State Formation and the Frontiers

About the Speaker

Bhairabi Prasad Sahu is Professor at the Department of History, University of Delhi. He has served the Indian History Congress as its Secretary (2006-2009), and the Indian Council of Historical Research as a Council Member (2008-14). He was associated with the German Research Council’s (DFG) Orissa Research Project (1999-2005). Sahu has been the President, Ancient India, Indian History Congress (2003), and at many more regional History Congresses. Sahu has been on the editorial board of Indian Historical Review, Studies in People’s History and Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. His publications include From Hunters to Breeders: Faunal Background of Early India, The Changing Gaze: Regions and the Constructions of Early India, Society and Culture in Post-Mauryan India, 200 BC-AD 300, History of Precolonial India: Issues and Debates (with Hermann Kulke), and Regions and Indian History: The Making of Premodern Odisha (in Press).

Abstract

The processes of peasantization of the locals, horizontal extension of monarchical states and associated ideas in pre-state areas, religious and cultural integration, and acculturation operated simultaneously through varied societies, especially from the times of the Guptas onward. It happened across regions and led to the emergence of new janapadas (localities) at the cost of forests. The works of Kalidasa and Hiuen Tsang capture the varying characteristics of thejanapadas, and so do the early Puranas, which locate them within the larger idea of Bharatavarsha. Formation of localities and regions, in which the local, regional and trans-regional elements influenced and shaped each other, has been an ongoing process throughout Indian history. Territorially expansive states throughout Indian history were socially and culturally not cohesive. Peoples’ sense of belonging remained rooted to the janapadas. Ancient Indian literature vividly captures the varied practices, linguistic peculiarities and regional styles with distinctive flavours all through. The larger translocal, regional or transregional polities of necessity had to endure and accommodate varieties of heterogeneous cultures within their ambit. In their effort to reach out and integrate the varied cultures, traditions and communities states had to move into and engage with various domains in complex ways. Royalty and members of the court patronized and participated in community festivals, rituals and celebrations leading to regular convergence of political authority and popular festivities. Such associations had the potential to provide people in power the moral authority over their subjects, admittedly though legitimation is a complex process involving specificities of time and space, among other variables.