Romila Thapar

Romila Thapar, born on November thirtieth, nineteen thirty-one, is a distinguished Indian historian renowned for her expertise in ancient India. As a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, she has made significant contributions to the understanding of historical transformations in the region.

Thapar's scholarly work is particularly noted for its innovative use of social-historical methods, which she employs to analyze the changes occurring in northern India during the mid-first millennium BCE. Her research highlights the migration of lineage-based Indo-Aryan pastoral groups into the Gangetic Plain, where they established early forms of caste-based states.

In her acclaimed writings, including 'From Lineage to State', 'Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas', and 'Early India: From Origins to AD 1300', Thapar explores the complexities of social structures and loyalties as depicted in the epics 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata'. These texts serve as critical lenses through which she examines the evolving dynamics of stratification, purity, and exclusion.

Thapar's academic excellence has been recognized with numerous honorary doctorates from prestigious institutions such as the University of Chicago, University of Oxford, and University of Edinburgh. Additionally, she is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where she earned her Ph.D. in nineteen fifty-eight, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In two thousand eight, she was awarded the Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities and Social Sciences by the US Library of Congress.