Ideology and Interpretation

• Romila Thapar was born in 1931 in India to a well-known Punjabi family, spending her childhood in various parts of India due to her father’s military career.
• She completed her first degree in India from Punjab University and earned her doctorate from London University in 1958.
• She taught Ancient Indian History at London University, Delhi University, and Jawaharlal Nehru University.
• Thapar has been an honorary fellow at Lady Margaret Hall (Oxford) and served as a Professor-at-large at Cornell University (USA).
• She is currently an Emeritus Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
• Her academic interests focus on the social and cultural history of ancient India.
• Thapar has contributed to the field by highlighting the role of ideology in historical interpretation, particularly in the historiography of the early period.
• She uses a comparative method to study similar societies, drawing on literary, archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic, and other fields of Indology.

Works of Romila Thapar

• Romila Thapar has traveled extensively across Europe and Asia.
• In 1957, she undertook a study tour of Buddhist cave-sites in China, including Tun-Huang in the Gobi desert.
• While in London, she frequently broadcasted from the BBC.
• Key publications by Romila Thapar include:
  1. A Study of the Emperor Asoka
  2. Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (1961, 1973)
  3. From Lineage to State (1984)
  4. Indian Tales
  5. The Past and Prejudice
  6. Exile and the Kingdom: Some Thoughts on the Ramayana (1978)
  7. Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations (1978)
  8. The History of India (1990)
  9. Interpreting Early India (1993)
  10. History and Beyond (2000)
• Her writings delve into the historical development of Indian society.