The Idea of Ancient India - Essays on Religion, Politics, and Archaeology

Introduction I. Religion and Region Sanchi: The History of the Patronage of an Ancient Buddhist Establishment Nagarjunakonda: Buddhism in the ‘City of Victory’ Cults and Shrines in Early Historical Mathura (c. 200 BC to AD 200) Early Medieval Orissa: The Data and the Debate II. Archaeologists And The Modern Histories Of Ancient Sites Archaeologists and Architectural Scholars in 19th-Century India Amaravati: The Dismembering of the Mahacaitya (1797–1886) Buddhism, Archaeology, and the Nation: Nagarjunakonda (1926–2006) Exile and Return: The Reinvention of Buddhism and Buddhist Sites in Modern India III. The Intersection Of Political Ideas And Practice Governing the State and the Self: Political Philosophy and Practice in the Edicts of Aśoka Politics, Violence, and War in Kamandaka's Nītisara The Power of a Poet: Kingship, Empire, and War in Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa IV. Looking Beyond India To Asia Gifts from Other Lands: Southeast Asian Religious Endowments in India Politics, Piety, and Patronage: The Burmese Engagement with Bodhgaya Index