An Alternative Reading of South Indian
History
The Early Medieval in South India by Kesavan Veluthat is a collection of essays
by the author spanning two decades and examining the notion of "early
medieval" in south India. The analysis in this book includes three
sections of differing length, dealing with the problems and patterns in the
history of Tamilakam, and the early medieval period in Kerala and Karnataka, respectively.
Although several details of early medieval northern India have been worked out,
there is a certain lack of clarity in the case of south India. Hence, the
blanket application of the term "medieval" to south India is
problematic, as opposed to north India where the phase is more clearly
distinguishable in terms of larger historical schemes. This book, therefore,
presents an alternative view of the early medieval in south India. It analyzes,
for instance, whether there was an "early medieval" distinct from the
preceding "early historical" formation and what processes were
involved in this transition. The book also discusses the possibility of
causally explaining the processes and structures characterizing the early
medieval in south India. The role of temples and corporate bodies, the
structure of land rights, the nature of the state, and the emergence of
regional identity are some of the aspects that Veluthat focuses on in his
historical reconstruction, with the use of epigraphic and literary sources.
Part
1, incidentally the most
voluminous section of Veluthat's book, deals with Tamilakam, with an emphasis
on the period of the Cholas. Veluthat offers constant comparisons with the
contemporary situation in northern India to identify points of similarity and
difference between the two areas. For instance, noting that the model of
kingship in south India in the period of the Pallavas and after was largely
derived from northern India, Veluthat qualifies that, in the particular context
of the socioreligious history of south India, the element of divinity, which
added another dimension to royalty, had special significance.
This aspect is linked to the rise of
the temple as a religious institution, which was patronized by the state as
well as other groups in various ways. The temple represented a revolutionary
force in south India. It had a strong ideological weapon in the Bhakti movement
and was able to register the victory of what can be called the Hindu
Brahmanical religion. Its potential as an institution was realized by the
monarchs of south India as early as the period of the origin of the monarchical
state in this area, represented by the Pallava kingdom. The temple had
functions of a social, economic, political, and cultural nature that were
interrelated in a complex way.
Veluthat examines the role of the nadu
(a locality and a corporate group of spokesmen of that locality) in the
sociopolitical structure of south India. In the process, he challenges and
rejects some of the Additionally, while identifying various aspects that marked
the arrival of the state in this region, existing theories of state and society
in early medieval south India. Noting that nadus were not miniature
replicas of the political system existing at the center, he invalidates the major
argument concerning the segmentary structure of the Chola state and stresses
the need for a "compromise formula" between the views of Nilakanta
Sastri and Burton Stein (p. 43).
The structured relationship of land
rights in early medieval south India is also discussed at length. Beginning
with the Pallavas and getting more elaborate under the Cholas, this system
eventually extended to cover the whole of south India. Veluthat notes that this
compares well with the picture of land rights in early medieval north India (as
outlined by R. S. Sharma), and can also be compared with the situation in
medieval Europe. Such a structured society with a graded hierarchy of status
variations, based on the extent of control over the means of production, found
its expression in the jati formula, a Brahmanical paradigm in the
historical context of south India. At the same time, in this connection,
Veluthat points to a major lacuna in the sources. A true picture of caste
hierarchy cannot be obtained, because, given their concerns, temple
inscriptions do not identify the large number of persons mentioned in them by
their castes. He, therefore, stresses the need for a rigorous examination of
the available evidence to identify social groupings in this period.
Part
2 deals with medieval Kerala. Veluthat begins by
looking at a few expressions of historical consciousness in narratives from
precolonial Kerala, notably the Keralolpatti that gives an account of
Kerala's history from the earliest times, to identify the notions of history
prevalent in this part of India. In the process, he points to the conspicuous
absence of prashastis (laudatory prefaces to inscriptions) in Kerala,
a situation that distinguishes it from not only the rest of south India but
also nearly the whole of the Indian subcontinent, where such texts formed the
"historical introductions" in Indian epigraphy, and were used to
legitimize the new monarchical state and the monarch (p. 189). The Keralolpatti
is a Brahmanical document aimed at the validation of Brahmanical groups through
a particular use of history. Veluthat uses this text to argue that Kerala, too,
had a sense of history expressed in a form most suitable to its needs and that
deriving from this, various regions in the Indian subcontinent would have expressions
of historical consciousness that would relate to their differing social and
political context.
Veluthat also examines the recent
use of epigraphic sources to reconstruct Kerala's history, identifying shifts
in the paradigms and methodologies of using this type of source material. He
points to the need for a comprehensive bibliography of inscriptions from Kerala
and a more systematic analysis of their data, as has been done in the case of
the Chola inscriptions. He also discusses the earliest form of state in Kerala
under the Ceraman Perumals from the ninth to the eleventh centuries
AD. Additionally, he studies the rise of landlordism in medieval Kerala
with a contextual analysis of inscriptional terms in this period.
Part
3, the briefest section, deals with early
medieval Karnataka. Veluthat discusses the need to reorient the historical
writing of ancient and early medieval Karnataka and place its inscriptional
material, for instance, within the context of the pattern of sociopolitical
evolution in early medieval south India. He also analyzes the institution of velevali
figuring in documents from Karnataka after the eighth century AD. This
institution involved individual soldiers attached to chiefs taking oaths of
unswerving loyalty to them even in death.
Veluthat's analysis, in this regard,
is gender sensitive; he points to instances where the patrons in question were
queens or other aristocratic ladies. He also draws an interesting parallel with
"household warriors" of feudal Europe (p. 322). Incidentally, this
aspect of velevali forms an interesting parallel with the situation in
early medieval Kashmir, where loyal servants and soldiers would lay down their
lives on the occasion of the death of their masters, often female ones.
Veluthat uses some humorous
touches to justify his analysis at various stages. For instance, he points to
the historian's predilection for chasing the "Loch Ness Monster" in
attempts to look for evidence of a crisis in various historical periods, which
might have led to the dissolution of earlier modes of production (p. 46). He
also wryly observes that when the evidence is not at peace with theory, it is
the former that the historian should turn to, however alluring the latter may
be.
There is very little to cavil at in
Veluthat's book. However, as he admits, the coherence necessary for a monograph
on a single theme may not be present here, as the book is a collection of
essays written at various points of time in response to different demands. One
wishes, for instance, that the sections on Karnataka and Kerala were as
detailed and comprehensive as the one on Tamilakam. Nevertheless, Veluthat's
delineation of various crucial aspects of the early medieval period in south
India proves the existence of this phase as an intelligible period of study.
Besides, in his attempt to provide an alternative reading of early medieval
south Indian history, he addresses both the academic and the lay reader in his
concerns and analyses. Veluthat's book is, therefore, an important addition to
our understanding of this period in Indian history.
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