Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India.

• Author: Gerow, Edwin
• Position: Book review

Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India. By DAUD ALI. Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, vol. 10. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004. Pp. xx + 296. $75.

This ambitious and persuasively written work exists in something of a time-warp. The term "medieval" in the title (if we are to judge by the book's content) extends all the way back to the close of the Vedic age and at the other end (by the same token) excludes any reference to the Moslem period. The "classical" period has vanished. But this is not surprising, inasmuch as "time" (as a real factor in human affairs) has also largely disappeared--it has been replaced by "theory" (by definition timeless). But be not alarmed--what we have here is "classical" social history exhibiting itself in a very new parure, and the surprising nomenclature is intended no doubt to shock us out of our old habits of thought. (1)

The book is divided into three sections--of quite different quality, it seems to me. The three are preceded by a brief introduction, which outlines the bases of the "theory" that will enliven the rest of the work, and which, if I follow it (and I must admit that I do not find this kind of discourse always easy to follow), appears to set forth the notion that "states" (or "polities") in "medieval" India may be (should be) understood not so much as abstract administrations, but as complexes of manners or behaviors--and therefore are open to "subjective" or "symbolic" analysis and enquiry, indeed, are open to no other. Here, as might be expected, we offer our respects to Bourdieu, Foucault, and a host of other recent authorities--of whom, surprisingly, little is heard in the sequel, for which the reader may be thankful--at least, most readers.

For part one, "The Rise of Court Society in Medieval India" (pp. 29-140), is a very straightforward account, based largely on epigraphical and other sources (such as the Arthasastra) that bear directly on the "state," of the formation and constitution of "medieval" (scil. "classical") courts and their social milieu. I will say little of this section, which is, in my view, the best of the three, and appears to be quite reliable and well argued--but then I am more familiar with the materials covered in the other two sections. It has the air of being an independently argued essay, but serves also as groundwork for what follows, for it seeks to disengage from the "hard" sources it investigates evidence of "manners" as characteristic, alongside more easily quantifiable material, of classical Indian court life--something like an ideal way of behaving at court that also serves to define the court itself. The first section closes with remarks on the structuring of the apparently opposed "virtues" of "pride" and "humility" as permitting hierarchical resolution of potentially conflicting behaviors, and du meme coup, inventing behaviors that are themselves the essence of courtly life. It is here, in these final pages of section one, that we become fully cognizant of the "theory" that guides our inquiry--but the ease and facility of its introduction, almost without our being aware of it, should nevertheless not make us immune to asking whether such a "theory of virtue" is at all compatible with the Indian materials it seeks to organize.

Even at the level of the words themselves, the question may be put: are "humility" and "pride" virtues (2) or is each a convenient tag for a range of Sanskrit (or even English) terms that express, in Ali's view, one and the same notion "in theory"? Oddly enough, this problem is noticed, but relegated to a footnote: "this term [viz., vinaya, 'humility'] could also mean variously self-discipline, training and propriety. In some cases it is difficult to differentiate the sense, as humility was conceptually related to and perhaps even derived from the idea of self-restraint" (p. 137, n. 147). Mutatis mutandis...