Contribution to the History of the Wheeled Vehicle in India.

• Author: Danino, Michel

Contribution to the History of the Wheeled Vehicle in India. By JEAN DELOCHE. Collection Indologie, vol. 126. Pondicherry: INSTITUT FRANCAIS DE PONDICHERY and ECOLE FRANCAISE D'EXTREME-ORIENT, 2014. Pp. xiii + 145; 31 figures; 36 plates.

French Indologist Jean Deloche has earned much respect for his important contributions to lesser explored aspects of Indian civilization and history, especially in their technological manifestations. His pathbreaking studies on India's roads, bridges, transportation systems, fortifications, water management systems, ports, boats, and ships are notable for their masses of data accumulated over decades of fieldwork combined with painstaking archival research and an unrivalled analytical care for detail in preference to theorizing. He has also contributed to new editions of accounts by French travellers to India, such as Anquetil-Duperron, Chevalier, and Modave.

Deloche's contribution to the study of wheeled transport in India began in 1980 with a two-volume La circulation en Inde avant la revolution des transports (Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient; English tr., Transport and Communications in India Prior to Steam Locomotion, vol. I: Land Transport; vol. II: Water Transport [Oxford Univ. Press, 1993]). In the preface, he acknowledged his motivation: "During the course of several years we journeyed, walking or by bullock cart, throughout this immense country, covering thousands of kilometres: during the torrid heat of summer, wending along the paths of the Himalaya, during the cool season, following the trails of Rajasthan or treading the paths shaded by coconut palms in Kerala; coming here to a halt at a shelter for pilgrims, there, at the ruins of a Mughal palace serving now as a stable for buffaloes. We ardently loved the Indian roads, and fondly preserve descriptions of these in small exercise books." This "ardent love" led in 1983 to a Contribution a l'histoire de la voiture en Inde (Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient), now translated into English in the work under review, which is, however, more than a translation, since the author took this opportunity to revise and substantially enlarge his original work.

Attempting a comprehensive classification of India's traditional wheeled vehicles is Deloche's first concern; his method is empirical, focusing mostly on typology and functionality rather than on the particular draft animal, the goods transported, or the region of the subcontinent, although the last will...