Thursday, 22 December 2016

Robert Caldwell - A Great historian


As a missionary Caldwell came to India, his journey from Madras to Idayankudi on foot, his experience with the people and his contact with them made him a historian. He was pioneer in introducing local historiography.  He was aware of the paucity of sources of history in most of the districts of India. In the absence of genuine historical literature, historians have to rely upon other reliable data. Caldwell as Indologist narrated the social life of the people vividly in his writings. 

Caldwell considered geography is the right eye of history and was very clear that the deciding factor of history of a country is its geography. He found out that the learned Indians lack geographical knowledge so in the book "History of Trinelveli" he begins with a description of the physical and geographical features of Trinelveli.


He made a call to the graduates to make a systematic study of the history of South India, in the light of inscriptions and coins at Madras University convocation address in 1879. Historians accuse Caldwell of not adopting any methodology, but everyone will acknowledge that he marked the beginning of local historical writing. " Any body can make history, only a great man can write" was the famous quotation of Oscar Wilde and Caldwell is placed in the line of great historians.   

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