Part 4 - Newer Thinking In 1950’s

In opposing the view of ‘traditional polity’, assumptions are made to delineate possibilities of change, but the views on change or the mechanisms of change are not identical. ‘The majority of works on early medieval political history and institutions in fact contain generalisations which are mutually contradictory.’^[1] The king is the source of absolute power with the help of bureaucracy under his control, and ‘....thus nothing much to distinguish him (the king) from the absolute despot despite his benevolent disposition.’^[2] T.V. Mahalingam asserts about checks on kingly absolutism through the presence of samantas and mandalesvaras, and K.A. Nilakantha Sastri, while characterising Chola polity ‘somewhat tribal chieftaincy of the earlier time’ (indicating change) to ‘the almost Byzantine royalty of Rajaraja and his successors’.

With the advent of newer thinking in 1950’s (post World War-II) a change has undergone in history writing^[3] . New methods introduced with search for newer sources, basic questions have altered the whole professional ethics. That in state formation, the relations between state and kinship, the questions of legitimisation, patterns of state in religious and cultural milieu all are envisaged and investigated in liberal thought with the help of interdisciplinary streams like Anthropology and Sociology.

Within the purview of anti-imperialist historiography, as they did not accept the "White Man’s burden" view of Indian history (changelessness), there developed the Marxist trend with different treatment. In its early products, R.P. Dutt, India Today (1940), and Shevlankar’s Problem of India (1940) are important. Marxist influences are viewed in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Autobiography as well. But full scale Marxist writing came only after Kosambi’s Introduction to the Study of Indian History (1956).

In the second wave came R.S. Sharma, with his many papers pursuing Marxist analysis of ancient social phenomena, culminating in two major works Sudras in Ancient India (1958) and Indian Feudalism, (1965). Irfan Habib’s principal Marxist-oriented work Agrarian System of Mughal India (1963) was followed by Essays in Indian History, towards a Marxist Perception (1965). The body of Marxist writing in India is now a large one, including among others D.N. Jha, Suvira Jaiswal, Iqtidar A. Khan and A. Bagchi. Marxist writing has become increasingly sophisticated, using sources critically and carefully, and disowning the ‘AMP’ as ‘the unfortunate thesis that Marx has once propounded’.^[4]

Marxist work has certainly added considerable dimensions to our study of political, economic and social history. By concerning itself especially with mode of exploitation and the struggles of the oppressed, it has helped the historian to identify with the mass of the people, who have been regarded more as the objects rather than the subjects of history.

A third trend, which was influenced by the Annals’ School, reflected in writings of Harbans Mukhia. S. Settar’s recent work (Inviting Death & Pursuing Death) perhaps, belongs to this genre, although there is no disclaimer of ignoring of such influence. Undoubtedly, as shown by S. Settar’s work, could expose elements of belief that were not previously analysed or given attention to. Similarly, use of historical anthropology to explore small communities that had a natural or social environment of their own cannot but add to the richness of historical information. The desire to regard political formations as of inferior significance is clearly manifested in Romila Thapar’s Mauryas Revisited (1987). Such an attitude meshes well with the increasing depreciation of the effectiveness of political regimes in South Asia stressed by B. Stein, F. Perlin and A. Wink. It seems to me that here a large amount of historical evidence is not admitted to the historians’ consideration, when dealing with political history. I need not here do more than refer to the points brought out in the current debate on Burton Stein’s application of the theory of segmentary state to South India.

Some earlier researches stimulated by anthropology and other ideas, newer attempt has been made to re-analyse the stages and process of state formation and evolution of polity. A.S. Altekar, in his ‘State and Government in Ancient India’ which was first published in 1949, made changes more than once and his 3^rd. edition (1958) reprinted for five times up to 1997. In explaining the origin of the state, the author searched reference from the role of institution of the family with the notion of family and property. But at the same time he comments ‘the state in ancient India was regarded as the centre of society and the chief instrument for its warfare.....’ and ‘considerable force in the view that the ancient India state was theocratic to a great extent’.^[5]

The presence of non-monarchical forms of state, in early India, which was absent as monarchy was the norm of general administrative forms, also known as aristocracies, democracies or republics, has gathered greater importance in post independence era. A.S. Altekar too searched for the necessary causes for the disappearance of the republics in ancient India.^[6] In his book Republics in Ancient India in 1963, J.P. Sharma made an extensive and descriptive study of Republics. Other important works in this regard was The Republican trends in Ancient India, by Sobha Mukherjee in 1969, and Ancient Indian Republics from the earliest Times to the 6^th. Century A.D., by S.N. Mishra was published in 1976.

As termed by R.S. Sharma, ‘Neo-Orientalism based on sociology’,^[7] was a different trend started in post independence era among social anthropologists. Charles Drekmeier’s Kingship and Community in Early India 1962), was such a study wherein the primitive and tribal character of ‘rituals’ and ‘institutions’, connected with polity, were underlined. Evolution of religious beliefs and philosophical concepts, structure of myth and caste were discussed in the first part of that work. In the second half of his much debated work, Drekmeier attempt to find the gap between the decline of tribal culture and the emergence of monarchical states the study of political literatures, legal codes and ideologies.

With the help of psychology and social science he made ‘an attempt to indicate something about the non-rational and symbolic experience of a civilisation emerging from a tribal culture and experimenting with several forms of social coordination.’^[8] Other works to this genre were J.W. Spellman’s, ‘Political Theory of Ancient India’ (1964); J. Gonda’s, ‘Kingship from the Religious Point of View’ (1969);and J.C. Heesterman’s, ‘Inner conflict of Indian Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and society’ (1985). The general tendency to this genre of writings was to put greater emphasis on the religion which being a significant catalyst, influenced the formation of state and kingship.

This development of interdisciplinary dimension of history or an approach later termed as ‘combined method’ by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya,^[9] was largely due the efforts of Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi, who expands the study of available sources of Early India in an enlarged perspectives of mathematics, statistics, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines. In relation to social, economic, and cultural historiography of India, Kosambi’s efforts made an immense influence on every sphere of interpretation of historical facts. In relation to state formation Romila Thapar edited ‘Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History” published in 1995.

Recent interests in state studies in seventies, that emergence of state is a gradual process and not an identical one, prominent works published in this category were, S.N. Eisenstadt’s ‘The Political Systems of Empires’ (1963); and P. Andersion’s ‘Lineages to the Absolute State’ (1974), with their Weberian and Marxian leanings respectively. In another attempt to study the state on the basis of comparative models of worldwide perspectives, a series of three volumes was published in eighties. As the outcome of International Conferences, organised by H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik edited works are: The Early State (1978); The Study of the State (1981) and Classen and P. Van de Velde (ed.) Early State Dynamics (1987), with some specific papers on India.

Debates on the definition nature and the origin of the state and the understanding of the process of formation from chieftaincies to monarchies are the main issues discussed in above publications.

Discussion of The secular origin and nature of the state started in writings of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Starting from 16^th century discussion the contributions in the recent past has relevance in this debate of state formation.

Origin addresses some factors or variables in the process of state formation. Population and its migration, geo-political locational centres, and its limitations, role of trade, technological knowledge, control over irrigational networks, social stratum and its conflicts between kinships, warfare and conquest, protection against attacks, are discussed in the writings of Cohen and Service^[10] . Though one single factor cannot determine the achievement of statehood alone, different combination could provide impetus to the process of state formation.

The definition of state and the difference between state and non-statal position, reflected in the theories of origin and nature of state, generally in connection with the pre-industrial and industrial state. In pre-industrial state as Elman R. Service categorically characterised as ‘institutionalised’ formal government which could ‘employ, threaten or imply the actual use of force’, as control over exercise of force is the essence of the state. Ronald Cohen also corroborates this view as with the centralised bureaucracy and dominant control over the mechanism of force is essential. It is further differentiated between state and chieftaincies in terms of ability to counter forces of political fission. In other conception state is social stratification based on its member’s access to basic productive necessities. A distinction between ‘pristine’ state (generated from on its own) and secondary states discussed in details in fried’s writings.

H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik’s idea of state is ‘a centralised socio-political organisation for the regulation of the social relations in a complex, stratified society divided into at least two basic strata, or emergent social classes-viz. the rulers and the ruled,’^[11] . The political dominance and obligation between the rulers and the ruled is being legitimised by the common ideology founded on reciprocity.^[12]

In the process of political evolution, the point of transition from pre-state to statehood or early-state to mature-state is difficult to determine. And this had been dealt with divergent ways by H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik and Fried and Service. The ‘inchoate early state’, the ‘typical early state’ and ‘the ‘transitional early state’ as defined by H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik, with the degree of development of trade and market; the mode of succession; the evidence of private ownership of land; the mechanism of salaries to its bureaucrats; and the development of its judicial and tax system.

The formation and consolidation of state structure definitely was a complex process as emerged from the study of nature and origin of state and amalgamation of various historical and cultural factors. This converging variety of factors could be traced in the fields of social, economic and religious milieu which collectively be termed as ‘cultural’.

Contemporary modern historiography largely influenced the study of our early past, new analysis have been made to treat the remarkable uniformity and maturity of the Harappan Culture, which certainly indicates the existence of an efficient authority for its vast spatial extent. Shereen Ratnagar, in 1991, published her work on ‘Enquiries into the Political Organisation of the Harappan Society’, Briget and Raymond Allchin, in two successive attempt published ‘The Rise of Civilisation in India and Pakisthan’ (1982) and ‘The Genesis of a Civilisation’ (1997), equates ‘civilisation’ with ‘Empire’ to assess the twin great cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro. Another scholar M.P. Singh, articulates^[13] his view on the process of transition from a pre-state social formation in to a state in the pre Vedic Indus valley. Corroborative views were found in V. Jha’s interpretations that the Harappa and Mohenjodaro and other sites in Sind and Punjab were either ruled by theocratic or a republican oligarchic formation supposedly.^[14] M.P. Singh also added, ‘It may well be that the Indus Culture was the metro-political centre of the primitive peripheries of the same Indus State to which the pastoral Aryans migrated in hoards from central Asia.’^[15]

The general consideration regarding the initial phase of early state formation in the Gangetic region was characterised by the transformation of jana to Janapadas or from semi-nomadic tribes to large tribal principalities in a specific geographical area.^[16] However, R.S. Sharma and others did not endorse this emergence of state society in Vedic times, in his ‘Material Culture and Social Formations in India’ [1983], and ‘Prespectives on Social and Economic History of Early India’ [1983]; and Romila Thapar in her ‘From Lineage To State:Social Formations in the Mid-First Millennium in the Ganga Valley’ [1984]. R.S. Sharma comments ‘....the later Vedic power structure had assumed a character which was that of a proto-state. This society stood at the threshold of the formation of the state which originated in settlements inhibited by agriculturists’.^[17] Their chief argument is the marginal surplus from agriculture could not assist the formation to assume statehood. Though, associated organs of state, may be few in number, assume recognisable forms in Vedic times.

Whether Romila Thapar, envisages the ‘transformation’ of a pre-state social formation based upon lineage and tribe into state. Senior lineages were the claimant of special shares from those of the junior lineages in Vedic times, she added. This concept of lineage mode of production, formulates an impact on some Marxist anthropologists.^[18] Later she highlights the basic process of transformation from a state-less to state system, in her edited work in 1995; differentiate between two types of societies. The societies without state are made up of elementary units constituted by decent groups [could also be exogamous] and kinship is fixed by rules of filiations. Each group, as a segment of a social organisation, involves in a relation between the segments and the control by some others. In this hierarchical segments power is often asserted on the principle of seniority, to control over resources, the exchange of women, etc. With introducing many different features, such societies may evolve into a state system.^[19]

The Emergence of Monarchy in North India: Eighth to Fourth Century B.C. [1994], a work by Kumkum Roy, where she expressed that the warfare in Vedic society and expanding political system, officials and institutions is often underestimated in the eagerness to conceptualise a pre-state lineage society. She opines that it was due to the manifestation of violence that caused the functional response to engage elaborate rituals of sacrifice/yajnas with not only to prevent accumulation of wealth and arms but also legitimising and lending charisma to Rajanyas and Brahmanas.

This increasing tendency of ‘continued pre-state interpretation of Vedic society’, criticised by scholars as a ‘conceptualisation of varying degrees of state-ness’.^[20] R.S. Sharma in his ‘Origin of State in India’ [1989], explained that ‘state grew out of conflicts that developed in the tribal agricultural society between priestly and fighting classes on the one hand and cultivating classes on the other.’ With Romila Thapar and Kumkum Roy, R.S. Sharma unanimously locating the origin of the state in the mid-first millennium B.C. the variety of state as noticed by R. Thapar.^[21] The middle Ganga valley had no uniform political system, since some janapadas supported kings and others retained the gana-sangha system’. This association of Vedic lineages with monarchy and of ksatriya lineages with ganasangha, ‘variously rendered by modern historians as republics and oligarchies’ but ‘perhaps more precisely chief-ships or chiefdoms, where the ruling clans were differentiated from non-Ksatriyas’. The previous notion of democracies, thus considered incorrect, besides that there was minimum or no political representation of non-Ksatriyas.

R. Thapar, also argues that the emergence of gana-sangha as a form of protostate, different from a kingdom where the stratification of society was limited with the ramification of administration and coercive authority was not extensive. These form of proto-state, with persistence and reliance, reappearing, despite being conquered periodically and continued its existence until the mid-first millennium B.C. This genre of works emphasised the connection between the gana-sangha and the growth of ideologies and belief systems, namely the Buddhist, Jain and others, as they were rooted in the gana-sangha.

With the emergence of sixteen mahajanapadas, which culminated in the imperial phase of state formation, are considered as an ‘autochthonous evolution’^[22] , independent of any external influence. The reason behind the rise of powerful mahajanapadas, in the view’s of Indian Marxists, is that the introduction of iron in around mid-first millennium B.C., which enabled them to clearing the jungles and reclaim the fertile land of the eastern Gangetic plains. The technological change that ushered the social change was instrumental in generating the surplus of production that consolidates the monarchy as well as the proliferation of arts and crafts which intern facilitates the process of urbanisation.^[23]

Scanty references in early texts and less archaeological evidence sometimes creates difference of opinion among Marxist scholars, that economic change was the sole reason behind the rise of Magadha. A. Ghosh, Niharranjan Roy, Dilip K. Chakraborty^[24] , consider surplus as a complex social and socio-political product and not merely as a technological product, which in a way boost up the process of urbanisation in Ganga Valley.^[25]

The formation of first empire in India, the Mauryan state–‘signalized the advent of an altered material and political structure.^[26] Romola Thapar comments in this regard as - ‘with the evolution of an empire, the typology of the state changes and the structure of the state becomes more complex.’^[27] The complexity in context of the Maurya state as explained from the perspectives of variations of control, manifested in the administrative system.^[28] A system with a relationship, between three categories: the metropolitan state, the core areas and the peripheral regions. As Magadha, formed the nucleus of the empire, strong and centralized administration was there with a uniform nature forms the first category. The second refers the economically developed areas providing revenues. In the third category limited imperial control over raw materials and recourses. Reference of Asokan inscriptions that indicate the presence in peninsular India might be of indirect control.

J.C. Heesterman manifested the Mauryan kingdom as a little kingdom in a nexus of similar states as described by Kautilya in his theory of mondala.^[29] R.S Sharma instead propounded that the mondala theory reflects ‘some sort of feudal relationship’,^[30] which could interpolated in Arthsastra^[31] in early-medieval times. R.S. Sharma also argued against the claims of J.C. Heesterman and J.W. Mabbett^[32] , that the Mauryan Empire could never be an organized or else integrated political entity and its weak bureaucracy could never exercise effective control.

The disintegration of the Mauryan state followed by the smaller regional states, instigate historical changes with greater number of regional states with the absence of a rather unitary pan-Indian model of Indian state.

This perspective of change with the multiplicity of regional powers and the absence of one paramount stature of state started historical debates early from 1950’s. Marxists, especially R.S. Sharma, in his ‘Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions of Ancient India’, tended to look at ancient Indian political ideas and institutions in terms of ‘historical materialism’. Kosambi in his ‘an Introduction to the Study of Indian History’ [1956], proposes to move away from ‘Dynastic History’ to what he perceived as the ‘dynamics of economy and society in various phases of Indian history’.

The concepts of ‘feudalism’ and ‘medievalism’, both are the borrowings from European historiography, used by the scholars to understand the changes from roughly from 400-1200 A.D. The epoch witnessed to phenomenal changes increase in the frequency of land grants: mostly by the state to the Brahmanas or religious institutions, exempted from taxes and lesser in number, to the secular officials of the state, accompanied with some sort of fiscal or administrative liabilities.

This image of de-centralization or a fragmented administrative apparatus, or more mis-appropriately [?], virtual absence of any administration has taken by scholars in terms of a consequences of feudal social formation.

As being the most controversial issue in modern Indian historiography, David Thorner in his article entitled ‘Feudalism in India’ in R. Coulborn’s comparative study on ‘Feudalism in History’, commented as ‘there is no single work solely devoted to feudalism in India; nor is there even a single article on the place of feudalism in the historical evolution of India’. In a true sense, an analysis of the term or the use of ‘feudalism’ in Indian context generates wide ranging connotations and annotations. But generally it simply upholds the image of ‘crisis’ or decline on polity, socio-economic life, and cultural milieu. Through the Puranic image of kali age it endeavors to explain the collapse of a centralized political structure after 500 A.D.

Regional variations on the sub-continental level and its probable pattern of state formation or the character of state have been addressed by scholars from divergent framework or models of historical process. Relevant ideas has been used for the study of ‘pre-state’ and the ‘emergence of state’ and ‘origin of statesociety’ in India reflected in studies of R. Thapar, ‘State Formation in Early India’, International Social Science Journal, 1980; ‘From lineage to State: Social Formation in the mid-first Milleneum B.C in the Ganga valley, Bombay, 1984,; and R.S. Sharma, Material Culture and Social Formation in Ancient India, Delhi, 1984,; Taxation and State Formation in Northern India in pre-Mauryan Times, 600-300 B.C.; From Gopoti To Bhupati (A Review of the Changing Position of the King), Studies in History, 2.2, 1980, p. 1-10. Historical revaluation of the nature of change needs a revaluation of all its sources in the light of new ideas. It does not imply that through the study of polity, it must not be the revival of the study of its dynastic history.

The dominant trend in the empirical works on political history is with that basic opposition of ‘traditional’ or ‘changeless’, about which early medieval is not clearly marked and ‘possibilities of change’, in which most of the studies are located.

Change, mostly envisaged in terms of dynastic shifts, often dealt with emperor’s territory, or the causes of disintegration and fragmentation, is shown as deviation from the ideal imperial pattern and obviously a failure to retain the ‘Hindu political order’^[33] . Works of this genre generally analyses it as the end or failure of the nature of ‘Hindu Kingship’. According to Brajadulal Chottopadhyaya it is not only discernible in the study of political history but also in the field of social and economic historical monographs, which he considers as ‘the fact that such shifts were constantly taking place in Indian history’.^[34]

Another dichotomy he refers as between the ‘constituent state’ and ‘unitary empire’; is due to the relevance of early political models given by the ancient thinkers, which is something unknowingly intruded in the Indian political scene from 4^th century A.D. onwards.^[35]

We find interesting correlation, despite the different glossary, is there between change in polity and feudalism, which Brajadulal Chottopadhyaya considers that ‘Feudalism is thus not a new historical convention’, though limited in application in political Sphere, become a ‘synonym for political fragmentation’ and used as an suitable cause to the absence of ‘unitary empire’.

From the middle of the 20^th century, new set of empirical works came forward,^[36] with a slight shift in the understanding of ‘feudal polity’ and not the ‘entity-initself’ but as the stage representing a structural change in the Indian social and economic study. It accepts the hierarchical structure of the society in lieu of binary opposites of the state and its peasantry. It explains the mechanism of exploitation and coercion of state structure with its different hierarchical structure and tiers of intermediaries, and the study of ‘Indian feudalism’ is the ‘attempt to bridge the gap between polity and society’.^[37]

There were scholars, those who eventually work under the purview of ‘traditional polity’ but without influenced by the ‘ahistorical models’ of ‘oriental despotism’; similarly their perception of change, is, not necessarily relied upon ‘feudal polity’.^[38]

Indian feudalism, a variant form of feudal polity and a sharp deviation from Marks notion of AMP^[39] , is rooted in the formulation of perspective of change.^[40] Political formation within this framework is generally of two kinds of construct. One argument is the hypothecation of the feudal polity which emerged from the gradual decay of highly centralized bureaucratic state system, represented with the emergence of regional centers of power, a process of decentralized bureaucratic units, identified with Kusana polity in the north and Satavahanas in the south. The other one is the practice of donation of land to its assignees, the system absent in Mauryan state apparently due to salary in cash. The question of transfer of rights and authority of the state described as ‘percellization to its sovereignty’. The fact often raised by the opposition of the use of land grants as the manifestation of the genesis of feudal polity, of which majority of the land grants are donation to the Brahmins as Brahmadeyas or devadanas and lesser secular such donations with elements of contracts is largely absent^[41] but not deniable^[42] . Dilating this debate with another serious question of, administrative measures can bring in changes in societal formations or not?^[43]

The structure of the political geography of the subcontinent relates to the frequent shifts in the centers of power and the process of the formation of new polities as a result of shifts from pre-state to state societies. A good amount of rethinking we found in the writings of Beni Prasad, in 1928 he questioned the validity of the ‘unitary’ character of the Mauryan state.^[44] Romola Thaper also changed her views in relation to the character of Mauryan state.^[45] The trend was going on in the writings of I.W. Mabbet, S.J. Tambiah, and J.C. Heesterman.^[46]

The question of the genesis of the early medieval polity, discussed as pre-feudal polity decides the crisis of that genesis. A crisis of structural construct in prefeudal political and economic order, have been envisaged as the Kali Age, though distant from the Maurya period.^[47] Brajadulal Chottopadhyaya argued this as ‘… feudal polity arises because pre-feudal polity decides,..…. over the liquidation of its own power….could be understandable only in terms of a crisis of structural significance in pre feudal political and economic order.’^[48]

The complexity due to the trans-political ideology in all state system and in every stage of development of different period, anthropological orientation of historiography intervenes. Important dimension of it was the constant validation of power or the process of legitimisation in pre-state to state-society and even in consolidated state-societies also. It separates itself into ‘temporal’ and ‘sacred’ or ‘secular-religious’ or ‘political’ and ‘ritual’ dichotomy.

This view was reflected in the monographs of Romila Thapar, ‘Social Mobility in Ancient India with special Reference to Elite Groups’,^[49] Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya’s ‘Origin of the Rajputs: Political Economic and Social processes in Early Medieval Rajastha’,^[50] , H. Kulke’s, ‘Early State Formation and Royal Legitimisation in Tribal Areas of Eastern India’; ‘Legitimisation and Town Planning in the Feudatory states of Central Orissa; ‘Royal Temple Policy and the Structure of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms;^[51] Nicholus Dirks’ ‘Political Authority and Structural Change in Early South Indian History’,^[52] G.W. Spencer’s ‘Religious Networks And Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’,^[53] S. Joyswal’s ‘Caste in the Socio Economic Framework of Early India’, and his ‘Studies in Early Indian Social History: Trends and possibilities;^[54] J.G. De Casparis, in ‘Inscriptions And South Asian Dynastic Tradition.^[55] .

The growing amount of research in this arena also includes the different forms of ‘legitimisation’, such as performance of rituals, sacrificial rituals, genealogical sanctity and even the construction of temple networks. The manifestation of which we could found in A.K. Coomaraswami’s work: ‘Spiritual Authority and the Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government, American Oriental Society, 1942.

In eighties we found ‘Political Authority and Brahmana-Ksatriya Relations in ‘Early India: an Aspect of the Power-Elite Configuration’, by S. Bhattacharya.^[56] Louis Dumont’s much debated work ‘The Conception of Kingship in Ancient India’ published in 1970, where he commented, ‘while spirituality, absolutely the priest is superior, he is at the same time, form a temporal or material point of view, subject and dependent’.^[57] J.F. Richards in his ‘Kingship and Authority in south Asia’, pointed out about the abuse of the western terms in the Indian context, he comments, ‘….. has revealed that too facile usages of only half recognised western term and concepts such as legitimation, and the Church-State dichotomy have obscured the complexity and true significance of kingship in India’.^[58] J.C. Heesterman also initially a follower of this claim, as he wrote ‘king and Brahmana were definitely separated and made into two mutually exclusive categories. The greater the king’s power, the more he needs the Brahmana.^[59] Another notable work is C.R. Lingat’s ‘The Classical Law of India’, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973.

As the focus of this discussion is to reanalyse the political study of the early and early medieval India, the endeavours of earlier scholars certainly help us in getting the skeletal formation of dynastic history of early and early-medieval India. Due to their efforts it is now possible for the post colonial debates to question the different issues related the process of transition from early chieftaincies to mature form of state structure, by focussing on royal policies, integrative mechanism and strategies of stabilisation.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Brajadulal Chattopdhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India, OUP, 1994, p.188

[2]:

Brajadulal Chottopadhyaya, Political Processes and Structure of Polity, Presidential Address, IHC,44^th Session, 1983

[3]:

Influential work of D. D. Kosambi an Introduction to the Study of Indian History, Bombay, 1956

[4]:

Irfan Habib, ‘Problems of Marxist Historical Analysis’, in Science and Human Progress, Essays in Honour of The Late Professor D.D. Kosambi, Bombay, 1974, p.38

[5]:

A.S. Altekar, op.cit., pp. 60, 53, 57

[6]:

Ibid., Chap-xvii, pp. 378-379

[7]:

R.S. Sharma, Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, p. xxvi

[8]:

Ibid. p. viii

[9]:

Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, (ed.), Combined Methods in Indology and other Writings, OUP, 2002

[10]:

S. Bernard Cohen and Marriott Mckim, Networks and Centres in the Integration of Indian Civilization, Journal of Social Research, I, no. I, 1958;‘Evolution, Fission and the Early State’ in The Study of the State, (eds.) by H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik, 1981 and E.R. Service; ‘Classical and Modern Theories of the Origins of Government’ in Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution, pp. 21-34, (eds.) by Cohen and Service, 1978

[11]:

H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik, 1981, op.cit, p. 73

[12]:

Ibid., p. 73

[13]:

M.P. Singh, ‘Indian State: Historical Context and Change.’ Indian Historical Review, ICHR, Vol-xxi, no- 1-2 (July 1994 and Jan. 1995), p. 37

[14]:

V. Jha, ‘Social Stratification in Ancient India’. Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, IHC, Calcutta, 1990, pp. 3-4

[15]:

M.P. Singh, op.cit. p.37

[16]:

Hermann Kulke & Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India, 3^rd. edn., Routledge, Delhi, 1999.

[17]:

R.S. Sharma, Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions of Ancient India, 1959, 4^th Rev. edn. 1996, Reprint New Delhi 1999.

[18]:

Romila Thapar, From Lineage to State: Social Formations in the mid first Millennium B.C. in the Ganga Valley, Bombay: Oxford University Press. 1984, pp. 9-10

[19]:

Romila Thapar, Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, Popular Prakasan, New Delhi, 2002(1995), p.112

[20]:

J.P. Nettle’s concept of “Stateness” is cited by I. Lloyd and Susanne H. Rudolph in ‘The Sub continental Empire and the Regional Kingdom in Indian State Formation’, in Paul Wallace, (ed.), Region and Nation in India, Oxford and IBH, New Delhi. 1985, p. 41

[21]:

R. Thapar, 1984, p. 78

[22]:

Hermann Kulke & Dietmar Rothermund, op.cit. p.55

[23]:

D.D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline, 1970; N.R. Banerjee; The Iron Age in India, 1965, and R.S. Sharma.

[24]:

A. Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, 1973; Niharranjan Roy, Technology and Social Change: A Note Posing a Theoretical Question, 1976; Dilip K. Chakraborty, Theoretical Issues in Indian Archaeology, Delhi, 1988.

[25]:

F.R. Allchin, et al, The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia, The Emergence of Cities and States, 1995; G. Erdosy, Urbanization in Early Historic India, Oxford, Tempus Reparatum, 1988, and his other publications; Romila Thapar, op.cit. 1984, and 1995; Ranabir Chakraborty, ‘Early Historical India: A Study in its Material Milieu’, in Debiprasad Chottapadhyaya, (ed.), A History of Science and Technology in Ancient India, Firma KLM, 1991, II, pp. 305-50.

[26]:

H.C. Raychoudhury, Political History of Ancient India, 4^th. edn., New Delhi, 2006 with commentary for recent additions.

[27]:

Romila Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of The Mauryas, OUP, 1998, p. 316

[28]:

Romila Thapar, ‘The State as Empire’, in H. Classen and P. Skalnik, (ed.), The Study of The State, 1981, pp- 409-26; ‘The Mauryas Revisited’, S.G. Deuskar Lectues on Indian History, 1984, pub. in 1987, pp. 1-31

[29]:

J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Indian Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985, pp. 16-18, 149-50

[30]:

R.S. Sharma, Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions of Ancient India, p. 394

[31]:

R.P. Kangle, The Kautilya Arthasastra, 3vols., New Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass Pub., 1972, pt. III, p.262

[32]:

J.W. Mabbett, Truth, Myth and Politics in Ancient India, New Delhi, 1972

[33]:

for example, R.C. Majumdar, in ‘Struggle for Empire’, Preface, K.M. Pannikar’s Foreword in D. Sharma, Early Chauhan Dynasty, Delhi 1959; or R.C.P. Singh, Kingship in Northern India, 600-1200 A.D. Delhi, 1968

[34]:

Brajadulal Chottopadhyaya, ‘Political Process and Structure of Polity in Early Medieval India’, op.cit, The Making of Early Medieval India, OUP, 1994, pp.188-189

[35]:

‘It (the dichotomy) produced a state of continuous instability in ancient India’, instability being change from the norm, i.e. the centralised, unitary state’, in The Making of Early Medieval India, OUP, 1994, pp.188-189

[36]:

D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma, D.N. Jha, Harbans Mukhiya, B.N.S. Yadav and others. R.S. Sharma and D.N. Jha; ‘The Economic History of India up to A.D. 1200: Trends and Prospects’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 17.1, pp.48- 80.

[37]:

Brajadulal Chottopadhyaya, 1994, p.190

[38]:

Nocholas B Dirks; ‘Political Authority and Structural Change in Early South Indian History’, ‘The Indian Economic and Social History Review’, 13.2, 1976, pp. 125-158; ‘The Structure and Meaning of Political Relations in a South Indian Little Kingdom’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 13.2, 1979, pp. 169-206. Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, OUP, 1980

[39]:

‘Unlike capitalism feudalism is not a universal phenomenon…. like tribalism, the Stone Age… … are the universal phenomena.’ R.S. Sharma, in ‘How Feudal was Indian Feudalism’ in H. Kulke, (ed.), State in India, 1995, pp.48-85

[40]:

R.S. Sharma, in Indian Feudalism, ‘Feudal Polity in Three Kingdoms’; B.N.S. Ysdava, ‘The Problem of the Emergence of Feudal Relations in Early India, 41th Session, Presidential Address, IHC, Bombay, 1980; Society and Culture,; for a regional pattern D.D. Kosambi; ‘Origins of Feudalism in Kashmir, Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1956-57, pp.108-120; Krishna Mohan, Early Medieval History of Kashmir, Delhi, 1991; N.C. Bandopadhyaya, Development of Hindu Polity and Political Theories, (ed.), N.N. Bhattacharyya, Delhi, 1980; for recent publications–Y. Subbarayalu, ‘The Chola State’, Studies in History, vol-4, no-2, 1982; R.N. Nandi, ‘Feudalisation of the State in Medieval South India’, Social Science Probing, 1984.

[41]:

As opposed by D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, Delhi, 1965, ch. 5; Political and Administrative Systems of Ancient and Medieval India. Delhi, 1973; Landlordism and Tenancy in Ancient and Medieval India as Revealed by Epigraphical Records, Lucknow, 1969, and The Emperor and the Subordinate Rulers, Santiniketan, 1982

[42]:

R.S. Sharma, ‘How Feudal Was Indian Feudalism’ The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol-12 Nos- 2-3, pp. 19-43

[43]:

Originally rose by Harbans Mukhiya; in his ‘Was there Feudalism in Indian History?’ Presidential Address, IHC, Waltair, 1979.

[44]:

Beni Prasad, The State in Ancient India, The Indian Press, Allahbad, 1928, p. 192

[45]:

Romola Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 2^nd. edn., OUP, 1973; and ‘The State as Empire’ in H.J.M. Classen and P. Skalnik, The Study of the State, pp. 409- 426; and From Lineage to State, Ch. 3

[46]:

Jan C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society, 141–157, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1985, ch.5-6; S.J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer, Cambridge University Press, 1976, pt. I, ch-5.; Jan C. Heesterman, ‘Power and Authority in Indian Tradition’, in R.J. Moor, (ed.), Tradition and Politics in South India, Delhi 1979, p.66; I.W. Mabbett, Truth, Myth and Politics in Ancient India, New Delhi, 1972, p.43

[47]:

Construct of crisis seen in the Brahmanical discernment of the evils of kaliyuga, and the correlation in terms of change in varna system and decline of urbanism, B.N.S. Yadava, ‘The Accounts of the Kali Age and the Social Transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages’. Indian Historical Review, 5, pp.1-2, 1979; R.S. Sharma, ‘The Kali Age: A Period of Social Crisis’, in S.N. Mukherjee, (ed.), Indian History and Thought (Essays in Honour of Arthur Llewellyn Basham, pp-186-203

[48]:

Social Scientist, Volume 13, 1985, p.7

[49]:

In her Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, Orient Longman, Delhi, 1978.

[50]:

The Indian Historical Review, 3.1, 1976, pp. 59-82

[51]:

Studia Ethnologica Bernensia, R. Moser and M.K. Gautam, (ed.), 1, 1978, pp. 29-37; Cities in South Asia: History, Society and Culture, (ed.), H. Kulke, et al, Wiesbaden, 1982, 17-36; in A. Eschmann, (ed.), The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa, Delhi, 1978, pp.125-138

[52]:

‘The Indian Economic and Social History Review’, 13.2, 1976, pp.125-158

[53]:

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 12, 1969, pp. 32-56.

[54]:

Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, Indian History Congress, 38^th Session, Bhubaneswar, 1977. Indian Historical Review, 6.1, 1979-80, pp. 1-63.

[55]:

in R.J. Moor’s (ed.), pp.103-27

[56]:

Indian Historical Review, Vol-10, Nos-1-2, 1983-84. pp. 1-20

[57]:

Religion, Politics and History in India, Mouton Publishers, Paris, 1972, p. 65

[58]:

J.F. Richards, (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia, Madison 1978, Introduction

[59]:

J.C. Heesterman, The Conundrum of King’s Authority, pp.1-27