a Treatise on Early Medieval India

The most significant changes in history have happened in a series of complex simultaneous processes of change, spanning over centuries to take the final shape. The fact that the early medieval period spans for not more than six centuries at the most, has often made historians regard it as merely a phase of transition between two major periods namely the ancient and the medieval. But in later years historians successfully identified embedded periods within the huge brackets of ancient and medieval. That came up because they failed to detect a minimal sense of homogeneity throughout these long periods, enough to label them broadly as one historical period.
The trends in periodizing history have perplexed interpretations. The one we are concerned with is the periodization of the ancient and medieval periods. New trends have incorporated the early historical and early medieval periods into this large chronological range. Unlike initial historical writing, modern historians and B.D. Chattopadhyay discarded the chronological layer paradigm to highlight the important changes that come about between the two major periods ancient and medieval, hence naming the interim ‘early medieval period’. He emphasizes on the fact that historical changes occur in various levels of cultural amendments which may or may not have evolved unilaterally. Thus in a way the early medieval period can be viewed as a transition phase, which is characterized by features that reveal the complex processes of change from the early historical society to the early medieval period. And thus this period can rightfully be regarded as a thread of continuity between two historical periods. This is the perspective from which, despite an awareness of the elements of continuity, the course of history is seen in terms of stages of change. Identifying all such parameters within the Indian context, we thereby completely reject the European concept of Asiatic Mode of Production which describes Indian historical society as a static, changeless society.
The chronological stretch of the early medieval period would be from the seventh to twelfth centuries AD. Niharranjan Ray does not expand on the characteristics of each of the subdivisions he makes of the medieval period, but then he identifies certain broad specific features which, according to him, define medievalism in India perfectly. Besides those we’d be looking into what B. D. Chattopadhyay has to say about the basic changes that we associate with this major transition. The Marxist historians list major traits of medievalism which include the concept of regionalized polities and economies which come up in this period (thus comparable to the emergence of European nation-states), which perhaps is the most characteristic feature of the early medieval period. The Marxist historians have very often talked in terms of decentralization of political authority. B. D Chattopadhyay says that they talk in terms of “the duality of centrifugalism and centripetalism in Indian polity has been replaced by the image of a structure which provides a counterpoint to the centralized, bureaucratic state, the crystallization of which is located only in the post-Gupta period.”
The emergence of landed intermediaries is considered to be the hallmark of Indian feudal structure, and hence Indian medievalism as well, because feudalism according to many scholars like R. S. Sharma, B. N. S. Yadav, Niharranjan Ray and D. N. Jha, is an exclusive phenomenon of the medieval times in India. It has been linked to various changes that come in agrarian relations which promote not only decentralization of state authority and regionalization of cultures, but also gives way to a visible shift from money economy to natural economy. Due to fragmentation of lands and power, the earlier authorities lose control. Land grants replace cash payments, even to non-secular entities. The various rights of jurisdiction enjoyed by these people who were granted land was comparable to the European model of feudalism. The inception of the concept of land grants has been placed in the Gupta-Post Gupta period. The system of land grants gave rise to an entirely new dominant landholding social group, the Brahmanas. Their position was strengthened due to the control over land, resources and people that they could now exercise owing to their land grants. They were now holders of both political support and economic power.
Historians like R. S. Sharma, B. N. S. Yadav and D. N. Jha subscribe to the idea of viewing this early medieval period as a period of social crisis, the ‘kaliyuga’. As R. S. Sharma points out the pure dharma symbolized by the Krta is again, re-established after the end of the Kali. Detailed descriptions of this age have been given in the Puranas. R. S. Sharma says ‘kali means the neglect of and predominance and influence of heretical sects and also of foreign non-Brahmanical rulers.’ They talk in terms of an economic crisis that is evident from the demonetization of economy and the decline of foreign trade. R. S. Sharma has often emphasized on the urban decay that he believes characterizes this period. He says it was a period of political instability, due to which, a profound effect had been inflicted on the social order of the period. The political instability owes itself to the decentralization of political authority and the regionalization of polities and entities. These changes bring about a considerable change in the societal dimensions of the time. These societal crises can be inferred from the tensions between the different classes and castes existent in the time. They may also be a result of the interaction between the Brahmanized society and the tribals, which is elaborated by B. D. Chattopadhay and is seen by him as one of the major historical processes to sustain the continuity of historical periods. This social crisis is explained by BNS Yadav and RS Sharma, with the support of D. N. Jha in terms of the Kali age. The highlights of the Kali Age as realized by these historians are about the Varnasamkara(mixing of varnas), hostility between sudras and vaisyas to pay and sacrifice, oppression of the people with taxes, widespread theft and robbery, insecurity of family and property, destruction of yogaksema, growing importance of wealth over ritual status, and dominance of mleccha princes.
R. S. Sharma also talks in terms of decline of urbanism important to explain certain aspects of Indian feudalism. His theory of 2 stages of urban decay is chronologically set in firstly the 2nd half of the 3rd or 4th century and secondly starting after 6th century. He refers to mainly writings of Xuanzang and Arab writers. According to him supposed decline of long distance trade undermined the position of urban traders, artisans thus forcing them to migrate to rural areas. Urban contraction was accompanied by agrarian expansion. Feudalization of trade and commerce was an entirely coordinated process that happened through the transfer of power over markets to donees; merchants transferring a part of their profit to temples; transfer of custom dues from the State to the temple.
But refuting this argument of Sharma, B. D. Chattopadhyay points out that in the early medieval period some urban centres decline while some continued to flourish. Eg. Xuanzang mentions Kaushambi, Shravasti, Vaishali, kapilavastu as the declining centres. Whereas Thaneswar, Kanyakubja and Varanasi are seen considerably flourishing. Literature, sculpture, architecture were substantially if not entirely patronized by urban elites.
John Deyell examines carefully and concludes that money was not scarce in the early medieval period. Also a lot of coins in circulation but the aesthetic quality of coins had reduced by then. This may not be necessarily be interpreted as a sign of any financial crisis or something. Ranabir Chakravarti points out the significance of Mandapikas which were local centres of exchange that constituted an intermediate level between the small, periodic markets (hatta, hattika), larger trade centres(pattana). They were Nodes of various exchanges of cash crops and edible staples, also for collection of commercial tolls and duties. They can be considered analogous to oenthas in Deccan and Nagarams further south.
In time and later researches the dominantly accepted explanation became the one given by B. D. Chattopadhyay, the so called-integrated paradigm/model of explaining the transition which he does in terms of local state formation. In his attempt to enumerate the various changes that come about in the early medieval period, B. D. Chattopadhyay explains the process of transition in terms of expansion of State Society, under which he describes three vital courses of historical changes namely, the local state formation, the peasantization of tribes and the appropriation and integration of cults.
His entire thesis circles around the emergence of different categories of ruling lineages distributed over a large geographical area. B. D. Chattopadhay has mentioned in his introduction to “The making of Early Medieval India” the various characteristics he thinks are reflective of the changes that came about in the early medieval period from the early historical period.
According to him around the 3rd-6th centuries the process of state formation resolved one issue when monarchy became the norm of polity. “This vindicated Brahmanical monarchical ideology, the view that anarchy pervaded the vacuums which signified an absence of monarchy”. This spread its influence beyond the political sphere to the social sector as well. It influenced the process of consolidation of conflict between heterodoxy and kingship, thus giving way to Varnasamkara.
The process of state formation included the consolidation of the existence of a surplus generating sector and a relationship of domination and subordination. B. D. Chattopadhyay very efficiently proves that these socio-political processes were interrelated.
A very important feature of the early medieval Indian society that B. D. Chattopadhyay has mentioned in his introduction of Early Medieval India is proliferation of castes and appropriation of cults. This, he says, happened in several ways, which included processes like creating new classes like Kayasthas; or incorporating tribal groups into the Brahmanized society by finding different ways to legitimize their statuses, whatever they’d been assigned when they got incorporated into their social paradigm. The Tribal groups which existed in pre-state societies also entered into interactive relationships with the so-called mainstream regionalities, thus integrating themselves into a society where they were accommodated along with new positions that became a part of the social hierarchy. The extension of state structure to such pre-state societies would inevitably bring about a host of changes in the polity, the collective economy and the society. B. D. Chattopadhyay believes that in this case the state would both integrate as well as disintegrate because a clear distinction of the ruling elites would be established which would in turn lead to ruptures within communities.
One example that he gives is that of the expansion of agrarian base and rural settlement in Tamil Nadu which was linked with the expansion of irrigation networks. Such irrigation networks and Nadus were under the ruling elites the Colas and Pallavas. Thus he goes on to refute the arguments made by the Marxist scholars namely, R. S. Sharma, B. N. S. Yadav and D. N. Jha that state that regional state formation derived from fragmentation of land which divided the authority of the State and its structure. He states that stabilization of state structures was an implication of another important process which was the peasantization of tribes and their assimilation into the mainstream social order as newer caste categories.
Thus complex societal changes cannot be viewed in the light of a single factor, and neither can an entire region be characterized by a dominant feature like Feudalism although it may be pretty much an exclusive aspect of the time. The characterization of early medieval period in India in terms of feudalistic order is justifiable in the view of arguments R. S. Sharma has put forth. But the coming of B. D. Chattopadhyay’s explanation of regional polities gaining importance due to processes like local state formation need to be considered more like they have been in the past, resulting in larger acceptance of this integrated paradigm than the unilateral Marxist notion of feudal India in early medieval times.