OBITIARY : Noboru Karashima (1933–2015)

In the demise of Professor Noboru Karashima, who succumbed to acute leukaemia on 26 November 2015, we lost a historian who brought about a major methodological shift in the historiography of South India. He replaced the impressionistic, speculative generalisations based on inscriptions by definitive statements based on a systematic, quantitative analysis of the epigraphical data. In that sense, we can describe him as one who was responsible for inaugurating a new epoch in South Indian historiography, or bringing about a veritable shift in the paradigm of writing history in relation to that part of the country.