Routledge Handbook of the State in Premodern India

This handbook presents a multilayered and multidimensional history of state formation in premodern India.It explores dense and rich local and subregional historiography from the mid-first millennium BC to the eighteenth century in South Asia. Shifting the focus away from economic and political factors, this handbook revises the conventional understanding of states and empires and locates them in their quotidian conduct and activity on socio-cultural and concomitant factors.Comprehensive in scope, this handbook addresses a range of themes connected with the idea of state formation in the subcontinent. It includes discussions and debates on ritual practices and the Brahmanical order in early India; the Delhi Sultanate and role of Sultans among the Hindu kings; the cosmopolitan ‘Islamicate’ cultural influences on Puranic Hinduism; cultural background of the Mughal state.The handbook examines new questions and ideologies of state formation, such as:facets of violence and resistance;the significance of the autonomous spaces and forests;regional elites, including ‘Little kings’; tribal background of some famous cults;trade and maritime commerce;royal patronage, courtly manners, lineage formation;imperial architecture, monuments, and temple, among others.Featuring case studies from different part of the India subcontinent, and with contributions by renowned historians, this authoritative handbook will be an indispensable reading for teachers, scholars, and students of early India, medieval India, premodern India, South Asian history, Asian history, historiography, economic history, historical sociology, and South Asia studies.

Hermann Kulke did his PhD in Indology in 1967, is Professor Emeritus of Asian History, University of Kiel, Germany. His publications include Imaging Odisha (Editor-in-Chief, 2013), History of Precolonial India: Issues and Debates (with B. P. Sahu, 2018) and Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and South-east Asia (2021, 3rd rpt.). In 2006 he was awarded Gold Medal, Asiatic Society, Kolkata, in 2010 he was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India, and in 2011 the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany.Bhairabi Prasad Sahu is Professor of History, University of Delhi, India. The Changing Gaze: Regions and the Constructions of Early India (2013), Interrogating Political Systems: Integrative Processes and States in Pre-modern India (Edited with H. Kulke, 2015) and The Making of Regions in Indian History: Society, State and Identity in Premodern Odisha (2020) are among his recent works. He has served as President, Ancient India (2003) and Secretary of the Indian History Congress (2006-09), and Council Member, Indian Council of Historical Research (2008-14), New Delhi.