Upinder Singh argues that the royal grants given to Brahmanas acted as huge
component of royal policy in the early medieval period. She mentions that this
resulted in major socio - political and economic changes as it opened up the fertile
river valley in a big way for agrarian expansion thus leading to tribal peasantisation
and also coming up of temples .Many dynasties are mentioned from which tribal
origins can also be traces . There are examples given of Somvanshis defeating the
Sabaradityas further informing us of the Savara tribe.
B.P.Sahu in his work on Brahmanical ideology ,argues that the Brahmanical value
as it evolved was both integrative and hierarchical in nature . It thus emerged as
dominant in both mainstream and peripheral areas. In the peripheral areas it also
interacted with the local and tribal elements in a two way process (fission and
fusion).Vijaynath in similar context argued that there is a presence of dialogic
process between cultic appropriation and extension of Brahmanical ideology . He
adds that by the early medieval period the Brahmanic ideology had acquired a
subcontinental quality and its spread to peripheral areas brought about a regional
character. This ideological and cultural spread was also seen when Sanskrit
started to become the main language.
Herman Kulke in his work emphasises on the presence of agricultural expansion
which further led to Brahmanical spread and also talks about the horizontal spread
of this ideology in terms of Brahmans providing legitimation to polity which also
included the regional and local polities. He argues that although we see much
integration taking place but it was not always harmonious. There was presence of
multitude of cult, caste, sects and beliefs located in social and spatial context did
not always allow the formation of a monolithic socio religious identity. It was a
result of many factors including agrarian expansion, process of fission and fusion ,
cult appropriation and peasantisation of tribes.This integration of powerful deities
and and local cults in the royal ritual policy was a means to provide greater
integration to local and supra local levels.
Kulke mentions that although royal rituals are no substitute for actual political
power but they did work as an institution of legitimation and validation thereby
strengthening the political control. The nuclear zones were encircled by many
agrahara lands which were tax free lands granted to the Brahmanas. Singh
mentions that in these areas the tribal population was further included in the lower
strata of the castes or military system reflecting the complex process of religious
synthesis.
It led to the process of hinduization of many deities and legitimation of Hindu royal
power. The patronage and acceptance by kings given to the supreme and powerful
deities ensured the loyalty of the tribals in local areas. Upinder Singh talks of
many tribal deities that finds mentions like Stambeshwari. In the course of time the
deities undergoing the process of hinduization were raised to level of fully
developed temlples but even then the deities and the priests remained the same.
This similarity acted as ‘ritual bridge’ between the hindu rajas and the people who
regarded the deity as their own. The king after the military conquests tried to
balance the local forces by giving royal patronage to important places of
pilgrimage(Rath Yatra of Jagganath) , systematic and large scale of settlement and
construction of new imperial temples with core region of the kingdom.Thus the
adoption and acknowledgement of autochthonous deities by hindu chiefs and
kings was an attempt made at consolidation of newly established religious policy
which Kulke terms as vertical legitimation. The requirement of horizontal or
external legitimation against against contemporary rival rajas was best fulfilled by
building huge monumental temples with the Brahmins dominating the courtly
culture and centralised ritual structure.
Veluthat talks in context of South India where he mentions that temples which had
become a means of extracting surplus began commanding a great value to local
population which was further strengthened by the Bhakti movement in South India
specially. As the temple gained popularity with Bhakti its services and jargon of
Bhakti came to reflect a `particular kind of social organisation which also went a
long way in legitimising he king’s rule. For example the temple deity was
associated with words like Udaiyar and Perumal which also meant king. This was
true even at the local levels where the ladlords were looked upon kings in their own
way. The kings also attributed their self image next to God by associating divinities
to dynasties. For example the Suryavanshis and the Chandravanshis. The
individual rulers were also attributed with divine qualities by employing various
simile and metaphor in literature . For example King Rajendrachola was compared
to shiva after his vitory over the Chera territory. Attempts were also made to
divinise the king by concentrating the images of kings in temples and thus making
them objects of worship seen from the huge no. of portrait images of Chola kings.
Sometimes the temple was also named after the king. For example the temple of
Thanjavur , Udaiyar Sri Rajaraja Deva boasted of a temple built for Sri
Rajarajesvaram. Veluthat thus mentions that the processes followed in South India
was not a new invention against the north but it did get redefined in the context of
South India.