Professor Himanshu Prabha Ray
Shivdasani Visiting Fellow
Visiting Fellow
Himanshu Prabha Ray has degrees in Archaeology, Sanskrit and Ancient Indian History and teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. In her research she adopts an inter-disciplinary approach for a study of the archaeology of religion in South Asia, this being evident in her most recent paper, "The Apsidal Shrine in Early Hinduism: Origins, Cultic Affiliation, Patronage", World Archaeology, 36,3, 2004: 343-359.
Her major publications include Monastery and Guild: Commerce under the Satavahanas, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986; The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Ancient South Asia, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994 (reissued as Oxford India Paperbacks, 1998, 2000); The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003 and edited volumes titled Tradition and Archaeology, New Delhi, Manohar, 1996 (with Jean-Francois Salles); Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period, New Delhi, Indian Council of Historical Research Monograph I, 1999; Archaeology as History in Early South Asia, New Delhi, Aryan Books International, 2004 (with Carla Sinopoli).
The series of lectures and seminars at Oxford draws on her ongoing research on "The Archaeology of Sacred Space: The Hindu Temple in Peninsular India (2nd-1st century BC to 8th century AD)", which she hopes to complete during her tenure as Shivdasani Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.