Studying Social History: A Plea for Going Back to Literature

This article makes a plea for a literary return in studying social history. It assumes that literary texts are products of particular social milieus and that they yield important data for social history. More particularly, it argues that when the same theme is taken up in literary works produced in two successive ages, they help in documenting social changes. This is sought to be illustrated with the help of two of the canonical mahākāvyas (poetic epics) in Sanskrit, namely the Kirātārjunīya of Bhāravi and the Śisupālavadha of Magha, both developing their themes from the Mahabhārata. The article underlines the importance of reading literary texts with a sense of history and writing history with a literary sensibility.