How do the historians divide the past into periods? Do they face any problems in doing so?
Time is not just passing of hours, days or years for historians. Instead it is the reflection of social, economic, cultural and religious changes that occur through the ages. Division of past into large segments—periods—make it easy to study time for historians. British historians, in the middle of the nineteenth century, divided time into three periods—Hindu, Muslim and British. This division was made on the basis of the fact that no significant change other than the religion of the rulers could occur during these periods. But as a matter of fact this division ignored the rich diversity of the subcontinent. Few historians take this periodisation even today while most of them take the economic and social factors into account in order to characterize the major elements of different moments of the past. The history of the past thousand years has seen considerable changes. As a result the sixteenth century was not the same as the eighteenth century or the eighth or eleventh centuries. Hence it is very difficult for the historians to describe the entire period as one historical unit.
What sources do the historians use for the study of a particular period of history?[V. Imp.]
What difference do you trace out in the region of Hindustan of thirteenth century and the modem India?
State whether true or false:
Fill in the blanks:
(a) Archives are places where………….. are kept.
(b) …………….was a fourteenth-century chronicler.
(c) ……., ……., ………, ……… and ………… were some of the crops introduced into the subcontinent during this period.
Trace out the major changes in the society during 700 and 1750? What was its main reason? [V. Imp.]
What was the change in the religion of the time? Trace out major developments? [V. Imp.]
How do the historians divide the past into periods? Do they face any problems in doing so?
Find out where records are kept in your village or city. Who writes these records? Is there an archive? Who manages it? What kinds of documents are stored there? Who are the people who use it?
Compare either Map 1 or Map 2 with the present-day map of the subcontinent listing as many similarities and differences as you can find.