Polity, economy and society of the age

Detail

The samanta system — kings ruling through other kings

• Core idea: no king of this age ruled all his land directly.
• He kept a core area under his own officers.
• The rest he ran through samantas — vassals (lesser rulers who accepted an overlord, paid tribute and sent troops).

• The samanta kept his own land and army. He only owed loyalty, gifts and soldiers.

• The weak point: the system was indispensable but fragile in loyalty. A strong samanta could simply stop obeying.

• Best example: the Rashtrakutas were once samantas of the Chalukyas, and later overthrew their own overlords.

• So power moved in cycles — today's vassal is tomorrow's emperor.

• Harsha (reigned c. 606–647 CE) is the bridge figure of this age; his court and career are known from Bana's Harshacharita (c. 640 CE, "The Life of Harsha") and from the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who became his personal friend [4].

• Harsha's capital was Kanauj (Kanyakubja), which became the seat of his north Indian empire in the early 7th century [4].
• He held assemblies every five years at the meeting point of the Ganga and Yamuna at Prayag (Allahabad), where he gave away the treasure collected over the past four years to scholars and ascetics — Xuanzang saw this himself during his India stay of 629–645 CE [4].
• Harsha helped Xuanzang return to China in 643 CE [4].

Tiers of administration

• The chain ran: bhuktis / rashtras (large provinces) > mandalas (districts) > villages.
• The village was the base unit and was largely self-governed.
• Run by headmen, accountants (who kept land and tax records) and committees.

• The king's officers mostly collected revenue; day-to-day work stayed local.

• By the 9th century, south India had assemblies at several levels, the most famous being the Chola village assembly at Uttaramerur (see southern-dynasties-cholas).

• An inscription of Parantaka I, dated to his 12th regnal year = 919 CE, at Uttarameru-chaturvedimangalam, lays down full rules for electing members to the village assembly [2].
• It works like a local constitution for the sabha — it fixes how the assembly should run, what qualifications a member needs, how members are elected, and even how a member can be disqualified [3].
• Such assemblies in Brahmin-donated villages were called sabhas; membership needed a minimum age and ownership of property, and the sabha split into committees for different jobs (tanks, gardens, gold, justice) [2].

Land grants and the new landholder class

• Land grants had been growing since the Guptas and became the main political tool of this age.
• A king gifted land — often a whole village, with its taxes — to Brahmins, temples or monasteries.

• This created a new class of landholders who stood between the king and the peasant.

• Many grant-holders did not till the land themselves. Texts of the period hint at intermediaries squeezing the peasants — the man who held the grant took a share without doing the farming.

• Grants are known to us from copper plates — thin copper sheets with the gift engraved on them, kept as the legal title deed.
• Example: five copper plates of the Western Ganga king Durvinita, c. 550 CE [5].
• Example: the Nalanda copper plate of King Devapala of Bengal (Pala dynasty), recording a grant of five villages to maintain the monks and the monastery [5].

• The Epigraphy Branch of the ASI, which studies such inscriptions, was set up in 1886 [5].

• Effects of the grants:

• They pushed cultivation into new land — forest and waste were cleared because the holder wanted income.
• Building irrigation works (tanks, canals, wells) raised the social standing of the donor.
• Agriculture stayed the mainstay of the economy throughout.

Trade — local, coastal and overseas

• Two levels of traders:
• Small traders moved goods within a region — village to market town.

• Ship-owning merchants handled the long-distance trade and carried the real wealth.

• West coast: links with Iran, Iraq and east Africa, growing strongly from the 8th century.

• East coast: links with Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and China.
• Guilds (organised groups of traders and craftsmen) were powerful. They funded religious and charitable works — temples, tanks, feeding houses — which is why their names survive in inscriptions.
• No simple story of 'urban decay': the old idea that all towns died in this age does not fit the evidence.
• Xuanzang saw Kaushambi and Shravasti in decline.
• But he found Sthaneshvara, Kanyakubja (Kanauj) and Kashi doing well.
• So: some old towns shrank, new centres grew. Decline was uneven, not general.

Society — jatis multiply, but the ladder still moves

• Jatis multiplied. As new crafts, trades and settled groups appeared, new jatis formed around them.
• Varna–jati order stayed flexible in this period — status could change.
• The Palas (Bengal/Bihar) and the Kakatiyas (Telangana) are reported to have risen from Shudra origin to Kshatriya status once they gained power.

• The Kayasthas — originally scribes and record-keepers serving kings — had become a separate jati by the 10th century.

• But exclusion existed too.

• The word asprishya ("untouchable", one who must not be touched) appears in texts of this age.

• Xuanzang saw certain occupational groups made to live outside the city walls.

• Women were visible in work and in power.

• They appear in agriculture, crafts and in court life (the Harshacharita describes them at Harsha's court) and as donors in inscriptions.
• Queens regnant (women ruling in their own right, not as wives) are recorded under the Bhauma-Karas of Odisha — the best known is Tribhuvana Mahadevi I (9th century).

Religion — new paths, new patrons

• Tantric schools grew from about the 6th century, cutting across Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, and often open to people outside the upper varnas.
• Buddhism thrived under the Palas — their patronage kept the great monasteries of eastern India going, including Nalanda, the centre Xuanzang came to study at.

• Elsewhere it declined as temple-based Hinduism and bhakti rose.

• Jainism stayed strong in western India and Karnataka.

• The Bahubali (Gommateshvara) monolith at Shravanabelagola is the great symbol of this — a colossal image cut from a single block of gneiss (a hard banded rock), standing 57 feet / 17.5 metres high, among the largest freestanding images in the world [6].

• It was made in the 10th century under the Western Ganga general Chamundaraya [6].

• Puranas absorbed local and tribal deities into pan-Indian cults — a village god was identified with a form of Vishnu, Shiva or the Goddess. This is how regional worship became part of a single Hindu framework.

• The Bhakti Movement began in the Tamil country with the Alvars (devotees of Vishnu) and Nayanars (devotees of Shiva) — see bhakti-sufi.

Prelims Hooks

• Samanta = vassal ruler; the Rashtrakutas were ex-samantas of the Chalukyas and overthrew them.
• Administrative tiers, largest first: bhukti/rashtra → mandala → village.
• Uttaramerur inscription = Parantaka I, 12th regnal year, 919 CE, at Uttarameru-chaturvedimangalam; rules for electing village-assembly members, including disqualification [2][3].
• Qualifications for the Chola sabha turned on age and property ownership; work was split among committees [2].
• Harsha reigned c. 606–647 CE; capital Kanauj; held gift-giving assemblies every five years at Prayag [4].
• Xuanzang was in India 629–645 CE; Harsha helped him return to China in 643 CE [4].
• Harshacharita was written by Bana, c. 640 CE [4].
• Xuanzang found Kaushambi and Shravasti declining but Sthaneshvara, Kanyakubja and Kashi flourishing.
• Kayasthas emerged as a distinct jati by the 10th century; Palas and Kakatiyas rose from Shudra to Kshatriya status.
• Tribhuvana Mahadevi I (9th c.) — queen regnant of the Bhauma-Karas of Odisha.
• Gommateshvara/Bahubali, Shravanabelagola: 57 ft (17.5 m), single block of gneiss, 10th century, patron Chamundaraya (Western Ganga general) [6].
• Nalanda copper plate of Devapala records a grant of five villages to a monastery; ASI Epigraphy Branch founded 1886 [5].

Mains Points

• Was early medieval India "feudal"? The samanta system, land grants and a new landholder class look like feudalism, and texts do hint at intermediaries exploiting peasants. But grants also extended cultivation, trade with Iran, east Africa, Southeast Asia and China stayed alive, and towns such as Kanauj and Kashi flourished — so the picture is political fragmentation with economic continuity, not collapse.
• Decentralisation as a source of strength and weakness. The samanta chain let small states expand fast without a big bureaucracy, but loyalty was personal and reversible (Rashtrakutas vs Chalukyas). Link this to why no single power held north India between Harsha and the Delhi Sultanate, and to Rajput political patterns.
• Local self-government is old, not colonial. Uttaramerur (919 CE) shows elected village assemblies with written qualifications, committees and disqualification rules [2][3]. Useful in GS-I/GS-II answers on the indigenous roots of Panchayati Raj — while noting that eligibility rested on property and varna status, so it was participatory but not universal.
• Social change and the limits of mobility. The same society that let the Palas and Kakatiyas claim Kshatriya rank, let the Kayasthas crystallise as a jati, and saw queens regnant like Tribhuvana Mahadevi I, also produced the term asprishya and pushed some groups outside the city walls. Mobility worked at the group level (for those with power or land) while exclusion hardened at the bottom.