Northeast in Retrospect Bhutan Sikkim and Beyond

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Northeast India : the issues of identity and assimilation. 3. Bhutan: a glimpse of the Kingdom in the sky. 4. India and the Kingdom in the sky: Indo-Bhutanese trade relations (1772-1900). 5. Sikkim: the land of mist. 6. Sikkim and Darjeeling: the story of an estranged daughter. 7. The chronicle of the routes of trade and commerce: medieval Northern Bengal and its vicinity. Index. Glossary.

In Bhutan Sikkim and Beyond Dr. Malaysankar Bhattacharya summons up the past of an entire region comprising the medieval Himalayan states of Bhutan, Sikkim, and their immediate neighbourhood known as northeast India. His observations, critical of many age-old ideas are immensely captivating. The present work brings to light the contribution of the Mongoloids as well as Indo-Mongoloids to the Indian civilization. The Indianness of northeast India is a phenomenon yet to be studied thoroughly. The basis of this Indianness was actually formed by interactions between the so called Aryans, Dravidians and the Indo-Mongoloids in the remote past, Dr. Bhattacharya postulates. He draws his evidence from the epics, the puranas the epigraphs and oral traditions.

Besides ethnography the present volume first in a series of books to be published on the subject that also proposes to include Myanmar and some other countries and their neighboring Indian provinces, deals with the economy of the region either. The system of communications in the region and trade and commerce that played a dominant part in the life of its people in medieval and early modern periods have not yet been studied thoroughly. This book seeks to fill this void in a remarkable way. Archival materials have been expansively used for this part of the work. (Jacket)