Indian Philosophy - Classification

Along with the handout on the Philosophy that was distributed today, here is one article on the same issue. The article goes further deep into the classification of the Indian Darshans and in the process explains many other things as well. Pune University's Philosophy Department has been publishing a magazine called 'Paramarsh' for last many decades. Many fine minds have written articles in the quarterly. The present article was also published in Paramarsha.

Link to the article

PS - Its essentially only for additional reading when you have done your regular work.
PS - I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to those who can't read Marathi. Unfortunately, I could not find the translation of the article online.

Craft Traditions of India

There are two NCERT books on craft traditions of India. These books offer excellent overview of all the crafts. Link to the books can be found here -

Living Craft Traditions of India - Class 11
Craft Traditions of India - Past, Present and Future - Class 12

Art and Culture - Link

Centre for Cultural Resource and Training, India - CCRTIndia

The website of the institution can be found here.

The site is particularly helpful for our Art and Culture preparation for Prelim. It is one of the few comprehensive and authoritative sites on Indian Arts and Culture. There are three sections namely, Visual Arts, Performing Arts and Literary Arts. The topics covered in these sections are -

Visual Arts - Indian Architecture, Indian Sculpture, Indian Painting
Performing Arts - Dances, Music, Theatre Forms, Puppet Forms
Literary Arts - Ancient to Contemporary Literature

The institution was started by Kamaladevi Chattopadhya and Kapila Vatsayan (both Padma Vibhushan awardees) about 4 decades ago.

Kamaladevi Chattopdhyay is most remembered for her contribution to the Indian independence movement; for being the driving force behind the renaissance of Indian handicrafts, handlooms, and theatre in independent India; and for upliftment of the socio-economic standard of Indian women by pioneering the co-operative movement. Its not possible to record the post-independence cultural renaissance in the country without acknowledging Kamaladevi's monumental contributions. She is the one who made the terracotta Bankura Horse the emblem of Indian Handicraft. You can read an article on Kamaladevi by Ramchandra Guha published in TheHindu to grasp the vista of this immense personality.

Kapila Vatsayan is a leading Indian scholar of classical Indian dance, Indian art and Indian architecture and art historian. She was the also founder director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Delhi, and continues as its chairperson. She has also served as secretary to the government of India and the Ministry of Education, department of Arts and Culture, in which she was responsible for the establishment of many institutions of higher education in India. She is also the chairperson of Asia Project, of India International Centre (IIC), Delhi.

Reference - Wikipedia

Ancient India Books

There is one more old NCERT book on Ancient India by Makkhan Lal.
Here is the link to download.

The book which most of us often use for Ancient is the one written by RS Sharma. However, considering his ideological leanings, the book was taken off for some political reasons and was replaced by Makkhan Lal's book. Both the books appear to be largely similar with very fine and few differences in nuances which can be ignored insofar as the Prelim preparation is concerned. Both the books are rich in facts. This book can be used if you can't avail the RS Sharma's photocopy.

The treatment of South India is more considerate in this book. Additionally, there are a few chapters in this book which are not covered in the same length in RS Sharma's.
Chapter 21 - The History of Kamrupa
Chapter 23 - Cultural interactions with the outside world with special reference to SE Asia

During those years when RS book was banned, he published the same book with the help of Oxford Publications in private as a form of personal protest. The book can be bought online here.

New NCERT History Books

Whenever one starts reading history for upsc, s/he is often told by seniors that reading 'old' history books is sine qua non. And history mostly never changes, at least at the school level. However the very fact that NCERT has produced new series of books means something has changed. What is that something? And does that mean we need to read new books and can skip the old ones? Or do we need to read old as well as new? There are 4 old books and 6 new books. Its a daunting task for sure.

New books were shaped in light of National Curriculum Framework 2005. What has changed is not much of history at the school level but the pedagogy of imparting knowledge. What the NCERT wants young people to know now is not mere the chronology of dynasties anymore. They want us to know the undercurrents which shaped history. History is one of the easier social science subjects to imbibe values and the values to be imbibed change with time. And thus do the history books. The whole structure of chapters therefore is modified in the new texts to a noticeable extent.

To simply understand the change in views - you can see the title 'Our Pasts.' Its not 'Our Past'. It brings in post-modernist, de-constructivist, sub-altern perspective. Not everyone's ancestors experienced the same history. We don't share the same past but have multiple pasts.

Many often find history to be factual, unexciting and boring. NCERT has attempted to make the new books interesting by including many stories as well as analyses. It has tried to avoid unnecessary facts and has inserted many factoids, tidbits, boxes, charts, pictures. The whole experience of knowledge consumption is undergoing considerable change which is being captured here.

Conclusion - Not that the new books replace the old ones. Old  books are still non-optional. However, the new ones add value and are helpful. If you get time, try to go through them.

Ancient -
Our Pasts 1
Themes in Indian History 1

Medieval -
Our Pasts 2
Themes in Indian History 2

Modern -
Our Pasts 3
Themes in Indian History 3