Abstract
Nineteenth-century Orientalists stressed other-worldly, unchanging qualities in ancient India and accepted almost unquestioningly the Sanskrit tradition. James Mill condemned village societies and despotic rulers, and formulated the Hindu, Muslim, and British periodization. of Indian history. Nationalist historians of the 1920s accepted and glorified the Sanskritic tradition and gave primacy to political and dynastic history. However, by raising controversy they created the need for more precise historical writing relating to social history, economic organization of land and commerce, and local history. The precise nature of social relations, political power, and economic organization are now the concerns, and old assumptions about a static and homogeneous Indian society and about Mill's periodization are being rejected.