Dear Dominik,
 
A search of the Indology archives for ‘potter’ or ‘brick’ would give a number of posts, which may be of interest to you. Here is an example. http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/1997-October/103991.html
 
Interestingly, recently there was a presentation entitled ‘Pot Route’ presented by R. Balakrishnan of Roja Muthaiah Research Library in Chennai. Here is the ‘Pot Route’ teaser video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBqJn5-i708). Here is the  ‘Pot Route’ full Presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93mqRKgoezU. One can see Balakrishnan’s posts in Indology in 1999 and 2000 as in http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.info/1999-October/113373.html. 
 
Many of the ideas in the ‘Pot Route’ presentation were discussed in several threads in Indology. However, Balakrishnan does not acknowledge any of the posts. Discussing the potter sociology described in the Caṅkam corpus, he discusses Narrinai 200 mentioning potter of ancient wisdom at 1:00:54. The translation shown by Balakrishnan is actually Vaidehi Herbert’s but Balakrishnan does not credit her. See https://learnsangamtamil.com/நற்றிணை/).
 
Regards,
Palaniappan
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>
To: Indology <indology@list.indology.info>; Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com>
Sent: Tue, Nov 6, 2018 11:07 am
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] brick-making communities

Dear Dominik,

I recall reading somewhere that the sizes of bricks of the Indus civilization seem to have been standardized, in which case this is a very ancient industry in SA. In Bihar, it seems, the bricks of Nalanda and other viharas have been mined for centuries, and the use of brick in the Kathmandu valley extends to Licchavi times. So there must be some literature about this

It's time to do for SA what Needham sought to do for China .....

Best, Matthew

Matthew T. Kapstein
EPHE, Paris
The University of Chicago

From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>
Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2018 5:53:04 PM
To: Indology
Subject: [INDOLOGY] brick-making communities
 
Travelling in India, especially by train, one occasionally sees large mounds of bricks, or maybe they are kilns or sun-drying piles.  There are workers at these places, making bricks.  Is there a scholarly historical literature about these communities and the practice of brick-making in earlier Indian history?

--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk
,

Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
,

University of Alberta, Canada
.

South Asia at the U of A:
 
sas.ualberta.ca

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