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Inscriptional Sanskrit genealogies played an important role in the research on power and ideology in recent decades. In this context, they were often seen as just a legitimatory strategy, as if this were a phenomenon which does not require further analysis. I try to show here that their creation was a complex process, that they were products of ongoing debates between producers and patrons, patrons and competitors and as will be shown further on, between the producers and the conventions created by their own predecessors. Moreover, they were strongly influenced by their specific function within donation rituals. Form, content and shifts from text to text once were answers to a variety of very contemporary problems. So they can only be assessed according to a careful investigation into their individual histories. I trace their development in a certain area, Mewar (southern Rajasthan) and time (between the tenth and fifteenth century). This enables us to follow their construction and reconstruction through several political, social and cultural changes and crises. The example of Mewar shows us that the process of legitimization by genealogy was not identical everywhere in South Asia, but depended on the development of clusters of neighbouring political entities that had entered into a competitive situation with one another.

This article examines the relationship between a Śaiva cult—that of Eklingji—and processes of legitimation in the context of early medieval Rajasthan. It focuses on the multiple strategies of legitimation associated with the Guhilas of Mewar, and explores the complex ways in which the history of the lineage and the cult centre was interwoven. The study shows how the cult and the sacred site acquired different meanings over the early medieval period, and how the heterodox ascetics—the Śaiva Pāśupatas—were displaced by Brahmans after the thirteenth century. These changes are located within the broader cultural, social and political contexts of the seventh to the fifteenth centuries.

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