Romila Thapar
Sign in to saveIndian historian (born 1931)
OverviewAI-generated
Romila Thapar is an Indian historian, university teacher, writer, and professor. Born in Lucknow in 1931, she is a citizen of India, the British Raj, and the Dominion of India. She speaks English and is known by the name रोमिला थापर in her native language. Thapar has been employed by Jawaharlal Nehru University and received her education at Panjab University, SOAS, and the University of London.
She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Philosophical Society. Her awards include the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, the Kluge Prize, and fellowship in the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her notable works include *Somanatha - The Many Voices of a History*, *Sakuntala Texts, Readings, Histories*, *Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas*, *Somanatha*, and *Indien; von den Anfängen bis zum Kolonialismus*.
Synthesized by Vinony from 18 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Works
- 72
Top works
- Somanatha -The Many Voices of a History
- Sakuntala Texts,Readings,Histories
- Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
- Somanatha
- Indien; von den Anfängen bis zum Kolonialismus
via Open Library + Wikidata
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1931-11-30 ) 30 November 1931 (age 94) , Lucknow , United Provinces , British India
- Occupations
- Historian, Writer
- Known for
- Authoring books about Indian history
- Father
- Daya Ram Thapar
- Relatives
- Romesh Thapar (brother), Valmik Thapar (nephew), Pran Nath Thapar (uncle), Karan Thapar (cousin)
- Awards
- Kluge Prize , 2008.
- Alma mater
- Panjab University , SOAS University of London ( PhD )
- Thesis
- Asoka and the decline of the Mauryas
- Doctoral advisor
- Arthur Llewellyn Basham
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- female
- Citizenship
- Dominion of India
- Place of birth
- Lucknow
- Occupation
- professor
- Educated at
- SOAS, University of London
- Employer
- Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Field of work
- history
- Image
- Thapr2.jpg
Show 4 more facts
- date of birth
- 1931-11-30
- member of
- American Philosophical Society
- Commons category
- Romila Thapar
- name in native language
- रोमिला थापर
via Wikidata · CC0
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Romila Thapar (born 30 November 1931) is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent. Thapar is a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Thapar's special contribution is the use of social-historical methods to understand change in the mid-first millennium BCE in northern India. As lineage-based Indo-Aryan pastoral groups moved into the Gangetic Plain, they created rudimentary forms of caste-based states. The epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata, in her analysis, offer vignettes of how these groups and others negotiated new, more complex, forms of loyalty in which stratification, purity, and exclusion played a greater if still fluid role.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Romila Thapar” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.