The historiography of India refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to develop a history of India.

In recent decades there have been four main schools of historiography in how historians study India: Cambridge, Nationalist, Marxist, and subaltern. The once common "Orientalist" approach, with its image of a sensuous, inscrutable, and wholly spiritual India, has died out in serious scholarship.

Sources

Foreign Well-known foreign accounts of Indian history come from the following sources:

Indica (Megasthenes) by MegasthenesAllan Dahlaquist (1996). Megasthenes and Indian Religion: A Study in Motives and Types. Motilal Banarsidass. . A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Foguo Ji 佛國記) by Faxian Kitāb al-Hind by Al-Biruni Tuḥfat an-Nuẓẓār fī Gharāʾib al-Amṣār wa ʿAjāʾib al-Asfār by Ibn Battuta; Great Tang Records on the Western Regions by XuanzangDeeg, Max (2007). „Has Xuanzang really been in Mathurā? : Interpretatio Sinica or Interpretatio Occidentalia — How to Critically Read the Records of the Chinese Pilgrim.“ – In: 東アジアの宗教と文化 : 西脇常記教授退休記念論集 = Essays on East Asian religion and culture: Festschrift in honor of Nishiwaki Tsuneki on the occasion of his 65th birthday / クリスティアン・ウィッテルン, 石立善編集 = ed. by Christian Wittern und Shi Lishan. – 京都 [Kyōto] : 西脇常記教授退休記念論集編集委員會; 京都大学人文科學研究所; Christian Wittern, 2007, pp. 35 – 73. See p. 35 Descriptio Indiæ, by Joseph Tiefenthaler

Native Examples of native historiographical texts include: Harshacharita by Bhanabhatta Rajatarangini by Kalhana Ceylonese Buddhist chronicles, such as the Dīpavaṃsa, Mahāvaṃsa, and Cūḷavaṃsa Tārīkh-i Firishta (also known as Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) by Firishta Tārīkh-i-Firuz Shāhī by Ziauddin BaraniM. Athat Ali, "Elements of Social Justice in Medieval Islamic Thought" in Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri, Recording the Progress of Indian History: Symposia Papers of the Indian History Congress, 1992–2010, Primus Books, 2012, p. 197. Vicāraśreṇī by Merutunga Akbarnama by Abul FazlIllustration from the Akbarnama: History of Akbar Art Institute of Chicago Tughlaq Nama by Amir Khusrau Padshahnama by Abdul Hamid LahoriR. C. Majumdar, Historiography in Modern India (Bombay, 1970). Jawami ul-Hikayat by Muhammad Aufi Prithviraj Raso by Chand Bardai Tabaqat-i Nasiri by Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani Very few known Indian texts recording history before 15th century C.E. exist, hence, historical evidence for much of India's history comes through foreign historians. There is very little evidence of a native historiographical tradition in ancient India. Al-Biruni stated the following about local Indian histriography:

Ancient India never developed a strong historiographical tradition comparable to the ones that existed in the Greco-Roman, Chinese, and Islamic civilizations. However, it cannot be concluded that the ancient Indians lacked an understanding of objective historical writing, as there were some attempts akin to historiography. At various points in Indian history, there were efforts to record and chronicle the reigns of particular dynasties and rulers in India. Within the Vedic, Buddhist, Jain and other religious literature, the names of teachers are attentively recorded. The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned that in every province of India, there would be officials who would be responsible for documenting in-writing "good and evil events, calamities, and fortunate occurrences". Since the era of the Gupta ruler Samudragupta, ancient Indian rulers would have a renowned poet record their reigns and victories onto stone in the form of inscription. Romila Thapar instead states that it should be taken into account what the ancient Indians found relevant and why when evaluating any dearth of historiographical tradition. A. K. Warder opined that the regional historiographies of India must be considered, with historical writing in India becoming regionalized by the mediaeval-period from the 7th century onwards. There are historical works authored by the Chalukya, Rashtrakuta, Pala dynastical historiographies and also regional historiographical traditions in Kashmir, Sindhu, Gurjara, Jejakabhukti, Kamarupa, Kerala, Hoyasala, Andhra, Kalinga, and Maharashtra.

In modern-times, some attempts have been made to extract historiographical elements from Vedic literature and epic poetry, such as the Mahabharata or Ramayana. However, religious, mythical, and allegorical legends are too intermixed with Indic religious thought and philosophy that discerning and extracting any semblance of historiography from them is a difficult task. The Puranas mostly entail mythological elements with a facade of historicity. The corpuses of Pali and Prakrit literature of the era are mostly religious in nature. Thus, a historiographical tradition was not popular in India, barring a few examples. A true tradition of historiography was introduced to India after the Arabs captured Sindh, where they introduced history-writing and recording proper chronology. These Arab historiographers were later surmounted by historiographers who wrote in Persian, many of whom were sponsored by the ruling sultans of India.

Main schools

Orientalist approach The Orientalist approach was influenced both by imperialist attitudes and interests, and also fascination for the "exotic" East for Mediterranean and European writers and thinkers, captured in images by artists, that is embodied in a repeatedly-surfacing theme in the history of ideas in the West, called "Orientalism".

In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. The term Orientalism has come to acquire negative connotations in some quarters and is interpreted to refer to the study of the East by Westerners shaped by the attitudes of the era of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. When used in this sense, it often implies prejudiced, outsider-caricatured interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples. This viewpoint was most famously articulated and propagated by Edward Said in Orientalism (1978), a critical history of this scholarly tradition.

History Though there has been study of India from a western perspective since ancient times, the orientalist school gained prominence in the aftermath of the Age of Discovery.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the term Orientalist identified a scholar who specialized in the languages and literatures of the Eastern world. Among such scholars were officials of the East India Company, who said that the Arab culture, the Indian culture, and the Islamic cultures should be studied as equal to the cultures of Europe. Among such scholars is the philologist William Jones, whose studies of Indo-European languages established modern philology. Company rule in India favored Orientalism as a technique for developing and maintaining positive relations with the Indians—until the 1820s, when the influence of "anglicists" such as Thomas Babington Macaulay and John Stuart Mill led to the promotion of a Western-style education.Holloway (2006), pp. 1–2. "The Orientalism espoused by Warren Hastings, William Jones and the early East India Company sought to maintain British domination over the Indian subcontinent through patronage of Hindu and Muslim languages and institutions, rather than through their eclipse by English speech and aggressive European acculturation."

With a great increase in knowledge of Asia among Western specialists, increasing political and economic involvement in the region, and in particular the realization of the existence of close relations between Indian and European languages, by William Jones, there emerged more complex intellectual connections between the early history of Eastern and Western cultures. Some of these developments occurred in the context of Franco–British rivalry for control of India. Liberal economists, such as James Mill, denigrated Eastern civilizations as static and corrupt. Karl Marx characterized the Asiatic mode of production as unchanging, because of the economic narrowness of village economies and the State's role in production. "Oriental despotism" was generally regarded in Europe as a major factor in the relative failure of progress of Eastern societies.

In the course of the century Western archaeology spread across the Middle East and Asia. New national museums provided a setting for important archaeological finds, most of which were in this period bought back to Europe.

The first serious European studies of Buddhism and Hinduism were by the scholars Eugene Burnouf and Max Müller. In that time, the academic study of Islam also developed, and, by the mid-19th century, Oriental Studies was a well-established academic discipline in most European countries, especially those with imperial interests in the region. Yet, while scholastic study expanded, so did racist attitudes and stereotypes of Asian peoples and cultures. Scholarship often was intertwined with prejudicial racist and religious presumptions,J. Go, "'Racism' and Colonialism: Meanings of Difference and Ruling Practice in America's Pacific Empire" in Qualitative Sociology 27.1 (March 2004). to which the new biological sciences tended to contribute until the end of the Second World War.

Criticism and Decline In his book Orientalism (1978), cultural critic Edward Said redefines the term Orientalism to describe a pervasive Western tradition—academic and artistic—of prejudiced outsider-interpretations of the Eastern world, which was shaped by the cultural attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries.Tromans, 24 Since its publication, most academic discourse began to use the term "Orientalism" to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African societies. In Said's analysis, the West essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced in the service of imperial power. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the idea that Western society is developed, rational, flexible, and superior.Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terrorism, New York: Pantheon, 2004; ; p. 32. Furthermore, Said said that "The idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined", and that the subject of learned Orientalists "is not so much the East itself as the East made known, and therefore less fearsome, to the Western reading public".

The thesis of Edward Said's Orientalism develops Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony, and Michel Foucault's theorisation of discourse (the knowledge-power relation) to criticise the scholarly tradition of Oriental studies.

In the academy, the book Orientalism (1978) became a foundational text of post-colonial cultural studies.Xypolia, Ilia (2011). "Orientations and Orientalism: The Governor Sir Ronald Storrs". Journal of IslamicJerusalem Studies. 11: 25–43.

The once common "Orientalist" approach, with its image of a sensuous, inscrutable, and wholly spiritual India, has died out in serious scholarship.

Cambridge School