Review Essay: Eloquent Inscriptions on Indic Experiences of State Society,Material Milieu and Religious Complexes: Integration vis-à-vis Appropriation (c. 700–1600 ce)

A meaningful understanding of the pre-modern pasts of India stems from the recognition and explanation of identifiable changes in its socio-political situations, material cultures and religious experiences. Such changes need to be situated beyond dynastic shifts, although socio-economic and cultural developments were, of course, interlocked with the then politics and polities. Such an approach naturally negates the perceptions of the immutable social, economic and cultural (especially religious) institutions and practices over millennia in the subcontinent. The image of the unchanging East, typified by ‘traditional India’, which is perceived to have thrived on sanatana dharma, is largely constructed by preferring to represent pre-modern India through normative treatises (sastras), mostly written in Sanskrit and from a predominantly Brahmanical perspective and ideology. That the narrative literature may often present images of society, economy, political and cultural activities distinct from and contrary to the ideals upheld by normative treatises has of late gained considerable historiographical visibility. What needs to be underlined here is that the pre-modern pasts of India can hardly be grasped by the Sruti–Smriti literary traditions which leave a strong impression of memorialised orality, the practice of written words and documents, therefore, being reduced to marginality. The present review article precisely proposes to highlight the significance of written documents in the form of inscriptions for generating data and impressions of the pasts of India with certain distinctiveness which is hardly available in other categories of evidence, especially in the normative texts. This is not to claim that inscriptions are stand-alone sources for the study of pre-modern India. Inscribed texts, as and when studied in conjunction with normative literature, narrative texts, numismatic materials, impressions left behind by non-indigenous authors on India, field archaeological evidence (from explored and excavated sites), art historical evidence and ethnographic accounts—following Kosambi’s ‘combined methods of Indology’ ¹ — present portrayals of vibrant socio-economic, political and cultural scenarios, far more complex and dynamic than those available in the normative texts. A major advantage of using epigraphic materials is their more securely assignable spatial and temporal moorings than texts. This immensely helps historians assess the regional variations in socio-economic, political and cultural practices with fairly reliable chronological specificities. This position never intends to minimise the importance of historical studies based on pre-modern Indic texts, but certainly urges to recognise the distinctiveness of epigraphic documents as an indispensable resource for grasping different facets of life experienced in pre-modern India. ² This has been the hallmark of the book under discussion, marked by the wonderful narratives of socio-political and cultural lives mostly—but not exclusively—in South India during almost a millennia (roughly from the seventh to the seventeenth century), by making audible the ‘whispering of inscriptions’, the scholarly efforts bearing the signatures of the late lamented Noboru Karashima and his comrades. ³

The planning and execution of this last edited work by Karashima (but sadly not seen by him in the final published shape), emerging out of a conference on the ancient and medieval religious movements in South India and Sri Lanka (2010), are aptly set out in Karashima’s Introduction. His efforts to see through the publication of the volume during the last days of his life have assumed heroic proportions as the Foreword by Y. Subbarayalu narrates. The volume consists of essays on the changing social and religious scenarios in South India from c. seventh to the sixteenth/seventeenth century primarily on the basis of epigraphic documents (chapters by Veluthat, Pathmanathan, Karashima, Subbaryalu and Masahiko). Apart from the meticulous analyses of epigraphic documents, the volume contains extremely valuable new epigraphic data which are also studied in depth and classified to offer images of the changing social, material and cultural milieu in South India. Thus, Subbarayalu dishes out to his readers an excellent overview of the recently discovered Tiruvindalur copper-plate grant of the mid-eleventh century. This is the largest Chola copper plate known so far, recording the politico-administrative instruction for settling about 660 Brahmanas in the core area of the Cholas during 1053–56 ce. We shall discuss this extremely significant copper plate later, but here it should be pointed out that one will remain indebted to Karashima, Subbaryalu and Shanmugam for their stupendous efforts to classify 469 South Indian inscriptions, ranging in date from 796 to 1710 ce, bearing on the history of various Brahmanical religious complexes, best known as mathas (anglicised as mutts). The presentation of the massive volume of epigraphic data on the problematics of South Indian society and religion is emblematic of Karashima’s study of inscriptions with a statistical/quantification approach. Karashima, Subbaryalu and Shanmugam are celebrated for their signal contributions to the study of South Indian society, polity and cultural life through an epigraphic lens. But the present volume, consisting of 10 chapters/essays, goes beyond the world of epigraphic documents and brings in other kinds of sources to juxtapose with the epigraphic information (particularly the works of Raghava Varier and Brenda Beck). It has an essay on North Indian situation (by Masahiko); the paper by Kulke takes the reader beyond the subcontinent to Southeast Asia. An overarching feature of all contributions in this volume is the analytical and explanatory approach to comprehend the changing socio-political and cultural situations with strong empirical foundations, provided largely by epigraphic records.

As religious and social changes in India during the eighth/ninth–seventeenth centuries is the principal thematic thread connecting the chapters, it is only natural and logical that considerable thrust is given on the growing popularity of sectarian devotional (bhakti) cults which were often propitiated in structural temples and extensive religious complexes (mathas). These religious shrines and complexes regularly received patronage in the form of land grants and various donations of resources, including cash. This implies, in other words, that the study of religious and social conditions has to go hand in glove with the analysis of existing political and material milieu. In fact, the practice of patronising and donating religious institutions with grants of land began in the Deccan, in the Satavahana realm, during the second century ce. However, the institution of agrahara, by which revenue-free landed property was given away to a Brahmana, or several Brahmanas, and/or a religious establishment (Brahamanical temple/Sramanic shrines), emerged, proliferated and consolidated from the fouth/fifth century onwards. ⁴ As the copper plate charters began to record the gift of revenue-free landed property to religious persons and/or institutions (brahmasvam and devasvam in South Indian context) at the instruction of the political authority, a system of record-keeping became an inseparable part of this process. In a different spatial context, and far away from South India, in early sixth-century Bengal (in the present trans-Meghna zone in Bangladesh), a land grant, said to have been issued in Gupta Era 91 (411 ce) in favour of an Ajivika monastery, was reissued in Gupta Era 184 (504 ce, that is, 93 years later) by exactly copying out the original grant letter by letter (yathaksharam). ⁵ The subsequent centuries witnessed not only an immense increase in the number of such epigraphic records (59,800 inscriptions in South India as calculated in the book under review with a heavy percentage of such records having been issued from ninth to sixteenth centuries), ⁶ but also the walls of the royal monumental temples (for example, the Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur) functioning almost as archives of such epigraphic records which were engraved on the temple walls for the sake of regular access to relevant information.

At this juncture, it will be apt to take a close look at the Brihadisvara and the Gangaikondacholapuram temples, built respectively during the reigns of Rajaraja (985–1014) and Rajendra (1012–44), through the epigraphic lens, as Veluthat and Karashima have done in their two chapters. Veluthat brings out the political role of the temple, especially royal monumental shrines, dedicated mostly to Siva and Vishnu following Agamic norms. Thanjavur and its vicinity, the site of both the celebrated temples, did not enjoy a protracted tradition as a sacred centre since it was initially a nucleus of a collection of agrarian villages. With its capture by Chola Vijayalaya from the local Muttaraiyar chiefs, it began to gain prominence along with the political ascendency of the Cholas. The grand Siva temple constructed during the late phase of Rajaraja’s reign was known as Rajarajesvaram wherein the enshrined deity bore the name Rajarajacholisvara, obviously so named after the reigning Chola king. Described as the Dakshinameru, the temple projected, both by epigraphic statements and iconographic portrayals, Rajaraja as presiding over the entire universe. Thus, the deity in the temple became synonymous with the Chola monarch, with vocabularies further accentuating this identity (udaiyar or perumal = both the deity and the king; koyil = both the temple and the royal palace). The carefully chosen imagery of Siva Tripurantaka, embellishing the temple walls, was a visual statement of Rajaraja’s avenging the politico-military disaster in the battle of Takkolam (949) suffered by his ancestor Parantaka in the hands of Rashtrakuta Krishna III (939–65). By highlighting the image of Chandesvara as the mulabhritya [prime servitor] in both Brihadisvara and the Gangaikondacholapuram temples, Veluthat demonstrates that the significance of the politico-military structure of the Chola realm was visually captured. Not only the Chola ruler but also the underlords or subordinate chiefs who emulated the apex authority resembled various deities who like the chiefs stood in a hierarchical order with a strong element of dependency. Veluthat then extends this model to the temples in post-Chera Kerala, built subsequent to the Tamil Nadu ones. By citing epigraphic evidence, he argues that temple-building in Kerala accompanied social predominance of Brahmanas, strengthening of the varnasramadharma [the Brahmanical institution of the four social orders and the four stages of life] ideology, growing popularity of sectarian bhakti cults, resulting in the application of religious symbols for the ideological domination by the ruling class. Enjoying immense amount of land grants, the temple not only accumulated enormous riches and assumed a fortress-like appearance, but also the judicial and administrative rights, transferred to the temple by rulers—in addition to the revenue rights—which transformed the temple from a sacred shrine to a power centre, often immune from all political interventions. Without using the expression of the feudal political set-up, Veluthat virtually drives home this message and reiterates R.S. Sharma’s well-known thesis of the parcellisation of sovereignty both as a cause and an effect of the institution of issuing land grants which held the key to the understanding of the feudal order. ⁷

Epigraphic documents regarding these two celebrated monumental temples are subject matters of Karashima’s chapter which focuses on the changing socio-economic conditions in the Cholamandalam during the tenth–sixteenth-century ce period. Recorded in these inscriptions are grants of money, cattle, land and revenue in favour of the temples. With his trademark statistical approach to inscriptions, Karashima generates crucial information and his insightful analyses on peasants, revenue terms and extent and location of the landed property with detailed boundary demarcations. That these inscriptions inform us about the communication of orders from the apex authority to the locality level is also studied by Karashima who further unravels the manifold aspects of epigraphic documentation on decisions made at the locality level (nadu), the brahmadeya (sabha) and non-Brahmana (ur) rural local-self bodies regarding conflict resolution and political compacts among local chiefs. From these generalities, we may now delve into Karashima’s engagement with three long inscriptions in the Brihadisvara temple, which was endowed with the revenue of 56 villages. Of these, 40 villages were located in Cholamandalam, the core area of the Cholas, and 16 in different other mandalams, including from Sri Lanka. First, it demonstrates beyond doubt the firm administrative control and reach of the Cholas over the core, intermediate and peripheral zones of their realm; contrary to the image of parcellised sovereignty, it speaks of political coalescence the Cholas achieved during their heydays. Along with these villages, Karashima takes into account similar villages figuring in the Gangaikondacholapuram inscriptions issued by Virarajendra and his predecessors, though the exact number of villages have not been spelt out by inscriptions. The Gangaikondacholapuram inscriptions inform us on taxable land assessed on the basis of crops cultivated. A point could have been raised by Karashima here: whether and to what extent land revenue assessment was facilitated by the land measure system in the Chola realm, introduced by Rajaraja and later also followed by Kulottunga I (1070–1120). Karashima’s incisive studies of the 40 villages in the Thanjavur inscriptions reveal that taxes were assessed in gold and not in paddy as was in the case of ordinary villages. The average extent of villages was 35.17 velis [a unit of measurement of land], while the largest village measured 153 velis and the smallest one 3 velis. These villages contained plots/areas—but, significantly enough, not uniformly in each and every village—for tenant cultivators (kudiyirukkai), toddy drawers (ilachchheri), untouchables (tindachcheri), controller of sluices (talaivaychcheri), people connected with temples (talichcheri), cultivating Paraiyars (paraiyachcheri), artisanal groups (kammanachcheri) and habitat of Vellala landholders (urnattam). A further statistical analysis demonstrates the diversity of distribution of these groups in different villages: thus, paraiyachcheris in 20 out of 40 villages, kammanachcheris in only 7 villages and tindachcheris in only 2 villages. Only one village recorded washermen’s settlement. Neither did every village uniformly consist of a temple and a cremation ground—the latter actually existed in only eight villages. Karashima’s significant observation here is that the villages were never self-sufficient and depended on sharing and interactions. He further strengthens his position by citing that ponds existed in 29 out of 40 villages; these ponds were mostly used for drinking water and purification—in other words, not meant for cultivation. If irrigation facilities were not uniformly available in these 40 villages, then these needed to be shared. This once again negates the cherished, but flawed, notion of self-sufficient and enclosed villages in traditional India (right from the days of Metcalf). ⁸

The other point emerging out of Karashima’s exercise is no less striking than his findings stated earlier. His innovative method of looking at the changing phraseology of the imprecatory sections of the land grant lays bare the process of branding a violator of the conditions of land grants as a traitor and/or a perpetrator of treason (droha). In course of time, a person harming the treaty or compact between two hostile parties was also marked as a traitor. Such a person was considered as a traitor to god (Siva), locality (nadu), the ruler and the mother. The increasing vulgarity of expressions in the imprecatory sections in inscriptions during the post-1200 ce days demands historians’ close scrutiny. This coincides with the declining Chola power and the growing aspirations and assertions of new jatis against the prevalent predominance of the Brahmanas and Vellalas. One of the factors in the proliferation of jatis was the gradual transformation of the former hill tribes, recruited by the Chola army, into landholders, artisans and merchants who aspired for social recognition and upward mobility which was to be resisted by the Brahmana–Vellala combine. It led to the new formation of supra-regional, community-oriented social groups (e.g., the agriculturists’ group chittirameli-periyanadu; the 98 left-hand–right-hand groups and the umbrella organisation of merchants—the ainnurruvar) to counter oppressions by Brahmanas and Vellalas. Thus, a thirteenth-century inscription sent out this caveat that if a Brahmana violated the agreement between the nadu, giramam (village) and nagaram (mercantile centre), his eyes were to be taken out, his nose cut off and he would be considered as low as a pig. The thirteenth-century Tirukkachchur inscription issues stern messages against five Brahmana brothers, accused of stealing, murdering, raping and obnoxious behaviour. ⁹ Karashima, thus, portrays that the political flux and social instability in the thirteenth century paved the way for the reshuffling of the caste hierarchy. Epigraphic records bear eloquent testimonies to the formation of the horizontal arrangement into right-hand and left-hand social groups as an alternative to the vertical hierarchical arrangements in the varnasrama order.

This sets the stage ready for the masterly treatment of the mid-eleventh-century Tiruvindalur copper plate, the largest Chola record, consisting of 86 plates (actually 85 as 1 plate is reported lost). Unlike other such lengthy copper plates, the political eulogy (prasasti) portion of this grant is smaller than the actual operative part of the record, detailing the patterns of land distribution in the newly created Brahmana settlement. Discovered in 2010 from the Nagapattanam district, Tamil Nadu—located in the very stronghold of the Chola state—the plates record the creation of a new tax-free settlement for 660 Brahmanas who were relocated from many older habitats at least in two phases. The first phase saw the creation of a brahmadeya by Rajadhiraja in 1053 ce by amalgamating 10 older settlements (yielding 13,043 kalam or a weight standard of paddy as land tax) for 130 Brahmanas. The request to create such a brahmadeya came from his younger brother who was also the crown prince. Once this younger brother himself succeeded to the throne with his coronation name Rajendradeva (II) in 1054, he added 34 new settlements to the existing brahmadeya which was renamed after the reigning king. But the royal order was not reduced to writing on copper plates during his own reign, but was engraved in 1065 ce under the instructions of the next ruler, Virarajendra (1063–70 ce); yet the seal attached to the plates carried the name of Rajendra II. The total number of Brahmanas in the Tamil section of this record is 730, an increase of 60 than the figure in the Sanskrit section. Apart from elaborate details of the transfer of revenue (80,000 kalams of paddy), the record enlists 90 functionaries who came both from the royal court and the widely dispersed central, northern and southern parts of the realm. Subbarayalu aptly recognises that this speaks of the firm control of the Cholas over the entire Tamil area which emerged as an integrated and cohesive political entity. Future researchers will surely draw upon this remarkable epigraphic resource to trace the migration history of so many Brahmanas.

What deserves particular mention here is the meticulous details of the settlement and allotment of plots to an impressive number of non-Brahmana professional and service groups within the brahmadeya—for example, potters, barbers, oil millers, goldsmiths, carpenters, blacksmiths, bronze workers, physicians, surgeons, paraiyas, washermen and water distributors. First, the settlement of some of the professionals (washermen and barbers), which are usually looked down upon in the normative texts, within the premise of a brahmadeya calls for a further probe. One wishes to ask whether and to what extent the creation of large Brahmanical complexes was inspired by and modelled after the Buddhist and Jaina viharas and vasadis [both meaning monastic establishments]. The accommodation of physicians and surgeons in a Brahmana residence did not cause a frowning from the orthodox Dharmasastra norms that invariably degraded the social position of healers. Once again, is it another instance of Brahmanical appropriation of the well-known Buddhist practice of offering medical facilities in viharas and venerating the Buddha as the master physician (bhaishajyaguru)? One cannot but recall here that in 930 ce, a similar, perhaps larger, Brahmana settlement (brahmapura) was created in the present Sylhet region of Bangladesh with near analogous allotment of plots for a sizeable number of professional groups. The administrative restructuring done in 930 to carve out an extensive Brahmana settlement and religious complex was no less impressive than the Chola record. ¹⁰ More or less the same experience is recorded in the maintenance of the large thirteenth-century Golaki matha in Andhra, then ruled by the Kakatiyas of Warangal. Epigraphically speaking, the distinctive marker of the Tiruvindalur plates is the elaborate vyavastha section laying down severe punishments against violators of the grant and directed especially at the lower social orders. This is a point we would like to take up once again at the concluding part of our essay.

The nature of the state society in Indic experience during the long millennium (c. 700–1700 ce) was largely shaped by Brahmanical ideology of bhakti, horizontal expansion of agrarian society and growing rigours of the varna-jati system. That these features of socio-political set-up and material milieu also impacted Sri Lanka, especially northern Sri Lanka (the Jaffnapatnam zone)—though Sri Lanka was primarily a Buddhist zone—figures in the essay by Pathmanathan. His handling of Sri Lankan epigraphic documents, mostly post 1200 ce, leaves an impression that the Chola occupation of the island (c. 993–1070 ce) brought in the worship of Agamic deities and the building of structural temples, deriving largely from the Tamil experiences. In spite of the rich empirical details, the analytical treatment of the slow transformation in the northern Sri Lankan society and religion is not at par with that by Karashima, Veluthat and Subbarayalu. The indiscriminate use of the term Hindu as a binary to Buddhism does not stand scrutiny; the more appropriate term would have been Brahmanical religions. The earliest known epigraphic use of the term Hindu as an ethnico-political entity is unlikely to be earlier than in the Vijayanagara state, ¹¹ which is much later than the situation prevailing in northern Sri Lanka.

Continuing with the discussion of society, religion and politics outside the Tamil country, we may bring here the paper of Mita Masahiko on the Pratihara domain in North India. Much more competent handling of epigraphic materials to comprehend the state and polity of the Pratihara realm is evident in Masahiko’s contribution. The author demonstrates the layered polity in the Pratihara domain, experiencing a constant tussle between the apex political power of the Gurjara–Pratiharas and various subordinate chiefs (samantas or underlords) who were situated in a hierarchical structure of dependency. He has cogently argued that the copper plates of the Pratihara realm followed the Dharmasastra norms that the donor, issuer and informer of the grants would be identical person, that is, the king. The samantas also followed this norm; therefore, however ambitious and powerful the underlord may be, he had to acknowledge the suzerainty of his Pratihara overlord whose approval was sought at the time of making of a land grant. The present reviewer is in full agreement with Masahiko in exposing the flawed perspective of Ronald Inden on the hierarchy of kings in early medieval India, largely through the textual prism. The present reviewer, however, is not sure if the label empire has been appropriately applied to the Pratihara realm. The Pratiharas were certainly a very formidable supra-regional power, engaged in endemic wars especially against the peninsular power of the Rashtrakutas who on many occasions handed out military and political reversals to the Pratiharas. How and to what extent the Pratiharas succeeded in translating military conquests into territorial annexation and expansion beyond their core regions requires fresh investigations. At the present state of our knowledge, the Pratihara power comes close to Kulke’s label of a ‘regional imperial kingdom’. ¹²

We may return to South India once again here. From the point of view of the Cholas, the most formidable South Indian power from the late tenth to mid-thirteenth centuries, the Kongudesa area, corresponding to the modern western Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore and adjoining areas) constituted, like Sri Lanka, a peripheral zone which was incorporated into the Chola realm during Rajarajara I’s time. This was a zone different from and far away from what have been labelled as marudam (fertile riverine plains) and neital (coastal tracts) in the Sangam literature. The penetration of the Chola power brought in significant institutional changes, particularly in the shape of the emergence and expansion of agrarian society in which the role of powerful chiefs was crucial. Epigraphic records have to some extent capture this process. Brenda Beck uses a different prism, namely the oral legend of Ponnivala, highlighting the heroic achievements of two young adults of the age of 16 and the family history of a local chief over three generations. Beck considers that the oral legend was tape-recorded by her from a bard of 60 or 70 years of age, the bard being a barber by caste. Her anthropological interventions into this legend seek to establish that the oral legend remembers certain key social changes which occurred in the Kongu country during six centuries (tenth–sixth centuries) and also ‘evokes interesting shadows that seem to linger on from much more distant past’ (p. 121). Epic stories, according to her, may offer texture and human feelings on a much grander scale than the ‘tiny windows into the past’, gleaned from epigraphic and archaeological materials. The importance of this piece lies in enabling us to hear a different voice of the past, distinct from the one audible through what is considered as more tangible historical evidence from literary and inscribed texts. How a particular people or community chose to perceive the past is evident from Beck’s presentation of this oral legend. The present reviewer, however, is not comfortable with Beck’s statement that ‘the legend of Ponnivala is an oral folk history’. There is no problem if it is seen as a legend offering historical insights; it may very well contain elements of oral history and folk memories. But the label ‘oral folk history’ sounds incongruent, at least to a historian.

Going farther westwards from Kongudesa, one reaches the Cera country or Kerala, the regional identity of which is discussed in an enchanting essay by Raghava Varier on the basis of the Manipravala literature, datable from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Manipravala as a literary genre is a hybridisation of Sanskrit and Malayalam and stands apart from the keralolpatti tradition. This fits well with the growing visibility of diverse vernaculars during the ninth–seventeenth centuries in conjunction with the pronounced regional features in the cultural life of the subcontinent. How the language and literature was used for the portrayals of the self and the other, obviously from the point of view of Malayalam’s linguistic sub-nationality, is lit up by Raghava Varier. This is particularly articulated in the binaries of svadesa and paradesa, implying the local/regional and the area elsewhere (but not necessarily only a foreign land). The highlighting of svadesa coincides with the pre-eminence of the subregional entities or swarupams in the post-Cheraman Kerala. In order to sharpen the distinctiveness of the self from the other in terms of speeches and languages, the opposition between excellent (utkrishta) and inferior (apakrishta) was employed between Malayalam and other Dravidian speeches. This would bring in the representations of the elite-language speakers (Malayalam) vis-à-vis the users of the ‘vulgur’ tongues, scorned as ‘they’ or the other. The assertion reaches the peak when the author of the Lilatilakam (fourteenth century), as wonderfully used by Varier, warns against the filthy influence of Sanskrit infiltrating Malayalam. The striking point is that Malayalam is synonymous with bhasha, the language, clearly underlining the claim of its pre-eminence. Varier has aptly noted this, but missed that the term bhasha had initially stood for Sanskrit (in the grammatical treatise of Panini); thus, the author of the Malayalam text cleverly appropriated the Sanskrit appellation to claim superiority of the desi (local/regional) to the marga (classical). Varier has further admirably demonstrated that the centre-staging of Malayalam in relation to other languages and cultures recognised in a way the plurality of cultural practices. This plurality also paved the way for bilingualism, especially among merchants whose vibrant presence in Kerala, and especially in the Malabar coast, was a major theme of the Manipravala literature. The accounts of commercial agricultural crops like the black pepper, betel/areca nuts, coconuts and the transactions in daily necessities at shops (angadi) and chante/santé (periodic fairs) figure frequently in these texts. It deserves a special mention here as it is only in Varier’s narrative that trade (long-distance and local) has found a place in the entire volume. It is surprising, actually inexplicable, that such a thematically well-woven work as the present one has virtually shut out trade from discussions, thereby offering explanatory models of socio-political and cultural changes merely in terms of the over-trodden and rather hackneyed discourse of agrarian and rural sector. Recent scholarship has produced a considerable volume of knowledge on the contributions of trade to the making of the socio-economic milieu and cultural life in the subcontinent. That the issuance of land grants paved the way for agrarian expansion and, hence, exchanges in agrarian commodities both at the locality level and at distant market places is well recognised in current historiography. This is especially relevant to the Deccan and South India, both having access to the eastern and western seaboards of India, unlike the land-locked Ganga valley. ¹³ The marginalisation of commerce to the point of historiographical invisibility in this volume is a major shortcoming; its silence is deafening.

The maritime orientation gains further relevance as one reads Kulke’s richly analytical essay on the early state formation in Southeast Asia with which South Asia’s sustained commercial and cultural interactions are well documented and much celebrated. Kulke’s essay is a powerful statement on the usefulness of inscriptions for studying the state. The paper carries the hallmark of Kulke’s theoretical position of ‘cultural convergence’ which rightly rejects R.C. Majumdar’s erroneous position of Indian (actually Hindu) colonies in the Far East and considerably modifies George Coedes’ thesis of Indianised states of Southeast Asia. Standing firmly on the formidable wherewithal of empirical richness together with anthroplogical/sociological approaches to the nature of early state, Kulke strongly underlines the indigenous cultural elements in the making of the Southeast Asian states from c. third/fourth century ce. The enmeshing of South Asian political concepts and religious rituals, which reached the nascent polities in Southeast Asia by way of trade and cultural transactions, with the changing socio-economic milieu in Southeast Asia is symptomatic of his theory of ‘cultural convergence’. This approach neither approves of chauvinistic nationalist stances nor explains Southeast Asian state society and politico-religious ideologies as insulated and sui generis experiences. A Sanskrit inscription from Fu-nan (third century ce) reveals the transformation of a local chiefdom to an early kingdom under Indic influence evident from the presence of the raja, having his own men (svajana), a royal lineage (rajakula) and a cluster of chieftains (rajagana), ruling over a subject population. But beyond that no functionaries figure in the inscription, implying thereby the emergence of a nascent state society and polity. Compared to that, the seven yupa (sacrificial) inscriptions (c. 400 ce) suggest a more complex development as the mention of a lineage-maker (vamsakarta) underlines the significance of genealogy in the making of the state authority. The third-generation ruler bore typical Sanskrit epithets as the head of a monarchical polity, invited Brahmanas hither (iha-agata), his kingdom had both capital city (pura) and a sacred space (punyatama kshetra) for the performance of religious rituals for which Brahmanas were rewarded with land (bhumi): all these are markers of a consolidating monarchical system in Southeast Asia. In maritime Southeast Asia, by the late seventh century, the features of a complex state society became apparent through seven major and six minor inscriptions. Of outstanding importance is the Talaga Batu image inscription, delineating a seven-headed cobra figure above the inscription and its pedestal having a water outlet shaped as a female organ (yoni). The inscription contains curses against the disloyal members of the royal family, servants and local chiefs who were compelled to take the oath of loyalty. The inscription is surely an instrument of royal power which was clearly associated with a territorial state, rudimentary urbanisation and ideology of governance. The impressive list of functionaries taking oath of loyalty to the ruler contains both Sanskrit and Old Malayan terms. The latter cannot but speak of pre-Indianised chieftaincies which were gradually being absorbed into the monarchical state in Srivijaya (Sumatra). These inscriptions bear testimonies to the transition from a pre-state, less hierarchical society and polity in Southeast Asia to a territorial and monarchical state. This formation was indigenous to Southeast Asia and not modelled on Indic experience. Presiding over a more complex and stratified society, the Southeast Asian rulers felt the need of legitimation and ideology of the state which explains their growing attraction for Brahmanical ideologies and religious rituals. If Kulke views this as a modified version of Indianisation, he draws from Torn, who suggests a long process (longue duree) of localisation and local adaptations of Indian cultural elements in Southeast Asia. Kulke notes South India’s mediating role in the process of cultural convergence in Southeast Asia, but does not factor in the maritime orientation of South India facilitating its protracted cultural and commercial linkages with Southeast Asia.

This book with so many important essays and a considerable amount of new empirical materials is a landmark publication for grasping the nuances of South Indian social and religious life for almost a millennium. What Karashima politely narrated as the whispering of inscriptions ¹⁴ has enchanted listeners and readers of inscribed texts. It goes to the credit of the editor and authors that they highlighted the issue of state as a common thread running through the twin themes of society and religion in South India. From the mid-1980s onwards, one of the most influential and significant conceptual and explanatory tools to comprehend the changing nature of state and society (or more cogently, B.D. Chattopadhyaya’s ‘state society’) in India during the period from c. 500 to 1300 ce has been the model of the integrative state. Formulated by Hermann Kulke and B.D. Chattopadhyaya in two separate groundbreaking essays, ¹⁵ the integrative model of the state formation in early medieval times offered an effective alternative to the concepts of feudal and segmented polities. The proliferation of local, regional and supra-regional (fewer in number) polities and the absence of a paramount power (whether in North and South India and the Deccan) was explained in the perception of Indian feudalism as a manifestation of decentralised polity, de-urbanised material milieu suffering from ‘monetary anaemia’ and the consolidation of the self-sufficient and enclosed villages. Critiquing the feudal model, Burton Stein viewed the Chola state, the most formidable South Indian power, as an exemplar of the segmented polity, based on ritual sovereignty, but without bureaucratic control. Inherent in these two models is the recognition of the loose fabric of the state, strongly implying the ill-being of polity and some kind of crisis in the state system. Effectively refuting both the positions, Kulke and Chattopadhyaya laid bare the problems of negative and flawed perspectives of state formation. Relying heavily on epigraphic records, they pointed out (a) unprecedented agrarian expansion in zones away from the ‘areas of attraction’, (b) the resultant resource base for many new kingdoms in areas characterised by pre-state ‘tribal’ society, (c) the penetration of varna-jati norms, hand in glove with the expanding agrarian society, thereby bringing in much sharper social differentiation, and (d) the growing popularity of Brahmanical bhakti cults which regularly appropriated non-Brahmanical/non-Vedic divinities into the Brahmanical pantheon. As these features demonstrated the ongoing process of the expansion and proliferation of the state society at locality and regional levels, the search for ‘epicentric’ models was given up and the perspective of ceaseless oscillations between centralised state and decentralised polities lost its attractiveness in historiography. This is the situation in which the ‘integrative model’ of the state gained widespread currency and acceptance. ¹⁶

The proponents of the ‘integrative polity’ recognise that its two salient features are the consolidation of the varna-jati norms and appropriation of cults of the autochthonous groups into Brahmanical pantheon. The sharply differentiated and hierarchised varna-jati social structure stems from and thrives on institutionalised inequality. The ideology of the state being the adherence to the varna-jati norms, dovetailing with promotion of the sectarian bhakti cults that champions the acts of surrender and loyalty by the devotee to the deity, the social position of the lower order was systematically being degraded. It is no surprise that this period witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of untouchable (asprisya) groups. The ruthless segregation and ostracisation of the lower social order, especially the antyajas and the asprisyas, are part and parcel of the ideology and functioning of the ‘integrative state’. It will be pertinent to visit here the concluding section of the Tiruvindalur copper plate, following Subbaryalu. This section is labelled as vyavastha (decision/pronouncement), but actually lays down severe punishments for transgressors. Thus, for instance,

The palmyra and coconut trees of this village should be beyond the reach of the ilavar (for tapping toddy). Anybody who commits crimes like murder, theft, sinful acts, non-payment of taxes, anywhere within the confines of this village shall be beaten, pierced and killed and subjected to investigation. (Likewise) those who commit theft within the limits of the pidagais shall be caught by force, beaten and killed.

If this was the treatment meted out to someone at fault, this speaks of unqualified distance and distrust of the ruling group to a considerable number of the subjects, most of whom belonged to the lower social order. Karashima’s paper in this volume has illuminated how the caste oppressions by the Brahmanas, rulers and Vellalas found reactions in the changing vocabularies of the imprecatory sections of the inscriptions in the post-1200 phase. To this should be coupled the well-known suspicion of the Brahmanical socio-political order towards the forest dwellers, the hunting-gathering groups and the pastoralists—all living beyond the pales of the agrarian society with little scope of integration, but with the nearly unavoidable prospect of subordination to the regnant Brahmanical ideology of statecraft and social mores. The hypocrisy of the Brahmanical ideology lauds agriculture as the most excellent occupation of all groups, and yet, at the same time labelled cultivators as pamaras who, as a witness, had no legal entity. ¹⁷ The driving force in the Brahmanical model of state society, idealised in normative texts and its actual working captured in inscriptions, was the perpetuation of social divisiveness and inequality, benefiting the upper crust of the society, that is, the landholding Brahmanas, the politico-military authorities and rich agriculturists. It is nearly impossible to see how integration in society and polity could be achieved and translated into practice by the upholding of varna-jati norms and by serving the Brahmanical sectarian bhakti ideology which has been given the position of salience in the model of ‘integrative polity’. At the operational level, the integrative polity seems to have sanctioned and emboldened appropriatory and acquisitive forces to the detriment of vast multitudes of people, condemned to inalterable low social position. It is the appropriatory Brahmanical model of social and political order that had the upper hand, offering bare opportunities for socio-political integration and cohesion during the long millennium which is enlightened upon by the volume under review.