

Documents:
Ashoka, Pillar Edicts (257 BCE)
Herodotus, "Greek Reports from India and Aryavarta" (430 BCE)

Week III: The Coming of Islam

Feb 4: Foundations of Islam: theology, law, and tradition
Feb 6: The Arabs and the arrival of Islam in India
Feb 8: Discussion

Reading:
Embree, 381-407
Asher & Talbot, 1-24
Richard Eaton, "Introduction" in India's Islamic Traditions, 1-34 [on reserve]
Marshall G.S. Hodgson, "The Role of Islam in World History" in International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1:2 (1970), 99-123 [on reserve]

Week IV: The Turks and the Afghans

Feb 11: The entry point: early Turko-Afghan incursions into India
Feb 13: The "Slave Sultans" and consolidation of Turkish rule in North India
Feb 15: Discussion

Reading:
Embree, 408-446
Thapar, 221-240
Asher & Talbot, 25-52
Satish Chandra, "The Impact of Central Asian Institutions on the State and Society in Medieval India (10th-14th centuries)" and "Society, Culture, and the State in Medieval India" in Essays on Medieval Indian History, 23-70 [on reserve]
M. Mujeeb, "The Qutub Complex as a social document" in Islamic Influences on Indian Society, 111-124 [on reserve]

Week V: The Delhi Sultanate

Feb 18: The Khaljis and the rise of the Delhi Sultans
Feb 20: Early Indo-Islamic religious and cultural accommodation
Feb 22: Discussion

Reading:
Thapar, 241-265
Asher & Talbot, 84-114
Cynthia Talbot, "Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim identities in Pre-colonial India." in Richard Eaton (ed.), India's Islamic Traditions, 83-117 [on reserve]

Document:
Al Biruni, Alberuni's India (1030 CE) [on reserve]

Week VI: Religious Developments in the Indo-Islamic World

Feb 25: Bhakti, devotional literature, and the transformation of Hindu worship
Feb 27: Sufism and the Islamic mystical tradition in India
Feb 29: Discussion

Reading:
Embree, 342-378, 447-463
Thapar, 289-320
Simon Digby, "The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India" in Richard Eaton (ed.) India's Islamic Traditions, 234-262 [on reserve]

Week VII: States and Sultanates of Medieval India

Mar 3: The North: The Tughluqs and the Lodis
Mar 5: The South: Vijayanagar and the Deccani Sultans
Mar 7: MIDTERM EXAMINATION

Reading:
Thapar, 194-220, 266-288, 321-336
Asher & Talbot, 53-83
Richard Eaton, "The Articulation of Islamic Space in the Medieval Deccan," in Irene Bierman (ed.), The Experience of Islamic Art on the Margins of Islam, 113-131 [on reserve]

Week VIII: Precolonial India's Global Contact

Mar 10: The Silk Road: Indian merchants and overland trade
Mar 12: The Indian Ocean: commerce, culture, and communication
Mar 14: Discussion

Reading:
Stephen Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1-44 [on reserve]
Janet Rizvi, "Silk, Spices, and Salt: The Trades of Inner Asia" in Trans-Himalayan Caravans, 3-21 [on reserve]
Om Prakash, "Introduction" and "India in the Indian Ocean Trade c.1500" in European Commercial Enterprise in Colonial India, 1-22 [on reserve]

Documents:
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE)
The Travels of Ibn Batuta (1354) [Read Chs. XIV-XVI]

Image: 360° panaromic view from the summit of Mount Everest

Week IX: The First Europeans

Mar 17: Special guest: Prof. Richard Eaton, University of Arizona
Mar 19: The Portuguese and the Estado da India
Mar 21: The Jesuits in India: religion, politics, and cultural exchange

Reading:
M.N Pearson, "The Portuguese arrival in India" and "Catholics and Hindus" in The Portuguese in India, 5-39, 116-130 [on reserve]
Paul Axelrod and Michelle A. Fuerch, "Flight of the Deities: Hindu Resistance in Portuguese Goa" in Modern Asian Studies, 30:2 (1996), 387-421 [on reserve]

Documents:
Vasco da Gama, "Round Africa to India" (1498)
Francis Xavier, "Letter from Goa" (1542)
Pope Gregory XIII, "Letter to Akbar"; Jesuit letters from Fatehpur Sikri (1580-83) [on reserve]
Jahangir, "Letter to King James I of England" (1617)

Week X: The Rise of the Mughals

Mar 31: Babur, Humayun, and early Mughal political competition
Apr 2: Akbar and his world
Apr 4: Discussion

Reading:
Asher & Talbot, 115-151
Embree, 463-489
Rosalind O'Hanlon, "History, Gender, and Imperial Service under Akbar" in Modern Asian Studies, 41:5 (2007), 889-923 [on reserve]

Document:
Baburnama (Memoirs of Zahir ud-din Muhammad Babur) [selections] (1530)

Suggested film: Jodhaa Akbar (2008)

Week XI: The Apogee of the Mughals

Apr 7: Mughal social, agrarian, and administrative systems
Apr 9: Imperial patronage: art, architecture, and literature
Apr 11: Discussion

Reading:
Asher & Talbot, 152-185
Satish Chandra, "Mughal-Rajput Relations in the seventeenth century: Problems of a Class Alliance" in Essays on Medieval Indian History, 407-445 [on reserve]
Ahsan Jan Qaisar, The Indian Response to European Technology and Culture, 85-127 [on reserve]

Document:
François Bernier, "An Account of India and the Great Moghul" (1655)

Images:
Paintings from the Bharat Kala Bhavan Paintings from the Royal Ateliers
Jahangir Shah Jahan Mughal Princess Jalim Shah and Sher Shah
Walajah Shah Bedarbakhsh 360° panaromic view of the Taj Mahal

Week XII: Challenges to Mughal Hegemony

Apr 14: The Sikhs of the Punjab
Apr 16: Shivaji and the Maratha Confederacy
Apr 18: Discussion

Reading:
Asher & Talbot, 186-224
Embree, 491-510
J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab, 1-8, 28-81 [on reserve]
M.N. Pearson, "Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire" in Journal of Asian Studies, 35:2 (1976), 221-235 [on reserve]

Week XIII: The Decline of the Mughals and the rise of the British

Apr 21: Mughal fragmentation and the growth of successor states
Apr 23: The East India Company and the British conquest of Bengal
Apr 25: Discussion

Reading:
Asher & Talbot, 225-291
Richard Barnett, North India Between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and the British, 1720-1801, 1-41 [on reserve]
Om Prakash, "The Supremacy of the East India Company, 1740-1800" in European Commercial Enterprise in Colonial India, 268-314 [on reserve]

Documents:
Aurangzeb, Farewell (1707)
Robert Clive, Letter to William Pitt regarding British policy in Bengal (1759)
East India Company Act of 1767
Robert Clive, Speech in the House of Commons on India (1772)
Warren Hastings, Letter to Court of Directors of the East India Company (1783)
Edmund Burke, Speech in the House of Commons on India (1783)

Week XIV: Conclusion: The British Raj and the Origins of Modern India

Apr 28: The Orientalists, the Bengal Renaissance, the Anglo-Indian encounter
Apr 30: Conclusion: some final thoughts about India in the "Age of Empire"

Reading:
Om Prakash, "Conclusion" in European Commercial Enterprise in Colonial India, 337-351 [on reserve]
Bernard S. Cohn, "The Command of Language and the Language of Command" in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies IV, 276-329 [on reserve]

Documents:
Rammohan Roy, "A defense of Hindu theism" (1817) and "Remarks on settlement in India by Europeans" (1832)

Suggested films: Shatranj ke Kilhari (1977), The Deceivers (1988)