Pastoralisms and Civilizations

Speaker: Prof. Thomas R. Trautmann, well-known scholar of Ancient India and Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology, University of Michigan; and considered one of the world's leading experts on the Arthashastra, the ancient Hindu text on kinship

 

Chair: Prof. Nayanjot Lahiri

 

This lecture will show how the pastoralisms of the ancient civilizations differ from one another, especially the role of animals in armies. The distinctive ideal of Indian “fourfold” armies added elephants to threefold armies of cavalry, chariotry and infantry. This configuration helps explain why the first unification of India by the Nandas and Mauryas came from the eastern region, with its abundance of wild elephants, and not its western region, exposed to the Persian Empire