A radical contribution to the understanding of Indian history as a discipline, this book explores the politics of history-writing in modern India. It narrativizes the engagement of a civilization with the historical sensibility and modality. In doing so, it asserts that history, in order to be understood better, has to deploy the language of the layperson in India, and interact with the mythic, the ahistorical, and the folk. The endeavor is not to offer a comprehensive account over the last two centuries, but rather to explore the manner in which historical thinking inserted itself into the public domain.