The Irrigation And Water Supply Systems Of Vijayanagara

In This Book, The Author Explores How, With A Unique Mixture Of Science And Art, The Vijayanagara Kings Mastered And Controlled The Water Available To Provide For The Many And Varied Needs Of The Population, Both Urban And Agricultural. There Is Also A Relevance To The Wider Issues Concerning The Development Of Hydraulic Technology In General And Particularly In The Context Of Urban Settlement.

Series: Wageningen University Water Resources Series. This book analyses the struggle over water in a large-scale irrigation system in Raichur District, Karnataka, South India. It looks at water control as a simultaneously technical, managerial and socio-political process. The triangle of accommodation of different categories of farmers, irrigation department officials and local politicians, involving water, votes, money, employment, credit and harassment, is documented. The book shows that the physical infrastructure, notably the division structures, are signposts of struggle, expressing the balance of power between farmers and the irrigation department, and that between head- and tail-end farmers. It concludes with a discussion of irrigation reform efforts in India: reasons for the very slow transformation of the sector, and how a more integrated perspective on irrigation could provide directions for the way forward.

Volume Three offers 1643 annotated records on publications regarding the art and archaeology of South Asia, Central Asia and Tibet selected from the ABIA Index database at www.abia.net which were published between 2002 and 2007.

With the closure of the overland Silk Road in the fourteenth century following the collapse of the Mongol empire, the Indian Ocean provided the remaining vital link for wider cultural, political, and societal integrations prior to the Western colonial presence. Collectively, these studies explore the history of non-metropolitan urban settings c. 1400-1800 in the Indian Ocean realm, from the Ottoman Empire and the African coastline at the mouth of the Red Sea in the west to China in the east. This was an age of heightened international commercial exchange that pre-dated the European arrival, which in the Indian Ocean paired Islamic expansionism and political authority, and, alternately, in the case of mainland Southeast Asia, partnered Buddhism with new centralizing monarchies. While grounded in multi-disciplinary urban studies literature, the twelve studies in this collection explore secondary center networking, as this networking distinguishes secondary cities from metropolitan centers, which have traditionally received the most scholarly attention. The book features the research of international scholars, whose work addresses the representative history of small cities and urban networking in various parts of the Indian Ocean world in an era of change, allowing them the opportunity to compare approaches, methods, and sources in the hopes of discovering common features as well as notable differences. This volume is the result of a 2007 conference on "The Small City in Global Context," hosted by the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, intended to expand the field of urban studies by encouraging scholars of diverse global interests and specializations to explore the history of non-metropolitan urban settings.

Today our societies face great challenges with water, in terms of both quantity and quality, but many of these challenges have already existed in the past. Focusing on Asia, Water Societies and Technologies from the Past and Present seeks to highlight the issues that emerge or re-emerge across different societies and periods, and asks what they can tell us about water sustainability. Incorporating cutting-edge research and pioneering field surveys on past and present water management practices, the interdisciplinary contributors together identify how societies managed water resource challenges and utilised water in ways that allowed them to evolve, persist, or drastically alter their environment. The case studies, from different periods, ancient and modern, and from different regions, including Egypt, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Southwest United States, the Indus Basin, the Yangtze River, the Mesopotamian floodplain, the early Islamic city of Sultan Kala in Turkmenistan, and ancient Korea, offer crucial empirical data to readers interested in comparing the dynamics of water management practices across time and space, and to those who wish to understand water-related issues through conceptual and quantitative models of water use. The case studies also challenge classical theories on water management and social evolution, examine and establish the deep historical roots and ecological foundations of water sustainability issues, and contribute new grounds for innovations in sustainable urban planning and ecological resilience.

George Michell provides a pioneering and richly illustrated introduction to the architecture, sculpture and painting of Southern India under the Vijayanagara empire and the states that succeeded it. This period, encompassing some four hundred years, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, was endowed with an abundance of religious and royal monuments which remain as testimonies to the history and ideology behind their evolution. The author evaluates the legacy of this artistic heritage, describing and illustrating buildings, sculptures and paintings that have never been published before. In a previously neglected area of art history, the author presents an original and much-needed reassessment.

In this fascinating account of one of the least known parts of South Asia, Eaton recounts the history of the Deccan plateau in southern India from the fourteenth century to the rise of European colonialism. He does so, vividly, through the lives of eight Indians who lived at different times during this period, and who each represented something particular about the Deccan. In the first chapter, for example, the author describes the demise of the regional kingdom through the life of a maharaja. In the second, a Sufi sheikh illustrates Muslim piety and state authority. Other characters include a merchant, a general, a slave, a poet, a bandit and a female pawnbroker. Their stories are woven together into a rich narrative tapestry, which illumines the most important social processes of the Deccan across four centuries. This is a much-needed book by the most highly regarded scholar in the field.