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Collection Highlights

Environment Society and Landscape in Early Medieval

England Time and Topography Tom Williamson

Art and History Texts Contexts and Visual Representations

in Ancient and Early Medieval India 1st Edition R.
Mahalakshmi (Editor)

Land and Society in Early South Asia Eastern India 400

1250 AD 1st Edition Ryosuke Furui

Angels in early Medieval England First Edition Sowerby

English Aristocratic Women and the Fabric of Piety 1450
1550 Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World
1st Edition Harris

Living with Disfigurement in Early Medieval Europe 1st

Edition Patricia Skinner (Auth.)

Visions and Voice-Hearing in Medieval and Early Modern

Contexts Hilary Powell

India and the Early Modern World 1st Edition Lally

Mary and Early Christian Women Ally Kateusz

Women and Society in Early
Medieval India

This book examines women and society in India during 600–1200 ce

through epigraphs. It offers an analysis of inscriptional data at the pan-
India level to explore key themes, including early marriage, deprivation
of girls from education, property rights, widowhood and satī, as well
as women in administration and positions of power. The volume also
traces gender roles and agency across religions such as Hinduism and
Jainism, the major religions of the times, and sheds light on a range
of political, social, economic and religious dimensions. A panoramic
critique of contradictions and conformity between inscriptional and
literary sources, including pieces of archaeological evidence against
traditional views on patriarchal stereotypes, as also regional parities
and disparities, the book presents an original understanding of
women’s status in early medieval South Asian society.
Rich in archival material, this book will be useful to scholars and
researchers of ancient and early medieval Indian history, social history,
archaeology, epigraphy, sociology, cultural studies, gender studies and
South Asian studies.

Anjali Verma is Assistant Professor, Department of History, Himachal

Pradesh University, Shimla, India. She completed her PhD from
Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla and has taught at several colleges
under Delhi University, Panjab University, Guru Nanak Dev University,
Himachal Pradesh University and Amity University, Haryana. She
specializes in ancient Indian history, culture and archaeology.
Women and Society
in Early Medieval India
Re-interpreting Epigraphs

Anjali Verma
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2019 Anjali Verma
The right of Anjali Verma to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-56302-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44801-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Dedicated to
Professor Laxman S. Thakur
Contents

List of illustrationsviii
Prefaceix
List of abbreviationsxiii
Key to diacritical marksxv

1 Introduction 1

2 Childhood and education 23

3 Marriage, widowhood and satī  45

4 Women and sacred rites 92

5 Capacity for governance 159

6 Property rights 200

7 Conclusion 232

Bibliography245
Index of names261
Index of terms and subjects263
Illustrations

Figures
3.1 Marriage within maternal relations 48
5.1 Genealogical tree of six Bhauma-kāra queens of Orissa 163

Tables
4.1 Land grants issued by females 102
4.2 Perpetual lamps donated to temples by females in
various capacities 116
4.3 Various gifts donated for religious purpose by females 126
4.4 Contribution of females in Jaina Monastery and
temple-building activities 138
4.5 Female disciples of various Jaina sanghas 143
7.1 Various fields of education open to women 233
7.2 Cases of disapproved forms of marriages 235
7.3 Cases of bigamy and polygamy 237
7.4 Few cases of satī and samādhi239
7.5 Showing administrative capabilities of women  242
Preface

The visible presence of women in epigraphs and literature has been

worked over the past several decades. Previous studies done so far
based on inscriptions and literature certainly have increased our
knowledge and understanding on women as subjects of history. At
the regional level, several attempts through epigraphs have been made
up to recent times by many historians to either locate the female as an
agency, her place in social processes and structures, but virtually no
pan-Indian study has been done through the analyses of epigraphic
material on the period between ce 600–1200. To locate women’s iden-
tity solely on material culture or literature and religious texts will not
be fair until we compare them to get a comprehensive view. This mon-
ograph is a diligent attempt to contextualize women’s visibility during
the early medieval period through inscriptions and depicting society
through this framework of contextualization. Many textual sources,
travel accounts and other contemporary sources have been consulted
where sometimes, merger, dilution, differences and divisions appear
while comparing the data.
Divided into seven chapters, the first chapter of the present work
is an introduction outlining the importance of epigraphy with a brief
note on various approaches that have affected writings on the his-
tory of women, mainly Nationalist and Marxist. Debate on histo-
riography among historians on Indian periodization with different
perspectives has been entered into. A vast and diverse review of the
literature has been explored to conceptualize female identity. Through
this review, shaping and reshaping of congenial paradigms of gender
history emerges, which provides a panoramic growth sequence to the
forthcoming chapters. The review tries to introduce a gender lens by
meaningfully incorporating gender as a critical component of writing
history simultaneously trying to find her locus.
x Preface
The second chapter, divided into two inter-related segments, is an
attempt to analyse the position of a girl child on her arrival in the
family and opportunities of education made available to her. The
obsession of the society with sons rhetorically providing existence of a
mother only through her son, presents a case of gender bias for a girl
child from the time of her birth. Reversing the order to reconstruct the
previously held notion of deprivation of girls from education (through
textual sources), epigraphs present a different interpretation in curric-
ulum shift adapted from the Vedic education to decentralized subjects.
The third chapter carries forward the debate on marriage from the
previous chapter. The contrasting situation through inscriptions and
literary sources has been debated, where ideal society has been tried
to be created by smritikāras, but epigraphs often suggest diversity
of practices and complex matrimony relations existing in the early
medieval period. The chapter notices the extent of subordination of
a married female through bigamy and polygamy and of a widow by
either burning her as a glorified satī or making her follow the path of
asceticism. The chapter ends by noticing an important shift of widows’
religious interest from Hinduism to Jainism in the south in search of
ultimate salvation.
The fourth chapter observes a broader outlook of overall religious
activities of early medieval society and changing patterns through
gender perspective. Several tables and charts are appended with the
details of religious donations made by a diverse female section in
various capacities, bringing out how religious feelings were shaped
through donations. The concept of ‘salvation’ available to women in
three different dominating religions – Hinduism, Buddhism and Jain-
ism through their ideological trends – has been elaborated.
The focus of the fifth chapter is to explore the administrative caliber
of women through epigraphs. This chapter tries to place women at
the centre of feminist and nationalist debate and tracks the trajectory
of change in their position from a hidden place in the textual sources.
We see them in exotic roles where there are many charters, orders and
grants issued by women in various administrative capacities. There
can be no quarrel with the women administrators handpicked for
notice from epigraphs which offer a bird’s-eye view of their contribu-
tions in the field of politics and revenue.
What is offered in the sixth chapter is valuable historical mapping of
women’s property rights through epigraphs and literary sources that
allows one to understand whether women were marginalized in this
sector or not. Intriguingly, there is a striking disconnect between the
property rights of widows and the rest of the females coming under the
 Preface xi
family framework of mother, daughter, sister and wife. The inclusion
of devadāsī in the section of property rights is a deliberate attempt to
understand another social indicator that characterized early medieval
society vis-à-vis the position of females with a different tangent.
Strewn across almost all the chapters is the pervasive anxiety to
reach a conclusion about the visibility of women, especially the com-
mon class, through epigraphs that may differ with or assent to the
textual sources. The concluding chapter summarizes the data in its
entirety and debates on various issues culled from epigraphs in the
previous chapters. Nevertheless, the epigraphic data have also helped
in discerning some regional peculiarities. The contradictions and
conformity between inscriptional and literary sources have certainly
helped in understanding women’s invisibility as a deliberate attempt
in early medieval society. This chapter provides historical context
through charts and tables for a proper understanding of the female
in areas such as education, property rights, religious preferences, and
administration.
In most of the charts and tables, the place of inscriptions has been
indicated with territorial units within the states where they have been
found, along with the date of issue, donor, purpose and imprecatory
verses. As the length of epigraphs varies and deals with various aspects,
for convenience, I have chosen only those translated lines which dealt
with our subject. The epigraphs under study record various reasons of
grants, but I have used them to search out female identities and issues.
Names of the reigning kings have not been stressed. They are cited only
where required or supplied with. The same pattern has been adopted
while mentioning the names of inscriptions. Most of the inscriptions
cited from Epigraphia Indica have been named as they were captioned
by their editors and authors. Inscriptions consulted from South Indian
Inscriptions and Epigraphia Carnatica have not been named. Also,
the inscription where translation (English/Hindi) was not available has
not been cited.
In the chapter on religious aspects of women, a loose application of
methodological tools has been applied deliberately. Data in terms of
tables have been used and analysed, keeping in view the large number
of inscriptions and to avoid monotony, as most of the inscriptions are
keeping the same language pattern and almost the same context. The
references provided in tables have not been cited in the reference and
bibliography sections to avoid repetition.
A great caution has been taken to place inscriptions chronologi-
cally as far as they are dated. In discussions and analyses, sometimes
there are contradictions and paradoxes at places while comparing
xii Preface
inscriptional data with literary sources, which is obvious due to the
nature of both the sources. Also, the linear development of regular vis-
ibility of females cannot be drawn as the attitude of society depicted in
both the sources sometimes produces a huge gap. Though the focus of
the monograph remains to make visible the presence of women, many
times the influence of the elite class hovers over the picture. I have
tried to showcase the strengths and limits of female identity and to
present beauty, ugliness, compassion, serenity and chaos that existed
in defining her position in the society of the early medieval period at
various levels. Main focus is that the concept of visibility may not be
lost in managing a vast array of facts, still keeping in view the exten-
sive epigraphic data, but some spaces remain unspecified. Also, certain
themes are more complex than what has been managed here in this
monograph. I have tried to avoid the urge to pack more information in
than critical assessment of the issues discussed here requires.
Abbreviations

ARE Annual Report on [South Indian] Epigraphy, Delhi

AIR All India Reporter
ARMAD Annual Report of Mysore Archaeological Department,
Mysore
ARRMA Annual Report on the Working of Rajputana Museum,
Ajmer
ASMAR Archaeological Survey of Mysore, Annual Report
ASINIS Archaeological Survey of India, New Imperical Series
BORI Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona
BTC Bulletin of Traditional Culture
CII Corpus Inscriptionum Indiacarum
E. Br. Encyclopaedia Britannica
EC Epigraphia Carnatica
EI Epigraphia Indica
E. Soc. Sc. Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences
GOS Gaekwad Oriental Series, Baroda
HAS Hydrabad Archaeological Series
IA Indian Antiquary
IAS Institute of Asian Studies, Chennai
ICHR Indian Council of Historical Research
IHQ Indian Historical Quarterly
IHR Indian Historical Review
IESHR Indian Economic and Social History Review
IIAH Institute of Indian Art History
IIAS Indian Institute of Advance Study, Shimla
Ind. Arch. Indian Archaeology – A Review
IT India Today
JAS Journal of Asian Studies
JBRS Journal of the Bihar Research Society, Patna
JBORS Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society
xiv Abbreviations
JGJKSV Journal of the Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidya-
petha, Allahabad
JHS Journal of Historical Studies
JIH Journal of Indian History
JOI Journal of the Oriental Institute
JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Manu Manu Smriti
MAR Mysore Archaeological Report
Nārada Nārada Smriti
Nav. Navsāhsāṅkacaritam
QRHS Quarterly Review of Historical Studies
Rāj. Rājataraṅgiṇī of Kalhaṇa
SII South Indian Inscriptions
SUNY State University of New York
TASSI Transactions of Archaeological Society of South India
VIJ Vishweshwaranand Indological Journal
Yāj. Yājňavalkya Smriti
Key to diacritical marks

Vowels Consonants

v a d ka r t
vk ā [k kh Fk th
b i x ga n d
bZ ī ?k gh /k dh
m u ³ ṅ u n
Å ū p ch i p
_ ṛ N chh Q ph
, e t j c b
,s ai > jh Hk bh
vks o ´ ň e m
vkS au V ṭ ; y
B ṭh j r
M ḍ y l
< ḍh o v
.k ṇ “k ś
‘k ṣ
l s
g h
³ d
<+ dh
1 Introduction

Textual context
Epigraphy has proved to be an indispensable source for the study of
Indian history. The decipherment of a large number of inscriptions
from different parts of India has opened up the new era for Indian
history writing. Information provided by epigraphic evidence is con-
sidered as the most authoritative as well as authentic source material
for writing social, economic, cultural and political history. The study
of women’s history through epigraphical sources is considered as free
from brāhmaṇical male biases and closer to historical reality than
idealized Indian women portrayed in literature.1 But to develop a bal-
anced and comprehensive view on subjects of historical relevance, a
combined study of inscriptions, chronicles, official records and lit-
erary sources is amply suggested. Of course, poetry, folklore, folk
songs and narratives are valued new additions. The epigraphs gener-
ally offer information about personages and events of Indian history,
about which sometimes nothing is known from any other sources.
Their text is generally free from variant readings as they were not usu-
ally liable to modifications like those of literary works, which were
copied and recopied by people of later times.2 They are contemporary
records which throw a flood of light not merely on social, cultural,
religious and economic conditions of the time but also on battles,
kings, queens, political institutions and administrative details and
much more. They are helpful for genealogy, chronology, origin of the
dynasty, inter-state relations, growth of ideas and so on, although
one should be warned that their use requires the greatest care and
skill.3 Until the 1970–80s, the epigraphical material is frequently
seen as a means of checking and verifying the evidence from liter-
ary sources. The use of inscriptions for gender studies, institutions
2 Introduction
and social structures studies was considered comparatively new, since
earlier historians tended to use inscriptions largely for collecting
information on dynastic history.4 With the passage of time, explora-
tion and translation of more and more inscriptions, especially in the
South, enabled historians to bring these peripheral sources into the
centre. Nevertheless, we agree that epigraphic material has its own
limitations. The numerous epigraphic finds, a by-product of desul-
tory archaeological work, do not suffice either to restore a reasonably
comprehensive dynastic list or to define the regnal years and complete
territorial holdings of those Indian kings whose names survive.5 Thus,
the epigraphs need to be read carefully as they present the case of
‘reading between the lines’.
The earliest attempt at reading the inscriptions was made perhaps
by Feroz Shah, who invited a number of scholars to read the Aśokan
inscriptions.6 From the sixteenth century to twentieth century, regu-
lar efforts to read the inscriptions are seen at various levels, which is
continuing until today.7 These enthusiastic efforts created ripples up
to the regional level. The process of decipherment of large numbers of
Tamil records, which is the earliest regional language in Indian epigra-
phy, boosted further the reading of Kannada and Telugu inscriptions.
The Marathi language came into use in the inscriptions of the tenth
century ad, and the earliest Nāgarī inscription is on a Jaina image
dated ce 1022.8
Inscriptions from the seventh century onward are found in large
numbers, almost in every major region of India paved the way to
assess the social, religious, political and economic developments
through them. The trend of praśastis was replaced by the new socio-
religious movements from the seventh century onwards. Resultantly,
religious factors dominated inscriptional writing and tried to replace
royal orders. It seems very likely that the practice of engraving inscrip-
tions on rock gradually was replaced by copper-plates. Change in the
social set-up also influenced the contents of inscriptions. This sudden
emergence of newer and richer sources, entirely different in form and
content from those of earlier period, is indicative of a transformation
that society had gone through.9 Women’s studies also found its new
source other than textual. Inscriptions provided a new stage of com-
parative study with more accuracy and authenticity to re-work on the
status of women in structured patriarchic Indian society. Earlier, most
of the historians working on women’s issues provided inscriptional
references as supplementary proof, as they seemed more concerned
with defining the status of women on tripartite periodization sug-
gested by Orientalists.
 Introduction 3
Periodization and politics
The colonial tripartite periodization of Indian history remained in use
for a very long time. It was introduced by James Mill, who divided
Indian history for the first time into three major sections – Hindu Civi-
lization, Muslim Civilization and the British Period – in 1817 in his
History of British India.10 This trend was being stereotypically fol-
lowed with a slight change of ancient, medieval and modern periods.
Romila Thapar proposed the need of redefining the various periods of
Indian history, if periodization is necessary, or else to dispense with
such divisions altogether.11 Most of the historians until the 1970s deal-
ing with ancient Indian history considered the death of Harṣa to be the
closure of the Hindu period. Medieval historians who worked from
the period of ce 712 (like Woleseley Haig’s The Cambridge History of
India; i.e. arrival of Muhammad-Bin-Qāsim) suffered the same flaw.12
V.A. Smith’s observation of Harṣa as the last emperor of ancient Indian
history and the period after him as ‘a medley of petty states, with ever
varying boundaries and engaged in unceasing internecine War’ (Early
History of India) was accepted by most of the historians working on
ancient Indian history.13 K.A. Nilkanta Sastri and G. Srinivasachari
(Advanced History of India) worked on the South Indian history with
the same approach and tried to justify the rise of powerful kingdoms
in the south.14 Most of the early historians found it difficult to peep
through the dark clouds that gathered in the latter half of the sixth
century and found it difficult to place a span of almost six hundred
years at the place that could justify its slow severance from ancient and
entry into the medieval age in Indian history. But a study of epigraphs
at various places in India gave rise to the study of regional politics,
which proved that the early medieval period is not that bleak or deca-
dent as is generally believed. On the contrary, it is varied, rich and
complex in its content and character. This was the period that linked
ancient to the medieval period and shed light on both. This observa-
tion on the importance of a lesser known period made the historians
to declare that the historians of early medieval India need not feel less
respectable than those dealing with the ‘golden age’ on accounts of the
period they have chosen to study.15
The trend earlier was to study the history through political and
dynastic angles, where the political history of India during ce 600 to
1200 appears as the history of decentralization and disintegration of
the state in the country. Romila Thapar championed the cause of social
and economic changes for the basis of periodization. Historians like
B.D. Chattopadhayaya, Kesavan Veluthat, Upinder Singh and many
4 Introduction
more, successfully placed regional history as the period of transforma-
tions in the processes and structures in economy, society and polity.16
Regional history suddenly gained ground, as each component of var-
ied sources explored tries to co-relate and narrate the story. Regardless
of the theoretical framework invoked, regional and pan-Indian histori-
cal processes have emerged with greater vividness and detail than the
earlier centuries since the last two to three decades.17
Not pressing upon the rise of regional kingdoms, K.M. Pannikar
has cited many reasons for the weakening of the centralized political
system of India. According to him, India remained free from threats
of external aggression for over five hundred years (Toramaṇa to Mah-
mud of Ghazani). People started living under a facile feeling that there
was no question of their country being ever invaded. They lost a sense
of patriotism and national honour. During the early medieval period,
India isolated itself from the rest of the world and ceased to grow.18
Al-berūnī, who visited India in the eleventh century, tried to present
a very static, rigid and no-changers picture of Indian society by stat-
ing: ‘The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation
like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like
theirs’.19 The varṇāśrama-dharma, instead of being a social organiza-
tion of higher castes, more or less homogeneous in culture and tradi-
tions, became rigid. In the south, the brāhmaṇic minority imposed the
smṛti pattern of social life but in a different form from that in the north
India. The Dharmaśāstras as a source of fundamental law were looked
upon as a sacred and unifying force.20 But slowly with the emergence
of regional history, it was proved that society was never static, politi-
cally, socially or economically. Changes in the sixth to seventh and
twelfth to thirteenth centuries do not necessarily have to be envisaged
in terms of a collapse of the early historical social order.21 The shaping
of regional societies was a movement from within. B.D. Chattopad-
hyaya declared that, ‘in Indian history the crystallization of region
was a continuous process’.22 But rigidity within caste and communities
grew at a regional level that affected the growth of the societies. Upa-
nayana right was snatched from girls, and a further early age of mar-
riage was fixed that resulted in a denial of their education. A complete
ban on inter-marriages in various castes was suggested but was not
followed strictly. For subordination of women, various rules and regu-
lations were formulated against their natural rights. For widows, strict
rules of celibacy and self-restraint were prescribed. A glorified suicide
in the form of satī was prescribed for widows so that they may not get
their right to property. The male was selected as a widow’s guardian in
each sphere of life. Open arguments against women’s rights were put
 Introduction 5
forth. She was declared of ‘fickle mind and lacking strength, unable to
decide’. The royal class, being affluent, was degraded continuously in
moral standards, while commoners were living under distress.
Surprisingly, the economy did not collapse totally. It was char-
acterized by flourishing trade conditions, powerful guilds, village
assemblies and caste-based armies.23 It was marked by an extension
of production, increase in trade and cheapness of essential commodi-
ties. The Indian textile industry progressed. Strong trade organizations
were established. The variety and excellence of Indian textiles, metal
work and Indian jewellery are attested by literary as well as epigraphic
evidence.
Bhakti was the key ideological strand of the period. One form of it
was devotional hymns, and the second was the record of their extensive
itineraries at proliferating temple centres. Practices of tantra rites con-
tributed to the degeneration of feudal Indian society.24 In many signifi-
cant ways, the crystallization of major cults illustrates the ideological
dimensions of the early medieval period. The period between ce 600–
1200 seems to be of religious rivalry between various brāhmaṇical sects
and two other heterodox sects, Buddhism and Jainism. U.N. Ghoshal,
quoting the reference from Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, pointed out that
‘not only the touch but even the sight of these sects was regarded by
some authorities as involving pollution’.25 The Vriddha-Harita enjoins
purification by touching Śaivas and on entering a Śaiva or a Buddhist
temple.26 The north was much dominated by brāhmaṇical practices.
Jainism gained ascendancy in the Deccan and retained its stronghold in
western India. Both Jainism and Buddhism developed theistic tenden-
cies on the analogy of Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism like idol worship with
devotional songs accompanied by rites and ceremonies. It was an age
of catholicity. A.D. Pusalker credits it to the efforts of Śaiva Nāyanārs
to stamp out Jainism from the Tamil area. Śaiva saints discarded the
caste system and recruited people from the lowest grade into their
fold.27 Different creeds merged and emerged. This process pressurized
Hinduism to either rethink its caste compartments or to revive its caste
considerations. K.M. Munshi observed that the Paurāṇic renaissance
added sanctity to the Dharmaśāstras.28 Commentators and writers
of diverse digests replaced law-givers. Medhātithi, most outstand-
ingly, wrote a commentary on the Manusmriti. Thus, the concept of
varṇāśrama-dharma remained in active operation. Philosophical lit-
erature was widely cultivated by the Buddhas, Jainas and brāhmaṇas.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa was the culminating point of the strong the­
istic movement started by the Alvārs and the Nāyanārs in the south.
These socio-religious movements adopted many suitable methods to
6 Introduction
attract the masses, mainly emphasizing women. It was a strange phe-
nomenon to observe in the early medieval period that despite political
upheavals, the economy was growing and social restrictions imposed
by law-givers gave a chance to religious movements to expand their
base among the downtrodden section of society, especially among
śūdras and women. A sudden increase in a large number of lamp and
land grants and temple-building activities indicate the en-masse par-
ticipation at a much broader level.
Thus, the continuous efforts of historians since the last few dec-
ades have put early medieval India into the league of a ‘complete his-
tory period’ with the extra advantage of an indicator of transitional
phase. Many works have contributed in placing this period in con-
tinuity. The concept of periodizing early medieval India along with
literature and epigraphs forms the base of important information
provided in The Early Medieval in South India (2009) by Kesavan
Veluthat. In Rethinking Early Medieval India (2011), Upinder Singh
tried to critically discuss the debates and issues on the early medieval
period through contributive essays on theoretical models and politi-
cal process where political structures during the early medieval period
has been highlighted. In the present study, the trend of periodization
on the basis of social changes has been tried to follow as it covers
major aspects of the society and women during the period between
ce 600–1200. It is not an attempt to place women in history but
to make their appearance felt through epigraphs where their image
besides being royal women also comes out as common women. Also,
as certain literary sources have clear patriarchal underpinnings, their
brāhmaṇical origin remains undoubtedly a proven fact. Hence, while
prescriptive sources regard women as potential threats to the social
order, and recommend their protection and control, these can be jux-
taposed with divergent sources (like epigraphs) that reveal the tension
between prescription and practice.29

Conceptualizing female identities through literature

and inscriptions
The identity of women has been frameworked several times through
several dimensions. Literature for a very long time and epigraphy
recently has emerged as an important source of investigation to posi-
tion women during the early medieval period. Earlier textual stud-
ies on the said time period were based on Vedic literature, smṛtis,
dharmaśāstras and various law codes. Most of the nationalistic histo-
rians were satisfied with the tradition of giving the ‘prescribed due’ as
 Introduction 7
authenticated by the law codes to woman as mother, wife and daugh-
ter. They supported the traditional outlook on the basis that what has
been able to stand the test of time for ages past, and is yet alive and
has been regulating the social order until this day, envisaging at least
some merit in it.30 A change has occurred in the attitude of historians
when it was felt that there were occasions when injustice was done to
women by social ordeals, yet the force of tradition was so strong that
this injustice found no challengers. Historians with a liberal outlook
called for educational, economic and political rights to be given to
women to maintain social equality.31 Traditional ideals work against
the implementation of such ideals of social justice. The demand of
social equality gave rise to look at the position of women with another
perspective. Resultantly, a second framework emerged, which is cham-
pioned by historians like Kumkum Roy, Uma Chakravarti, Vijaya
Ramaswamy, Leslie C. Orr and many more. This framework defies an
easy and straight categorization of women. Though not synthesized as
a pan-subcontinental framework, yet it has opened up possibilities of
new dimensions in gender history.
The process of positioning of the woman is a highly complex pro-
cess as it involves several structures where her identity seems to be
lost from an individual to private or personal being. The status and
condition of women have been analysed by numerous social histo-
rians from different standpoints. Important studies from the begin-
ning of the twentieth century were undertaken to analyse their status
in ancient India. Bimla Churn Law’s Women in Buddhist Literature
(1927) is one of the earliest works in this direction. This study deals
with the position of women specifically in Buddhism highlighting their
status and achievements in the Buddhist Order. I.B. Horner’s Women
under Primitive Buddhism analysed the entry and various levels pro-
vided in Order to the Buddhist nuns. Also laws related to nuns given
in Buddhist scriptures were discussed. Simultaneously it pointed to the
limitation of Buddhism favouring a bhikṣu than to a bhikṣuṇī. Also
that the history of the Order of Almswomen suffers from the lacuna
of historical accuracy and a biased viewpoint. A.S. Altekar’s work
The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization came in 1938, which
proved literary operis pars classicorum. This book provided a com-
prehensive view on the position of women in different stages of life
(i.e., from childhood to marriage, widowhood to satī, property rights
to administration and religious sentiments to nunnery) from the Vedic
period to post-independence period. A pioneer in utilizing the avail-
able literary texts, Altekar also utilized epigraphs as supplementary
source. Maintaining a traditional approach, this work was successful
8 Introduction
in providing an alternative to the colonial writers. But the principle of
perpetual tutelage of Manu was provided a sugarcoating by Altekar
as he observed that even during the last two thousand years, the aver-
age woman continued to lead a happy and contented life, fondled by
her parents, loved by her husband and revered by her children.32 This
approach also got support from the views of Tara Ali Beg in Women
in India (1958), where he held that training in household management
remained a course of Indian girls from time immemorial even until
today.33 The family is more important than the individual, and women
have been docile in accepting this; the sacrifice of their own personal
happiness and creativeness has surely not been in vain.34 Such an atti-
tude in our traditional writing indicated the fixed brāhmaṇical set of
norms that also seem to be adhered by P.H. Prabhu in his work Hindu
Social Organisation (1940), which has kept a firm opinion on the
sanctity and validity of Hindu traditions. He tried to touch the nerve
of Hindu sentiments by favouring age-old traditions. R.C. Majumdar,
in The Age of Imperial Unity (1951), provided a complete picture of
the political, social, religious and economic conditions of the period
ce 985 to the end of the twelfth century. Swami Madhavananda and
R.C. Majumdar made an attempt in Great Women of India (1953)
to identify women in various colours and roles, such as saints of the
Bhakti movement, strong administrators and the poetess. They tried
to cover a wide range of women contributors in different spheres,
but their work did not provide an exhaustive study of any particular
period either utilizing literary or archaeological sources. These writ-
ers supported Indian social institutions to oppose colonial notions. In
the 1960s, a change was noticed when K.M. Kapadia’s Marriage and
Family in India (1955) deviated from the earlier works and declared
that equality was not followed in the case of woman, and she was
deprived of her due share. He tried to validate his viewpoint with the
help of various literary sources. K.K. Shah holds the view that the
concept of gender as a category of historical analysis, or the idea of
Herstory as distinct from History, did not find even a distant echo in
Carr’s scheme of constructing the past, which guided and governed the
historical research of the 1960s and 1970s.35
During the 1960s and 1970s, several historians worked on the
social, economic and cultural history of India with special reference
to the early medieval period. Chapters were devoted to the posi-
tion of women. Lallanji Gopal’s Economic Life of Northern India:
ad 700–1200 (1965) provided a very compact look at the political,
economic and some information on the social conditions of the early
medieval period citing specific literary works. His work explained how
 Introduction 9
women slaves, prostitutes and dancing girls contributed to the eco-
nomic development of the state. Though the main thrust of his work
remained on the economy, considerable light was thrown on social
factors and political moves, which makes the study of the period inter-
esting and informative. The concept of land grants, coins, guilds and
trade has been vastly dealt with, which helps in refinement of views on
the economy of the early medieval period. Brij Narain Sharma dealt
with the position of women in his book Social Life in Northern India
(1966), where he appreciated the services of women by calling their
progressive efforts ‘march of civilization’. Almost similar attempts
were made by Brijendra Nath in his work Social and Cultural History
of India (1972) and D.N. Jha in Economy and Society in Early India
(1993). All of these works tried to see women’s position with contem-
porary realities. Their observations were based primarily on literary
sources. At the same time, works on regional history appeared which
dealt with the position of women of a particular region in a particular
time period. A.P. Sah, in his Life in Medieval Orissa (1976), devoted
chapters on the position of women, where he has not forgotten to
mention the administrative achievements of Bhauma-Kāra queens
and more liberal views of Orissa society in accepting women as rulers
as compared to their contemporary Gaṅga rulers. Though Vijaya G.
Babras has tried to seek attention in The Position of Women During
Yadava Period: ad 1000–1350 (1996), this work is not successful in
thoroughly utilizing inscriptional and literary sources.
In Women in the Sacred Laws (1970), Shakuntala Rao Shastri pro-
vided keen observations on the patterns of change in society from the
tenth and eleventh centuries where rigorous restrictions were imposed
on the female. Child marriages and cases of satī became frequent as
they were enjoined by the law codes. Indian women were the most del-
icately targeted section.36 Nevertheless, the area of religious devotion
and ritual was socially sanctioned for women. Women were not only
encouraged to be devout but also even treated with extreme respect for
showing religious devoutness. In the 1970s and 1980s, a few histori-
ans tried to cover the religious aspects of women of the early medieval
period, which included Urmila Bhagoliwala’s Vaiṣṇavism and Soci-
ety in Northern India (1980). In 1981, M.P. Singh’s Life in Ancient
India appeared, where he worked on the observations of almost all
the foreign travellers visiting India during the early medieval period
and tried to explain the position of women through traveller’s eyes.
Saroj Gulati in Women and Society (1985) selected the period of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries under review, covering several facets
of the life of women. She examined, with the help of both literary
10 Introduction
and inscriptional sources, the contradictory aspect of satī on the one
hand and the widow as an administrator on the other hand. Women
in Ancient India (English Edition 1987, French edition originally
published in 1867), by Clarisse Bader, is a book highlighting women
under different roles such as of daughter, mother and widow, where an
endeavour has been made to trace their position from Vedic times by
following successive developments through the ages. By citing various
episodes from hymns and poems of paurāṇic and epic tales, the history
of women from various periods has been woven.
Uma Chakravarti made a bold attempt in 1988 through her article
‘Beyond the Altekarian Paradigm: Towards a New Understanding of
Gender Relations in Early Indian History’ to improve upon and look
from a different angle rather than the Altekarian study. Chakravarti
stressed not to keep Altekar’s traditional approach as the sole basis
of all research works on women as it cannot help in developing new
outlook. She opined that issues of women’s history need a fresh look
in modern perspectives. The folklore, stories, poetry, biographies and
narratives should be added as a source to work on women’s history as
in literature either she is absent, passive or portrait in all contended
form. Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, in Women Writing in India, vol. I
(1991), tried to discuss the context in which women wrote and the
issues addressed in their poetic and prose works. Although their work
is exhaustive, the authors have tried to present a deep insight into
women’s feelings/sentiments on various issues solely based on literary
sources. A perceptive study was made by Vijaya Ramaswamy in her
work Walking Naked (1997), where she focuses on women saints and
the concept of spiritual gain in south India. The social and religious
outlook of society was depicted in her work. She opined that impor-
tant historical and structural changes were responsible for influencing
the orthodox and conservative attitude of society towards women. In
the same year, Julia Leslie edited a book, Roles and Rituals for Hindu
Women, which pressed the need to see women not merely as the pas-
sive victims of an oppressive ideology but also as active agents of their
own positive constructs.
Many scholars are trying to work with a feminine point of view on
gender issues, with the argument that Indian historiography had been
exclusively created by men and under strong brāhmaṇical influence,
and therefore the historical experience of women hardly figured in
them. Gerda Lerner went to the extent of emphasizing that all history
written so far is the history of only half of the human race. It was the
history of the minority because women who have always constituted
the majority have been systematically excluded from it.37 Carrying
 Introduction 11
forth the cause, Joan Kelly Gadol cited two goals of ‘women’s his-
tory’: as to restore women to history and to restore our history to
women.38 Kumkum Roy stressed the need of studies on women to be
done outside the bounds of the family bond and avoiding stereotyp-
ing of women’s role. The historical perspective which brought to bear
upon studies on women itself has its roots in the ideology of patriar-
chy.39 Roy puts forth the debate against the traditional or nationalistic
approach by giving it a U-turn that the early Marxist writings brought
out both the hidden patterns outside of patriarchy-dominated soci-
ety as also the basic structure of the subordination of women within
the hierarchical order of brāhmaṇical patriarchy. These pioneering
views are now being carried forward to a more refined understand-
ing of a ‘structural framework of gender relations’.40 Altekar’s work
as the locus classicus has hampered the emergence of an alternative
approach. Thus, the arrival of a new millennium tried to open a vista
where different dimensions of female identity are being sought out.
New approaches and use of new sources along with literary sources
through the feminine perspective is being experimented. In this series,
successful interpretation of epigraphs to search for women’s identity is
gaining a resurgence.
The attempt taken by Leslie C. Orr in defining the role of devadasi
and female donors in her book, Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of
God (2000), accepted that Indian women seem to have been regarded
as instrumentals and patients, not only by colonizers, missionaries
and Indologists, but also by Indian nationalists and social reformers.
Even today, there is a tendency among scholars, including Western
feminists, to see the history of the women of India and of ‘third-world’
women generally as a history of submission and victimization; such
scholarship does not consider the possibility that these women may
have possessed autonomy or agency in shaping their circumstances.41
In a book edited by Julia Leslie and Mary Mcgee, Invented Identi-
ties: The Interplay of Gender, Religion and Politics in India (2000), a
broad-spectrum approach in defining female identities through a com-
bined intersection of themes on different aspects of female and society
using different methodologies and definitions, drawing different con-
clusions and emphasizing different points and perspectives is noticed.
They emphasize the need for more research to be done to understand
better the complexities of gender and religion in South Asia. K.K.
Shah’s work, The Problem of Identity: Women in Early Indian Inscrip-
tions (2001), initiated a debate to identify women exclusively through
inscriptions dated from bce 200 to ce 300. It was presented as an
alternative to Altekar’s paradigm as ‘to remove andocentric bias from
12 Introduction
historiography on early Indian women, and to work towards making
them visible, sources permitting, so as to restore a measure of balance
vis-à-vis men’.42 He has highlighted the value of epigraphic records as
sources of Indian tradition in addition to, and as corrective to, vast
textual sources. He strongly justifies the nature, purpose and context
of epigraphic records being radically different from literature. Also, a
move to come out of Altekar’s framework and to produce an alterna-
tive to his views is gradually picking up. Most of the present-day his-
torians have appreciated K.K. Shah’s attempt of renaming inscriptions
with that of the women who figure prominently in the record, but it
could not justify producing on alternative to Altekar’s work.
Vijaya Ramaswami tried to research the female representation
out of traditional bi-polar identity as the public woman and private
woman through the collection of various essays on females by put-
ting them into sections like music, cinema, theatre, literature, oral tra-
dition of folklore and folk tales, fiction and biographies, etc. in her
Re-searching Indian Women (2003). Kirit K. Shah, in History and
Gender: Some Explorations (2005), opines that the concept of gender
calls for the rewriting of all history, seeking historical space for the
missing half of humanity. Maithreyi Krishnaraj, in her article ‘Writ-
ing Women’s History or Writing Women Into History’, puts forth the
argument/opinion that the fact of women being missing from history
is in itself a revelation of several things: that men hold power and
women appeared not to have had the power to write themselves in.43
Re-reading of the sources of early medieval India to propose an alter-
native perspective was emphasized by Devika Rangachari in Invisible
Women Visible Histories: Gender, Society and Polity in North India
(Seventh to Twelfth Century ad), that appeared in 2009. She declares
that women appeared as rulers, advisers, court participants, donors,
builders and in a range of other prominent roles in Kashmir, Kanuaj
and Bengal-Bihar (during the early medieval period) and, significantly,
this spans the royal and non-royal segments of society in most cases. In
The Power of Gender and the Gender of Power (2010), Kumkum Roy
challenged the colonial notion that women were not homogenous,
unified, a naturally given category. It was therefore necessary to come
to terms with heterogeneity to ensure that we did not suppress differ-
ences in trying to retrieve our own version of the past. She finds one
of the major challenges in reconstructing histories of gender relations
pertain to understanding specific traditions of representation.44
The study of households and everyday life got space as a new study
recently. In Kumkum Roy (ed.), Looking Within and Looking Without
(2015), scholars like Uma Chakravarti, Supriya Verma, Jaya Menon,
held had

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