Question

write in detail about the different sources of literature available to students of Indian history

Answer 1

The ancient literature and the religious books are important sources of information for the reconstruction of ancient Indian history. Their classification is simple – religious and secular literature, historical literature and foreign accounts.

Answer 2

Answer: Literary sources are divided into three categories: Religious literature, secular literature and accounts of foreign authors.

Explanation: Our understanding of our past emanates from various sources. These sources have been, conventionally, categorised as literary and archaeological. Albeit this distinction doesn’t exist in an absolute sense, it remains axiomatic to any study of historical sources.

Literary sources encompass all kinds of texts. Even those texts which did not exist in written form are included in literary sources.

Literary sources are divided into three categories: Religious literature, Secular literature and accounts of foreign authors. This categorization, too, isn’t absolute. This is because almost every historical text contains religious flavour.

Under religious texts, Brahminical texts, Buddhist texts, Jain texts are included. These are very important in the reconstruction of ancient Indian history.