Development in Urban Studies in Indian History: The Scenario of Early Medieval Period in India

Abstract

This article deals with the development in urban studies in early medieval Indian history with an attempt to present a clear concept on this subject.Though we find that purposeful attempts were taken by Ayyar (1915) and Dutt (1925) in the early decades of the twentieth century,not much progress was undertaken in this aspect of History,till Sharma (1987) came up with his theory of` de-urbanization' and Chattopadhyaya (1994) with his theory of `third urbanization'. In this article both these theories have been dealt with in detail and a review of  both the views have been attemted. A detailed literary review on the topic has been done in this paper to acquint the readers with the importance of this subject. This article has been written with an impartial viewpoint giving due importance to both the theories and we have incorporated all known information on this subject and at the end, a rational conclusion has been derived.