Dr. Meera Visvanathan’s dissertation research focused on the inscriptions of early historic India, and led her to examine issues of written culture, the interplay of languages and ethnic groups, and the contexts of communication involved in these early records. She is also interested in the social history of ancient India, with a focus on themes of caste and gender.
Meera is currently working on two book projects: an edited volume entitled The Social Worlds of Premodern Transactions as well as a translation of a Buddhist Sanskrit text called the The Vajrasūci. Additionally, she is working on devising an individual research project on the history of the land-grant, since land-grants comprise one of the key texts of Indian epigraphy.
Her teaching engagements reflect an interaction with the concerns of her research since one of the key methodological issues she focuses on is the question of communicating how historians say what they do about the ancient past.
Epigraphy, Writing Systems, Social History