INEVITABILITY OF REWRITING INDIAN HISTORY FROM A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE
It was Voltaire who for the first time put forth the idea of history as philosophy. Since then even this idea of what does History as Philosophy mean has been debated. As a result there can be no single answer to the question what is history. The nature of history as a body of knowledge and the nat...
| Published in: | Journal of Dharma |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Dharmaram College
2003
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| In: |
Journal of Dharma
Year: 2003, Volume: 28, Issue: 2, Pages: 232-245 |
| Further subjects: | B
Feminism
B Indian History |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | It was Voltaire who for the first time put forth the idea of history as philosophy. Since then even this idea of what does History as Philosophy mean has been debated. As a result there can be no single answer to the question what is history. The nature of history as a body of knowledge and the nature of the sources of history make it difficult, if not impossible, for all of us to have one common understanding of history. For we see the past through someone else’s eyes, someone whose knowledge of the past depends on her own views, her own ‘present’. Besides, the whole past cannot be recovered, it is only fragments of it as has been recorded by the then historians, or what has been discovered and unearthed that can be compiled and interpreted. Every fact can be interpreted in many ways depending on what we are looking for and why. While historians do not invent facts, they prioritise facts and ignore others. Since, to a great extent, history is an interpretation of such evidences that have come down to us, history that we read is the interpretation of the historian. Therefore, the idea of history that any people hold is a reflection of their view of society at that particular time in history. This explains why even the very focus of history has varied from age to age. This also explains the absence of women in history. After all who has written history so far? What has been the dominant view of history? What has been the object of the history written so far? |
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| ISSN: | 0253-7222 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Dharma
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