Ever the Handmaid? A Consideration of What a Medieval Archaeology in South Asia Might Be

Abstract

This article shifts discussion of the medieval in South Asia away from conversations about ‘what’ took place towards ‘how’ it is studied. Following a brief review of what defines the South Asian medieval, this article starts with the premise that the entire period has not been studied archaeologically and that there is a great deal of potential in doing so. This potential is explored with reference to recent work in Central India, which has investigated a particular set of developments in which socio-economic histories first located the transition from the ancient to the medieval in South Asia, namely, royal grants of land to Hindu temples in the fourth to seventh centuries ce. Considering these land grants as archaeological objects and situating them in the very landscapes they existed within reveal a great deal of new information about early medieval social formation and the transition to the early medieval in this region. In presenting this research, I demonstrate not only the potential value of an archaeological approach to the study of the period but also the necessity of it. Consideration then turns to the directions and form(s) that a ‘medieval archaeology’ might usefully take in the study of South Asia, which by no means shares the same empirical (text–object) and theoretical (historical–archaeological) relationships as the study of the medieval elsewhere in the world.

Grounding texts and theories of societal change

“…Further, the only social and economic developments that appear to have stemmed directly from the granting of land were limited to the immediate core area of Vakataka rule—in particular, around Mandhal. It is only here that we see a marked shift in settlement patterns, and economic and, presumably, legal relationships and ritual (for further discussion, see Hawkes 2021).…”