Hindu Kingship and Polity in Precolonial India

A fascinating 2003 study of the precolonial kingdom of Kota through its historical documents.

Norbert Peabody (Author)

9780521465489, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 November 2002

206 pages, 9 b/w illus. 2 maps
23.8 x 16.3 x 2 cm, 0.484 kg

'It is hard to imagine any ethnographer of the villages, temple towns, and former royal capitals of the subcontinent who will not find that their experience resonated with some aspect or other of Peabody's account.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Through the analysis of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century texts on the Hindu Kingdom of Kota in Rajasthan, in this 2003 book Norbert Peabody explores the ways in which historical consciousness, or memory, is culturally constructed and how this consciousness informs social experience. By building on the premise that no society receives the past in a transparent, universal and objective way, he unravels how the past in Kota has been fashioned. His analysis demonstrates how different styles of historical interpretation sustain different regimes, and how specific varieties of social and political activity are founded upon these different perceptions of the past. In this way, he suggests that different societies not only establish different co-ordinates of value in their constructions of the past, but also that the very processes of social and political transformation differ from society to society. This is a fascinating and challenging book which promises to become a classic in the field.

1. The King is dead, long live the King!: or Karmic Kin(g)ship in Kota
2. In whose turban does the Lord reside?: Kings, Saints, and merchants in Western India
3. Military fiscalism and the cultural economy of devotion in eighteenth century Rajasthan
4. From 'Royal Service' to 'maternal devotion' during the Jhala Regency: local politics at the end of the Old Regime
5. An incidental history of a supplementary article: Hindu Kin(g)ship and early Colonial rule.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Asian history [HBJF], Regional studies [GTB]