Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T05:45:59.585Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sīyaḍoṇi: an unplanned town of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra times

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2022

Aman Mishra Open the ORCID record for Aman Mishra [Opens in a new window]
Aman Mishra*
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, VPO Kamand, Mandi District, Himachal Pradesh 175005, India
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Between the sixth and the tenth century, India passed through a new phase of urbanization. This has been identified as the third urbanization in India, setting it apart from two earlier phases. The focus of historical investigations for this period has generally been on capital cities and royal centres, or centres of pilgrimage. Port cities have also received some attention. There are no exclusive studies on unplanned cities from this period other than the overview that a few historians provide. In this article, I am focusing on one of them, Sīyaḍoṇi in central India, in order to understand how urban centres developed in this period without being royal centres, places of pilgrimage or hubs of maritime trade. I propose that Sīyaḍoṇi emerged as a merchant town on an important trade route and its commerce-centred economy was reinforced by deep-seated practices of rent-seeking involving generation of income through ground rent, taxation and interest on loans.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , November 2023 , pp. 618 - 635
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Chattopadhyaya, B.D., ‘Trade and urban centres in early medieval North India’, Indian Historical Review, 1 (1974), 203–19Google Scholar; B.D. Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India (New Delhi, 1994), 130–84; Thakur, V.K., ‘Towns of early medieval Bengal: an archaeological survey’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 44 (1983), 120–32Google Scholar; Thakur, V.K., ‘Trade and towns in early medieval Bengal (c. A.D. 600–1200)’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 30 (1987), 196–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Champakalakshmi, R., ‘Urbanisation in South India: the role of ideology and polity’, Social Scientist, 15 (1987), 67–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; K.R. Hall, Trade and Statecraft in the Age of Cōl̤as (New Delhi, 1980).

2 Sharma, R.S., ‘Decay of Gangetic towns in Gupta and post Gupta times’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 33 (1972), 94–104Google Scholar; R.S. Sharma, Urban Decay in India (c. 300 – c. 1000) (New Delhi, 1987).

3 Sharma, Urban Decay in India, 101.

4 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Trade and urban centres in early medieval North India’.

5 Ibid., 204–5. Some historians have endorsed Sharma's view with caution: R. Champakalakshmi, Trade, Ideology and Urbanization: South India 300 BC to AD 1300 (New Delhi, 1996), 12; Heitzman, J., ‘Temple urbanism in medieval South India’, Journal of Asian Studies, 46 (1987), 792CrossRefGoogle Scholar; V.K. Thakur, Urbanisation in Ancient India (New Delhi, 1981). Others have been more vocal in their rejection of the urban decay thesis completely. These include S. Kaul, Imagining the Urban: Sanskrit and the City in Early India (Ranikhet, 2010); Hakwes, J.D., ‘Finding the “early medieval” in South Asian archaeology’, Asian Perspectives, 53 (2014), 53–96Google Scholar; Panja, S., ‘Whither “early medieval” settlement archaeology: a case study of the Varendra region’, Journal of the Asiatic Society, 60 (2018), 27–62Google Scholar. A critical evaluation of the urban decay thesis has recently been made in M.V. Devadevan, The ‘Early Medieval’ Origins of India (Cambridge, 2020).

6 Champakalakshmi, Trade, Ideology and Urbanization.

7 A. Eschmann, H. Kulke and G.C. Tripathi (eds.), The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa (New Delhi, 1978).

8 Heitzman, ‘Temple urbanism in medieval South India’.

9 B. Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval India (Delhi, 1980), 254–365.

10 C.M. Sinopoli, ‘The organization of crafts production at Vijayanagara, South India’, American Anthropologist, 90 (1988), 580–97.

11 R.S. Tripathi, History of Kanauj: To the Moslem Conquest, History and Culture Series (Delhi, 1989); R.C. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalkar (eds.), The Age of Imperial Kannauj (Bombay, 1955); C.R. Srinivas, Kanchipuram through the Ages (Conjeeverom, 1979); R. Champakalakshmi, ‘The urban configurations of Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam: the Kāñcīpuram region, c. A.D. 600–1300’, Studies in the History of Art, 31 (1993), 185–207.

12 R. Chakravarti, ‘Monarchs, merchants and a maṭha in northern Konkan (c. 900 – 1053 AD)’, Indian Economic & Social History Review, 27 (1990), 189–208.

13 Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India, 202–3.

14 For a critique of this position, see Devadevan, The ‘Early Medieval’ Origins of India, 35–7.

15 Hall, F., ‘Vestiges of three royal lines of Kanyakubja, or Kanauj’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 31 (1862), 6–10Google Scholar.

16 F. Kielhorn, ‘Sīyaḍoṇi stone inscription’ (hereafter FK-SSI), in J.A.S. Burgess (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. I (Calcutta, 1892), 162–79.

17 S.D. Trivedi, Sculptures in Jhansi Museum (Jhansi, 1983), 8.

18 Ibid., 10.

19 Ibid., 9.

20 B.N. Goswamy, Essence of Indian Art (San Francisco, 1986), 96.

21 N. Yadav, Gaṇeśa in Indian Art and Literature (Jaipur, 1997), 75.

22 Journal of Oriental Institute, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, 20 (1970), 296.

23 U.C. Dwivedi and C.R.P. Sinha, ‘Medieval art of India (1000 A.D. to 1700 A.D.)’, Proceedings of Indian Art History Congress, 10 (2001), 96.

24 J. Kala, Epic Scenes in Indian Plastic Art (New Delhi, 1988), 31.

25 FK-SII, No. 40.

26 Bhandarkar, D.R., ‘Gurjaras’, Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 21 (1904), 413–33Google Scholar; Bhandarkar, D.R., ‘Foreign elements in the Hindu population’, Indian Antiquary, 40 (1984), 7–37Google Scholar; J.S. Deyell, Living without Silver: The Monetary History of Early Medieval North India (New Delhi, 1999); Majumdar and Pusalkar (eds.), The Age of Imperial Kannauj; B.N. Puri, History of Gurjara-Pratihāras (Bombay, 1957); D. Sharma, Rajasthan through the Ages, vol. I (Bikaner, 1966); S.R. Sharma, Origin and Rise of the Imperial Pratihāras of Rajasthan: Transitions, Trajectories and Historical Change (Jaipur, 2017).

27 FK-SSI, No. 2.

28 Ibid., No. 18.

29 Ibid., No. 36.

30 Ibid., No. 42.

31 Ibid., Nos. 38, 39, 40, 41.

32 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Trade and urban centres in early medieval North India’, 210; R.D. Banerji, ‘The Kalvan plates of Yaśovarman’, in E. Hultzsch (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. XI (Calcutta, 1911–12), 69–75.

33 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Trade and urban centres in early medieval North India’, 211.

34 FK-SSI, Nos. 1, 22, 26.

35 H.C. Ray, Dynastic History of Northern India, vol. II (Calcutta, 1935), 685.

36 F. Kielhorn, ‘Bilhari inscription of the ruler of Chedi’, in Burgess (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. I, 251–70.

37 FK-SSI, Nos. 4, 7, 10, 14, etc.

38 E. Hultzsch, ‘The two inscriptions of Vaillabhatta Svamina Temple at Gwalior’, in Burgess (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. I, 154–62.

39 Ibid., Nos. 25, 26, 28, 29.

40 Ibid., Nos. 3, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19.

41 Ibid., Nos. 1, 2, 11, 20.

42 Ibid., Nos. 2, 11, 27.

43 Ibid., Nos. 6, 7, 8, 27.

44 Ibid., Nos. 13, 15, 19.

45 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Trade and urban centres in early medieval North India’, 212.

46 Ibid., 209.

47 FK-SSI, Nos. 6, 7, 9, 10.

48 D.R. Sahni, ‘Ahar stone inscription’, in Hultzsch (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. XI, 52–4; Chatterjee, C.D., ‘The Ahar stone inscription’, Journal of the United Provinces Historical Society, 3 (1926), 83–119Google Scholar.

49 FK-SSI, Nos. 3, 6, 7, 14.

50 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Trade and urban centres in early medieval North India’, 209.

51 Ibid.

52 FK-SSI, Nos. 3, 9, 11, 12, 15, 19, 23.

53 Ibid., Nos. 3, 10, 13.

54 Ibid., Nos. 16, 25, 26, 27.

55 Ibid., Nos. 29, 30.

56 Ibid., Nos. 31, 32.

57 Shah, K.K., ‘Salt merchants of Sīyaḍoṇi’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 49 (1988), 134–7Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., 136.

59 Srivastava, S., ‘Coins and currency system under the Gurjara Pratiharas of Kannauj’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 65 (2004), 111–20Google Scholar.

60 Deyell, Living without Silver, 27.

61 Srivastava, ‘Coins and currency system’, 113.

62 Ibid., 114.

63 FK-SSI, Nos. 28, 37.

64 Deyell, Living without Silver, 29.

65 Ibid., Nos. 18, 19.

66 For example, see the records in C.R. Krishnamacharlu (ed.), South Indian Inscriptions, vol. XII (Madras, 1943).

67 V.V. Mirashi, ‘Kaman stone inscription’, in N.P. Chakravarti (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. XXIV (Calcutta, 1942), 329–33.

68 D.C. Sircar, ‘Stray plates from Nanana’, in D.C. Sircar (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. XXXIII (Calcutta, 1963), 238–46.

69 Furui, R., ‘Merchant groups in early medieval Bengal: with special reference to the Rajbhita stone inscription of the time of Mahīpāla I, Year 33’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 76 (2013), 391–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Hultzsch, ‘The two inscriptions of Vaillabhatta’; Sahni, ‘Ahar stone inscription’, 52–4.

71 V.V. Ayyar, South Indian Inscription, vol. XII (Madras, 1943), 18–28.

72 Mangalam, S.J., ‘Numismatic data in medieval South Indian inscriptions: economic perspectives’, Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, 49 (1990), 237–42Google Scholar.

73 M.V. Devadevan, ‘The Tarisāppaḷḷi copperplate grant and the early Christians of India’, Nidan, 5 (2020), 5–26.

74 FK-SSI, Nos. 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, etc.

75 Ibid., Nos. 7, 12, 14, 16, 21, 23, etc.

76 G. Buhler, ‘The Peheva inscription from the temple of Garibnath’, in Burgess (ed.), Epigraphia Indica, vol. I, 184–90; Mirashi, ‘Kaman stone inscription’; Hultzsch, ‘The two inscriptions of Vaillabhatta’; Sahni, ‘Ahar stone inscription’, 52–4.

77 FK-SSI, No. 20.

78 Ibid., No. 10.

79 Ibid., No. 26.

80 Ibid., Nos. 31, 32.

81 Ibid., No. 29.

82 Ibid., No. 30.

83 For example, see the records in Krishnamacharlu (ed.), South Indian Inscriptions, vol. XII.