Complexity on the Periphery: A Study of Regional Organization at Banavasi, c.1st - 18th Century A.D.

Abstract

This dissertation uses archaeological and historical approaches to discuss the organization of a complex polity that lay in what has been considered a ‘peripheral’ zone in peninsular India, located outside the core areas of larger states and empires. Through a systematic survey of a 50 sq. km area at Banavasi, a regional capital, I analyze the long-term archaeological landscape to discuss changes in socio-religious and political organization as the area cycled into and out of political centrality. I conclude by proposing a tentative model for Banavasi as a nodal point. First, I argue that, although located in a peripheral area, Banavasi can be considered a regional center of some permanence- a ‘peripheral core’. Banavasi’s importance lies in part in its early development as a regional administrative and sacred center. Archaeologically, the sacred landscape of Banavasi reveals several of the complex processes of the legitimation of power, both of intermediate elite groups and of groups higher in the political hierarchy. By the tenth century, this involved a relationship of elite patronage and Brahmanical legitimation that drew on established patterns elsewhere in the subcontinent. Banavasi provided a space where this interaction between political and religious power could be displayed through the construction of Brahmanical temples or the donation of land. Second, Banavasi’s development can be linked to the presence of an intermediate elite family that appropriated the Banavasi area as their ‘core’. Through an analysis of a corpus of early inscriptions, issued by the Kadamba dynasty and dated between the fourth and seventh centuries AD, I consider some of the networks of alliances with larger political entities and with ones on a similar scale that structured the Banavasi area during this period. In this dissertation I have questioned the idea that peripheral regions were necessarily static entities by highlighting the complex nature of inter-regional interaction and the development of socio-political complexity, including the role of intermediate elites, in these areas. I also suggest that in a context of cycling and ephemeral states and empires, smaller but long-lived peripheral areas characterized by small centers and elite families are essential units of historical analysis.