How can one begin to write a history of Tamil food? What can we learn if we read the archives for clues about how people lived, cooked, and ate instead of telling tales of rulers, wars, and power conflicts? What did spice mixtures taste like in the Tamil region before the introduction of hot chillies? And who must we really credit for the invention of that most iconic of Tamil dishes: sambhar? The fortunately vast historical record of texts in Tamil language, from the ancient period through the modern, provides ample food for thought. In her Talk, "Tastes of the Tamil Land: Recipes and Culinary Practices from History", Dr. Andrea Gutiérrez of the University of Texas at Austin, utilizes various archives of written material, from sangam poems and inscriptions to manuscripts and print cookbooks, in order to assemble a better picture of the culinary history of this region so well-known for its varied and delectable dishes. les of the era. She will also explore the relationships between the various Buddhist sites in the region. About The Speaker: Dr. Andrea Gutiérrez is Assistant Professor of Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. Her two research priorities are food history of South Asia and historical animal studies for the region. Her most recent publications include “Toward a Better Understanding of Medieval Temple Food Practices: The View from Srirangam” (Journal of Hindu Studies) and “Elephant Education, Linguistic Articulation, Punishment? Gajaśikṣā as Interspecies Communication in Elephant Care Manuals of Early India” (Bloomsbury). Dr. Gutiérrez is presently finishing her monograph on Royal Pleasures of the Dining in India’s History and is actively researching her project on captive elephant history of India. She was recently awarded a Getty Library Research Grant for work on food history (Getty Research Institute, 2022). Dr Gutierrez's work has been awarded a number of prizes, including the DK Award for the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis on Sanskrit (International Association of Sanskrit Studies) and the Specialist Accolade for Dissertation in the Humanities, from the International Convention of Asia Scholars.

A Conversation with Ashwin Prabhu on his book Sculpted Stones: Mysteries of Mamallapuram, 17th Feb, 5:30 pm, Sat

 

The Buddhist Patronage Networks of Early Historic Andhra. Prof Suchandra Ghosh. Feb 3, 2024.

Andhra is dotted with the remains of dozens of Buddhist stupas and monasteries starting from the early centuries BCE. The fertile plains of Krishna and Godavari deltas provided the rich agrarian hinterlands for these Buddhist sites, located along the coast as well as in the interior hinterlands. What were the social and economic linkages that sustained these early sites? And what were the interactions between the sites themselves? How did these centres influence the regions on the other side of the Bay of Bengal? In her online Talk, "From Amaravati to Salihundam and Beyond: The Buddhist Patronage Networks of Early Historic Andhra", Dr Suchandra Ghosh will utilise the numerous donative records at Amaravati to give us a glimpse of the lives and times of the people of that period as viewed through the lens of the Gahapatis who were wealthy agricultural notables of the era. She will also explore the relationships between the various Buddhist sites in the region. About The Speaker: Dr Suchandra Ghosh is Professor of Ancient Indian History in the department of History, University of Hyderabad. Her interests include Politico-Cultural History of Indo-Iranian Borderlands, Linkages between South and South-East Asia, Indian Ocean Buddhist and Trade Network and the history of Everyday Life. She is a recipient of the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship, Nehru Trust UK Travel Award, ENITAS Scholarship, Chulalongkarn University, Bangkok, Lowick Memorial Grant, Royal Numismatic Society, London, Director de Etudes Associe fellowship from Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme, Paris (2018). She was awarded the Savitri Chandra Shobha Memorial Prize of Indian History Congress, for the book From the Oxus to the Indus: A Political and Cultural Study in 2017. She has co-edited several books and published numerous essays and papers in international journals.