Indian History Congress Proceedings of The Indian History Congress

Sectional President's Address: LEGITIMATION, IDEOLOGY AND STATE IN EARLY INDIA
Author(s): Bhairabi Prasad Sahu

Source: Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 64 (2003), pp. 44-76
Published by: Indian History Congress
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Section I: ANCIENT
Sectional President's Address
LEGITIMATION, IDEOLOGY AND STATE

IN EARLY INDIA
Bhairabi Prasad Sahu
Mr President, colleagues and friends,

I am indeed grateful to the Executive Committee of the I
History Congress for the honour they have done me by elec
to preside over the Ancient India Section of its sixty-fourth
I must confess that while I am overwhelmed at this honour, it has
also evoked a sense of awe because in my own assessment my research
output falls quite short of the rich and influential contributions of
my distinguished predecessors. I consider this honour as an
encouragement to one who has done some work on regional history
and, in the course of teaching for about two decades, has been
interested in the larger patterns of early Indian history.
The problem I bring before you concerns the study of political
processes and the structure of polity in early India. In conventional
historiographical usage the expression 'early India' encapsulates both
the early historical and early medieval periods. My feeling is that
the problem of legitimation in the wider context of state formation
and the structure of polities needs greater attention. It may be useful
to examine the devices that rulers used to extend and perpetuate
their authority. A study of the strategies employed and their changing
forms can provide an entry point for discerning social processes and
structural change in early India, insofar as the system sustaining
mechanisms develop and move in tandem with social and political
processes. This paper is about legitimation of power in early India;
its primary concern will be with the changing forms of patronage *
and legitimation and ways in which the question has been
approached.1
I
Power is a broad inclusive concept, and includes coercion,

domination and even manipulation. Authority is a form of power,
but one which enjoys legitimacy and is associated with obedience
Ancient India 45
and support of the subordi

and authority is, thus, an im
involved with the distribution of power, but the historians are
concerned, deriving from the distribution of power between groups
and classes in society, with the constitution of authority, its
sustenance and changing forms in time and space. Governmentality
is constituted in complex ways, involving the elite and the subject
people; it is not one way traffic. Individuals and groups wielding
power and wishing to continue in that position make use of religious
ideas, symbols and institutions to cohere the fragmented identities
in the realm and validate or consolidate their status. People in power
look for a variety of justifications to provide a moral basis to it and
make it appear as deriving from or rooted in the pool of societal
values.3 Legitimation was necessary for communities experiencing
local state formation as well as in complex state societies.
Legitimation of power and the shaping of dominant ideology were,
as they usually are, complex processes. They were continuously
changing, dynamic and absorptive as against the generally assumed
simple reflective and mechanical constructions. This was in
consonance with the rich cultural mosaic and change intrinsic to
early Indian societies.
Administrative efficiency and control over territories were not
the only bases of political systems in early India. Kings displayed
support for religious institutions, their representatives and a wide
range of other strategies to strengthen their authority. Power was
partly related to persuasion, involving distribution of largesse and
the practice of deception. The authority that people in power
exercised also involved the manipulation of institutions, groups and
their belief systems. Conceptions of power and status are culturally
determined and therefore the constitutive elements in the structure
of legitimation were specific to particular societies. Cultural forms
and historical processes may be comparable across cultures or regions
but comparability is not the same as being identical. Patronage and
the forging of royal authority were interrelated phenomena. Studies
on patronage and legitimation in early India straddle a wide spectrum.
In ancient societies, as so often today, it was not disinterested.4
Rulers participated in and patronised activities and events that
strengthened their legitimacy as upholder of the socio-political order.
Patronage by creating a network of bonds nurtured asymmetrical
social relationships and sustained the inequitous distribution of
power in society. It was achieved through engendering a belief that
the distribution of power in society and, as a consequence of that,
the rules and practices impacting everyday life were just. In fact,
46 I HC: Proceedings , 64th Session, 2003
"ideology by systematic distortion naturalizes and reproduces

relations of unequal power". Acts of patronage with their ability to
influence the domain of popular perceptions were integral to the
legitimation process and strategies of domination. Ruling elites
dispensed their resources, stressed their genealogical links, sponsored
and shared in impressive rituals and invoked special relationships
with Gods in their search for legitimacy or to put it differently seeking
to secure consent to their power. Legitimation allowed those in
power to be perceived as "moral agents, not just self-interested
actors".
Legitimacy comprises three elements: conformation to established

rules; rules which can be justified with reference to beliefs commonly
shared by the rulers and the ruled (which would vary from one age
or society to another) and; the evidence of consent on the part of
the subordinates to the given power relations.5 Consent could be
expressed through formal or symbolic acts or played out in public
on ceremonial or ritual occasions.6 It is important to recognise that
legitimacy could be eroded or contested and, flowing from it, it need
not be perceived in absolute terms. Admittedly, legitimation is not
the only factor contributing to order and stability in a political system.
Organizational capabilities and resource generatiòn are also of crucial
importance. "Èmphasis on legitimation alone obfuscates crucial
aspects of the exercise of force and of the secular compulsions of
State power, but as a part of overall political process it nevertheless
offers us a convenient vantage point from which to view the
ideological dimension of the state".7 Similarly, politics does not
exhaust the concept of legitimation; it deals with society as well
and in the process is both a social and political concept.
The question of legitimation, like state formation, was not much
of a concern until recently, largely owing to the assumption that
ruling elites were too immersed in administration, warfare and the
mobilization of resources to invest anything in seeking social/moral
validation for their rule. The image of an all powerful, unitary and
centralised state, irrespective of time and place, was also not helpful
insofar as it took popular support and acquiescence for granted or
did not see the need to examine the complexities and compulsions
that people in power had to confront and address. Legitimation
studies emerged from historians' recent concern for and engagement
with the origin, evolution and typology of states,9 instead of the
sterile presupposition that states existed since time immemorial or
experienced no structural change over time. At this point a brief
statement of the historiographical trajectory of studies of the state,
Ancient India 47
which have characterised the work of Indian and non-Indian scholars

in the last half a century or so, may help to situate the genesis and
evolving contours of the related theme of legitimation.
II
State formation and legitimation in early historical and, more

particularly, early medieval India have attracted considerable
scholarly attention since the middle of the 1970s; involving critical
engagement with the role of ideas and institutions in the shaping of
authority and thé sustenance of political systems. During this period
there have been several detailed empirical studies focusing on
different historical situations across regions, unmistakably though
the beginnings of this development, in one form or the other, can be
traced to the early influential writings of D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma,
Surajit Sinha, Romila Thapar, Burton Stein, G.W. Spencer and N.B.
Dirks.10 These writings and those that followed drawing inspiration
from them shifted the discursive ground insofar as they emphasized
that historical states, comprising different communities, groups,
institutions and differentiated spaces did not necessarily conform to
theoretical ideal types and, thus, had to be studied not as abstract
phenomena divorced from society, but within the framework of state-
in-society.
Notwithstanding the recognition of the need to bridge the gap
between state and society for a proper understanding of political
processes, including ideology and legitimation, and the structure of
polities, the dominant historiography in the course of providing an
explanatory historical perspective illustrating change, slided towards
macro- generalizations spanning centuries. In the process the
specificity of the historical and regional experiences was subsumed
under overarching theoretical frameworks. This typically modernist
project of constructing large, durable common institutional structures
is characteristic of several mid-twentieth century intellectual
endeavours. Admittedly, its lineage extends to the Colonial writings
through the Nationalist hegemonic constructions. It only
demonstrates that the historian's craft is a dialogic process and that
the weight and influence of earlier generations cannot be easily
replaced. The commonalities between different approaches perhaps
need as much attention, if not more, as the differences." Whatever
their differences, and they are considerable, both Kosambi and
Sharma have played influential roles in the formation of the dominant
historiography. While Kosambi emphasised the possible affinity
between several historical processes during the Age of the Buddha
48 IHC: Proceedings , 64th Session, 2003
and in and around the Gupta period12 and Sharma deserves cre
for weaving the political, social and the religious to explain chang
and continuity in political ideas and institutions in ancient India,
generalizations about legitimacy and ideology from a theoreti
position simplified and stereotyped the perceptive ideas of
Kosambi.14 Bhakti in north and south India, deriving from Kosambi's
stimulating observations, has been shown as the ideology of the
feudal order.15 Religious cults and institutions in early medieval
Deccan and south India, with a political imprint early in their history,
have been perceived within the feudal model.16 It is different from
examining the socio-religious importance and popularity of certain
sects and institutions, which then are seen to have attracted royal
patronage for political purposes. In perceiving Bhakti as being
reflective of a certain socio-economic base, insofar as it is related to
the land grants - political fragmentation - feudalism - Bhakti as
ideology of the new order paradigm, this historiography betrays a
tendency for simple mechanical correlations. The same holds true
for the envisaged relationship between Buddhism and the socio-
political order in the middle of the first millennium B.C.17 Kingship
and state are categories which encompass an infinite variety of
political relationships, and it is difficult to study them in a unitary
way.18 In this regard the changing modes of legitimation at different
stages and in different spatial contexts would be of particular interest.
It should hardly cause any surprise that in the meantime
alternative perspectives of the state and legitimation began to emerge,
partly from the intellectual ferment of the 1960s and early 1970s
and largely propelled by the desire to understand the structure of
states, from the perspective of the regions, in relation to their genesis
and the political processes in operation; rather than vise versa.
This shift can be appreciated in the wider context of the movement
away from largely mechanical and stereotyped explanations towards
situating Indian history in terms of the operation of several mutually
interacting processes of change. Within this processual approach,
or what Hermann Kulke prefers 'o designate as the processural
approach,20 one must add, there are different strands of writing. The
works of Romila Thapar, B.D. Chattopadhyaya, H. Kulke, Burton
Stein, G.W. Spencer and James Heitzman represent different strands
within the processual framework21 and, these differences need to be
recognized. Any effort which homogenizes their treatment of the
subject would be fraught with problems. What binds them is their
common concern to delineate the structure of polity and legitimation,
deriving from an understanding of the region-specific political
processes (as against the generally posited binary opposites of
Ancient India 49
centralization and fragmentat

differences between them of m
ideas and institutions and, flowing from it, the overall
characterization of the state.22
Stein and Spencer subscribe to the segmentary state model

investing the segments with timelessness and invoking 'ritual
sovereignty' rather than political authority as the major incorporative
factor accounting for stability, effectively subordinating the political
to the ritual dimension of the state. 23Heitzman despite arguing for
change and pointing to the pitfalls of generalising for whole periods,
in this case the Chola state spread over almost four centuries, is
close to Stein's position.24 Chattopadhyaya and Kulke while
acknowledging the importance of segments/localities in Indian history
do not see them as immutable entities. In ascribing the localities
their due and simultaneously focusing ön change, coming from within
local societies as well as a consequence of interactions through the
network of translocal linkages, they seem to be arguing for
segmentation and integration.25 Having recognized the importance
of localities they chart the history of their phased integration with,
the imperial kingdom or regional/supra-regional polities, through
the stage of early kingdoms or translocal polities.26 In a system of
multipolar, graded administrative and fiscal control legitimation
operated at different levels. The interrelationship between temporal
power and the sacred domain is seen not in static or reflective terms,
but as dynamic and continuously evolving; involving constant
engagement and negotiation. Integration, both political and cultic^
in this perspective is never perfect, nor bereft of competition anď
contestation.27
The historiographical shift chartered above is of relatively recent

origin. The question then would be how was the issue of legitimation
treated in earlier or other historiographies? Nationalist and
Traditional scholarship for their part seem noticeably disinterested
in the questions of ideology and legitimation, either because they
viewed the state as a constant variable or took popular support for
granted, or were even apologetic about the use of religion for political
purposes under the impact of Colonial writings which characterized
ancient Indians as a people steeped in religion and irrationality. The
failure to recognize structural changes in the historical evolution of
the state unmistakably had its bearing on the neglect of the
ideological dimension. Whatever the limitations of their notions of
polity in early India, these notions provided the basis for fresh
historiographie interventions that addressed the problem of the
50 IHC : Proceedings , 64th Session, 2003
relationship between the temporal and the sacred domain.28

Interestingly, some of the views that replaced the old formulations
lead us to an erroneous understanding of temporal power and
political authority. While Louis Dumont encloses the political within
the social (and religious), J.C. Heesterman sees a permanent
conundrum in the king's authority owing to the inherently conflictual
nature of the relationship between temporal power and
transcendental authority. Such characterisation actually misses the
dynamic relationship between the two. It is fine to argue that the
textual tradition expresses the idea of irreconcilability in brahmanical
thought, but to extend it to actual historical situations is problematic.
One needs to rethink about such analysis, especially against the
background of the texts themselves.29 The concern in sucfo Neo-
Indological perspectives is to demonstrate continuity, in disregard
to the transformative developments that characterised Indian society
through the ages. There is no effort to see the ideas and relationships
that constitute the political as creative or dynamic. The influence
of this vision of weak, atrophied political authority has cast its shadow
on recent works which continue to recount in terms of an "elusive"
king or "hollow crown", political authority as being detached from
its social ànd economic foundations.30 In addressing the question
whether kingship in India was primarily political with ritual or
ideological justifications, or "ritual sovereignty" with political
imprints the answer lies in the first part of the alternative. There
could be "kings without a kingdom", but not kingdoms without a
king.
Historians instead of binding themselves with the familiar
conventions are beginning to analyse by reasoning in terms of the
variational patterns derived from regional contexts. Generalizations
from the perspective of the patterns obtaining in northern India were
for far too long treated as unambiguous statements of the Indian
reality. The energetic pursuit of regional studies now provides a
corrective to that tendency.
Ill
We enter the discussion of the legitimation process in early India

beginning with the Mauryan period when the evidence for writing,
in the form of royal inscriptions, makes its first appearance. That
dhamma represented the ideological dimension of the Mauryan
empire under Ashoka has been long acknowledged.31 However an
examination of the discursive content of the Ashokan inscriptions,
Ancient India 51
which have conventionally be

of the empire, provides an op
functions. The inscriptions p
to administrative organization
tried to reach out to the pe
imperial enterprise). The Majo
of the empire, while the Pilla
territory of northern India.
Rock Edicts in the south with a scatter elsewhere. The overall
distribution pattern of the inscriptions reveals their absence in
of interior peninsular India32 which endorses the recent revalua
of the structure of the Mauryan state, focusing on uneven pat
of growth within the empire and different levels of intera
between the metropolitan centre and the outlying regions.33
The Ashokan inscriptions regularly contrast the deeds and
exertions of the emperor, including the promotion of dhamma , for
the welfare of the people with past rulers and their activities.34 Images
of a good administrator, donor and concerned emperor run through
the records. In spite of his personal faith in Buddhism the proclaimed
policy of dhamma was not identified with it. More importantly the
Brahmanas and Sramanas, people who mattered (as opinion makers),
are continuously referred together in the inscriptions, and the Ajiviļcas
were also not discriminated against. The inscriptions define a lot of
people such as the Yavanas and Atavikas,35 for example, and even
threaten some with state intervention. The picture of a strong,
confident ruler in control of his empire emerges from these records.
What the emperor perhaps intended to achieve was to assure the
people of good government and win their confidence. The inclusion
of the Separate Edicts, which communicate encouraging intentions,
and the exclusion of Rock Edict XIII, relating to the Kalinga war
and its aftermath, in Kalinga as well as at Sannathi have been s^een
not as matters of local initiative, but conscious state policy.36
Flowing from it there is reason to interpret the records as statements
and symbols of royal authority intended to empower the ruler with
popular awe, respect and support. The location of the inscriptions
at nodal points and important communication routes, with easy
visibility, also invests them with political significance.37 The set of
Major Rock Edicts at Dhauli is in the vicinity of the site of Sisupalgarh
in coastal Orissa, which is identified with Toshali, one of the Mauryan
administrative centres in Kalinga. Having said that the question of
literacy and communication still remains to be answered. However,
it has been argued by Romila Thapar that even if an undefined
52 IHC : Procèedings, 64th Session , 2003
majority were not able to read the records themselves, in a primari

oral society, it did not really make a big difference because th
were meant to be read and translated by state officials to the loca
people so as to convey the royal message.38 The conversational ton
and often repetitive nature of the statements too indicate in the sam
direction. Finally, irrespective of whether they were read or r
out, the inscriptions, particularly the Pillar Edicts, had the potent
to visually transmit the authority of the emperor.39
Ecclecticism and toleration that characterised the religious policy
of the Kushanas is known from their coins and inscriptions an
confirmed by the archaeology of the period. Notwithstanding the
Buddhist leanings, the Kushanas patronized brahmanical sacrifi
and brahmanas; including the entrusting of devakulas to
brahmanas.40 These symbolise not only their respect for Brahmanism
but also efforts at incorporation. Mathura, which was an important
multi-functional urban centre, and its surroundings have produced
evidence for Jaina art and antiquities, together with the wealth of
Jaina inscriptions.41 Naga worship is also attested. The reverse of
the^ Kushana coins bear Indian, Zoroastrian and Greek deities and
symbols, indicating their syncretic religious ideology. Archaeological
and epigraphical evidence reveal that several sects later associated
with Shivaiçm and Vishnuism flourished alongside Buddhism and
Jainism under the Kushanas in northern India. The obverse of their
coins depiçt the kings in religious or supernatural contexts. They
are shown engaged in rituals before a fire altar or the bust emerging
from the clouds or flames emanating from the shoulders, or even
with the nimbus around the head. The institution of devakula under
the Kushanas, involving the housing of the statues of dead rulers in
temple like structures, also suggests the effort to appropriate divinity.
The high sounding titles such as maharaja, rajatiraja, devaputra,
shaonanoshgo or shahanushahi and Kaisara , derived from a variety
of cultural contexts, which they adopted ties up nicely with the
emergent picture.
The focus on the religious aspect and its zealous pursuit warrants
an explanation. It has been said that in the absence of the Vedic
source the Kushanas had to work towards a new ideology.
However, that does not tell the full story. It may be rewarding to
situate their non-sectarian, broad-based syncretic religious policy
in the background of their territorial extent and the socio-cultural
situation obtaining within the empire. The Kushanas ruled over a
far-flung empire, extending from Bactria in the west to Varânasi in
the eaśt and from around the Pamirs in the north to the fringes of the
Ancient India 53
Ganga valley in the south. W

numerous languages, religion
was already composite by virtue of having integrated varied
influences. North Indian society was characterised by rich diversity,
the Upper and Middle Gangetic plains being different from the
ancient Punjab. In the Punjab and adjoining regions there were a
number of Gana-samghas or "communities as states", which outlived
the Kushanas and continued up to the Guptas, suggesting insufficient
socio-economic integration and uneven patterns. The official
language of the state was Bactrian written in Kushanised Greek script.
Sanskritized Prakrit too was in use and records were written in Brahmi
and Kharosthi as well. The extensive territory inhabited by various
ethnic groups, speaking different languages and practising diverse
religions generated their compulsions. The Kushana state was
responding to this plural situation, trying to create a level playing
field for all, by being non-sectarian, accommodating variety and
fabricating a syncretic ideology. The state tried to sustain and
perpetuate itself by being responsive to the cultural aspirations of
the people. That explains the rulers' occupation with legitimation
and the use of devices ranging from the adoption of multiple titles
to the accommodation of numerous deities, from various traditions
across the empire. This was in keeping with the non-intrusive
incorporative nature of the Kushana state. In the end what strikes
attention is the clever or imaginative use, like the Guptas later, of
the limited space on coin surfaces for political purposes.
The evidence for religious patronage by the Satavahanas comes
from the Nanaghat and Nasik inscriptions. Whereas the Nanaghat
inscriptions record the performance of Vedic sacrifices, after the
salutation to dharma , Indra, Vasudeva and Samkarsana (brahmanic
and popular deities), the inscriptions from Nasik speak of their
patronage to Buddhist monks as well as inclination for Brahmanical
values. Thus, dynastic patronage, irrespective of the rulers' personal
religious affiliations, was broad based.43 Individual choices did not
cloud, least of all envelope, the public face of political authority. 'f
brahmanas and brahmanical sacrifices bestowed ideological
legitimation, Buddhist monasteries endowed the rulers with wider^
social approval. The linkages between guilds, Buddhist monasteries
and rulers to their mutual advantage have been highlighted in a work
on the Deccan.44 Monasteries had established channels of
communication in newly settled areas and these could be used by
the state to extend its authority.45 The location of the donative
records, especially the strategic placement of the Nanaghat
54 IHC: Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
inscription in a cave (with representations òf the early mem

the dynasty) at the head of a pass connecting the Konkan and
(a Buddhist monastic site) is significant. The patronage to
Brahmanism apart, which indicates the gradual spread of dharma
and varna ideals, the analogy drawn between Gautamiputra Šatkami
and Rama, Keshava, Arjuna and Bhima seeking to emphasise the
king's heroic qualities alludes to the infiltration of epic ideas.
Satavahana legitimation strategies sought to engage with and shape
popufar perceptions. This was possible in a context where the socio-
cultural situation was fluid, the Deccan during the Satavahanas being
in a state of transition to the early historical phase.46 The lengthy
Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela of Kalinga, placed in the later
part of the first century B.C. and the Junagarh inscription of Saka
Rudradaman, dated to the middle of the second century A.D.,
recording their conquests and achievements aré other examples of
similar public documents with political functions.47 The Junagarh
record fe the earliest Sanskrit inscription of importance and it points
to the use of Sanskrit as a court language, as also the preferred
medium for making statements of power. These were precursors of
the prashastis in the land grant charters of the early medieval
centuries.
Alongside the socio-political transformations in early Tamilakam

the shift in thť ideological domain has also been worked out. The
cult of war as ideology of the early heroic society, dominated by
values of heroism, valoür and victory and prospects of booty
gradually made way for Brahmanical ideology.48 The bardic element
was replaced by brahmanas. The pangs of transition, from warring
chiefdoms towards complex society, are beautifully captured in parts
of the Sangam literature. These peasants' voices of dissent came
from the marutum or agricultural tracts.49 The tinai folk deities were
specific to the ways of life in the different ecozones, i.e. while Ceyon
or Murukan, the warrior deity, was worshipped in the Kurinci or
woodland segments, Mayon, the cowherd deity, represented the
mullai or pastoral localities. The brahmanas entered at a crucial
stage in the development of society and their services were welcomed
by the three vendarsX Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas) to enhance their
prestige by inventing genealogical connections or appropriate rituals
for their legitimation. The performance of Vedic sacrifices
symbolized the transition from tribalism and kinship considerations
to larger community identities and territoriality.50 Buddhism and
Jainism predated the coming of Brahmanism to the south, yet it
appears that the latter succeeded where the former failed, i.e., the
construction and dissemination of a ruling ideology. From a situation
Ancient India 55
where they were not intrins

brahmanas with the passage of
of the strategies of dominatio
Dharma was the source of v
could not speak for itself. The
the image of a recluse and r
interpreter of dharma. Thro
significant legends and figur
duality of power and placed th
authority.51 The brahmana-ks
simply be understood either i
other or the rigorous separatio
terms of the dynamic relati
patronage for one and valid
emergence of a power elite in
The king's duty was to prote
to govern. However, protection
but also protection of the so
ensuring the march of dhar
known as dharmatman, dharmaraja and so on. Transcendental
dharma as an inclusive concept impinged on and influenced both
society and politics.53 But dharma was not immutable. It was context
specific/sensitive. One encounters disparate dharmas , from
jatidharma , through srenidharma to deshadharma and more. The
apaddharma section in the Shantiparva poignantly drives home the
point. That the execution of dharma did not mean the
homogenization of beliefs and practices is amply borne out by
Dharmashastra literature. The king is continuously advised to respect
local customs and traditions.54 They enjoined that plurality was
respected. Dharmashastra literature evolved through a long drawn
process of incorporation of local customs. This aspect is obfuscated
by the idiom of the texts, which gives it the appearance of being
eternal and timeless. The Vedic mystique provided it with validation
and a veneer of orthodoxy. The compilers of the Dharmashastras
when confronted with practices that they did not approve of
presented them as belonging to another yuga or as practices of the
depraved. Nevertheless, the recognition and mention of such customs
or behaviour allowed for their future incorporation.55 The spread of
state societies from around the Gupta period onwards facilitated the
dissemination of 4hartņa through the agency of brahmanas and
related institutions. These developments not only provided a central
focus and familiarised people in the areas emerging to limelight with
56 IHC : Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
norms of state society, but also through continuous engagem

dharma and local customs mutually impacted each other. Dha
with its conspicuous stress on duty, to the relative exchisioďof righ
sought to create a subject population averse to challenge authority
It tried to perpetuate the ideology of varna which was necessary
ruling elites to acquire legitimacy by appearing to be conforming
traditions. In preserving norms rulers were expected to ensure t
perpetuation of varnashramadharma . In spite of the recognition
plurality the focus on norms may be seen as a desire to superimp
ideas and values which could cut through the medley of norm
varied communities and create conditions favourable for the
sustenance of monarchical states.
The idea of Kaliyuga referred to in the land grant inscriptions

from the middle of the first millennium A.D. too project the king as
conforming to and promoting dharma . The references to Kaliyuga
occur in the prashasti section of the land grants of the Paliavas,
Kadambas and several dynasties in Orissa, in a situation of local
state formation, where the king's piety, righteousness and other deeds
are juxtaposed with it.57 Kings are said to have banished or washed
away the sins of Kali. In this case, the royal duty of banishing Kali
and subduing disorder is combined with an ideology of order and it
becomes the sub-text of the articulation of the imagery of kingship.
Cultural discourses such as the Kali, with their motifs and tropes,
played a part in the politics of power.58 They were meant to drive in
the fear of anarchy so as to make people conform to dharma.
Simultaneously, they allude to the horizontal spread of state society
within the ambit of Brahmanical ideas59 and, the indespensibility of
brahmanas in the fashioning of dominant ideology.
IV
Ruling elites from the Gupta period onwards engaged in a variety of

successful techniques to supplement their strategies of political
control, including the construction of genealogies, appropriation of
Itihasa-purana tradition, patronage of art and literature and
dispensing their resources on brahmanas, tirthas , temples and
monasteries. In literature, inscriptions, coin motifs and legends and
art of the Gupta period we come across a repetitive set of imageries
and visual symbols through which royalty was represented. The
idealised perception of kings rivalled Gods in physical prowess, moral
excellence and virtuosity. Motifs on coins, ranging from the archer
to harp player, and the Goddess of fortune on the reverse, captured
royal energies, skills and aspirations and reaffirmed societal
Ancient India 57
values.60 In brief, they provid

present in its expanded form i
productions were imbued with
Scholars have noted the imp
art, and have analysed how the visual idiom strove to make
monarchical ambitions tangible. Artists, like poets, excelled in
conveying multiple meanings in lithic art and used political allegory
to dramatic effect to project royalty and their deeds. The famous
Varaha at Udayagiri rescuing the earth (in the context of its
production and other details in the relief) is seen to be an allegorical
representation of Chandragupta II, who rescued the earth from the
Shakas. In south India one comes across similar use of art forms.
Decorative art on a temple wall at Kanchi clearly focuses on the
analogy of the reigning king Paliava Nandivarman's exploits and those
of epic heroes.61 The depictions of Krishna lifting the Govardhana
and the descent of the Ganga at Mahabalipuram, it is said, were
related to the provision of water at the site by a Paliava king. Such
investigations are informed by a concern to explore the ways in which
ideas of kingship were transmitted. They focus on the connections
between art and monarchical ideologies or how art was bound to
dynastic purposes, especially when people in power intervened to
conspicuously project that reading. Funds were lavished on religious
monuments under Harshavardhana and his contemporaries in
northern India. Adityasena's kindness at Aphsad, Shahpur and
Mandara hill, the Dah Parbatiya door-way ascribed to
Bhaskaravarman and Harsha's patronage of Nalanda are cases in
point. It is not difficult to visualise the political benefits that would
have accrued from such patronage.62
Religious pluralism and the catholicity of the kings is noticed in
the case of the Guptas and their contemporaries, such as the Matharas
of Kalinga, Salankayanas of Andhra, Kadambas of Banavasi and the
Vakatakas of the northern Deccan. However, it was possibly not
entirely unrelated to power and politics. The compulsion of royal
power, as so often in the past, made it necessary for patronage to be
broad based. Several dynasties addressed the problem by ensuring
that members of the royal family, especially women, patronised sects
other than the one sponsored by the king.63 These were therefore as
much acts of politics as piety.64 The Maitrakas of Valabhi (the first
local dynasty of Saurashtra) through land grants to brahmanas,
Buddhist viharas and occasionally to temples sought to legitimise
their authority and extend into the countryside for resource
mobilization.65 The Sarabhapuriyas and more particularly the
5 8 ÍHC: Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
Panduvamshis of south Kosala, both early autochthonous fa

engaged in a multipronged strategy of donations to brahm
viharas and temples and the construction of motifs and images
invoking analogy with epic-puranic heroes and deities. These were
intended to sanction status to the rulers.66 Dynasties of humble origin
such as those mentioned above, and most of them across regions in
early medieval India had similar origins, had to repeatedly announce
their new found status to win acceptability and respect within local
society and outside.67 Ramtek, in Vidarbha, under the Vakatakas was
shaped into an impressive sacred centre. The cluster of sanctuaries
at the site are envisaged to have communicated "the prestige and
sovereignty of the royal family that had built them". The
incorporation of popular cults like that of Varaha and Narasimha
would have gone a long way in uniting the people of the realm "into
a community of worship" and enhanced the royal family's leadership
role in the community of believers.68 The peripheral location of
Ramtek was important. While royal activities helped to integrate it
with the mainstream, it enabled the king to be omnipresent. Vakataka
inscriptions focussed on the virtues of the king and disseminated the
image of the ruler as the restorer of ideal dharmic Kritayuga. The
prestige of these rulers was partly based on donations to brahmanas
and local temples. By superimposing Sanskritic rituals Brahmanical
ideology was spread among the populace.69
The emergence of temples was indeed an important
development during this period and could not have been possible
without corresponding developments in the spheres of religion and
culture. The growing importance of Bhakti and the influence of
puranic religion together with the spread of state society and, flowing
from it, the political compulsions of the new ruling lineages
contributed to the new phenomenon.70 Outside Gangetic northern
India and its fringes early temples were built in Saurashtra, Vidarbha,
Chattisgarh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, among others. Buddhist
monasteries in these regions too were recepients of royal patronage.
Sculptural art began to get integrated in the decorative scheme of
temple architecture. Episodes from the Epics and Puranas came to
adorn temple walls, pillars of mandapas or halls attached to the
garbhagriha and even door-jambs at Kanchipuram, Mahabalipuram,
Bhubaneswar, Sirpur and Raj im.71 It can be argued that because of
the requirements of political validation and the growth of rural
economy and caste society there was a heightened awareness about
epic-puranic ideas and, this engagement is reflected in artistic
developments. Continued manifestation of these ideas can be gleaned
from the epigraphical material. Rulers claimed to have followed the
Ancient India 59
laws of Manu and studied th

the symbols and imageries
power show a gradual sprea
Gupta norms. The inscription
Kadambas and Paliavas are am
influence. They were the for
prashastis.
With the establishment of state society local societies were
marked by a disjunction between a small ruling elite, quickly
sanskritising itself, and a numerous subject population whom they
tried to successfully control. A theory of authority was necessary.
It was constructed drawing partly from transregional Brahmanical
tradition enshrined in Vedic-shastric-epic-puranic literature, and
partly based on local indigenous tradition. By the logic of Bhakti
local folk deities came to be transformed into major temple Gods
through the largesse of kings and the connivance of brahmanas.
Vishnu and Shiva representing pervasiveness suited the requirements
of expanding society and polity. Particularly Vishnu because of his
association with protection, prosperity and fecundity was a favourite
with several early dynasties.73 Notwithstanding the sanskritising trend
in culture, the local/regional flavour was never completely replaced
or subsumed. In Orissa while the autochthonous deities were raised
to a higher level of ritual elaboration and universalised in course of
the transformation of tribal chieftains to 'Hindu' kingship, their visual
manifestations, priests and rituals were allowed to coexist with
superimposed Brahmanical practices.74 That the names of Ramayana
characters in Karnataka were localised can be seen in the expressions
Lakhan, Site and Suppankhi in the inscribed panels at Pattadakal.7'
The appropriation of the ancient lineage traditions and other symbols
inherited from the Sangam period by the early medieval dynasties in
Tamilakam76 represent the same process of incorporation of
indigenous elements. Similarly, in south Indian inscriptions the
rendering of the prashasti section in Sanskrit and the operative part
in regional languages can be partly explained in terms of royal need
to tie legitimacy both down and sidewise. There was an interesting
interface between regional and transregional processes in early
medieval India. The flow of goods, persons and information through
a*variety of exchange networks created cultural arenas that went
beyond those defined by the regions or sub-regions, while
undoubtedly related to them.77
The genealogical portions and prashastis in the epigraphical
material provide evidence for the elements that went into the making
60 I HC: Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
of the image or self-image of kingship from the Gupta period onwards

In the context of south India this aspect of courtly ideology has be
worked in great details.78 The curious origin myths, grand dynas
traditions, inflated genealogies and kshatriya lineage, it is said, le
prestige to the dynasty as a whole and emphasised inheritability
virtues, typical of caste ideology.79 Claims to Chakravartin status
the warrior and donor images glorified individual rulers in focusi
on their political, military and cultural dimensions. The performan
of Vedic sacrifices by early members of the lineage, 'ye are told, h
transgenerational impact and could elevate the status of subsequen
rulers.80 As mentioned above local traditions and stereotypes from
Sanskrit literature were fused in the courtly constructions. Th
images sought to sanctify the rulers' claims to rule. The ideologue
saw to it that they suited the cultural milieu of the times so as t
project the monarch as the omphalos of the socio-political ord
These self-perceptions have been situated in the wider context
the multi-centred hierarchised polities, and it is argued that the idi
and symbols made sense to a people immersed in shastric-pura
tradition and temple-based Bhakti ideology.81 After all, the functi
of genealogies, like other state rituals and ceremonies, was t
strengthen royal authority.82 The short dynastic genealogies of t
* Guptas expanded to full-blown eulogistic genealogies during t
early medieval period. The size of the prashastis under the Cho
in the eleventh century were quite impressive. The prashasti in t
inscription of Virarajendra, the son of Rajendra Chola, in a templ
at Kanya Kumari is the most striking. 419 out of its 444 lin
engraved on six piljars, represent the prashasti of Virarajendra an
his ancestors. This is the best but certainly not the only example
its kind. It is envisaged that the eulogistic genealogies in the copp
plates and temple inscriptions in advertising the message of gr
kingship took over the socio-political functions of carita literatur
and obviated the need for it during the eighth to eleventh
centuries.83 In this context one may ask what was the relationship
between text and context? Was the former reflective of the latter?
Ideas were not always defined by or reflective of socio-cultural

conditions, but by a process of continuous dissemination of a set of
symbols and ideas, through multiple agencies, values could be
instilled and internalised. Ideas and material culture mutually
influenced each other. In societies in transition ruling elites tried to
intervene and effectively transform ground realities by constantly
mediating in the negotiations in the cultural domain.84 The post-Gupta
centuries witnessed the spread of vedic-shastric-epic-puranic ideas
in a situation of the evolution of comparable socio-political processes
Ancient India 61
across regions. These ideas a

brahmanas, temples, monastic establishments and translocal
transactional networks, played an important role in cultural
transmission and reproduction.85 Societies in the course of absorbing
these ideas were changing somewhat in the process.
The simultaneous emergence of tirthas and local/translocal
states and, the association of chiefs and kings with many of these
sacred centres by way of participation in the rituals and ceremonies
or extending munificence clearly brings out their interrelationship.
Tirthas emerged mostly in regions outside Gangetic northern India
i.e., Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh,
Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Jharkhand. A closely related
development was the proliferation of shrines and temples. Ruling
lineages in early medieval times patronized the construction and
maintenance of temples as it was becoming an important agency of
political validation. Temples were endowed with sacred traditions
by Mahatmyas and Stkala Puranas as well as the bhaktas , leading
to the growth of pilgrimage networks.86 Royalty sought to channelise
such institutions for political purposes and patronage became an
important means for doing so. Inscriptions attest to temple building
activities by niimerous chiefs in tribal frontiers. The instances of the
association of temples with tribes are quite large. The Chenchus at
Srisailam, Boyas at Draksharama, Sabaras at Puri, Kurubas at
Tirupati, should suffice to illustrate the point.87 In the process of
transforming the world of the tribes Brahmanical tradition was also
changing in accommodating their inheritance, in a situation of mutual
interaction. The linkages between tirthas , acculturation and state
formation are brought into relief by a number of studies. In Andhra
Pradesh, for example, the strategic location of Shaivite and
Vaishnavite cult centres and mathas atop hills and on passes across
the Eastern Ghats facilitated the integration of tribes.88 Folk Gods
were made incarnations of Shiva and Vishnu and the goddesses were
universalised as their consort or as manifestations of Durga and Kali
in the course of the transformation of folk deities, through village
deities, to tutelary deities of ruling families.89 Tirthas as centres of
integration of tribal and pastoral people/areas became sites of
political interest. Inscriptions from Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Orissa
indicate the building of temples for autochthonous deities by local
kings.90 The cults of Ekalingaji, Danteshwari and Jagannatha make
the more general point about "kings and cults".
A fine example of the inherent relationship between the sacred
centre and political authority is provided by the simultaneous
62 I HC: Proceedings, 64th Session , 2003
evolution of the cult of Jagannatha and a regional kingdom in O

under the Later Eastern Gangas. The history of Orissa from ar
the Gupta period onwards was characterised by the rise of indig
chiefs together with their local tutelary deities to translocal
importance.91 While the autochthonous deities provided the necessary
connectivity with the tribes in transition and bridged the gap between
them and the emerging ruling elite, undergoing a synchronous process
of change from chieftainship to kingship, the superimposition of
Brahmanical rituals on local cults helped their incorporation in the
pantheon of pan-Indian deities.92 The movement towards the
formation of a regional polity began under the Bhaumakaras, was
carried forward by the Somavamshis and finally actualised under
the Gangas. The making of a regional state was supplemented by a
similar process of consolidation in the sacred realm.
The Jagannatha cult was a synthesis of various elements which
brought together deities with a strong territoriality, i.e., Viraja-Durga
of Jajpur, Shiva-Lingaraja of Bhubaneswar and Purushottama-
Jagannatha of Puri. An inscription of 1216 represents Anangabhima
III as the son of Purushottama, Rudra and Durga.93 The coming
together of important sub-regional deities, with Viraja and Lingaraja
having already been influential deities during the Bhaumakaras and
Somavamshis respectively, paved the way for political
consolidation.94 As the cult of Jagannatha evolved from Purushottama
and Lakshmi, through Purushottama, Rudra and Durga, to
Jagannatha, Balabhadra and Shubhadra it forged both horizontal
and vertical linkages. The shift from early kingdom to imperial
kingdom/regional state was accompanied by a change in the
ideological domain. The construction of the Jagannatha temple and
the emergence of Jagannatha as the tutelary deity of the Eastern
Gangas demonstrates this. The political advantages accruing from
these developments are obvious and that the ritual policy of the
Gangas was politically motivated emerges from the fact that
Anantavarman Codaganga in spite of sponsoring the monumental
temple for Jagannatha at Puri continued to be a Shaiva in personal
faith.95 Anangabhima III dedicated the state to Jagannatha, the
rashtradevata , in 1230 and ruled under his orders as his subordinate
(i rauta ).96 The Suryavamshi Gajapatis, who succeeded the Gangas in
the middle of the fifteenth century, further elaborated the Ganga
strategy and ruled not just as the rauta (deputy) of Jagannatha, but
as his servitor ( sevaka ).97 The surrender of the state to the regional
deity and the proclaimed close affinity with the cult allowed kings
to denounce political opposition or non-compliance with royal orders
as treason ( droha ). This marked a significant shift from earlier forms
Ancient India 63
of legitimation and sought to

the range of criticism and, deriving out of it, make his position
unassailable. After the fall of the Gajapatis in the mid-sixteenth
century the imitation of the "Puri model" by states in the hinterland
in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries and competition among the
rajas or "little kings" in the south (Kalinga and adjoining territories)
to inherit and appropriate the Ganga-Gajapati ideological legacy
unambiguously demonstrate the continued depth and extent of the
reach of the Jagannatha cult as well as its political importance.^
A comparable process of legitimation through cultic integration
and state formation has been discerned in the case of Mewar. The
interrelatedness of the changes in the religious and political processes
bearing on the transformation of a local ruling lineage into a regional
power attracts attention. Popular local goddesses such as
Aranyavasini, Ghattavasini and Vatayaksinidevi were gradually
incorporated into the cult of Vindhyavasini, who subsequently found
a place in the cult of Ekalingaji. Finally, in the fifteenth century the
Guhila king, like the Gajapatis of Orissa, adopted the title
E/calinganijasevaka (Ekalinga's servitor) so as to strengthen the basis
of his power." Besides suggesting a correspondence between the
stages of-political development and the legitimation apparatuses in
early medieval and medieval Mewar Ulrike Teuscher elaborates the
last point.100 She posits that in the fifteenth century there was a
borrowing of elements from Orissa and Vijayanagara, to bolster the
self-perception of the king, and that is best illustrated in the title of
the personal or first servant of Ekalinga which the king bore and the
Navaratri festive celebrations.
The Raj arajesh wara temple built by Rajaraja at Tanjore has been
the subject of some fascinating studies which emphasize its socio-
political functions. G.W. Spencer in an important contribution argued
that patronage to the temple instead of representing the power of a
despotic ruler was actually an effective device to strengthen royal
power.101 Monumentality apart, the frescoes and records of Rajaraja's
patronage on the walls of the temple reflect ideas of power. The
convergence of the Chola religious and political centres at Tanjore
together with its transactional network invested it with additional
visibility. James Heitzman in carrying the story forward has argued
that the transactional networks of the imperial temple bound the
core, intermediate and important places in the peripheral regions as
well as the king and local leaders in a cooperative (not necessarily
static) relationship, while providing the king with an enhanced
leadership profile.102 Both Spencer's and Herman's analyses focus
64 IHC: Proceedings, 64th Session , 2003
on the question of royal identification with the central deity, wi

the consequence of making royal power more tangible.103 The tem
is hence believed to have conveyed a political message i.e., the
message of royal greatness, emphasising the centralized role of th
king in a segmented political system. It needs to be said that wha
we notice at Jagannatha, Ekalingaji and Raj arajesh wara is mor
comparable reading of socio-cultural values than a direct
transplantation of the same everywhere.
Temples located outside the core such as those at the borders
too in given historical situations played significant roles in socio-
cultural transformation and political validation. The temples at
Simhachalam and Draksharam, in Andhra Pradesh, by virtue of their
location became sites of contestation between rival dynasties during
the late early medieval centuries and beyond. It is borne out by the
inscriptional records of the contending parties on the walls of these
temples.104 Temples such as these hugely benefited from these
struggles by emerging āsĪRē'legitimizer of competing families and
their overlapping claims. In the thirteenth century the Yadavas of
Devagiri sponsored the two sacred centres Pandharpur and Ramtek
situated at the borders of their kingdom. In investing at these ancient
sites which were experiencing the transition to full-fledged Vaishnava
cultic centres, from their earlier association with a pastoral deity or
Varaha-Narasimha worship, they were actually alligning themselves
with and tapping the religious movement of the times, i.e., Vaishnava
bhaktl . It could yield significant political dividends in terms of
enhanced prestige and community following.105 The pilgrim networks
connecting these temple centres of Krishna and Rama respectively
may have facilitated their integration with the core of the kingdom.
Having said that, it may be mentioned that temples acquired and
played important political roles in regional and sub-regional settings
depending on how historical forces converged at those sites. The
relationship between the royal devotee and the sacred centre was
not necessarily political in all instances nor were all temples imbued
with a political role. The relationship between kings and temples
was not always the same.106 While some like the
Gangaikondacholapuram complex died prematurely, others such as
Jagannatha Puri continued to retain their importance, admittedly
though depending on how the temporal domain constantly defined
and redefined its relevance vis-à-vis itself.107
Recently there has been criticism of the legitimation theory/theme

as a relevant category of analysis. Both Sheldon Pollock and Daud
Ancient India 65
Ali have voiced their reservati

assumptions characterised by
to urge the need to work it out
cases.108 Although Pollock's cr
with the problem of explaining
language through which power
in early south and southeast
the complexities of courtly cul
larger questions. Some of th
difficult to disagree with, sug
issues such as the audiences
apparatuses, the effectiveness
of communication as well as
questioning the theme as an ar
seems to border on cynicism
entirely unrelated to the unde
no viable political structures a
of legitimation is no more imp
and political mobility of indiv
and more importantly one ma
sanskritisation and the explanat
Ideology is perceived to be a
which could perhaps substitut
being reflective.110 However,
intricately and inextricably tie
inclusive* and far more com
Legitimation unmistakably r
certainly not the whole of it. T
other would mean the loss of
Alongside, it seems that the ac
term/category, but with the f
in the area.
So where does the consideration of the changing forms of

patronage and legitimation and the voices of dissent leave us? It
seems that unlike what is at times assumed, a new legitimation
structure was not usually imposed, nor was it easy to do so, but was
designed to accommodate, incorporate and tap what was already
available in local societies.111 There was constant appropriation of
the local and localization of translocal cultural flows. Legitimation
entailed negotiations apd integration of competing traditions. In
Orissa and Bengal Brahmanas legitimated aspects of local beliefs
and religious practices.112 Such recognition instead of treating
common 'people as docile pawns in the games that elite played
66 I HC: Proceedings , 64th Session, 2003
concedes them with agency. It also rejects the simple divisive

perception of the cultural domain in terms of "great" and "little"
traditions, urging instead the acknowledgement of change through
continuity.
Brahmanas, monastic establishments, temples and tirthas played
a vital role in the process of cultural communication and socialization
and, flowing from it, were vehicles of political leģitimation in settled
and developing areas.113 Land grants to Brahmanas in the centre and
outlying regions of the kingdoms helped the extension of state power
insofar as they propagated Vedic-shastric-epic-puranic ideas, varna
ideology and the ideal of Hindu kingship, and in the process
familiarised people with the norms of state society.114 The growing
importance of temples in socio-religious life is amply borne out by
the staging of dance dramas, recital of Puranas, celebration of
festivals, among other activities, in their premises. The temple was
the site of community gathering, rituals and education, a place where
people imbibed values.115 The performance of vratas , deriving from
the authority of the Puranas, Kathas and recitals of religious texts
as well as community performance in processions and ritual
observances transmitted Brahmanic-Puranic ideas and notions of
authority.116 From copper plate land grants and inscriptions on stone
to sculptural art and monumental architecture were employed to
touch a chord with the people. 1,7 Language, symbols and idioms
played a significant part in the negotiations in the cultural domain.
The texts and art forms reveal the process of the constitution of
political ideology that was at once complex and nuanced. Messages
repeated over and over again provide a certain credence to it and
that explains why repetitive messages were being transmitted through
different channels. The land grants, among other things, by asserting
the state's rights entered into multiple levels of engagement and
helped in constituting notions of legitimacy. In constituting authority
the state was also constituting its subjects. The internal isation of
values is visible in the poets' and scribes' use of Vedic-shastric ideas
in their compositions, including the draft of land transaction
documents, and artists' rendering of epic-puranic episodes in stone.
One can see that, conflicts and contestation apart, the Brahmanas
succeeded in establishing their modes and codes. Similarly, the pan-
Indian spread of Sanskrit is indicative of the effectiveness of
traditional communication systems.
We do not have alternative accounts which contradict the self-
representations of royalty and their moral claims to authority, but
then one may ask what constituted consent and who had to provide
Ancient índia 67
it to lend legitimacy to thos

through a variety of alterna
devices discussed above. People's participation in the coronation
ceremony or the local notables' acceptance of state recognition or
peoples' acceptance of standardized royal claims, depicted in
contemporary or near contemporary literature, could have symbolised
approval."9 States try to bind in the men of substance among the
subjects through public actions demonstrative of their consent with
the intention of publicising the confirmation of their legitimacy to a
wider audience. The continuous references to the Brahmanas and
Sramanas in the Ashokan inscriptions, Kutumbins as addressees in
the land grant charters in the middle of the first millennium A;D.l2
and the region-specific substantial peasants and notables such
the mahattaras, mahamahattanas, Gavundas, Nattars, Heggades,
Pergaddes and Reddis later on seem to have served similar functions.
The addressees shared the state's confidence and authority.121 The
continuous representation of the Kakatiya queen Rudrama-deyi as a
male (though there was no effort to mislead the people) iii name,
clothing, attributes as well as epithets depict the force of constructed
political tradition, which associated legitimate political power with
masculine features.122 Popular narratives of the state in a regional/
sub-regional context provide insights into the percolation of royal
claims in society and the domain of popular perceptions. In the
case of Mewar some effort has been made to capture it and what
emerges clearly reflects on the process of acknowledgement of royal
claims and, implicitly consent to the ruling family.123 In Orissa the
continued use of the cult of Jagannatha by contenders and pretenders
to power even during the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries bears
testimony to its pervasiveness and transgenerational influence.124
Times of greater or lesser engagement may have occurred, but
there was a continuous production and refinement of the structure
of legitimation, and an ongoing evolution of styles across regions.
Legitimation is afterall hard work and there is a need, to understand
how power works and the ways in which people in power struggled
to retain it. There were alternative, competing ideas other than the
dominant forms, but they are harder to retrieve because of the
normative or optative nature of our sources. While ascribing agençy
to both the hegemon and hegemonised in the construction of political
processes, there is no doubting the larger picture of domination that
goes beyond individual intentions or regional specificities. The
legitimation theme has, despite differences, rightly gained wide
acceptance in Indian studies in the last three decades. Such studies,
besides providing insights into the structure of polity, have revealed
68 IHC : Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
some important historical trajectories along which regional tra

and identities were formed (though everyone may not hav
included in it) over centuries. They have shown that India's cu
past, as elsewhere, was not bereft of the rituals of power, invo
among others, visuals, mendacity and propaganda. Not th
questions have been answered satisfactorily, but that at least
interesting questions have been posed to keep the theme op
discussion is a matter of satisfaction.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
l am grateful to Professor B.D. Chattopadhyaya for his helpful comments on

draft of this essay. I am thankful to Professor Hermann Kulke and Dr Martin
of the University of Kiel and Dr Daud Ali of the School of Oriental and Afri
for their kindness in drawing my attention and providing access to some of th
cited here.
The award of a Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship in the summer of 200
me the opportunity for utilizing the resources of the British Library and
Oriental and African Studies Library. I offer them all my sincere thanks.
1 For example, there have been criticisms of the legitimation theme. See th
in Sheldon Pollock, 1996. 'The Sanskrit Cosmopolis, 300-1300 CE : Transcu
Vernacularization and the Question of Ideology', in Jan E.M. Houben (ed
and Status of Sanskrit : Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Lang
York, E.J. Brill, pp. 197-247 and Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Politica
Early Medieval India, Cambridge, CUP (forthcoming), Introduction.
The relative neglect of the early historical period, among other issues, in le
studies has been pointed out. See Upinder Singh, 'Early Medieval Orissa
and the Debate', in Martin Brandtner and S.K. Pan^a (eds), Essays in
Professor Hermann Kulke , Delhi, Manohar (forthcoming).
2. This is the usual, often cited, Weberian distinction between power and auth
3. For discussions see I.W. Mabbett,1985, 4 A Survey of the Background to th
Political Traditions in South-east Asia', and idem, 'Introduction : The Co
Study of Traditional Asian Political Institutions', in idem (ed), Patterns of
and A uthoritý in Traditional Asia , London.
4. For a discussion of the range of methods employed to achieve cohes
effectiveness of a system in the ancient past see Anton Powell, 1 989, (ed)
Sparta : Techniques Behind Her Succeess, London,; also see M.I. Finley, 1984
Politics in the Ancient World , Cambridge, pp. 24-49.
5. A detailed examination of the problem, including a reassessment of the
Weber, is available in David Beetham, 1991, The Legitimation of Power
Macmillan.
6. In the early medieval situation, for example, the use of the lord's era or a humbler title
than that of the overlord or participation in the courtly ceremonies of the lord and the
request for making a land grant by the subordinate samantas would constitute indicators
of consent.
7. See B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 1983, 'Political Processes and the Structure of Polity in
Early Medieval India : Problems of Perspective', Presidential Address, Ancient India
Section, Burdwan Session, PIÉC, p. 32.
Ancient India 69
8. For its social dimensions see Romila

with Special Reference to Elite Groups
Edn.), Indian Society : Historical Probi
pp. 95-123; idem, Cultural Transactio
Delhi.
9. R.S. Sharma's Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India , Delhi,
1 99 1 (3r Edn., 1st Edn. 1 959) is the earliest work to identify stages in ancient Indian
polity and focus on the role of ideas.
1 0. See D.D. Kosambi, 1 952, 4 Ancient Kosala and Magadha', JBBRAS , especially pp. 191-
96; idem, 1961, 'Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagavad Gita ' JESHO , IV,
198-224; R.S. Sharma, ibid and 'Material Background of the Origin of Buddhism', in
Mohit Sen and M.B. Rao (eds), 1968, Das Kapital Centenary Volume, A Symposium ,
New Delhi, pp. 59-66; Surąjit Sinha, 1962, 'State Formation and Rajput Myth in Tribal
Central India', Man in India, 42, pp. 35-80; Romila Thapar, 'Social Mobility in Ancient
India ... .' op. cit. and 'Origin Myths and the Early Indian Historical Tradition', in D.
Chattopadhyaya (ed), 1978, History and Society, Calcutta, pp. 271-94; Burton Stein,
Integration of the Agrarian System of South India', in R.E. Frykenberg (ed) 1969,
Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History , Madison, pp. 1 75-2 1 3 and 'The
Segmentary State in South Indian History', in R.G. Fox (ed), 1977, Realm and Region
in Traditional India , New Delhi, pp. 3-5 1 ; G.W. Spencer, 1969, 'Religious Networks
and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India', JESHO, 1 2, pp. 42-56; and N.B.
Dirks, 1976, 'Political Authority and Structural Change in Early South Indian History'.
IESHR, pp. 125-157.
1 1 . For a good discussion see B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 2002, 'Confronting Fundamentalisms
: The Possibilities of Early Indian History', Studies in History , 1 8( 1 ), pp. 1 03-20.
12. Kosambi, op. cit., 1981, reiterated in his Wie Culture and Civilization of Ancient
India in Historical Outline, New Delhi, (6 impression), pp. 5.5 and 7.3-7.4.
1 3 . Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions ... , op. cit., idem, 'From Gopati to Bhupati ' ,
in D. Chattopadhyaya (ed), 1981, Marx ism and Indology, Calcutta, pp. 263-73.
14. Supra n. 10 and 12. For a recent statement on Kosambi's writings see B.D.
Chattopadhyaya (ed), D.D. Kosambi, 2002, Combined Methods in Indology and Other
Writings , New Delhi, Introduction; also see Romila Thapar, 1992, 'The Contribution
of D.D. Kosambi to Indology', in idem, Interpreting Early India, New Delhi, pp. 89-
113.
15. For example, see V.K. Thakur, 1989, 'Social Roots of the Bhagavad-Gita : A Note on
the Role of Ideology in the Early Medieval Society', in his Historiography of Indian
Feudalism , Patna, Appendix II, pp. 104-18; Kesavan Veluthat, 1979, 'The Temple-
Base of the Bhakti Movement in South India', PIHC, Waltair Session, pp. 1 85-194
For a comprehensive treatment of the subject see R.S. Sharma, 2001 , The Feudal Mind',
in his Early Medieval Indian Society - A Study in Feudalisation , Kolkata, pp. 266-
82.
1 6. See R.N. Nandi, 1 986, Social Roots of Religion in Ancient India, Calcutta.
1 7. For a critique of the iron-productivity-surplus-complex society paradigm see Shereen
Ratnagar, 2000, 'Archaeology and the State', in IHR , 22(2), pp. 1 57-66. For a detailed
discussion see Editor's Introduction in B.P. Sahu (ed), Iron and Social Change in
Early India , New Delhi, OUP (forthcoming).
1 8. See, for example, Kumkum koy, 1 994, The Emergence of Monarchy in North India .
Eighth to Fourth Centuries B.C., New Delhi, B.D Chattopadhyaya, 'Autonomous
Spaces' and the Authority of the State : the Contradiction and its Resolution in Theory
and Practice in Early India', in Herausgegeben von, Bernhard Kolver et al. (eds), 1 997
70 ÍHC: Proceedings 64th Session, 2003
The State . the Law and Administration in Classical India , R. Oldenbourg Ve
München, pp. 1-14.
19 See H. Kulkę, 'The Integrative Model of State Formation in Early Medieval In
Some Historiographie Remarks', in M. Kimqra and A. Tanabe (eds), The State m In
: Past and Present (forthcoming). For a critique of the dominant historiography
B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 'State and Economy in North India : Fourth Century to Twe
Century , in Romila Thapar (ed), 1995, Recent Perspectives òf Early Indian Histor
Bombay, pp. 309-46.
20. H. Kulke, The Early and the Imperial Kingdom : A Processural Model of Integr
State Formation in Early Medieval India', in idem (ed), 1995, The State in India 10
1 700, New Delhi, pp. 233-62.
2 1 . See Romila Thapar, 1984, From Lineage to State (Social Formations in the Mid F
Millennium B.C. in the Ganga Valley ), New Delhi, idem, 'The Mouse in the Ancest
and 'Death and the Hero', in idem, 2000, Cultural Pasts : Essays in Early In
History , New Delhi, pp. 680-95 and 797-806, B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 1994, The Mak
of Early Medieval India , New Delhi, chs. 1, 3, 5 & 8; idem, 2003, Studying E
India Archaeology , Texts and Historical Issues , Delhi, chs. 3, 4. 7 & 8; H. Ku
1993. Kings and Cults : State Formation and Legitimation in India ahd South
Asia , New Delhi, B. Stein, 1980, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South In
New Delhi, and Supra n. 10;G.W. Spencer, Supra n. 10; James Heitzman, 1997, Gif
of Power : Lordship in an Early Indian State , Delhi.
22. The differences have not been adequately grasped or consciously ignored. For a r
example see D.N. Jha, 2000, The Feudal Order : State, Society and Ideology in Ear
Medieval India , New Delhi, pp. 23-24 & n. 1 44.
23. For a critique of the segmentary state model see B.D. Chattopadhyaya. Pol
Processes and the Structure of Polity ....'op. cit., pp. 41-44. Also see D.N. Jha, 4 9
Validity of the Brahmana-Peasant Alliance and the Segmentary State in Early Med
India'. Social Science Probings, 1 (2), pp. 270-96.
24. See James Heitzman, 1987, State Formation in South India, 850-1280', IESHR , 24(
idem, 1991, 'Ritual Polity and Economy: The Transactional Network of an Imp
Temple in Medieval South India', JESHO , 34( 1 ), pp. 23-54; and reiterated in Gif
Power
25. See B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 1995, 'Geographical

Linkages; Some Reflections on Early Punjab', Preside
Proceedings of the Punjab History Congress. 27
Spaces' and the Authority of the State ... .' op. cit.; H
Segmentation versus Integration? Reflections on the
the Segmentary State in Indian History', Studies in
The Early and the Imperial Kingdom op. cit.
26 See Kulke, 'The Early and the Imperial Kingdom
27 See B.D. Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early M
Kulke, 'The Integrative Model of State Formation in
28. For a recent assessment of the writings on the stat
of Seeing : History and Historiography of the State in
and S.K. Panda (eds), Essays in Honour of Professor
(forthcoming).
29 A good detailed critique is available in Jean-Clau

in India : An Ethnological Perspective', in idem (ed),
London, pp. 123-87; also see Ronald Inden, 1990, Ima
BP. Sahu, 1994, 'The State in Early India : An Overv
88-98.
Ancient India 71
30. It seems to me that there is merit in

kingship illusory or ephemeral.
3 1 . See Romila Thapar, 1 96 1 , Asoka
32. H. Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund,
65-66.
33. See Romila Thapar, 1 987, The Mauryas Revisited , New Delhi, G. Fussman, 1 987=88,
'Central and Provincial Administration in Ancient India: The Problem of the Mauryan
Empire, IHR , 14(1-2), pp. 43-72.
34. See Romila Thapar, 'Literacy and Communication : Some Thoughts on the Inscriptions
of Asoka' in idem, Cultural Pasts : Essays in Early Indian History , op. cit.. p. 447.
35. See Rock Edict XIII in the Kalsi text.
36. See Kesavan Veluthat, 1999, 'The Sannathi Inscriptions and the Questions they Raise',
PI HC, Calicut Session, pp. 1 08 1 -86.
37. For a discussion see Thapar, 'Literacy and Communication ....', op. cit., pp. 439-52.
38. Ibid., see Separate Rock Edicts I and II.
39. For a comparable reading of royal records, though in a different location and time, see
Sunil Kumar, 'Assertions of Authority : A Study of the Discursive Statements of Two
Sultans of Delhi', in Muzaffar Alam, Francoise Nalini Delvoye and Marc Gaborieau
(eds), 2000, The Making of Indo- Persian Culture , New Delhi, pp. 37-65.
40. Mat inscription of the time of Huvishka, JRAS , 1924, pp. 397 ff. Cited in Bhaskar
Chatterjee, 1976, 'Religion and Polity in the Kushana Ag Journal of Indian History .
p. 512.
41. See B. Puri, 'Ideology and Religion in the Kushan Epoch', in B.G. Gafurov et al.
(eds), 1975, Central Asia in the Kushan Period , Vol. II, Moscow, pp. 183-190; Bhaskar
Chatterjee, ibid., pp. 511-15.
42. A.K. Narain, 'The Kushana State : A Preliminary Study', in H.J.M. Claessen and Peter
Skalnik (eds), 1981, The Study of the State, The Hague, pp. 251-73.
43. See R.C.C. Fynes, 1995, 'The Religious Patronage of the Satavahana Dynasty', South
Asian Studies , 1 1, pp. 43-50.
44. See H.P. Ray, Monastery and Guild : Commerce Under the Satavahanas , New Delhi,
ch. 5.
45. Ibid., p. 207.

46. See B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 'Transition to the Early Historical Phase in the Deccan : A
Note', in B.M. Pande and B.D. Chattopadhyaya (eds), 1987, Archaeology and History
( Essays in Memory of Sri/A. Ghosh), Vol. II, Delhi, pp. 727-32; H.P. Ray, ibid., ch. 5 &
conclusion.
47. On the basis of the remarkable correspondence between the content of the Hathigumpha
inscription and the visual imagery of sculpture at the site it has been suggested that the
Udayagiri-Khandagiri complex was as much a product of power and politics as piety
B P. Sahu, 'Authority and Patronage in Early Orissa', in K.K. Basa and P. Mohanty
(eds), 2000, Archaeology of Orissa , Vol. II, Delhi, pp. 43 1 -40.
48. See M.G.S. Narayanan, 1 988, 'The Cult of War as Class Ideology in the Sangam Age m
South India', PI HC, Dharwad session, pp. 109-1 13; T.K. Venkatasubramanian. 1993.
Socie tas to Civitas : Evolution of Political Society in South India , Delhi.
49. See Rajan Gurukkal, 1993, 'Towards the Voice of Dissent : Trajectory of Ideological
Transformation in Early South India', Social Scientist, nos. 236-37, pp. 2-22.
72 IHC: Proceedings , 64th Session, 2003
50. Sec R. Champakalakshmi, 1 989, 'Ideology and the State in South India', Mamidip
Venkatarangaiah Memorial Lecture, Andhra Pradesh History Congress, 1 3 sessio
Srisailam, pp. 1-3.
5 1 . See Sibesh Bhattacharya, 'Political Authority and Brahmana-Kshatriya Relationsh
in Early India - An Aspect of the Power Elite Configuration', IHR , 10(1-2), pp. 1-2
52. For a critique of Louis Dumont's anďJ.C. Heesterman's positions Supra n. 29; B
Sahu, 'The State in Early India ....', op. cit., p. 90.
53 . See R.S. Sharma, Aspects of Political I dê as and Institutions ... . , op. cit., ch. 1 6, ' Var
in Relation to Law and Polities', and Romila Thapar, 'Society and Law in the Hin
and Buddhist Traditions', in idem, 1984, Ancient Indian Social History - Som
Interpretations , New Delhi, pp. 26-39.
54. See, for example, Manusmriti , VII. 201-2; VIII. 4 1 and 46. For more details see Sib
Bhattacharya, 1993, 'Pluralism and Visible Path ( Pratyaksha Marga ) and Early Ind
Idea of Polity', Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, Mysore session, PI H
pp. 42 ff.
55. See Richard W. Lariviere, 'Dharmasastra, Custom, 'Real Law' and 'Apocryphal'
Smrtis', in Herausgegeben von, Bernhard Kolver et al. (eds), The State , the Law and
Administration in Classical India , op. cit., pp. 97- 1 09.
56. See Arnold Kunst, 'Use and Misuse of Dharma', in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty and
J. D.M. Derrett (eds), 1978, The Concepto/ Duty in South Asia, New Delhi, pp. 3-17;
also see the Preface in the same volume.
57. See B.P. Sahu, 1997, 'Conception of the Kali Age in Early India A Regional
Perspective', Trends in Social Science Research , 4(1), pp. 27-36.
58. The idea of arajaka and matsyanyaya could have had similar implications. They
constituted post-facto rationalization of the state.
59. BP. Sahu, 'Conception of the Kali Age ....', op. cit.
60. See B.S. Miller, 'A Dynasty of Patrons : The Representation of Gupta Royalty in Coins
and Literature', in idem (ed), 1392, The Powers of Art : Patronage in Indian Culture ,
Delhi, pp. 54-64.
61 . See F.M. Asher, 'Historical and Political Allegory in Gupta Art', in B.L. Smith (ed),
1 983, Essays on Gupta Culture , Delhi, pp. 53-66.
62. F.M. Asher, 1980, The Art of Eastern India, 300-800 , Minneapolis, pp. 66-67.
63 . A.K. Narain, 'Religious Policy and Toleration in Ancient India with particular Reference
to the Gupta Age', in B.L. Smith (ed), Essays on Gupta Culture , op. cit., pp. 1 7-5 1
64. Such trends continued in early medieval Tamil Nadu and Orissa. See K.A.N. Sastri,
1984, (rprt.) The Colas , Madras, pp. 645-46. For simultaneous patronage of several
local deities besides Shiva under the Early Eastern Gangas see Mary F. Linda, 'Temples
of Stone, Centres of Culture : Sacred Space in Early Medieval Kalinga', in Srinivasan
et al. ( eds), 1993, Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia , p. 156.
65 Nandini Sinha, 2001, 'Early Maitrakas, Landgrant Charters and Regional State
Formation in Early Medieval Gujarat', Studies in History , 17(2), pp. 151-73.
66. B.P Sahu, 2000, 'Inscriptions and their Changing Context: From the Sarabhapuriyas to
the Panduvamsis in Early Medieval South Kosala', paper presented at the International
Conference on "Text and Context in Orissa and Beyond", at Salzau (Germany), 10-13
May, 2000. (forthcoming)
67. The Changing epithets from samanta to mahasamanta or maharaja indicated the shift •
in sťatus. It was common to several early medieval local dynasties.
Ancient India 73
68. See Hans Bakker, 'Throne and Tem

Vidarbha', in idem (ed), 1 992, The Sacr
Groningen, pp. 83-100; idem, 'Memoria
Unravel the Symbolic Texture of Vaka
Kolff and M.S. Oort (eds), 1992, Ritua
Honour of J.C. Heesterman), Leiden,
69. For a comparable situation in Ori
Structure of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms
(eds), 1 978, The Cult ofJagannath and
pp. 125-38; idem, 'The Early and the Im
70. See, B .D. Chattopadhyaya, 2003, 'H
of North India', in idem, Studying Earl
Desai, 'The Patronage of the Lakshm
The Powers of Art ... ., op. cit., pp. 78
71. See Devangana Desai, 1989, 'Social D
Address, Ancient India Section, Gora
'Profiling Daksina Kosala : An Early H
International Conference of the Orissa
of Sub-Regional Identities", at Salzau (G
72. See for example the Asanpat insc
Somadatta, in Snigdha Tripathy, 1997,
201-2.
73. Similarly, Shivaism with its focus on family and kin ties may have endeared itself to
people in transition from tribalism to complex society. See K.M. Shrimali, 1988,
'Religion, Ideology and Society', Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, Dharwad
Session, PIHC , p. 79.
74. Supra n. 69.
75. Devangana Desai, 'Social Dimensions of Art in Early India', op. cit., pp. 34-35.
76. See G.W. Spencer, 1984, 'Heirs Apparent : Fiction and Function in Chola Mythical
Genealogies', IESHR, 21(4), pp. 422-29.
77. See B.P. Sahu, 2001 , 'Brahmanical Ideology, Regional Identities and the Construction
of Early India', Presidential Address, Ancient Section, Proceedings of the Punjab
History Conference , 33r Session, Patiala, pp. 12-26; also in Social Scientist , nos.
338-39, 2001, pp. 3-18.
78. The most comprehensive work is by Kesavan Veluthat, 1 993, The Political Structure
of Early Medieval South India , New Delhi. For earlier efforts see N.B. Dirks, ' Political
Authority and Structural Change in Early South Indian History', op. cit.; G.W. Spencer.
'Heirs Apparent ....', op. cit.; D. Sridhara Babu, 1975, Kingship : State and Religion
in South India According to South Indian Historical Biographies of Kings , Gottingen.
For other regions see Hans Bakker, 'Throne and Temple ....', op. cit. and Romila Thapar,
'The Mohse in the Ancestry', op. cit.
79. Little surprise therefore that there was a shift from yajna to vamsa in early medieval
times. See N.B. Dirks, 'Political Authority ... .', op. cit., pp. 144-51.
80. Ibid, p. 139.
81 . See Kesavan Veluthat, 1993, 'Religious Symbols in Political Legitimation : The Case
of Early Medieval South India', Social Scientist, nos. 236-37, pp. 23-33.
82 . G.W. Spencer, ' Heirs Apparent ....', op . cit.
83. See H. Kulke, 'Historiography in Early Medieval India', in Georg Berkemer, Tilman
74 I HC: Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
Frasch, H. Kulke and J. Lutt (eds), 2001, Explorations in the History of South
(Essays in Honour of Dietmar Rothermund ), New Delhi, pp. 8 1 -82.
Change in genealogical claims, despite their usually repetitive messages, are associa
with important changes in the fortunes of the dynasty. For example see Georg Berkem
Orissa Revisited : A View from the South', in H. Kulke and B. Schnepel (eds), 200
Jagannath Revisited : Studying Society, Religion and the State in Orissa , New De
pp 255-57.
84. Hans Bakker, Supra n. 68; B P. Sahu, Supra n. 66 & 7 1 .
85. For a perceptive discussion of the role of invented traditions see Eric Hobsbaw
Introduction, in Eric Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), 1 992, The Invention of Tradit
Cambridge.
86. The Cidambaramahatmya and Ekalingamahatmya are good examples. See K
'Functional Interpretation of a South Indian Mahatmya' in idem, Kings and Cults ,
cit., pp. 192-207; Nandini Sinha, 2002, State Formation in Rajasthan : Mewar du
the Seventh-Fifteenth Centuries , New Delhi, chs. 5 & 6.
87. See Vijay Nath, 2001 , 'From Brahmanism to Hinduism : Negotiating the Myth of
Great Tradition', Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, PIHC , Calcutta sess
pp. 43-44; P.S. Kanaka Durga and Y.A. Sudhakar Reddy, 1992, 'Kings, Temples
Legitimation of Autochthonous Communities : A Case Study of a South Indian Tem
JESHO, 35(2), pp. 145-66.
88. M.L.K. Murty, 1992, 'Environment, Royal Policy and Social Formation in the East
Ghats, South India, A.D. 1000-1500', Presidential Address, Historical Archaeolo
Epigraphy and Numismatics Section, PIHC , Warangal session, pp.62 1-26.
89. Ibid., pp. 624-27.
90. H. Kulke, 'Royal Temple Policy ....', op. cit.; Nandini Sinha, State Formatio
Rajasthan ... ., op. cit., ch. 5; K.S. Singh, 1993, 'Hinduism and Tribal Religion :
Anthropological Perspective', Man in India , 73, pp. 1-16.
91. For the early medieval centuries see Kulke, 'Early State Formation and R
Legitimation in Late Ancient Orissa', in M.N. Das (ed), 1977, Sidelights on Hist
and Culture of Orissa, Cuttack, pp. 104-14; for the earlier period see B.P. Sahu, 'E
State in Orissa: From the Perspective of Changing Forms of Patronage and Legitimatio
in B. Pati, B.P. Sahu and T.K. Venkatasubramanian (eds), 2003, Negotiating Ind
Past (Essays in Memory of Professor P.S. Gupta), New Delhi, 2003, pp. 29-5 1 .
92. In India one form was superimposed on the other without displacing the former
reinforcing and supplementing some of the other's relevance. See D.D. Kosambi, 'So
and Economic Aspect of the Bhagavad Gita', op. cit.
93. SII , 4, no. 1 329, cited in H. Kulke, 'King Anangabhima, the veritable founder of
Gajapati kingship and of the Jagannatha Trinity at Puri', in idem, Kings and Cults.
op cit., pp. 19-20.
94. For a discussion of political processes see S.K. Panda, 1995, The State and
Statecraft in Medieval Orissa Under the Later Eastern Galgas (A.D. 1038-14
Calcutta, ch. 6.
95. H. Kulke, 1 979, Jagannatha- Kult Und Gajapati- Königtum, Wiesbaden, p. 229.
96. Supra n. 93, pp. 20-23.
97. Supra n. 95, pp. 233-34; also see Kulke, Kings and Cults, op. cit., pp. 35-36.
98. See H. Kulke, 'Rathas and Rajas : The Car Festival at Puri', in Kings and Cults
cit., pp. 66-81; Georg Berkemer, 'Orissa Revisited : A View from the South',
Jagannath Revisited, op. cit., pp. 253-70.
Ancient India 75
9° See Nandini Sinha, State Formation in Rajasthan
100. Ulrike Teuscher, 2003, Königtum in Rajasthan : L

15. Jahrhunderts , EB- Verlag, (see the Summary in E
cultural borrowings across regions and political system
see B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 1 998, Representing the Oth
Muslims (Eighth to Fourteenth Century ), Delhi, ch. 2.
101 G.W. Spencer, 1 969, ' Religious Networks and Roya
South 'ndia'JESHO, 12, pp. 42-56.
1 02. James Heitzman, 1991 , 'Ritual Polity and Economy :
Imperial Temple in Medieval South India', JESHO , 34
103. Other studies have also come to similar conc
Champakalakshmi, 1986, 'Urbanization in South India: Th
Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, PIHC , Sri
Some earlier examples of such royal identification c
Kukkuresvara Mahadeva built by king Kukkuresvara in
erected during the reign of Rajasimha Paliava. Similarl
Kosalesvara, the Shiva temple at Baidyanath (western
who called themselves the Lords of Rosala cannot be missed.
104. See Georg Berkemer, 'The Centre Out There as State Archive : The Temple of
Simhachalam', in Hans Bakker (ed), The Sacred Centre as the Focus of Political
Interest , op. cit., pp. 1 19-30; P.S. Kanaka Durga and Y.A. Sudhakar Reddy, KingS,
Temples and Legitimation of Autochthonous Communities ... .' op. cit.
105. Hans Bakker, 1990, 'Ramtek : An Ancient Centre of Visnu Devotion in Maharastra', in
idem (ed), The History of Sacred Places in India (Being Volume III of Panels of the
VHth World Sanskrit Conference ), E.J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 62-85.
1 06. The importance of land grants to Brahmanas and temples as a part of the legitimation
strategies has been highlighted in recent writings. However, in the post tenth century
there seems to have been a shift in the pattern of patronage insofar as the temples
emerged as the major recepients of royal donations in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra
and Orissa. See R.N. Nandi, 1984, 'Growth of Rural Economy in Early Feudal India',
Presidential Address, Ancient India Section, PIHC , Annamalai Session, pp. 33-37; R.
Champakalakshmi, Supra n. 103; M.L.K. Murty, op. cit.; Upinder Singh, 1994, Kings .
Brahmanas and Temples in Orissa (300-1 147 C.E.), New Delhi, ch. 5 and Conclusion.
107. Besides the devices already mentioned the successor states in Orissa following the
Ganga-Gajapati rule engaged in the production of a regional historiography i.e., the
Madaļa Panji (temple chronicle), which, among other things, produced a transdynastic
history so as to legitimise the reigning Khurda dynasty (as the legitimate inheritors of
the Gajapati legacy) and Vamsavalis for similar purposes. These performed functions
similar to the Itihasa-purana tradition and Carita literature of the earlier period. See
Kulke, Kings and Cults , op. cit., essays 9 and 10. Also see Rondila Thapar, 'Society
and Historical Consciousness : The Itihasa-Purana Tradition', in idem, 1992,
Interpreting Early India , New Delhi, pp. 1 37-73 .
108. Supra n. 1.
1 09. David Shulman in the course of reviewing a recent monograph remarks that "similarly
with 'legitimation' : I am no longer sure that this overworked Weberian term really
explains anything useful and would like to suggest a ten-year moratorium on its use
among South Asianists so we clear our minds and think of something new". Studies m
History , 19(2), 2003, p. 280.
110. Personal communication with Dr Daud Ali.
76 IHC: Proceedings, 64th Session, 2003
111. The structure of polity was correspondingly integrative. It was not fully settle
continuously developing in a situation of expanding state society.
112 See Kunal Chakrabarti, 200 1 , Religious Process : The Puranas and the Making
Regional Tradition , New Delhi, chs. 5 and 6.
113. Brahmanas and temples have also been perceived as chccks on rival samanta
peasant-warrior power. See H. Kulke, 'Royal Temple Policy and the Structure
Medieval Hindu Kingdoms', op. cit.; M.L.K. Murty, 'Environment, Royal Policy
Social Formation op. cit.
114. The absence of evidence for the association of royalty with the construction of the
early temples together with the evidence of their location in clusters near Brahmanic
settlements, especially in the context of Kalinga has been interpreted to suggest that
they were sponsored by the Brahmanas in the initial stages. Mary F. Linda, 'Temples
of Stone, Centres of Culture ....', Supra n. 64.
115. These activities explain the extensive patronage to temples in the first half of the second
millennium A.D. Supra n. 106.
1 1 6. Vijay Nath, 'From Brahmanism to Hinduism ....', op. cit.; Kunal Chakrabarti, Religious
Process
1 1 7. See H. Kulke, 'Some Observations on the Politi

in Early Medieval India', Bernhard Kolver et al
cit., pp. 237-43; G.W. Spencer, 'Religious Networ
' James Heitzman, 'Ritual Polity and Economy ....
Centre Out There as State Archive ....', op. cit.
1 1 8. However, for an interesting juxtaposition of a
Sultanate history see Sunil Kumar, 'Assertions of Au
Statements of Two Sultans of Delhi', in Muzaffar
of Indo-Persian Culture , New Delhi, pp. 37-65 .
119. For a theoretical discussion see David Beetham
London, pp. 18 ff.
120. See Ranabir Chakravarti, ' Kutumbikas of
Aounshuman (eds), Peasants in Indian History , V
121. For example see Kesavan Veluthat, 1989, 'Lan
Gavudas under the Hoysalas in Karnataka', PIHC
also in B.P. Sahu (ed), 1997, Land System and R
Delhi, pp. 322-28; B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 1990. Asp
Society in Early Medieval India , New Delhi, chs
122. Cynthia Talbot, 'Rudrama-devi, the Female Ki
Medieval India', in David Shulman (ed), 1996, Sy
430.
123. Nandini Sinha, State Formation in Rajasthan ... ., op. cit., ch. 6.
124. It also bears on the dimension of competition and contestation. See Georg Berkemer,
'Orissa Revisited : A View from the South', op. cit.; B. Schnepel, 2002, The Jungle
Kings : Ethnohistorical Aspects of Politics and Ritual in Orissa , New Delhi, chs. 2
and 6.
The Chamu citaus (Royal letters) issued by the Khurda kings (inheritors of the Gajapati
legacy) were intended to address this situation of assertion of authority by the constituent
units of the erstwhile Ganga-Gajapati supra-regional Kingdom. See H. Kulke, 'Ksetra
and Ksatra : The Cult of Jagannath of Puri and the Royal Letters ( chamu citau) of the
Rajas of Khurda', in idem, Kings and Cults , op. cit., pp. 5 1-65.

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Sectional President's Address: LEGITIMATION, IDEOLOGY AND STATE IN EARLY INDIA

Author(s): Bhairabi Prasad Sahu

Sectional President's Address

LEGITIMATION, IDEOLOGY AND STATE

Mr President, colleagues and friends,

Power is a broad inclusive concept, and includes coercion,

and support of the subordi

"ideology by systematic distortion naturalizes and reproduces

Legitimacy comprises three elements: conformation to established

which have characterised the work of Indian and non-Indian scholars

State formation and legitimation in early historical and, more

centralization and fragmentat

Stein and Spencer subscribe to the segmentary state model

The historiographical shift chartered above is of relatively recent

relationship between the temporal and the sacred domain.28

We enter the discussion of the legitimation process in early India

which have conventionally be

majority were not able to read the records themselves, in a primari

Ganga valley in the south. W

inscription in a cave (with representations òf the early mem

Alongside the socio-political transformations in early Tamilakam

where they were not intrins

norms of state society, but also through continuous engagem

The idea of Kaliyuga referred to in the land grant inscriptions

Ruling elites from the Gupta period onwards engaged in a variety of

values.60 In brief, they provid

Panduvamshis of south Kosala, both early autochthonous fa

laws of Manu and studied th

of the image or self-image of kingship from the Gupta period onwards

Ideas were not always defined by or reflective of socio-cultural

across regions. These ideas a

evolution of the cult of Jagannatha and a regional kingdom in O

of legitimation and sought to

on the question of royal identification with the central deity, wi

Recently there has been criticism of the legitimation theory/theme

Ali have voiced their reservati

So where does the consideration of the changing forms of

concedes them with agency. It also rejects the simple divisive

it to lend legitimacy to thos

some important historical trajectories along which regional tra

NOTES AND REFERENCES

l am grateful to Professor B.D. Chattopadhyaya for his helpful comments on

8. For its social dimensions see Romila

25. See B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 1995, 'Geographical

29 A good detailed critique is available in Jean-Clau

30. It seems to me that there is merit in

45. Ibid., p. 207.

68. See Hans Bakker, 'Throne and Tem

9° See Nandini Sinha, State Formation in Rajasthan

100. Ulrike Teuscher, 2003, Königtum in Rajasthan : L

1 1 7. See H. Kulke, 'Some Observations on the Politi

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