The primary focus of most scholars in the field of medieval Indian
studies has been on economic history. Their judgement and estimate
of medieval Indian society are largely based on the data available
on economic, social, and politico-administrative institutions. In
contrast, processes and phenomena that belong to the spheres of
mentality, religion, culture, scientific knowledge - the worldview
of medieval Indians - have attracted little attention, and mostly
as an appendix to the 'fundamental' themes. The typical historical
treatise on the medieval period deals with political events, the
economy (agriculture, crafts and trade), major social groups (their
relation and life), the administrative system, taxation and, at the
end, as a concession, 'a bit of culture' - brief descriptions of
religious life, literature, and the fine arts. This volume seeks to
create an interest in the mental and behavioral aspects of medieval
society in India. The contributors to the volume belong to various
schools of thought and follow different methodological approaches
in their study of socioeconomic and administrative development of
medieval India. The papers presented here make a collective effort
to denote several components of the medieval Indian 'mental
program'. First, that the medieval Indian state may be viewed not
only in terms of control, exploitation, extraction and
appropriation, but also in terms of practices, ideas and ideologies
that were closely linked (among other things) with religion.
Second, that medieval Indian society had a specific understanding
of the past and of social experience, and that history, individual
or collective, was recorded and reproduced not just to state facts,
but also to create patterns for subsequent generations to follow.
Third, that a central feature of medieval society was hierarchy -
as embedded in the relations not only between social classes and
groups but between individuals, and as encompassing even intimate
feelings and desires. Further, that the intellectual worlds of
medieval India, as revealed by literary, philosophical and
grammatical treatises, which are the repositories of intellectual,
spiritual and emotional experience, reflect the modes of
dissemination and preservation of tradition as well as of dissent.
Fourth, the presence of social and communal conflict, and of
mechanisms of conflict resolution, that were peculiar to medieval
Indian society. The editors of the volume believe that there is
need for comparative studies, first, to realize the peculiarities
of the medieval outlook in various regional cultures of India, and
second, to study what in the worldview under research was
specifically Indian and what was typically medieval and common to
other pre-modern societies.
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