The Origins Of Political Order Part 5

Under the influence of this Brahmanic religion, the twofold division of varnas into aryas and dasas evolved into the fourfold division of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras, with the priestly cla.s.s clearly established at the top of the hierarchy. They were the ones who generated the ritual prayers that const.i.tuted the Vedas. As the religion developed, the prayers were committed to memory by generations of Brahmins; this memorization of ritual incantations became their specialty and the source of their comparative advantage in the struggle for social status with the other varnas. Out of these rituals sprang law, customary and oral at first, but eventually written down in law books like the Manava-Dharmasastra, or what the English called the Laws of Manu Laws of Manu. Thus law, in the Indian tradition, did not spring from political authority as it did in China; it came from a source independent of and superior to the political ruler. Indeed, the Dharmasastra makes very clear that the king exists to protect the system of the varnas, and not the other way around.24 If we use the Chinese case as a baseline for political development, Indian society takes a big detour by around 600 B.C. India does not experience prolonged warfare of the sort that would drive it to develop a modern, impersonal centralized state.25 Instead of concentrating authority in an emperor, it is split between a well-differentiated cla.s.s of priests and a cla.s.s of warriors, who need each other to survive. Even though India does not develop a modern state like China's in this period, it does create the beginnings of a rule of law that limits the power and authority of the state in a way that has no counterpart in China. India's persistent inability to concentrate political power in the manner of China is thus clearly rooted in Indian religion, at which we need to look more closely. Instead of concentrating authority in an emperor, it is split between a well-differentiated cla.s.s of priests and a cla.s.s of warriors, who need each other to survive. Even though India does not develop a modern state like China's in this period, it does create the beginnings of a rule of law that limits the power and authority of the state in a way that has no counterpart in China. India's persistent inability to concentrate political power in the manner of China is thus clearly rooted in Indian religion, at which we need to look more closely.

11.

VARNAS AND JATIS.

Economics versus religion as a source of social change; how Indian social life becomes comprehensible in light of religious ideas; implications of Indian religion for political power

One of the oldest controversies among social theorists concerns the relative priority of economic interests versus ideas as sources of social change. In a tradition that runs from Karl Marx to modern rational-choice economists, material interests are given priority. It was Marx who said that religion was the "opiate of the ma.s.ses," a fairy tale that was cooked up by elites to justify their domination of the rest of society. While somewhat less acerbic than Marx, many modern economists have maintained that their rational utility-maximizing framework is sufficient to understand virtually all forms of social behavior. Those who think otherwise, the n.o.bel laureate Gary Becker once implied, just weren't looking hard enough.1 Ideas are held to be endogenous, that is, they are created after the fact to justify material interests rather than being independent causes of social behavior. Ideas are held to be endogenous, that is, they are created after the fact to justify material interests rather than being independent causes of social behavior.

On the other side of this argument lie some of the founders of modern sociology, including Max Weber and emile Durkheim, who saw religion and religious ideas as primary, both as motivators of human action and as sources of social ident.i.ty. Weber maintained that the entire framework in which modern economists operate, a framework that sees the individual as the primary decision maker and material interest as the chief motive, was itself the product of religious ideas coming out of the Protestant Reformation. After writing The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber went on to produce books on China, India, and other non-Western civilizations to show that religious ideas were necessary to understand how their economic life was organized.

If one wanted an example of a religion that, a la Marx, justified the dominance of a single, small elite over the rest of society, one would choose not Christianity or Islam, with their underlying messages of universal equality, but rather the Brahmanic religion that appeared in India in the last two millennia B.C. According to the Rg Veda,

When the G.o.ds made a sacrifice with the Man as their victim ... when they divided the Man, into how many parts did they divide him? What was his mouth, what were his arms, what were his thighs and his feet called?The brahman was his mouth, of his arms were made the warrior. His thighs became the vaisya, of his feet the shudra was born. With Sacrifice the G.o.ds sacrificed to Sacrifice, these were the first of the sacred laws. These mighty beings reached the sky, where are the eternal spirits, the G.o.ds.2

Not only did the Brahmins put themselves at the top of this fourfold social hierarchy; they also awarded themselves perpetual monopoly power over the prayers and texts that would be necessary for all legitimating rituals, from the highest invest.i.ture of kings to the lowliest wedding or funeral.

But a wholly materialistic account of the function of religion in Indian society is very unsatisfying. For one thing, it fails to account for the actual content of the fairy tale. As we have seen, Chinese society on the eve of the transition to statehood bore many structural similarities to Indian society. The Chinese elite, like elites in every known human society, also made use of legitimating rituals to enhance their power. But the Chinese never thought up a metaphysical system of the depth and complexity of the one that emerged in India. Indeed, they were able to seize and hold power quite effectively without the use of any transcendental religion whatsoever.

Moreover, in India it was not the elites holding coercive and economic power but the elites holding ritual power who ended up on top. Even if one believed material causes were primary, one would still need to answer the question of why the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas-the warriors and the merchants-agreed to subordinate themselves to the Brahmins, giving them not just land and economic resources but also control over intimate aspects of their personal lives.

Finally, economic or materialist explanations of Indian society need to answer the question of why the system remained so durable over time. Brahmanic religion suited the interests of a small elite in 600 B.C., but it did not suit the interests of many other cla.s.ses or social groups in Indian society over time. Why didn't a counterelite arise, proclaiming an alternative set of religious ideas that justified universal equality? In a certain sense, Buddhism and Jainism were such protest religions. But both of them continued to share many of the metaphysical a.s.sumptions of the Brahmanic religion, and both failed to win broad acceptance in the subcontinent. The biggest challenges to the hegemony of the Brahmanic religion had to be forcibly imported by foreign invaders-the Moguls bringing Islam and the British bearing Western liberal and democratic ideas. Religion and politics must therefore be seen as drivers of behavior and change in their own right, not as by-products of grand economic forces.

THE RATIONALITY OF INDIAN RELIGION.

It is hard to imagine a social system less compatible with the demands of a modern economy than the Brahmanic religion's system of jatis. Modern labor market theory demands that individuals should be free, in Adam Smith's phrase, to "better their condition" through investments in education and skills, and by contracting for their services to whomever they want. In a flexible labor market with good information, this should maximize everyone's well-being and lead to an optimal allocation of resources. Under the system of jatis, by contrast, individuals are born into a limited set of occupational categories. They must follow the occupation of their fathers and must marry someone from the same occupational group. It makes no sense to invest in education, since one can never better oneself in any fundamental way in this life. Social mobility is possible under the jati system, but only on the part of the community as a whole and not by individuals. Thus the jati may decide to move to or open a business in a new area, but there is no room for individual entrepreneurs.h.i.+p. The system creates huge obstacles to social cooperation: for certain Brahmins, the simple act of laying eyes on an Untouchable would require going through a lengthy ritual of purification.

But what seems irrational from the standpoint of modern economics is totally rational if one accepts the Brahmanic religion's starting premises. Indeed, the entire social system down to the most minute rules of caste behavior makes perfect sense as logical outgrowths of the larger metaphysical system. Modern observers have frequently tried to explain Indian social rules in terms of their functional or economic utility-for example, that the prohibition on eating cows started out as a hygienic measure to avoid contaminated meat. Quite apart from the fact that the early Indo-Aryans were cow eaters like the Nuer, such explanations fail to penetrate the subjectively experienced coherence of the society and reflect nothing more than the secular biases of the observers themselves.

Max Weber recognized the high degree of rationality that lay behind the Brahmanic religious teaching-a theodicy, or justification of G.o.d, that he labeled "a stroke of genius."3 This genius is often sensed by Western converts who go to study in Indian ashrams. The starting point is the denial of the reality of the phenomenal world. In the words of one observer, This genius is often sensed by Western converts who go to study in Indian ashrams. The starting point is the denial of the reality of the phenomenal world. In the words of one observer,

All Indic religious systems have as their ultimate purpose life-transcendence (moksha) because all a.s.sume that sentient existence is a false perception of reality (maya), the facade behind which lies The One (tat ekam), brahman brahman, who, formless, and because formless eternal, is the sole reality. All that is perceived by the senses, all that we are attached to by virtue of our physical existence, is transitory (subject to death and decay) and therefore unreal (maya). The "purpose" of existence is actually not to "attain" ident.i.ty with this ultimate being, as some interpreters claim, but to simply tear away all impediments standing in the way of discovering that what is true and permanent in individual being (atman) is already nothing more than ultimate being brahman brahman.4

Mortal existence involves immersion in a material, biological existence that is the opposite of the disembodied, true existence that lies beyond the here and now. As the early Brahmins saw it, "The blood and gore a.s.sociated with birth, the suffering and deformations a.s.sociated with disease and violence, the repugnancies a.s.sociated with waste effusions from the human body, and the decay and putrefaction a.s.sociated with death" were all a.s.sociated with the mortal life, which needed to be transcended. This was the justification for awarding themselves a privileged role in the social hierarchy: "Mortal existence was permeated with polluting substances whose control and systematic reduction through time, requiring Brahman-supervised rituals in one's present life and upward-spiraling rebirth (samsara ) over the long pull, were the essential ingredients for finding a way out ( ) over the long pull, were the essential ingredients for finding a way out (moksha)."5 The jati system arises out of the concept of karma, or what one does in this life. Occupations have a higher or lower status depending on how close they are to sources of pollution-to the blood, death, dirt, and decay of biological life. Occupations like hide tanner, butcher, barber, sweeper, midwife, or dealing with the disposal of dead animals or humans were regarded as the most impure. Brahmins by contrast were the most pure, because they could rely on other people to perform services for them that involved contact with blood, death, and dirt. This then may explain the practice of vegetarianism among Brahmins, since to eat meat is to eat a corpse.6 The only possibilities for social mobility existed not in this life but between lifetimes, since one's karma can change only from one lifetime to the next. An individual was thus trapped in his or her karma for life. But whether one moved up or down in the hierarchy of jatis depended on how one fulfilled the dharma, or rules governing good conduct, for the jati one was born into. Failure to abide by these rules could cause one to fall lower in the hierarchy in the next life, and hence farther away from true existence. The Brahmanic religion thus sacralized the existing social order, making the fulfillment of one's existing jati or occupation a religious duty.

The order of varnas grew out of the same metaphysical premises. The first three varnas-the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas-were all regarded as "twice born" and were permitted, as a result of their second birth, to be initiated into ritual status. The Sudras, who included the vast majority of the population, were "once born" and could hope for ritual status only in the next life. It is not clear historically whether varnas preceded jatis or the reverse as Indian society evolved out of its initial stage of tribal organization. It is possible that lineages evolved into jatis, which they resemble in many ways due to their elaborate kins.h.i.+p rules, but it is also possible that the varnas evolved first and set the framework within which jatis then emerged.7 The system of jatis generated by these religious beliefs thus produced a remarkable combination of segmentary separation and social interdependence at one and the same time. Each jati became an inherited position that modified the existing lineage system. Since the jatis set the outer limits of clan exogamy, they tended to become self-sufficient communities in a sea of other segmentary units. On the other hand, each occupation was also part of a larger division of labor and thus mutually dependent on one another, from the high priest to the funeral undertaker.8 The French anthropologist Louis Dumont, quoting E.A.H. Blunt, gives some examples: The French anthropologist Louis Dumont, quoting E.A.H. Blunt, gives some examples:

The Barbers boycott dancing girls who refused to dance for their marriages.In Gorakhpur, a planter tried to end the trade of the Chamars [manufacturers of leather goods], who, he believed, were poisoning the cattle (as they are often suspected of doing); he ordered his tenants to lacerate the hide of every animal which died of no apparent cause. The Chamars retorted by ordering their women to stop serving as mid-wives; the planter gave in.In Ahmedabad (Gujerat), a banker who was having his house re-roofed had a quarrel with a confectioner. The confectioners came to an agreement with the tile makers who refused to provide the banker with tiles.9

This was not simply economic interdependence, because each jati performing its function also had a ritual significance for the other jatis.

IDEAS AND THEIR POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES.

The varna system had immense implications for politics since it subordinated the Kshatriyas, warriors, to the Brahmins.10 There was, according to Harold Gould, a "symbiotic interdependence ... between Brahman and Kshatriya. This arises from the need for royal power to be continuously resanctified by priestly (i.e., ritual) power in order for the former to retain its sacred legitimacy." There was, according to Harold Gould, a "symbiotic interdependence ... between Brahman and Kshatriya. This arises from the need for royal power to be continuously resanctified by priestly (i.e., ritual) power in order for the former to retain its sacred legitimacy."11 Each ruler would need to establish a personal relations.h.i.+p with a Each ruler would need to establish a personal relations.h.i.+p with a purohita purohita, or court priest, who would have to sanctify each action he took as a secular leader.

How this theoretical separation between religious authority and secular power worked to limit the latter in practice is not entirely clear at first glance. The Brahmin hierarchy was not organized into an inst.i.tution with a central, formal source of authority like the Catholic church. It resembled rather a vast social network, where individual Brahmins communicated and cooperated with one another without being able to exercise inst.i.tutional authority as such. The Brahmins individually owned land, but the priesthood as an inst.i.tution did not control territory and resources the way the church did in Europe. The Brahmins certainly could not raise their own armies in the manner of medieval popes. There is nothing in Indian history comparable to Pope Gregory VII's excommunication of the Holy Roman Emperor in the year 1076 and his forcing of the emperor to come barefoot to Canossa to plead for clemency. While secular rulers needed purohitas to bless their political plans, it does not seem to have been difficult for them to buy them off to get what they wanted. We need to look for other mechanisms by which India's hierarchical, segmented religious and social system made the concentration of political power difficult.

One obvious channel of influence was through the limitations that the varna/jati system placed on the development of military organization. The warriors or Kshatriyas were a const.i.tuent part of the fourfold varna system, which automatically limited the degree of military mobilization of which Indian society was capable. One reason that armed pastoral nomads like the Xiongnu, Huns, and Mongols became such potent military powers was that they could mobilize close to 100 percent of their able-bodied male population. Armed predation and pastoral nomadism are not especially different activities in terms of requisite skills or organizational requirements. Although this may have been true of the Indo-Aryans in their days of pastoral nomadism, it ceased to be so once they became a settled society divided into varnas. Warrior status became a specialty of a small, aristocratic elite, entry into which was not just a matter of specialized training and birth but also was invested with considerable religious significance.

This system didn't always work to limit entry in practice. While many of India's rulers were born into the Kshatriya cla.s.s, many also started out as Brahmins, Vaisyas, and even Sudras. Having achieved political power, the new rulers tended to be awarded Kshatriya status retroactively; it was easier to become a Kshatriya in this fas.h.i.+on than to become a Brahmin.12 All four varnas fought in wars, and Brahmins were known to hold high military rank. The Sudras tended to fight as auxiliaries, however, and the military hierarchy reproduced the social hierarchy in terms of the subordination of the lower orders. All four varnas fought in wars, and Brahmins were known to hold high military rank. The Sudras tended to fight as auxiliaries, however, and the military hierarchy reproduced the social hierarchy in terms of the subordination of the lower orders.13 Indian polities were never able to achieve general mobilization of a large part of their peasantries in the manner of the state of Qin and other Chinese states during the later Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Indian polities were never able to achieve general mobilization of a large part of their peasantries in the manner of the state of Qin and other Chinese states during the later Eastern Zhou Dynasty.14 Given the ritual aversion to blood and dead bodies, one does not imagine that wounded soldiers received much succor from their high-born comrades. Such a conservative social system was also evidently slow to adopt new military technologies. Fighting chariots were abandoned only after the start of the Christian era, many centuries after the Chinese had given up on them; elephants continued to be used in war long after their utility was thrown into question. Indian armies also never developed effective cavalry forces with mounted archers, which led to defeats by the Greeks in the fourth century B.C. as well as by the Muslims in the twelfth century A.D. Given the ritual aversion to blood and dead bodies, one does not imagine that wounded soldiers received much succor from their high-born comrades. Such a conservative social system was also evidently slow to adopt new military technologies. Fighting chariots were abandoned only after the start of the Christian era, many centuries after the Chinese had given up on them; elephants continued to be used in war long after their utility was thrown into question. Indian armies also never developed effective cavalry forces with mounted archers, which led to defeats by the Greeks in the fourth century B.C. as well as by the Muslims in the twelfth century A.D.15 The second way Brahmanism limited political power was by providing an impetus for the organization of small, tightly knit corporate ent.i.ties that extended all the way from top to bottom of the society, based on the jati. These units were self-governing and did not require the state to organize them. Indeed, they resisted the state's efforts to penetrate and control them, leading to the situation that the political scientist Joel Migdal characterizes as a weak state and a strong society.16 This situation persists down to the present day, where caste and village organizations remain the backbone of Indian society. This situation persists down to the present day, where caste and village organizations remain the backbone of Indian society.

The self-organizing character of Indian society was noted by many nineteenth-century Western observers, including Karl Marx and Henry Maine. Marx a.s.serted that the king owned all land but then noted that villages in India tended to be economically autarchic and based on a primitive form of communism (a rather self-contradictory interpretation). Maine referred to the unchanging, self-regulating Indian village community, a notion that became widespread in Britain in Victorian times. British administrators in the early nineteenth century described the Indian village as a "little republic" that could survive the ruin of empires.17 In the twentieth century, Indian nationalists, drawing partly on these interpretations, imagined an idyllic picture of an indigenous village democracy, the panchayat panchayat, which was said to have been the source of political order until it was undermined by the British colonial administration. Article 40 of the modern Indian const.i.tution has detailed provisions for the organization of revived panchayats that were intended to promote democracy on a local level, something that was given particular emphasis by Rajiv Gandhi's government in 1989 when it sought to decentralize power further within India's federal system. The actual nature of local governance in early India was not, however, democratic and secular, as later commentators and nationalists claimed, but based on jati or caste. Each village tended to have a dominant caste, that is, a caste that numerically outnumbered the others and owned the greater part of the village's land. The panchayat was simply the traditional leaders.h.i.+p of that caste.18 Individual villages had local governance inst.i.tutions and did not depend on a state to provide services from the outside. One of the chief functions of the panchayat was juridical; it arbitrated disputes between members of the jati based on customary law. Property rights within the village were not communal in the sense imagined by Marx. As in other segmentary lineage-based societies, property was held by a complex patchwork of kin, with many entails and restrictions on the ability of individual families to alienate land. This meant that the king did not "own" the land of the village over which he was nominally sovereign. As we will see in the following chapter, the power of different Indian political rulers to tax or appropriate land was often very limited.

Commercial activity was also based on jatis, which acted like closed corporations that needed little external support. A great deal of trade in southern India from the ninth to the fourteenth century was controlled by merchant guilds like the Ayyvole, which had representatives throughout the subcontinent and dealt extensively with Arab merchants outside India. Gujerati merchants, both Muslim and Hindu, have long dominated trade across the Indian Ocean, in East Africa, southern Arabia, and into Southeast Asia. The merchants of Ahmedabad were organized into a large, citywide corporation on which sat members of all of the major occupational groups.19 In China, trade networks were based on lineages but were not nearly as well organized as their Indian counterparts. In China, trade networks were based on lineages but were not nearly as well organized as their Indian counterparts.

Unlike Chinese lineages, whose jurisdiction tended to be limited to the regulation of family law, inheritance, and other domestic matters (especially in periods when the government was strong), the Indian jatis took on much more overt political functions in addition to being local social regulators. According to Satish Saberwal, "The jati jati provided the social field for mobilizing variously: aggressively, to secure dominance and rulers.h.i.+ps ... ; defensively, to resist the larger states' and empires' attempts to wedge into the dominant provided the social field for mobilizing variously: aggressively, to secure dominance and rulers.h.i.+ps ... ; defensively, to resist the larger states' and empires' attempts to wedge into the dominant jati's jati's domain ... ; and subversively, to take office in one of these larger ent.i.ties, and use its authority and stature to advance, rather, one's own private interests." domain ... ; and subversively, to take office in one of these larger ent.i.ties, and use its authority and stature to advance, rather, one's own private interests."20 The jatis provided their members with opportunities for physical and social mobility. For example, the Kaikolar, a Tamil weaver caste, s.h.i.+fted to trading and soldiering when the opportunity arose under the Chola kings; Sikh carpenters and blacksmiths left their native Punjab for a.s.sam and Kenya in the late nineteenth century. The jatis provided their members with opportunities for physical and social mobility. For example, the Kaikolar, a Tamil weaver caste, s.h.i.+fted to trading and soldiering when the opportunity arose under the Chola kings; Sikh carpenters and blacksmiths left their native Punjab for a.s.sam and Kenya in the late nineteenth century.21 These decisions would be taken collectively by groups of families who would rely on one another for support in their new surroundings. In northern India, the Rajput jati was particularly successful in expanding its domain and came to control substantial territory. These decisions would be taken collectively by groups of families who would rely on one another for support in their new surroundings. In northern India, the Rajput jati was particularly successful in expanding its domain and came to control substantial territory.

A third mechanism by which the Brahmanic social system limited political power was by controlling literacy, a legacy that extends up to the present moment and consigns huge numbers of Indians to poverty and lack of opportunity. Contemporary India is something of a paradox. On the one hand, there are large numbers of extremely well-educated Indians who have risen to the top of global rankings in a variety of fields, from information technology to medicine to entertainment to economics. Indians outside of India always enjoyed a high degree of upward social mobility, a fact noted many years ago by the novelist V. S. Naipaul.22 Since the economic reforms of the late 1980s and 1990s, they have been prospering inside India as well. On the other hand, the educated remain a minority in a country with extremely high levels of illiteracy and poverty. Next to fast-growing cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad are vast rural hinterlands whose human development outcomes rank among the lowest in the world. Since the economic reforms of the late 1980s and 1990s, they have been prospering inside India as well. On the other hand, the educated remain a minority in a country with extremely high levels of illiteracy and poverty. Next to fast-growing cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad are vast rural hinterlands whose human development outcomes rank among the lowest in the world.23 The historical roots of these disparities lie ultimately in the system of varnas and jatis. The Brahmins of course controlled access to learning and knowledge through their role as guardians of ritual. Through the end of the first millennium B.C., they had a very strong aversion to the writing down of the most important Vedic texts. According to Saberwal, "Memorizing the hymns for use in ritual-for oneself and for one's clients-has been the most characteristic form of Brahminical learning. Efficacy in the ritual, and therefore the process of learning, did not necessarily require that the meanings of what was memorized be understood ... A great many Brahmins devoted large parts of their lives to memorization on a prodigious scale or to logical a.n.a.lyses and debates."24 Exact memorization of the Vedic texts was necessary if they were to have their desired ritual effects; small mistakes in recitation, it was believed, could lead to disaster. Exact memorization of the Vedic texts was necessary if they were to have their desired ritual effects; small mistakes in recitation, it was believed, could lead to disaster.

Perhaps not accidentally, the Brahmanic commitment to the oral transmission of the Vedas reinforced their own social supremacy by creating additional barriers to entry into their varna. Unlike Jews, Christians, and Muslims, who were all "people of the book" from the start of their religious traditions, the Brahmins strongly resisted the introduction of writing and technologies related to it. Chinese travelers to India in the fifth and seventh centuries A.D. looking for sources of Buddhist tradition were hard-pressed to find any written doc.u.ments. Long after both the Chinese and Europeans had switched to writing on parchment, the Indians were still writing on palm leaves and bark. The aversion to durable parchment was religious in origin, since it was made from animal skin. But the Brahmins were also slow to adopt paper when that technology became available in the eleventh century.25 In rural Maharashtra, paper was not used in routine administration until the middle of the seventeenth century, and when it did arise, it immensely improved the efficiency of accounting and oversight. In rural Maharashtra, paper was not used in routine administration until the middle of the seventeenth century, and when it did arise, it immensely improved the efficiency of accounting and oversight.26 It wasn't until the second millennium A.D. that writing became more common and spread beyond the Brahmins to other groups in Indian society. Merchants began to keep commercial records, and individual jatis recorded family genealogies. In Kerala, the Nayars "of royal and n.o.ble lineages" began to learn written Sanskrit, and the political cla.s.s in that state began to produce voluminous records of political and commercial transactions. (In the late twentieth century, Kerala, under a local Communist government, emerged as one of the best-governed states in India; one wonders whether this performance had deeper roots in the tradition of literacy of the political cla.s.s there in earlier centuries.) Compared to the Chinese, the Brahmins' monopoly on learning and their resistance to the adoption of writing had an incalculable impact on the development of a modern state. From the Shang Dynasty onward, Chinese rulers used the written word to communicate orders, record laws, keep accounts, and write detailed political histories. The education of a Chinese bureaucrat centered on literacy and immersion in a long and complex literary tradition. Training for administrators, while limited by modern standards, involved prolonged a.n.a.lysis of written texts and the drawing of lessons from earlier historical events. With the adoption of the examination system beginning in the Han Dynasty, recruitment into the government was based on mastery of literary skills and was not restricted to people of a certain cla.s.s. While the effective access of ordinary Chinese to high government office was limited in many practical ways, the Chinese were long aware that education was one important route to upward social mobility. Lineages and local communities therefore invested heavily in educating sons to take advantage of the system.

Nothing like this existed in India. Rulers were themselves illiterate and relied for administration on a similarly uneducated cadre of patrimonial officials. Literacy was a privilege of the Brahmin cla.s.s, which had a strong self-interest in maintaining their monopoly over access to learning and ritual. As in the case of the military, the hierarchical system of varnas and jatis severely restricted the access of the great majority of the population to education and literacy, and therefore reduced the pool of competent administrators available to Indian states.

The final way religion affected political power in Indian development was through the establishment of the foundations for something that might be called a rule of law. The essence of the rule of law is a body of rules reflecting the community's sense of justice that is higher than the wishes of the person who happens to be the king. This was the case in India, where the law laid out in the different Dharmasastras was created not by kings but by Brahmins acting on the basis of ritual knowledge. And the laws make very clear the fact that the varnas are not there to serve the king; rather, the king can gain legitimacy only by being the protector of the varnas.27 If the king violates the sacred law, the epic Mahabharata explicitly sanctions revolt against him, saying that the king is not a king at all but rather a mad dog. In the If the king violates the sacred law, the epic Mahabharata explicitly sanctions revolt against him, saying that the king is not a king at all but rather a mad dog. In the Laws of Manu Laws of Manu, the locus of sovereignty lies in the law and not in the person of the king: "In essence, it is the law (danda) that is the king, the person with authority, the person who keeps the order of the realm, and provides leaders.h.i.+p to it (Ma.n.u.smrti, ch. 7. s. 17)."28 A number of cla.s.sic sources tell the cautionary tale of King Vena, who forbade all sacrifices except to himself and enforced intercaste marriages. As a result, the divine sages attacked him and killed him with divine blades of gra.s.s that had miraculously been turned into spears. Many of India's dynasties, including the Nandas, Mauryas, and Sungas, were weakened by Brahmanic intrigue.29 It is of course difficult to know when the Brahmins were simply defending their own interests as opposed to upholding a sacred law, much as in the case of the medieval Catholic church. But like Europe and unlike China, authority in India was split in a way that placed meaningful checks on political power. It is of course difficult to know when the Brahmins were simply defending their own interests as opposed to upholding a sacred law, much as in the case of the medieval Catholic church. But like Europe and unlike China, authority in India was split in a way that placed meaningful checks on political power.

The social system that grew out of Indian religion thus severely constrained the ability of states to concentrate power. Rulers could not create a powerful military instrument capable of mobilizing a large proportion of the population; they could not penetrate the self-governing, highly organized jatis that existed in every village; they and their administrators lacked education and literacy; and they faced a well-organized priestly cla.s.s that protected a normative order in which they were consigned to a subordinate role. In every one of these respects their situation was very different from that of the Chinese.

12.

WEAKNESSES OF INDIAN POLITIES.

How the Mauryas were the first and most successful indigenous rulers of India; the nature of the Indian state under the Mauryas; the character of Ashoka; decline, disunity, and revival under the Guptas; why India subsequently fell to foreign conquerors

Indian social development outran both political and economic development early on. The subcontinent acquired a common culture under a set of religious beliefs and social practices that marked it as a distinctive civilization long before anyone ever tried to unify it politically. And when that unification was attempted, the strength of the society was such that it was able to resist political authority and prevent the latter from reshaping society. So whereas China developed a strong state that kept society weak in a self-perpetuating manner, India had a strong society that prevented a strong state from emerging in the first place.

Of the hundreds or thousands of tiny states and chiefdoms that crystallized out of tribal society at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. on the Indian subcontinent, three kingdoms-Kas.h.i.+, Kosala, and Magadha-and the chiefdom or gana-sangha of Vrijjis, became the preeminent contenders for power on the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Of these, Magadha (whose core was in the contemporary state of Bihar) was destined to play the role of the state of Qin in unifying much of the subcontinent under a single house. Bimbisara became king in the second half of the sixth century B.C. and through a series of strategic marriages and conquests established Magadha as the dominant state in eastern India. Magadha began to extract taxes on land and produce in place of the voluntary payments made in prestate days by junior lineages. This required in turn the recruitment of an administrative staff to preside over tax collection. Taxes were said to be one-sixth of agricultural output, which if true was extremely high for an early agrarian society.1 The king could not claim owners.h.i.+p of all land in his kingdom, but only of the wasteland, which at that period of low population density must have been quite extensive. The king could not claim owners.h.i.+p of all land in his kingdom, but only of the wasteland, which at that period of low population density must have been quite extensive.

Bimbisara was later murdered by his son Ajatashatru, who annexed Kosala and Kas.h.i.+ to the west, and conducted a prolonged struggle with Vrijjis, which he eventually won by sowing dissention among the gana-sangha's leaders. By the time Ajatashatru died in 461 B.C., Magadha controlled the Ganges delta and much of the lower course of the river, with a new capital at Pataliputra. Rule then pa.s.sed to a series of other kings, including the short-lived Nanda dynasty, which rose to power from Sudra status. Alexander the Great encountered the Nandas' army, before his troops mutinied and forced him to turn back toward Punjab. Greek sources claim that it consisted of twenty thousand cavalry, two hundred thousand infantry, one thousand chariots, and three thousand elephants, though these numbers were certainly exaggerated to justify the Greek retreat.2 The Nandas were succeeded in Magadha by Chandragupta Maurya, who vastly extended their domains and founded India's first great subcontinental polity, the Mauryan empire, in 321 B.C. He was a protege of the Brahmin writer and minister Kautilya, whose book the Arthasastra Arthasastra is regarded as a cla.s.sic treatise on Indian statecraft. Chandragupta conquered the northwest in a campaign against Alexander's successor, Seleucus Nicator, bringing Punjab and parts of eastern Afghanistan and Baluchistan under Mauryan control. His empire now stretched from Persia in the west all the way to a.s.sam in the east. is regarded as a cla.s.sic treatise on Indian statecraft. Chandragupta conquered the northwest in a campaign against Alexander's successor, Seleucus Nicator, bringing Punjab and parts of eastern Afghanistan and Baluchistan under Mauryan control. His empire now stretched from Persia in the west all the way to a.s.sam in the east.

Conquest of the Dravidian south of India was left to Chandragupta's son, Bindusara, and grandson, the great emperor Ashoka. Bindusara extended the empire into the southern Deccan plateau as far south as Karnataka, and Ashoka, in what was by all accounts a long and b.l.o.o.d.y campaign, conquered Kalinga in the southeast (comprising the modern states of Orissa and parts of Andhra Pradesh) in 260 B.C. Due to India's nonliterary culture at the time, Ashoka's accomplishments were never chronicled in a history like the Chinese Book of History Book of History or or Spring and Autumn Annals Spring and Autumn Annals. He was not recognized as a great king by later generations of Indians until 1915, when the script in which a large number of rock edicts were written was deciphered and archaeologists pieced together the extent of his empire.3 The Empire of Ashoka

The empire a.s.sembled by the Mauryas in three generations comprised the whole of north India south of the Himalayas from Persia in the west to a.s.sam in the east, and southward to Karnataka. The only parts of the subcontinent not included were territories in the far south in what are now Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Lanka. No indigenous Indian regime would ever again unite this much territory under a single ruler.4 The Delhi sultanate of the Moghuls was considerably smaller. The British ruled a larger empire in the subcontinent, but this begs the question: What does it mean to say that Ashoka, or Akhbar, or the British viceroy "ruled" India? The Delhi sultanate of the Moghuls was considerably smaller. The British ruled a larger empire in the subcontinent, but this begs the question: What does it mean to say that Ashoka, or Akhbar, or the British viceroy "ruled" India?

THE MAURYAN EMPIRE: WHAT KIND OF STATE?.

Historians have debated at great length the question of what kind of state existed in ancient India.5 We might gain better insight into this question if we put it in comparative perspective, and in particular contrast the Indian empire of Ashoka with the Chinese empire founded by Qin s.h.i.+ Huangdi. These empires came into being at virtually the same time (mid- to late third century B.C.), but in terms of the nature of their polities, they could not have been more different. We might gain better insight into this question if we put it in comparative perspective, and in particular contrast the Indian empire of Ashoka with the Chinese empire founded by Qin s.h.i.+ Huangdi. These empires came into being at virtually the same time (mid- to late third century B.C.), but in terms of the nature of their polities, they could not have been more different.

Each empire was built around a core unit, the states of Magadha and Qin. The Qin state deserves to be called a true state, with many of the characteristics of modern state administration as defined by Max Weber. The patrimonial elite running the state had largely been killed off in the wars the state fought over the centuries and replaced by newcomers who were selected on an increasingly impersonal basis. Qin had upended traditional property rights through its abolition of the well-field system, and replaced the patrimonial districts with a uniform system of commanderies and prefectures. When Qin defeated its rival warring states and established a unified empire, it tried to extend this centralized public administration to the whole of China. The system of commanderies and prefectures was broadened to encompa.s.s the territory of the other conquered states, as were uniform weights and measures and a common written script. As we saw in chapter 8 8, the Qin dynasts were ultimately unsuccessful in their project, and patrimonial rule returned to some extent under the Former Han Dynasty. But the Han rulers persisted in the project to centralize administration, picking off the remaining feudatories one by one until they had established what could reasonably be called not an empire but a uniform, centralized state.

Very little of this happened under the Mauryan empire. The core state of Magadha does not appear to have had any modern features whatsoever, though we know much less about the nature of administration there than we do in the case of Qin. Recruitment to state administration was completely patrimonial and sharply limited by the caste system. Kautilya in the Arthasastra Arthasastra says that the chief qualification for high office should be n.o.ble birth, or that one's "father and grandfather" were says that the chief qualification for high office should be n.o.ble birth, or that one's "father and grandfather" were amatyas amatyas or high officials. These officials were almost entirely Brahmins. Pay scales within the bureaucracy were very hierarchical, with the ratio of lowest-to-highest salaries being 1:4,800. or high officials. These officials were almost entirely Brahmins. Pay scales within the bureaucracy were very hierarchical, with the ratio of lowest-to-highest salaries being 1:4,800.6 There is no evidence that bureaucratic recruitment was done on the basis of merit, or that public office was open to anyone outside of the top three varnas, a fact confirmed by the Greek traveler Megasthenes. There is no evidence that bureaucratic recruitment was done on the basis of merit, or that public office was open to anyone outside of the top three varnas, a fact confirmed by the Greek traveler Megasthenes.7 The wars that brought Magadha to dominance were not the prolonged brutal affairs experienced by the state of Qin; the old elites were not killed off, nor does Magadha's situation ever appear to have been so dire as to require total mobilization of the male population. The Mauryan state as far as we know did not make any efforts to standardize weights and measures, or to introduce uniformity into the languages spoken in areas under its jurisdiction. Indeed, as late as the sixteenth century A.D., Indian states were still struggling to impose uniform standards, and that did not finally occur until under the British Raj, nearly two full millennia after the Mauryas. The wars that brought Magadha to dominance were not the prolonged brutal affairs experienced by the state of Qin; the old elites were not killed off, nor does Magadha's situation ever appear to have been so dire as to require total mobilization of the male population. The Mauryan state as far as we know did not make any efforts to standardize weights and measures, or to introduce uniformity into the languages spoken in areas under its jurisdiction. Indeed, as late as the sixteenth century A.D., Indian states were still struggling to impose uniform standards, and that did not finally occur until under the British Raj, nearly two full millennia after the Mauryas.8 The relations.h.i.+p between the core state of Magadha and the rest of the empire acquired through marriage and conquest was also quite different from those within China. Conquest of one Chinese state by another often resulted in the extermination or exile of an entire ruling lineage and the absorption of its territory under another ruling house. The number of Chinese elite lineages dropped substantially during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. The Mauryan empire was built by much gentler means. The only war that seems to have produced large numbers of casualties and a scorched-earth policy was the incorporation of Kalinga, which had a traumatic effect on the conqueror, Ashoka. In most other cases conquest simply meant that the existing ruler after defeat in battle accepted the nominal sovereignty of the Mauryas. The Arthasastra Arthasastra advises weak kings to submit and voluntarily render homage to stronger neighbors. There was no "feudalism" in the Chinese or European sense where a conquered domain would be dispossessed of its existing rulers and donated as a benefice to a royal kinsman or household retainer. Indian historians sometimes speak of "va.s.sal" kingdoms, but these had none of the contractual significance of European va.s.salage. advises weak kings to submit and voluntarily render homage to stronger neighbors. There was no "feudalism" in the Chinese or European sense where a conquered domain would be dispossessed of its existing rulers and donated as a benefice to a royal kinsman or household retainer. Indian historians sometimes speak of "va.s.sal" kingdoms, but these had none of the contractual significance of European va.s.salage.9 It is not accurate to say that the Mauryas redistributed power, since it was never really centralized in the first place. Needless to say, the Mauryas made no effort to impose their state inst.i.tutions on anything but the core areas of the empire. Government on a local level throughout the empire remained completely patrimonial, with no attempt to establish a permanent, professional cadre of administrators. This meant that every new king brought with him a different set of loyalties and a turnover in administrators. It is not accurate to say that the Mauryas redistributed power, since it was never really centralized in the first place. Needless to say, the Mauryas made no effort to impose their state inst.i.tutions on anything but the core areas of the empire. Government on a local level throughout the empire remained completely patrimonial, with no attempt to establish a permanent, professional cadre of administrators. This meant that every new king brought with him a different set of loyalties and a turnover in administrators.10 Evidence of the Mauryan empire's light control over the territories it nominally ruled lies in the survival of tribal federations or chiefdoms-the gana-sanghas-throughout the period of its hegemony. Indian historians sometimes refer to these as "republics" because their political decision making was more partic.i.p.atory and consensual than in the hierarchical kingdoms. But this puts a modern gloss on what were simply surviving tribal polities still grounded in kins.h.i.+p.11 Kautilya in the Arthasastra Arthasastra discusses fiscal policy and taxation at great length, though it is not clear the extent to which his recommendations were actually put into effect. Contrary to believers in "Oriental despotism," the king did not "own" all the land in his realm. He had his own domains and a.s.serted direct control over wasteland, uncleared forests, and the like, but he generally did not challenge existing customary property rights. The state did a.s.sert rights to collect taxes from landowners, of which there was a large variety. Taxes could be imposed on individuals, on land, on produce, on villages, or on rulers of more peripheral territories, and had to be collected largely in kind or through corvee labor. discusses fiscal policy and taxation at great length, though it is not clear the extent to which his recommendations were actually put into effect. Contrary to believers in "Oriental despotism," the king did not "own" all the land in his realm. He had his own domains and a.s.serted direct control over wasteland, uncleared forests, and the like, but he generally did not challenge existing customary property rights. The state did a.s.sert rights to collect taxes from landowners, of which there was a large variety. Taxes could be imposed on individuals, on land, on produce, on villages, or on rulers of more peripheral territories, and had to be collected largely in kind or through corvee labor.12 No Indian ruler ever seems to have attempted anything like Shang Yang's abolition of the well-field system, or w.a.n.g Mang's ambitious though failed land reform efforts. No Indian ruler ever seems to have attempted anything like Shang Yang's abolition of the well-field system, or w.a.n.g Mang's ambitious though failed land reform efforts.

Ashoka died in 232 B.C., and his empire went into immediate decline. The northwest fell to the Bactrian Greeks, the tribal gana-sanghas rea.s.serted themselves in Punjab and Rajasthan in the west, while Kalinga, Karnataka, and other territories to the south broke away and returned to their status as independent kingdoms. The Mauryas retreated to their original kingdom of Magadha in the central Ganges plain, and the last of the Mauryas, Brihadratha, was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 185. More than five hundred years pa.s.sed before another dynasty, the Guptas, was able to reunify India on anything like the scale of the Mauryan empire. The subcontinental empire lasted for only a generation, and the dynasty for 135 years. The end of the Maurya saw the disintegration of the empire into hundreds of separate polities, many of them at a prestate level of development.

The fact that the Maurya empire lasted such a short time is prima facie evidence that it never exerted strong control over its const.i.tuent territories in the first place. This is not just a matter of post hoc ergo propter hoc. The Mauryas never established strong state inst.i.tutions and never made the leap from patrimonial to impersonal administration. It maintained a strong network of spies throughout the empire, but there is no evidence of any of the road or ca.n.a.l building to facilitate communications like that of the early Chinese governments. It is remarkable that the Mauryans left no monuments to their power anywhere except in their capital city of Pataliputra, which is perhaps one reason why Ashoka failed to be remembered by later generations as an empire builder.13 It never occurred to any Maurya ruler to engage in anything resembling nation building, that is, to try to penetrate the whole society and imbue it with a different, common set of norms and values. The Mauryas had no real concept of sovereignty, that is, a right to impose impersonal rules over the whole of their territory. There was no uniform Indian Penal Code in the subcontinent until one was introduced by the poet and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay under British rule.14 The monarchy did not engage in ma.s.sive social engineering but rather protected the existing social order in all of its variety and complexity. The monarchy did not engage in ma.s.sive social engineering but rather protected the existing social order in all of its variety and complexity.

India never developed a set of ideas like Legalism in China, that is, a doctrine that set the naked acc.u.mulation of power as the goal of politics. Treatises like the Arthasastra Arthasastra did offer advice to princes that could be Machiavellian, but it was always in the service of a set of values and a social structure that lay outside of politics. More than that, Brahmanic spiritualism sp.a.w.ned ideas that were distinctly nonmilitary in character. The doctrine of ahimsa, or nonviolence, has its roots in Vedic texts, which suggests that the killing of living beings can have negative consequences for karma. Some texts criticized meat eating and the sacrificial slaughter of animals, though others approved it. As we have seen, nonviolence was even more central to protest religions like Jainism and Buddhism. did offer advice to princes that could be Machiavellian, but it was always in the service of a set of values and a social structure that lay outside of politics. More than that, Brahmanic spiritualism sp.a.w.ned ideas that were distinctly nonmilitary in character. The doctrine of ahimsa, or nonviolence, has its roots in Vedic texts, which suggests that the killing of living beings can have negative consequences for karma. Some texts criticized meat eating and the sacrificial slaughter of animals, though others approved it. As we have seen, nonviolence was even more central to protest religions like Jainism and Buddhism.

The first Maurya king, Chandragupta, became a Jain and abdicated his throne in favor of his son Bindusara in order to become an ascetic. Together with a group of monks, he moved to southern India, where he was said to have ended his life through slow starvation in the orthodox Jain manner.15 His grandson Ashoka started off as an orthodox Hindu, but he was converted to Buddhism later in life. The loss of life during the Kalinga campaign, when 150,000 Kalingans were reportedly killed or deported, provoked deep feelings of remorse in Ashoka. According to one of his Rock Edicts, "After that, now that the Kalingas had been annexed, began His Sacred Majesty's zealous practice of the Law of Piety." He declared that "of all the people who were slain, done to death, or carried away captive in Kalinga, if the hundredth part or the thousandth part were now to suffer the same fate, it would be a matter of regret to His Sacred Majesty. Moreover, should anyone do him wrong, that too must be borne with by His Sacred Majesty, so far as it can possibly be borne with." Ashoka went on to urge that unsubdued peoples on the frontiers of the empire "should not be afraid of him, that they should trust him, and should receive from him happiness not sorrow," and he called on his sons and grandsons to eschew further conquests. His grandson Ashoka started off as an orthodox Hindu, but he was converted to Buddhism later in life. The loss of life during the Kalinga campaign, when 150,000 Kalingans were reportedly killed or deported, provoked deep feelings of remorse in Ashoka. According to one of his Rock Edicts, "After that, now that the Kalingas had been annexed, began His Sacred Majesty's zealous practice of the Law of Piety." He declared that "of all the people who were slain, done to death, or carried away captive in Kalinga, if the hundredth part or the thousandth part were now to suffer the same fate, it would be a matter of regret to His Sacred Majesty. Moreover, should anyone do him wrong, that too must be borne with by His Sacred Majesty, so far as it can possibly be borne with." Ashoka went on to urge that unsubdued peoples on the frontiers of the empire "should not be afraid of him, that they should trust him, and should receive from him happiness not sorrow," and he called on his sons and grandsons to eschew further conquests.16 Expansion of the empire stopped abruptly; whether Ashoka's descendants were following his wishes or were simply poor statesmen, they presided over a crumbling domain. One wonders what would have happened to Ashoka's empire had India developed a power doctrine like Chinese Legalism, rather than Brahmanism, Jainism, or Buddhism-but it if had, it wouldn't be India. Expansion of the empire stopped abruptly; whether Ashoka's descendants were following his wishes or were simply poor statesmen, they presided over a crumbling domain. One wonders what would have happened to Ashoka's empire had India developed a power doctrine like Chinese Legalism, rather than Brahmanism, Jainism, or Buddhism-but it if had, it wouldn't be India.

THE VICTORY OF SOCIETY OVER POLITICS.

India, particularly in the north, experienced political decay after the decline of the Mauryan empire. Tribal polities reappeared in Rajasthan and Punjab in the west, which was also beset by new tribal invaders coming out of Central Asia. This was in part a consequence of the Chinese empire's superior level of political development. The Qin Dynasty had begun the process of building one of many Great Walls to keep these invaders out, which forced the nomadic Xiongnu back into Central Asia, where they displaced a series of other tribes. In a chain reaction, this led the Scythians or Shakas to invade northern India, to be followed by the Yuezhi, who established the Kushana dynasty in what is now Afghanistan. No kingdom in northern India was sufficiently well organized to contemplate a ma.s.sive engineering project like the Great Wall, and as a result these tribes occupied part of the north Indian plain.17 Farther south, local chiefdoms evolved into kingdoms, like the Satavahana dynasty that ruled in the western Deccan in the first century B.C. But this polity did not survive long and did not evolve strong centralized inst.i.tutions any more than the Mauryas. They clashed with other small kingdoms for control of the northern Deccan, as did a series of small kingdoms including the Cholas, Pandyas, and Satiyaputras. This history is very complex and rather unedifying to study, since it is hard to place into a larger narrative of political development. What emerges from it is a picture of general political weakness. Southern states were often not able to perform the most basic functions of government such as collecting taxes, due to the strong, self-organized character of the communities they ruled.18 Not one of these states succeeded in enlarging its domain and achieving hegemony on a permanent basis, or in evolving more sophisticated administrative inst.i.tutions that would allow it to wield power more effectively. This region continued on in this state of political fragmentation for more than another millennium. Not one of these states succeeded in enlarging its domain and achieving hegemony on a permanent basis, or in evolving more sophisticated administrative inst.i.tutions that would allow it to wield power more effectively. This region continued on in this state of political fragmentation for more than another millennium.19 The second successful attempt to create a large empire in India was that of the Guptas, beginning with Chandra Gupta I, who came to power in A.D. 320 in Magadha, the same power base as the Mauryas. He and his son Samudra Gupta succeeded in once again unifying a good deal of northern India. Samudra annexed numerous gana-sangha chiefdoms in Rajasthan and other parts of northwestern India, bringing to an end that form of political organization, conquered Kashmir, and forced the Kushanas and Shakas to pay tribute. Cultural life flourished under Samudra's son Chandra Gupta II (375415), when many Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples were built. The dynasty continued for another two generations until the death of Skanda Gupta in the second half of the fifth century. By this time India was being invaded by a new group of tribal nomads from Central Asia, the Huns or Huna, who took advantage of the weakened chiefdoms in the northwest. The Guptan empire exhausted itself in this fight, eventually losing Kashmir, Punjab, and much of the Gangetic plain to the Huns by 515.20 Whatever their cultural accomplishments, the Guptas made no political innovations with regard to state inst.i.tutions. They never tried to integrate the political units they conquered into a uniform administrative structure. In typical Indian fas.h.i.+on, defeated rulers were left in place to pay tribute and continue the actual governing of their territories. The Guptan bureaucracy was, if anything, less centralized and capable than its Mauryan predecessor. It collected taxes on agrarian output and owned key productive a.s.sets like salt works and mines but otherwise did not seek to intervene in existing social arrangements. The Guptan empire was considerably smaller as well, since it never succeeded in conquering territories in southern India. It lasted for some two hundred years, before dissolving into a welter of small, competing states, giving rise to another period of political decay.

NATION BUILDING BY FOREIGNERS.

After the tenth century, the political history of India ceases to be one of indigenous development and is dominated by a series of foreign conquerors, first Muslim and then British. Political development from this point forward becomes a matter of the foreigners' efforts to transplant their own inst.i.tutions onto Indian soil. They succeeded at this only partially. Each foreign invader had to contend with the same fragmented but tightly organized society of "little kingdoms" that were easy to conquer due to their disunity but hard to rule once they had submitted. They left layers of new inst.i.tutions and new values that were in many ways transformative. Yet in many respects the exercise of power by outsiders left the internal social order untouched.

A series of Turko-Afghan Muslims invaded northern India from the end of the tenth century onward. Since the emergence of Islam in the seventh century, the Arabs and then the Turks had made the transition from tribal to state-level societies and in many respects developed more sophisticated political inst.i.tutions than th