Networks of Trade, Polity and Societal Integration in Chola-era South India, c. 875-1279

Contents: 1. Structural Change and Societal Integration in Early South India: South Indian History and Historiography. Part I: Networks of Regional and International Trade and Chola Polity: 2. Early Trade and Cultural Networking in South India to 700CE. 3. Price-Making and Market Hierarchy in Early Medieval South India. 4. Coinage, Trade and Economy in Early South India and its Bay of Bengal Neighbours. 5. International Trade and Foreign Diplomacy in Early Medieval South India. Part II: Urban Networking in Chola South India: 6. Secondary Cities and Urban Networking in Chola-Era South India. 7. Kancipuram in the Age of the Cholas. 8. Peasant State and Society in Chola Times: A View from the Tiruvidaimarudur Urban Complex. 9. Merchants, Rulers, and Priests in an Early South Indian Sacred Centre: Chidambaram in the Age of the Cholas. Part III: Societal Competition and Integration in Early South India and the Bay of Bengal: 10. Ports-of-Trade, Maritime Diasporas, Networks of Trade, and Cultural Integration in the Bay of Bengal Region of the Indian Ocean: C. 1000-1500. 11. Contemporary Study of Chola-Era South India: A Concluding Review. Index.

This book studies transitional south Indian society during the critical Chola age, c.875-1279, when there was notable evolution of pre-existing as well as new societal institutions. Networks of Trade, Polity, and Societal Integration in Chola-Era South India, c.875-1279 considers issues of emic ('local') and etic ('external') agency; the origin of urban communities relative to movements of material and ideational 'commodities'; confrontations between alien cultures, formation of plural societies, dual loyalties and multiple affiliations. Specifically, this book highlights the south Indian epigraphic sources that document the purposeful creation of clearly defined market and temple districts adjacent to settled agricultural societies, which were to be populated by multi-ethnic merchants, artisans, warriors, rulers, agriculturalists, and priests from the various regions of the south Indian downstream river basins and their hinterlands, as well as the Indian Ocean.

Local inscriptional records are notable for their variety of detailed societal contracts, marketplace charters, and the coincidental approval of religious institution relationships that served the religious, political, cultural, and productive economic needs of the various societal communities. These civil records are consistent with contemporary charters of Hindu temples that were foundational to invasive urbanism into previously rural societies. In sum, this book incorporates new social network literature as a means to re-examining local historical records, to better understand the variety of regional primary and secondary urban networking that was basic to early south Indian societal change.