Question

Critically examine the limitations of the inscriptional evidence in understanding political and economic history of India.

Answer 1

• Although several thousand inscriptions have been discovered, not all have been deciphered, published and translated.
• Many more inscriptions must have existed, which have not survived the ravages of time.
• The content of inscriptions almost invariably projects the perspective of the person(s) who, commissioned them.
• Routine agricultural practices and the joys and sorrows of daily existence find no mention in inscriptions.
• From the mid-twentieth century onwards, issues such as economic change, and the ways in which different social groups emerged have assumed far more importance for the historians which led to fresh investigations of old sources, and the development of new strategies of analysis.
• Thus, the inscriptions had limitations in interpreting the political and economic history of India.