S.Arokianathan, P.Marudanayagam(Review Editor)
P.Ramanathan (Circulation), V.C.Thomas

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD

E.Annamalai(India), R.Balasubramaniam(India), D.P.Chattopadayaya(India), Lester Embree(USA), Hans Dieter Evers(Germany), Etienne Galle(France), Stuart Williams Greif(New Zealand), Dieter B.Kapp(Germany), Gene Kassebaum(USA), C.Krishnamurthy(India), Mahendra Kumar(India), Jayant K. Lele(Canada), K.J.Mahale(India), V.S.Mani(India), Michael Pearson(Australia), Emma Porio(Philippines), Jacques Pouchepadass(France), Michel Pousse(Reunion Island), K.Pratap(India), Jean-Luc Racine(France), Aswini Kumar Ray(India), Michel R. Renouard(France), G.V.Scammell(UK), V.V.N.Somayajulu(India), Paul Wallance(USA), Jacques Weber(France).

PUSH: Pondicherry University Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities is a bi-annual journal of the Pondicherry University. The editorial committee would consider for publication any article dealing with significant themes in social sciences and humanities based on original research. Contributors are requested to send their articles, books and journals to Professor K.S.Mathew, Editor, Pondicherry University Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of History, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry - 605014, India. Tel: 0091-413-252020 & 254185 Fax: 0091-413-252020 Email: ksm@pu.pon.nic.in/ ksmpdy@md4.vsnl.net.in. The text of the article may be computerised in Microsoft Word format following the style sheet provided in Volume-1 of the journal and sent to the Editor. This can be done through E-mail. However, it is requested that a printout may be sent through post.

ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS

The Merchant Service Master in Early Modern England

G.V. Scammell, Pembroke College, Cambridge

 Abstract

This paper argues the importance of the shipmaster in early modern English maritime enterprise.  It sketches the duties and responsibilities of such men.  Their recruitment, appointment, promotion and growing authority are examined.  The financial and other rewards that could accrue from service at sea are analysed in the context of earnings in comparable professions.  Career patterns are investigated and related to that process of professionalization which occurred in other sectors of contemporary English society.  Masters, it is finally urged, occupied a vital role in England’s emergence as Europe’s greatest commercial and maritime power.

 Keywords :  England;  Merchant Service;  Master.

The Country Trade in Pondicherry in the 19^th Century

 Jacques Weber, Université e Nantes

 Abstract

The country trade, which then stretched from the Red Sea to China, made Pondicherry’s fortune in Dupleix’s time.  It was ruined in the first half of the nineteenth century by the tariff barrier with which the British crippled the French Settlements and by the prohibitions against goods imported from Pondicherry to French ports and French colonies.  The liberalization of the British and French customs duty under the Second Empire caused an important redistribution port: for example, the “Guinées bleus”, made of imported cotton and dyed with indigo, invaded the French colonial market again.  The protectionist temptation, which took shape with the Méline law of 1892, the effects of which were increased by the India Act of 1894, broke for good the expansion of this trade.

Keywords:  French Country Trade, Pondicherry, South Indians, Commodities, 

                   Tariff barrier.

 The Danish Occupation of the Nicobar Islands — The Quest for a “Hinterland” of Tranquebar

Martin Krieger, University of Greifswald

Abstract

Since the seventeenth century the Danish East India Company had founded several trading-settlements at the shores of the Indian Ocean. Especially the 1750s witnessed increasing activities among the Danes regarding the extension of their trade at the Malabar Coast as well as in the Bay of Bengal. The Danish occupation of the Nicobar Islands in 1755 has also to be seen in this context. However, Danish presence on the islands was characterised by a conspicious discontinuity due to the tropical climate and a huge mortality among the Danes as well as German missionaries. This paper is asking, why the Danes such persistently claimed souvereignity over the islands in spite of wasted capital and loss of lives. It will be shown, that it was mainly the public discussion within the Kingdom of Denmark and also in the Danish colony Tranquebar, which enforced this development. The main topics that were discussed were the plan to find some kind of “hinterland” for Tranquebar on the Nicobars as well as the increasing sense for national identity in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Keywords: Nicobar Islands, Darus, Tranquebar.

 Gonfreville in Pondicherry: Transfer of dyeing technology from French India to France: An early nineteenth century study

 Ajit Neogy, Santiniketan

Abstract

Since the seventeenth century Pondicherry’s textile industry, particularly its guinee trade had attained an unrivalled position and Pondicherry products had flooded the markets of France and Senegal. For a variety of reasons and particularly, during the period when Pondicherry passed under the British control, the flourishing textile industry declined. After the restoration of the French in 1816, the Pondicherry administration put much emphasis to revive the textile industry. French experts were sent from France for modernising spinning, weaving and dyeing industries. The French dyers of Bordeaux and Rouen had no idea of the superior Indian technique of dyeing. The article focuses to show that they not only borrowed the technique of French-Indian dyers but also exported huge quantities of ingredients for culture in France.

Key words: Pondicherry, textile, dyeing technology, Gonfreville, Bordeaux, Rouen

 Ships in the Maritime-trade of Ancient Sri Lanka: Some Archaeological Evidences

 P. Pushparatnam, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka

 Abstract

The Early Historic maritime activities that existed between India, particularly with Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka is analysed at the back drop of recent archaeological findings like inscribed potsherds, coins and brahmi inscriptions found both in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.  Technical terms like navika, toni, pataku, turai, etc., all related to seafaring activities, have been compared with Indian counter part and the validity of these words is further strengthened with the occurrence of boat motif at Polanaruva and Anuradhapura.  The people like Barata, Samuda, Samuta, Kadalan and others involved in trans-oceanic trade and their social status in the contemporary society is dealt to understand their seafaring activities.

 Keywords: Early historic; maritime trade; kind of boats; seafaring people.

 Beethoven: The Man, the Milieu and the Music

R. Ganapathy, Professor of English (Rtd.), Annamalai University

  Abstract

This paper examines Beethoven as man and musician, and fixes him in the socio-cultural context of his times. The inexplicably adverse circumstances of his life made him what he was – an inspiring giant and an immortal genius. As rebel at the vanguard of a musical renaissance, he broke away from tradition and blazed an unmistakable trail. In the musical horizon of Europe, Beethoven is an enduring universal presence.

 Keywords: Beethoven; Western Classical Music; Music Appreciation.

 Coyote Tricks: Resistance and Mediation in Native Trickster Narratives

Jayanthi, K.P., Christ College, Bangalore

Abstract

The trickster is a pervading presence in Native narratives.  Evoked variously as Coyote, Raven, Hare, Nanapush and so on, the Culture Hero or Trickster plays an important role as the source of hi(story)/ Orality in the Native Canadian Oral tradition.  The creation myths and legends abound with the stories of Tricksters.  Coyote, the archetypal trickster is “a powerful symbol of a viewpoint that looks beyond abstractions and beyond technology to the ultimate value of survival”.  Peter Blue Cloud’s ‘Weaver Spider’s Web’, and Jeanette C. Armstrong’s ‘This is a Story’ are trickster narratives that deal with the various aspects of Coyote as a presence in Native Canadian Cultures.  The purview of the present paper is to map the coyote tricks in Native Canadian narratives mentioned above.  An attempt will be made to study the Coyote as a figure of Resistance to colonial/ patriarchal narratives as well as a site of mediation for the Native Canadian writers.

 Keywords:  Trickster, Resistance, Mediation.

 Codification in India

(Past and Present)

David Annoussamy, Retired Judge of Madras High Court

Abstract

India, before the arrival of the Europeans, possessed Dharma Sutras and Dharma Sastras which the English called codes.  The disciples of Bentham found that the solution to the problem of India was codification and that they could perhaps achieve in India what they have not been able to do in their own country.  In the matter of codification British India took the lead and the British colonies which have not made such rapid progress in the codification as the Indian Empire, were however in advance as compared to England.  The Herculean task of reducing to order the multiplicity of legal systems prevailing in India was first brought to manageable proportion by the efforts of many nameless English officials working unobtrusively in various parts of the country, and finally entrusted to Lord Macaulay. The impulse for unification of law created by the British administration in the middle of the nineteenth century still pervades the minds of those who are in charge of the public affairs and it appears in the Constitution in Art. 44 directing the state to endeavour to secure for all citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India. 

Keywords: India, Codification, The British India, Independent India, Law.

Works and Immortality in the Mundaka Upanisad

N. Jayashanmugam, Senior Fellow, ICPR, New Delhi

Abstract

Generally the Upanisads are not considered to be dealing with works (karma) as a means to immortality (amrtam).  This is due to the influence of the traditionalists.  The present article seeks to show that, according to the Mundaka Upanisad, works are surely a means to immortality.  Hence relevant passages in the Upanisad have been placed in a new light in support of its thesis.

Keywords:  Veda, Vedanta, Fulfilment, Renunciation.

Political Economy of Inflation-Output Trade-Off in Indian States

V. Nirmala &  K. Sham Bhat, Pondicherry University

Abstract

Bases on data drawn from Report of Currency and Finance, the paper examines the relevance of inflation-output-trade-off hypothesis across 16 selected states of India during the period 1960-1998.  Ball, Mankiw and Romer log-linear multiple regression equation and Chow Test were employed to pursue the objectives of the study.  The regression results for the sub-periods 1960-74, 1975-98 and the combined period, by and large, confirmed the inflation-output trade-off hypothesis in almost all the selected states.  However, its degree was larger during the latter sub-period than the former.  The results of the Chow test adopted to verify the influence of the country’s socio-economic and political atmosphere on causing the inflation-output trade-off confirmed significant impact.  The study suggested the need for more rigorous government policy to overcome the problem of unemployment across the Indian states.

 Keywords:  Political Economy, Inflation-Output trade-off, Unemployment.

Canada and La Francophonie

B. Krishnamurthy, Pondicherry University

Abstract

France and the other French –speaking nations have come together under the banner of  La Francophonie  and  project themselves as a distinctive cultural  and  linguistic space  in international politics.  The Francophones of Canada have taken an active interest in this movement and the French took this as an opportunity to fish in the troubled  waters of  the Canadian domestic scene.  The Federal government of Canada  has tackled this problem with tact and is successful in keeping  the Francophone provinces of Canada  as well as the Francophone African countries in her side  in the affairs of  la Franco-phonie.  Canada is also determined  to develop it  as a parallel organisation to the  British commonwealth and offers a friendly competition to France  in  les  affaires  Francophonie.     

 Keywords :  La Francophonie,   politics of language and culture,   Francophone Africa

Sustainable Development of Andaman and Nicobar Forests:

Problems and Future Perspectives

T.Subramanyam Naidu, Pondicherry University

Abstract

The environmental degradation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a major issue in the present day context of saving the biosphere. The Andaman and Nicobar group consists of as many as 325 islands of which 36 are inhabited and spreading over an area of 6,430 sq.kms. Most of the inhabited islands with dense forests were destroyed the main reason are the plans for the rapid one side strategic development which destroys the life supporting environmental opportunities through tremendous pressures on ecological contours and the craze for development. The speedy exploitation of nature and certainly with the march of new technology the severity and magnitude of exploitation are making tasks harder and harder each time. The worst affected islands are the North Andaman, Middle Andaman, South Andaman, Little Andaman, Neil Island and Great Nicobar islands. In this article an attempt is made to study the extent of environmental degradation, regeneration of forest eco-system for the sustainable development of Andaman and Nicobar forests.

Key words: Regeneration, Eco-system, Forest degradation

Effect of Continuous Running, Yogic Pranayama and combination of Continuous Running and Yogic Pranayama on State Anxiety

D. Sakthignanavel*        A. Tinabaye**        K. Vaithianathan***

Abstract

The Present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of continuous running, yogic pranayama and combination of continuous running & pranayama on State Anxiety. Sixty normal male volunteers underwent a 14 weeks’ training course of continuous running ( n 1=15), yogic pranayama (n 2=15), and combined continuous running & yogic pranayama (n 3=15). Spielberger et al designed State Anxiety Inventory was used before and after the training. The results show that the State Anxiety of the continuous running group and combined continuous running & yogic pranayama group had significantly decreased when compared with that of  the pranayama group and control group.

Key words: State Anxiety, Continuous running, and Pranayama.

*        Reader and Coordinator, Centre for Yoga Studies, Pondicherry University.

** Selection Grade Lecturer, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Postgraduate Studies

***      Dean, Professor & Director, Dept. of Physical Education & Sports, Annamalai University.