New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 396 p.*

The author of this review began his monograph exactly 50 years ago as follows: "Open any' History of India ' and you will see chapters about the Vedic Aryans, the Maurya Empire, the Gupta Golden Age, the Harshi State, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, but you will not be able to find as detailed information about the states of South India. At best, small sections are devoted to the Vakataka, Chalukya, Hoysala, Chola, Vijayanagara and other South Indian states. The use of South Indian material only in passing, in passing, is typical for studies of the political, socio-economic and cultural history of India" [Alaev, 1964, p.3].

Since then, the situation has changed, but not dramatically. Of course, studies of various aspects of the history of South Indian peoples and states have become systematic. Both Indian researchers, as well as American, Canadian and Japanese scientists participated in this work. South Indian stories became "fuel" for pan-Indian historical discussions. But all the same, South India has not yet "won" an equal place in historical Indology. As Japanese professor Noboru Karashima, who compiled and inspired the peer-reviewed work, complains, after 1955, when K. A. Nilakant Sastri's "History of South India" (Sastri, 2002) was published, no generalizing work was created that would present the concept of the entire history of the peninsular part of India.

Now such a work has been created, and I hope that it will not be ignored in the generalizing "Stories of India".

The mastermind, editor, and author of most of the chapters on the pre-colonial period is Noboru Karashima, the undisputed leading expert on these issues in world indology. He proved himself not only as an expert in South Indian epigraphy, but also as an organizer of science, gathering around him creative teams capable of performing large-scale projects [Karashima, Sitaraman, 1972; Karashima, Subbarayalu, 1976; Karashima, Subbarayalu, Matsui, 1978; Karashima, Subbarayalu, Shanmugam, 1980; Karashima, Subbarayalu, Shanmugam, Katti, Talbot, 1992; Karashima, Subbarayalu, Shanmugam, 2008]. His contributions to science and India-Japan relations have been recognized. In 1985. He was elected President of the Epigraphic Society of India, served as Chairman of the Japan Association for South Asian Studies from 1996 to 2000, and from 1989 to 2010 was (not Tamil!) He was the President of the International Association of Tamil Studies (IATI). He was awarded the Padma Shri, India's highest civilian decoration. The collection of articles prepared in his honor [Structure and Society... 2001], which was attended by scientists from India, Japan, Germany, the USA, and Canada.

In 2010, Karashima resigned as president of the MATI, as science began to be replaced in its activities by promoting the greatness of all Tamil-language, writing, culture, history, etc. History in today's India has become a sharp political weapon. I wrote about this in more detail in my review of the monograph by E. Yu. Vanina (Alaev, 2015).

The team of authors can be called Japanese-Indian. Of the 13 authors, 9 are Japanese professors, 4 are Indian (Tamils). This is significant. During the post-war years, indology received a remarkable development in Japan. Departments of South Asian history were opened, and investments were made

* A brief history of South India. Problemy i interpretatsii [Problems and Interpretations]. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 396 p.

serious money is invested in training personnel, and in research projects of "end-to-end" study of the history of India-archaeological, historical, and anthropological. In Japan, they understand that a country that claims to be one of the powers should be interested in everything in the world. There can be no great power without great humanities.

This work covers the entire history, bringing it to our time. Given that the efforts of Indian historians, including primarily South Indian ones, have been focused mainly on reconstructing political history over the past 150 years (a huge amount of work has been done in this direction), the authors of this work have focused mainly on debatable problems of social, economic and cultural history, although "for the convenience of readers... a generally accepted account of the political history of each period is also present" (p. XVIII).

While presenting the existing concepts of various problems of history, the authors are careful in their conclusions. It is repeatedly pointed out that many issues require further study. For example, "research in archaeology and linguistics is necessary" to address the question of the autochthonous nature of Neolithic culture (p. 15). The concept of the origin of the Dravidian peoples is also "only hypothetical" ¹, however, as is the question of the origin of the Aryans (p. 3).The question of the ethnicity of the inhabitants of the Indus civilization also remains open (ibid.).

The authors offer their own periodization of the history of South India. The prehistory chapter is followed by a chapter on the first to fifth centuries (Satavahanas and the so-called Sangam period in Tamilnadu); the sixth to ninth centuries, "New-Type States and the Bhakti Movement"; the tenth to twelfth centuries, "The Emergence of a Centralized State"; and the thirteenth to fourteenth Centuries, " A Period of Social Change and transition"; XV-XVII centuries, " Vijayanagar and the wider world "(referring to the opening of India to the world market with the advent of European traders in the Indian Ocean); XVIII and XIX centuries, "British rule and Indian society"; XX century, "Independence and after".

Such periodization looks quite healthy and natural. It is based on the stages of the political history of South India, the change of "generations" of the ruling dynasties, but it claims to reveal more about the progressive socio-political process. However, this line of argument is not very clear. So, it is not entirely clear what the "new type" of states of the VI-IX centuries consists of. Among the changes mentioned are the expansion of the smell, the spread of Hinduism and Brahmin rituals in the South, the flourishing of bhakti-type cults, and the development of North Indian titulature by local rulers. North Indian trends in the South were initially expressed in the spread of Jainism and Buddhism, and then they began to be replaced by Shaivism and Vishnuism, which were more easily absorbed, dressed in the form of bhakti, i.e. in the form of songs and dances addressed to a specific god.

The point of view of R. Gurukkal, who considers the polities of the Sangam period to be chiefdoms, and the possessions of the early Pandyas, Pallavas and Chalukyas from Badami to be established states, is mentioned, but N. Karasima and Y. Subbarayalu do not share this point of view. The meaning they put into the concept of a "new type" of statehood remains unclear.

A rather minor issue compared to the nature of statehood is the location of the ancient Chera polity, one of the three "original" centers of Tamil political genesis. Since the name of the present state of Kerala goes back to the ancient "Chera", it is generally believed that this ancient kingdom was located on the Malabar coast. But it has long been noticed that there was no developed society on the Malabar coast at that time. Subbarayalu notes in this book as "somewhat strange" that the finds of Greco-Roman objects are almost all located on the east coast of India, and not on the west coast, where they would have been located if Malabar had direct connections with the Red Sea (p. 74). Meanwhile, it is well known that an important center of Greco-Roman activity was Karur, located on the eastern slopes of the Ghats, on the banks of the Nanganji River, i.e. in Tamilnadu, and not in modern Kerala. Subbarayalu, unable to abandon the traditional localization of Chera, is forced to assume that this polity had two centers: Muchiri-Karur on the coast and Karuvur-Karur in Tamilnadu. Karashima explicitly states in his chapter that Chera during the Sangam period had Karur (Vanji) as its center, and the next five centuries - the "Dark Age" for Kerala (p.145).

The differences between the next period, which the authors describe as the period of centralized states, are much clearer. Indeed, there is much evidence from this time about

¹ It is only about the origin of the Dravidian-speaking peoples. The question of the Dravidian race is not raised.

the existence of tsarist officials, a lot of taxes, and there are attempts by the central government to measure land and establish a standard administrative division. However, it was precisely in relation to this period that a discussion arose about the nature of the early medieval Indian states. The American scholar Burton Stein (1926 - 1996) questioned the existence of a bureaucratic apparatus, centrally collected taxes, and even an imperial army in the Chol State and other states of that time. He proposed the concept of a "segmental state", i.e. a state consisting of a central domain (the family estate of the ruling dynasty) and a periphery, on which the king exercised only"ritual sovereignty". Local magnates and community collectives (nadus) had real power there (Stein, 1980).

A discussion broke out, during which some of Stein's arguments ^were not refuted2, but his general conclusions were unacceptable to colleagues, especially Indians. In fact, the chapters devoted to this period are aimed at refuting the concept of B. Stein, although for the sake of objectivity, other opinions are given ³, which Karashima refutes, but does not reject: "However, these new models have significantly enriched our knowledge of Indian states in general, and in the future, thus, we will study South Indian states, considering the new ideas contained in them" (p. 135).

I have already described Karashima's concept and my assessment of it in my review of his book [Alaev, 2012]. I will only repeat that Indian scholars, and with them N. Karasima, tend to exaggerate the degree of maturity of the state in medieval India.

The XIII-XIV centuries, which the authors call the " transition period "(p.172), are certainly worthy of separate consideration, but even here the authors ' idea is not very clearly expressed. At one time, Karashima called one of his monographs dealing with this period "Towards a new formation" (Karashima, 1992). Some of his formulations suggest that he uses the word "formation" in that monograph and in the book under review (p.174) in a Marxist sense, i.e., he sees changes in the mode of production. However, this is not the case - it pays attention to other processes.

First of all, this period can be called a new one because three "generations" of states are being replaced. First the Cholas and Chalukyas of Kalyani disappeared; then the four Yadavas, Hoysalas, Pandyas, and Kakatyas emerged in their place. Then all of them were destroyed by the Delhi Sultanate, and finally almost all of South India was united under the scepter of the Vijayanagar Empire. So from the point of view of political events in the XIII-XIV centuries. in a special turbulent period, there is no doubt. But what is the social change?

New social groupings are emerging. One of them is chittirameji-periyanadu. The author rejects both the opinion of Subramanya Iyer that it was an institution created by the central government for the purpose of improving governance, and the opinion of B. Stein that it was a peasant organization that was growing into a new ruling class. Other new associations that appeared even earlier are the Ainnutruvar (most likely a merchant association) and the right-hand (Valangei) and left-hand (Idangei) caste groups. Karashima considers all these newly formed associations to be the result of a single process. It boils down to the emergence of new district communities, new Nadus, formed by former mountain tribes, which began to descend to the plain from the XII century.

"Eternal" problems in the study of Indian society - the time and causes of the emergence of the caste system (jati). The Brahmin tradition traces them back to the original Varnas of the Indo-Aryans, i.e., to the deepest antiquity. Modern scientists, without in any way joining this ideological construction, as a rule do not doubt the traditionality of this institution and see it as one of the main distinguishing features of Indian (Hindu) civilization. However, it is impossible to trace the process of the emergence of castes on historical material. As I once wrote, "The caste has no history as such, it is always there."

² For example, Karashima and his colleagues statistically examined all references to taxes during the Chola period (there were only 422 of them) and came to the conclusion that he reproduces in this book: "This large number suggests that Chola taxation was extremely arbitrary and devoid of logical justification" (p.131). However, contrary to his conclusion, he is looking for such a justification. Karashima also admits that there is no indisputable information about the existence of the imperial army under the Cholas (p. 133), and this was just a strong argument in the construction of B. Stein.

³ This includes the concept of the author of this review, which Karashima could judge from the English summary of the book (Alaev, 2011) and which he calls the concept of a "symbiotic state" (p.135).

it remained on the margins of official life" (Alaev, 1985, p. 220). Having thoroughly studied the materials on social organizations in South India in the VI-XIII centuries, I also did not come to a definite conclusion about the time of the formation of the caste system. Those professional associations that appear in inscriptions behave more like corporations than castes (for example, they have common property, including money and land) [Alaev, 2011, p. 14]. Other researchers also express doubts about the origin of the pyramid of castes (jati). R. Inden based on the Bengali material came to the conclusion that the jati did not appear earlier than the XIII-XIV centuries (Inden, 1990, p.82, 92). Cynthia Talbot believes that castes in Andhra were just beginning to take shape in the 13th century (Talbot, 2001, p. 51). Karashima is equally emphatic in his peer-reviewed work: "The thirteenth century, when the Chola state was weakened and anarchy reigned, was the time of the formation of jati in Tamil country "(p. 180). This is an extremely interesting and even shocking observation for any indologist (and even more so for a non-indologist), which requires, of course, the most serious confirmation.

Karashima pointed out that the panegyrics in honor of chittiramehi-periyanattar and in honor of merchant corporations like Manigramam and Aynnutruvar are very similar in content, almost representing the same text. From this, he concludes that associations of landowners (land owners and tenants) were formed on the model of merchant ^associations. The "right-hand" and "left-hand" caste lists sometimes include both Brahmans and Vellals (the high landowning caste in Tamilnadu), but usually these two groups combine precisely the lower castes (artisans, farmers, merchants, mountain tribes) and oppose the Brahmans and Vellals.

The sources at our disposal are clearly insufficient to state with minimal certainty that the new communities (castes?) appearing at this time are precisely the former tribes that came down from the mountains. One of the indicators of this process is the change in the so-called curse formula, which is usually included in inscriptions and promises all sorts of misfortunes to anyone who violates the terms of the gift or agreement. Previously, charters promised the violator of the gift to receive a sin equal to that which is due for killing Brahmins or cows, i.e. the threat was correlated with the brahminical understanding of sin. And in the thirteenth century, quite different threats are more common: the violator will have his eyes gouged out, his nose cut off, his wife will be given to an untouchable person, etc., i.e., quite "mundane" threats (p. 179).

In general, an analysis of the content of such formulas and their changes during the period of existence of the epigraphic tradition in India (i.e., from the first centuries AD to at least the XVII century) and over its vast territory would be of great interest, especially since no one has yet done this. But this is serious work that requires statistical analysis (which, by the way, Karashima is very good at), and a few examples can't convince anyone ⁵.

The next stage in the history of South India (XV-XVII centuries), associated with the rise and decline of the Vijayanagar Empire, is undoubtedly significantly different from the previous ones. The activity of various territorial communities (ur, Nadu, periyanadu, etc.) ceased. Oddly enough, given the expansion of India's trade relations with Europe at this time, self-governing cities and commercial corporations disappeared. The system of conditional land ownership of the so - called nayaks-military leaders who were appointed to various districts (large and small) to maintain order, collect taxes, some of which they sent to the treasury, and maintain military detachments-spread. On the territory of Tamilnadu during the XIV-XVII centuries. Karashima counted about 500 such "landlords" (here this word in its original meaning is appropriate for persons "besieged" by the authorities). The Nayak system was similar to the North Indian Ikta or Jagir systems. It may have been influenced by them. But it remains unclear in what terms all this can be put together. "The radical changes that occurred in South Indian culture during the Nayak period require further study "(p. 229).

The book has a much greater focus on community-based organizations than other works published in India. It was the result of serious field research conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences.-

⁴ He noted this in [Karashima, 2009, p.131-132].

⁵ In an individual monograph [Karashima, 2009, p.99-114], Karashima discusses this issue in more detail. There he had the opportunity to present all the material at his disposal. It is clear that this material is not enough. In my review of that monograph, I urged caution: "A chronological analysis of the" curse formulas "would be of great interest, but in this case it is only just begun, and the proposed interpretations of such changes can only be perceived as conjectural" (Alaev, 2012, pp. 195-196).

They were developed by several Japanese indologists under the guidance of Karashima. In the light of this problem, it remains unclear to me what the author sees as a significant difference between the "mirasi system" (the rights of different persons to a share of the crop) and the Jajmani system, which looks, including in this presentation, as part of the same system of crop sharing.

The question of the origin and functioning of the Jajmani system, according to the author of the corresponding chapter, Nobuhiro Ota, still "remains unclear" (p. 253). For literature published in India, this is already a big advance, since it is usually accepted to thoughtlessly refer to Jajmani as "immemorial times". Another step in understanding Jajmani is the recognition of what Soviet researchers have long revealed: the absence of a weaver in the "staff of community artisans", i.e., the absence in the "concept" of this institution of the very idea of the natural isolation of the village (p. 263), since Indian peasants, although they had very modest clothes, were still naked we didn't go. It is interesting that in trying to reconcile this fact with the "immortal" dogma of natural isolation, the author uses the same technique that Soviet scientists used in the 1960s-to fantasize that the weavers were obviously part of the Jajmani system before, but later separated from the community and left it behind. they became commodity producers (p. 264). Soviet scientists had to assert that the Indian community used to conform to Karl Marx's ideas, but in the 17th and 18th centuries it was "at a stage of far-reaching decomposition" ^.6

A relatively large section is devoted to Indian Ocean trade and the role of merchant corporations. Little is still known about their structure, degree of independence, and ability to assert their rights. But still, their inscriptions speak of their rather high social status, of cities that had self-government, of their own armed forces that defended cities and caravans. One can trace a curious dynamic of their activity: the largest number of their inscriptions in South India occurred in the XI-XIII centuries. The most active trade and craft corporations were in Tamilnadu and Karnataka. In Andhra and Kerala, their inscriptions are much smaller. In the XIV-XV centuries, their number sharply decreased, and then the inscriptions of merchant communities disappeared (p. 139-143). Apparently, this fact should be considered in the general context of evolution (revolution?). the global economy in these key centuries. Something stopped the progressive development of the economy and all other social relations in the East precisely at the time when medieval Europe made a decisive breakthrough in the Early Modern period.⁷

One of the most controversial topics in recent years has been the question of the state in which the British colonialists found India. Previously, it was considered obvious that the collapse of the Mughal state led to the general economic, political and cultural decline of the country, so that India, in the words of Marx, "could not escape the fate of being conquered." In recent years, there has been a strong tendency in Indian historiography to challenge this view. There was a so-called problem of the XVIII century. Several books have been published that prove that there was no economic decline during this period, and that some areas developed more intensively than before, with the existence of a centralized state. The authors of this work try to be objective: "The previously popular view that the regional economies were experiencing a "crisis" associated with the decline of the Mughal Empire seems to be a simplification, but the opposite view is also a simplification, which proceeds from the fact that there was a general promising development in the Deccan" (p.243). The authors dispute even the axiomatic view that the introduction of European trade has had a depressing effect on the Indian economy (p. 252).

An attractive feature of the book is its versatility: it covers the development of languages, literatures, music, the evolution of religious beliefs, the status of women, the history of architecture, and the relationship of South India with other countries, including Southeast Asia. N. Karashima even talks about curry in the Epilogue as a factor of national unity for all the Indians.

A brief summary of the history of the colonial and postcolonial periods is very interesting, because, first, we see how the pan-Indian processes look "from the South", and secondly, we learn a lot of new things that are usually "obscured" by the North. For example, it includes data that is usually not included in "Stories of India", about the anti-Brahmin movement, about the Party

⁶ For an analysis of the evolution of Soviet researchers ' views on the Indian community, see [Alaev, 2000].

⁷ For more information, see: [Alaev, 2011, p. 294 - 298, 464, 472, 494 - 495, 568 - 570; Alaev, 2014, pp. 257-260].

justice, the Self-Respect Movement, the activities of the Dravida Kazhagam and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam parties, etc.

Here we should complain that Tamilnadu is obscured throughout the book by other South Indian historical and cultural regions that now make up the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala. As for pre-colonial and even colonial history, this is unfortunate, but understandable and excusable.⁸ The socio-economic history of these regions is much less well understood. But the internal political life of these states during the period of independence is each unique in its own way and deserves to be described at least to the extent allotted to Tamilnadu. It would not have been difficult to compile sketches of their stories as states based on available materials.

It is strange that the paragraphs on the status of women (e.g., pp. 115-119) do not mention a single word about the role of women in the administration of the Chalukya State. The author (R. Mahalakshmi) confines himself to listing goddesses and religious preachers.

The book should seriously advance our understanding of Indian history and culture.

list of literature

Alaev L. B. Southern India. Socio-economic history of the XIV-XVIII centuries. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1964.

Alaev L. B. Funktsionirovanie kastovoy sistemy [Functioning of the caste system]. Yearbook, Moscow: GRVL Publ., 1985.

Alaev L. B. Indiskaya selskaya obshchina v rossiiskikh istoricheskikh issledovaniyakh [Indian Rural community in Russian Historical Studies]. To the centenary of I. M. Reisner's birth, Moscow: Vostochny lit., 2000.

Alaev L. B. Southern India. Kommunalno-politicheskiy stroi VI-XIII vekov [Community-political system of the VI-XIII centuries]. Moscow: IV RAS, 2011.

Alaev L. B. [Rec. on:] Noboru Karashima. Ancient to Medieval. South Indian Society in Transition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. 301 p. / / Orient (Oriens), 2012, N 3.

Alaev L. B. Rural community in Northern India: Main stages of evolution, 2nd Ed., ispr. and dop. Moscow: LEN AND, 2014.

Indiya: istoriya v istorii [India: History in History], Moscow: Nauka-Vostochny lit., 2014, 343 p. (in Russian). 2015. N 3.

Languages of the World: Dravidian Languages, ed. by A. M. Dubyansky, E. B. Markus, N. V. Gurov, and A. A. Kibrik, Moscow: Academia Publ., 2013.

lnden R.B. Imaging India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Karashima N.. Sitaraman B. Revenue Terms in Chola Inscriptions // Journal of Asian and African Studies. 1972. N 5.

Karashima N., Subbarayalu Y. A Statistical Study of Personal Names in Tamil Inscriptions // Compulation Analyses of Asian and African Languages. N 3. Tokyo, 1976.

Karashima Noboru, Subbarayalu Y., Matsui Toru. A Concordance of the Names in the Cola Inscriptions: Vol. I-III. Madurai, 1978.

Karashima Noboru, Subbarayalu Y., Shanmugam P. The Pandyan Revenue Terms of Tiruchirapalli District and the Former Pudukkottai State // Studies in Socio-Cultural Change in Rural villages in Tiruchirapalli District, Tamilnadu, India. Tokyo, 1980. P. 51 - 88.

Karashima N., Subbarayalu Y., Shanmugam P., Katti Madhav N.. Talbot S. A Statistical Study of Revenue Terms in Vijayanagar Inscriptions // Studies of Indian Epigraphy. Vol. XIX. N 5. Dharwar, 1992.

Karashima Noboru. Towards a New Formation: South Indian Society under Vijayanagar Rule. Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992.

Karashima N., Subbarayalu Y., Shanmugam P. Nagaram during the Chola and Pandyan Period: Commerce and Towns in the Tamil Country A.D. 850 - 1350 // The Indian Historical Review. Vol. XXXV, N 1. New Delhi, 2008.

Karashima N. Ancient to Medieval: South Indian Society in Transition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Sastri, K.A. Nilakanta. A History of India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar. Fourth Edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Stein B. Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Structure and Society in Early South India: Essays in Honour of Noboru Karashima / Ed. by K.R. Hall. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001.

Subbarayalu Y. South India under the Cholas. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Talbot C. Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region and Identity in Medieval Andhra. New Delhi: Oxford University, Press, 2001.

⁸ This drawback is also inherent in my monograph on South India as a whole (Alaev, 2011). Half of the volume in it belongs to Tamilnadu, and the remaining part is allocated to other regions.

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