MEANING OF HISTORY

Man is by inquisitive.He is curious to know about himself and his past.He is also eager to understand the present in the light of the past and anxious to foresce and face the future.The innate ability of the homo sapiens to know,to understand and to foresee has led to human progress and historical development.

The Greeks were the earliest to give a rational meaning of the word ‘history’.In the term history itself is derived from the Greek word ‘istoria’which means enquiry,research,exploration,information or leaning.The German equivalent of the word history is’geschichte’,which means an intelligent and intellidible narration of past events.The Arabic word ‘tarikh’ stands for chronology.The Sanskrit word ‘itihasa’ refers to legend.

In its original sense.history is an enquiry into human events or leaning based on ascertained facts.In a restricted sense,history is nothing but strictly the recorded past based on research.In this sense,history can be used to stand either for an well-known genus of researches and writings which usually take the from of historical books.History can also be used to stand for the objects of these researches and writings,i.e., for what actually happened or what men actually did at certain particular times and places.In a limited sense,therefore,histories are confined to such past events as have been recorded or remembered or as can be inferred or recognized on the basis of partial records and memories. In a broader sense,history means knowing the past with a view to understanding the present so as to foresee and predict the future. “The past is intelligible to us only in the light of the present;and we can fully understand the present only in the light of the past”.