Sharma was foremost among the Indian intellectuals who wanted historians to realise that the discipline of history was not just about what happened in the past but what its lessons were for imaginatively and intelligently responding to the challenges of the present.[13]
He passed matriculation in 1937 and joined Patna College, where he studied for six years from intermediate to postgraduate classes.[9] He did his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London under Professor A. L. Basham.[14]His PhD thesis on the history of Sudras in Ancient India was published as a book by Motilal Banarsidass in 1958, with a revised edition in 1990.[15][16]
In the opinion of fellow historian Professor Irfan Habib, "D. D. Kosambi and R. S. Sharma, together with Daniel Thorner, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time."[18] Prof. Dwijendra Narayan Jha published a book in his honour in 1996, titled "Society and Ideology in India: ed. Essays in Honour of Professor R. S. Sharma" (Munshiram Manoharlal, Delhi, 1996).[19] In his honour, a selection of essays was published by the K. P. Jaiswal Research Institute, Patna in 2005.
Sharma combined lifelong commitment to high-quality historical research on ancient India with equal commitment to high-quality teaching and imparting historical knowledge to several generations of students, a large number of whom grew under his care and guidance into serious scholars and researchers in their own right and enriched the profession.[13] Further, he was also engaged for a large part of his life in nurturing and building institutions engaged in the teaching of history and historical research.[13]
In his writings Professor Sharma has focused on early Indian social structure, material and economic life, state formation and political ideas and the social context of religious ideologies and has sought to underline the historical processes which shaped Indian culture and civilisation.[8] In his study of each of these aspects of Ancient Indian History he has laid stress on the elements of change and continuity.[8] This has significantly conditioned his methodology which basically rests on a critical evaluation of sources and a correlation between literary texts with archaeology and ethnography.[8] His methodology is being increasingly extended to the study of various aspects of Indian history just as the problems studied by him and the questions raised by him have generated a bulk of historical literature in recent years.[8]
The publication of his monograph Indian Feudalism in 1965 caused almost a furore in the academia, generating intense debate and sharp responses both in favour of and against the applicability of the model of "feudalism" to the Indian situation at any point of time.[11] The concept of "feudalism" was initially used by D. D. Kosambi to analyse the developments in the socio-economic sphere in the late ancient and medieval periods of Indian history.[25] Sharma, while differing from Kosambi on certain significant points, added a great deal of depth to the approach with his painstaking research and forceful arguments.[11] The work has been called his magnum opus.[11] Criticism goaded Sharma into reinforcing his thesis by producing another work of fundamental importance, Urban Decay in India (c.300-1000), in which he marshalled an impressive mass of archaeological data to demonstrate the decline of urban centres, a crucial element of his thesis on feudalism.[11] It won him the H.K. Barpujari award instituted by the Indian History Congress.[11] However, the redoubtable professor was unstoppable, and in his Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation (Orient Longman, 2001), he further rebutted the objections of his critics point by point.[11]
On his death, at a function organised by the Indian Council of Historical Research and hosted by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, historians Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, D. N. Jha, Satish Chandra, Kesavan Veluthat and ICHR Chairperson Basudev Chatterji paid rich tributes to Sharma and emphasised his influence.[33] Professor Bipan Chandra considered him to be "greatest historian of India", after D.D. Kosambi.[34] Irfan Habib said, "D. D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma, together with Daniel Thorner, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time."[35]
India has been home to many innovations right from the very beginning. The ancient innovations influenced the economic status of prevailing rulers at that time. They even contributed to competitive advantage and helped in maintaining environmental sustainability. The issues such as sustainability and environment were always considered as important in the Indian history. Several rulers have initiated policies and built structures that we now call as sustainable and environment friendly. The paper is an attempt to study the ancient sustainable innovations in three categories and provide analytical study. Sustainable innovation is about creation of something new that ameliorates the performance in terms of economics, environment and social context. According to the ancient scriptures, Indian culture always believed in maintaining a traditionally toned clean atmosphere and living in peace with nature. Ancient rulers from Chola, Solanki and Asaf Jahi dynasties and many more, deployed innovative and sustainable techniques for managing available resources. Innovations include advanced irrigation and water management system created by Indus valley civilization. Other examples include artificial reservoir at Girnar that dates back to 3000 BCE. The hot and dry climate of India was the reason behind water management practices adopted in ancient India. Sophisticated water reservoirs, stepwells were built that not only preserved water but also a remarkable example of ancient Indian architecture. Historical evidence throws light on importance of water management in ancient India. Waste was never considered as a waste in ancient India. It was used as a resource for compost, organic manure used in farming. The waste management practices focused mostly on recycling of the waste products. Cooking was done by burning wood or coal, and the carbon was broken down below. People used to eat freshly cooked food, therefore there was no need for packing that would harm the environment. Even there was no need for refrigerators to keep food fresh. Ancient Indians also recognized the importance of health and wellness management, practices like yoga and Ayurveda. There were well-known practices for maintaining mental and physical well-being in India practiced by people since time immemorial. Health practices were mostly based on preventive approaches. A physician by the name of Susruta, who practiced medicine and surgery at a university in Benares, India, about the year 600 BCE, is known to have been a fervent proponent of the tridosa theory. Literature mentions a well-staffed hospital that used to function from temple during Chola reigns. There was provision for making drugs from natural resources such as ghee, oil, and water.
However, dating meditation is problematic without a robust definition of what it actually is, especially as most ancient practices were transmitted orally over many generations before being committed to writing.
Indigenous forms of Western meditation have existed since the ancient Greeks (Ustinova, 2020) and can be broadly divided into pagan and Christian practices. The European peoples that populate much of the West practiced a variety of indigenous religions with roots in animism and polytheism prior to widespread Christianization in the 7th century CE.
For example, Druidry is a pre-Christian pagan tradition that was practiced by the ancient Celtic people from the west of Ireland to Britain, the west of France and the northwest of Spain (Nichols, 1996).
Mindfulness meditation can be traced back to the first written records of yogic meditation in the Vedas (Sharma, 2015). The ancient practice of yoga involved very little reference to postures and placed a greater emphasis on stillness, a focus on breathing, and being fully aware of the body in the present moment.
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