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Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies in one territory by people from another territory.

It is the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture of one society into another.

The early writings of Karl Marx showed that capitalist mode of production generates four types of alienation: alienation of man in the workplace; alienation of man from his product; alienation of man from his species life; and, alienation of man from man.

By the end of the 18th century itself the Enlightenment faced a challenge from a group of intellectuals who were identified as Romantics.

Theorists of Enlightenment cherished liberty and freedom. For them, these were the highest and the most cherished values, and they were critical of despotism for not sufficiently safeguarding these values.

The ideas of the Enlightenment, in particular, its faith in scientific method of investigation, its optimism that the new era of scientific-technological advancement and industrialization would lead to a world filled with happiness for all and its attempts to create a social order based on the principles of human reason, tolerance and equality, affected a […]

The earliest Dravidian language to be developed for literary purposes was Tamil, in which there is an extensive corpus of lyric poetry dating to the early centuries of the Christian era, as well as an important grammatical work, the Tolkappiyam.

Taking Western and Eastern Hindi together, along with their various dialects, Hindi occupies the most central position and also covers a much larger area than any other language. On the other hand the modern form of literary Hindi was developed very late, in fact not until the end of the eighteenth century.

Middle Indo-Aryan is divided into three stages, and it covers a period ranging from 500 B.C. to a.d. 1000. The first stage is represented by Pali and the inscriptions of Asoka and later rulers, and comprises the period up to shortly after the Christian era. The term Prakrit, when used in the narrow sense, applies […]

The Middle Indo-Aryan languages first came into use as vehicles for the teachings of Buddha and Mahavlra, but the first examples recorded in writing are the inscriptions of Asoka. Particular interest attaches to these, since they are recorded in various local dialects, of which there are three main varieties, the eastern or Magadhi, the western, […]

The Vedic literature, verse and prose, was composed and handed down orally. This was a remarkable achievement, and it was only possible be­cause there existed a class of people, the Brahmans, the major effort of whose lives was devoted to this end. At the same time it had a limiting effect, inas­much as such literature […]

The next milestone in the history of Sanskrit is the Grammar of Panini, which describes in complete detail a form of the language younger than that of the Brahmanas, and based on the spoken usage of the educated Brahmans of the time.

The literary tradition of India goes back more than 3,000 years, and during the greater part of this time it was dominated by Sanskrit, first in its Vedio, and later in its classical form. The early Aryan invaders of India brought with them, along with other elements of a developed culture, a language of great […]

Freedom of speech provided the speech was not to the king’s face, and freedom of movement were accepted; likewise freedom to agitate and propa­gate theories of an intellectual character, whether or not these had practical implications.

The discovery in the Arthasastra of recommendations which are un­ethical by Indian standards is thus to be reconciled, for without artha (material advantage) dharma cannot be practised, nor kama obtained, without which sons cannot be born to worship gods and ancestors, and thus moksha itself is in jeopardy. The need, psychologically, for moksha explained all […]

Upon what did this obedience to the king rest? We have seen that in most ancient times his powers were circumscribed. Though a human fertility ‘deity’, he was, in his political aspects, more of an expedient than a necessity, so long as the tribe had not acquired for itself dominion over strangers.