Cultural Transaction and Early India : Tradition and Patronage**
A VARIETY of beliefs about our past have simmered over the last
couple of hundred years. Some among them have come to be
accepted as part of our cultural tradition and have been
accorded the status of tradition. It may be argued that this
happens when societies are searching for identity and the
pronouncements of historians, particularly of cultural
historians, come to be accepted as axioms. It becomes necessary
therefore for historians to pause from time to time, to take
stock as it were, by asking whether what has come to be accepted
as tradition deserves to be so accepted. The change of focus
becomes imperative either when there is new information on the
past or when the process of interpreting the past undergoes
change. It is primarily the latter which in this case suggests a
reassessment. A consideration of cultural history would have to
begin with an attempt at defining culture and this has been the
subject of much discussion in recent dec