000			01176nam a22001817a 4500
020			_a0195637984
020			_a978019563784
082			_a934 _b23798
100			_aRomila Thapar.
245			_aTime As a Metaphor of History : Early India. _hEglish
260			_aDelhi _bOxford University Press, _c1996.
300			_a53
500			_a It has long been maintained that the only concept of time known to early India was cyclic. This in part accounts for the Indian denial of history, since a sense of history is based on linear time. This study sets the argument in the context of links between time and history. It indicates the existence of linear time in Indian texts, such as genealogies, biographies, and chronicles, where time-reckoning was recorded through generations, regnal years and eras. It is suggested that cyclic and linear time were both used, but that their functions differed. Cyclic time occurs frequently in cosmological contexts and linear time in historical sources. The author argues that historical consciousness existed in early India.
650			_aHindu chronology
650			_aHistoriography
650			_aHistory--Philosophy
942			_cBK
999			_c80667 _d80667