Eminent Indian Historians

Jadunath Sarkar

Sir Jadunath Sarkar was the most scholarly among pre-independence historians, who based his historiography mainly on objective evidences. His seminal five-volume History of Aurangzib and other works bring out the bitter truth about the deliberately glorified Mughals. His Military History of India is also considered to be fundamental, so are his works on Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj and annals of Maratha History. He has massively contributed in bringing forward the history of Mughal India, which was mainly in oblivion due to it being mostly recorded in Persian. Jadunath Sarkar was also the first historian to investigate Rajasthani sources in right earnest.

R. C. Majumdar

Dr. Ramesh Chandra Majumdar was among the most eminent historians of India. Under his general editorship, the 11-Volume magnum opus - The History and Culture of the Indian People, provides with the first magisterial account of the history of India written by her own people. 

He joined the Calcutta University as a Lecturer in the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture in 1914. The University of Dacca was established in 1921, and he was selected to join the University as Professor of History and continued in the same capacity from 1921 to 1936.

Subsequently, he became the Vice-Chancellor in 1937 and continued till 1942. From 1942 till 1950,he continued his Research Work on “South and Southeast Asian History & Culture, which culminated in the publishing of three volumes namely Vol.1 Champa, Vol 2 & 3 Suvarnavipa, and Hindu Colonies in the Far East. In 1950 he was appointed as The First Principal at the College of  Indology, Banaras Hindu University (B.H.U). Subsequently, he was invited to join as Visiting Professor of Indian History at The University of Chicago and Pennsylvania, USA.

K.A. Nilakanta Sastri

Born on August 12, 1892 into a Telugu Niyogi family in the Tirunelveli district, K.A. Nilkanta Sastri  served the University of Madras as a Professor in Ancient Indian History and archaeology.

Through the span of these two decades, Sastri’s scholarship fetched him worldly acclaim. Sastri wrote as many as 150 research papers and 22 books. He nurtured a deep interest in South Indian political history, and wrote extensively on the cultural ties between South India and South-east nations. In fact, he passed away in 1975 as an Honorary member of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Taking note of his prolific contributions towards Indian history writing, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan in 1958.