Idiom and innovation in the ‘Gupta Period’: Revisiting Eran and Sondhni

Elizabeth A. Cecil and Peter C. Bisschop
Additional contact information
Elizabeth A. Cecil: Florida State University, Tallahassee
Peter C. Bisschop: Leiden University, Leiden

The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2021, vol. 58, issue 1, 29-71

Abstract: To show how kingship was enacted and materialised in specific contexts within the ‘Gupta Ecumene’, writ large, this article presents a detailed analysis of two sites that served as centres for political performance, devotional practice, and artistic production between the fourth and the sixth century CE: Eran and Sondhni in the Indian heartland of Madhya Pradesh. Eran is commonly held to be a key site for the study of Gupta art and architecture and holds several important inscriptions from the beginning to the end of the Gupta period, including one issued by Samudragupta. Sondhni is marked by two inscribed columns of Yaśodharman, a former Gupta subordinate who challenged the imperial rulers using metaphors borrowed from Samudragupta’s Allahabad Pillar Inscription. Examining these two sites in dialogue presents an opportunity to identify a shared cultural realm in which local polities participated and developed a transregional ‘Gupta’ political discourse. This study normalises a Gupta-centred imperial history and, in doing so, participates in a wider departure from dynastic history by emphasising the ways in which localised polities and rulers negotiated the political idioms of their day, challenged them, and created spaces for innovation.

Keywords: Gupta period; epigraphy; political landscapes; memorial sites; comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464620982258 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indeco:v:58:y:2021:i:1:p:29-71

DOI: 10.1177/0019464620982258

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Indian Economic & Social History Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().