Research Catalog

Mega mammals in ancient India : rhinos, tigers, and elephants

Title

Mega mammals in ancient India : rhinos, tigers, and elephants / Shibani Bose.

Author

Bose, Shibani

Publication

New Delhi, India : Oxford University Press, 2020.
©2020

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Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	QL729.I4 B67 2020	Off-site

Details

Description

xix, 360 pages : illustrations (black and white), maps (black and white); 23 cm

Summary

"The book ventures to look into eras bygone in order to chronicle the passage of three mega species--the rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), tiger (Panthera tigris), and elephant (Elephas maximus)--across millennia in early north India. It carefully sifts through an archive comprising faunal remains and visual depictions retrieved from the archaeological record as well as a gamut of Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, and classical Western accounts to document the presence of these mega animals in various cultural niches from hunter-gatherer societies to the first urban civilization of India and beyond. The narrative goes beyond treating these species as mere cultural icons to one that is also sensitive to their importance as markers of ecology. The focus is two-fold: to comprehend perceptions, attitudes, and sensibilities oscillating between veneration and persecution in order to reconstruct the cultural dimensions of human-megafaunal relations in the past, as also to use these species to understand the larger ecology of ancient India. At a time when the conservation of our megafaunal heritage is a major concern for biologists, ecologists as well as conservationists, this book underlines the need to historicize human interactions with these mega mammals keeping in mind that an animal's past is critical in thinking about its future"--Publisher's description.

Subject

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-346) and index.

Additional Formats (note)

Also available as an e-book.

ISBN

9780190120412
019012041X
9780199099870 (canceled/invalid)
0199099871 (canceled/invalid)
9780199099887 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2020330989

OCLC

on1193330962
1193330962
SCSB-14604966

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries