Q1.
There are a few images of different sources of history on the next page. Who and what do you think the objects show? Write down in the boxes next to the images any information that you get from these objects.
Answer
Page 69 shows three objects, one from each of three different families of sources. Look at them carefully before reading on — then compare with the notes below.
| Object on page 69 | What you can see | What a historian reads from it |
|---|---|---|
| Top left — a gold coin Archaeological source (coins / inscriptions) | A king with a halo behind his head, sitting cross-legged on a couch and playing a vīṇā. Around the rim runs a line of writing in an old script (Brahmi). | That gold was available and could be minted, so the kingdom was wealthy. That the ruler chose to show himself as a musician, not a warrior, tells us the arts were valued at court. The writing gives the ruler's name and titles — this is the well-known “lyrist” type gold coin of the Gupta ruler Samudragupta (4th century CE). Coins also show us the script, the language and the trade of a period. |
| Right — a carved stone panel Artistic source (sculptures and panels) | A tall stone slab with an arched top, framed by two carved pillars and divided into two storeys. Above: a crowned figure seated on a throne under a parasol, with attendants around. Below: a busy scene with figures and what looks like a boat. | The parasol and throne mark royalty or divinity; carved panels usually tell a story from an epic or a religious text. Such a panel is evidence of temple architecture, of the sculptor's tools and skill, of dress, ornaments, hairstyles, musical instruments and boats of the time — details no written text bothers to record. |
| Bottom left — the Lion Capital Archaeological source (monuments and structures) | Four lions standing back to back on a round drum. The drum carries a wheel (chakra) and animals; below it is a bell-shaped inverted lotus. The stone is beautifully polished. | This is the Lion Capital of Aśhoka from Sarnath, near Varanasi, carved in the 3rd century BCE — the top of one of Aśhoka's pillars. It shows a strong, organised state that could quarry, carve, polish and transport huge stones; the wheel and the animals carry the message the emperor wanted spread. India adopted it as the State Emblem on 26 January 1950, and its wheel is the Ashoka Chakra at the centre of the national flag — a 2,200-year-old source still in daily use. |
Notice what the three objects have in common:
- All three are durable — gold and stone. That is a warning: things made of cloth, wood, palm leaf or mud rot away, so what survives is not a fair sample of the past.
- All three come from rulers or temples. Ordinary people's lives have to be reconstructed from humbler things — potsherds, tools, grains, house floors.
- Each one answers a different kind of question: the coin gives a name and a date, the panel gives a way of life, the capital gives the power and reach of a state.
How to write your own boxes: for each image, note four things — (1) what it is made of, (2) what is shown on it, (3) who probably made it and for whom, and (4) one question it does not answer. That last point is the honest bit: the coin will not tell you what a farmer ate.