Debankita Das, a doctoral student at the Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH), working under the supervision of Prof. Suchandra Ghosh, presented a research paper titled “Śauṇḍikas and Coastal Economy in Early Medieval Odisha: Insights from Epigraphic Texts” at the 14th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (IIGRS 14). The conference held from December 7 to 8, 2024, at the Faculty of Letters, Toyo University, in Tokyo, Japan, provided an essential opportunity for the selected fifteen participants worldwide to present their current research on topics relating to early South Asia.
The symposia have become a prestigious annual event held at different universities around the world since 2009. It aims to bring together early career researchers working with primary sources in Indology. With partial funding support from the ‘Mishima Kaiun Memorial Foundation’, the sponsor of the IIGRS organizing committee in Japan, the 14th Symposium provided Debankita the global platform to present her analysis on land grant inscriptions of early medieval Odisha. As an outcome of the symposium, the research papers will be published in the form of IIGRS proceeding volume by Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing (HASP) in the prestigious series Puṣpikā – Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions: Contributions to Current Research in Indology. Debankita is grateful to the UoH research academic endeavors that are helping to foster global opportunities.