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Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm...
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Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm in Premodern South Asia

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2021) | Viewed by 15149

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Caleb Simmons

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Religious Studies & Classics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Interests: kingship; religion; India; Jainism; Hinduism; Islam; Sikhism; empire; colonialism; sovereignty; politics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue focuses on the role of religion in the creation and maintenance of sovereignty in premodern India. The use of both religion and sovereignty in this context is meant in the broadest senses, referring both to religious ideology, theory, institutions, and individual religious practitioners for the former; and any realm, physical, spiritual, or otherwise, over which one claims authority and dominion for the latter. The aim for the volume is to provide case studies from Indian history that represent a variety of geographical regions, religious traditions, and premodern time periods. Of special interest are sites of contestation, negotiation, and cooperation between multiple sources of religious and political authority.

This Special Issue intentionally casts a wide net for its case studies, seeking to draw together wide-ranging data aimed at understanding the relationship between sovereignty and religion throughout premodern India. All submissions should use their data to theorize (1) how sovereignty was conceived and (2) how religion played a role in the constitution, authorization, and enactment of sovereignty and vice versa.

This Special Issue seeks to place premodern India within the broader conversation of religion and sovereignty, including classic works on political theology like Schmitt ([1922] 2004) and Kantorowicz (1957) and more recent works like Agamben (2008), Assmann (2009), and Yelle (2018).

We are especially interested in submissions from scholars working and researching at Indian/South Asian institutions. A limited number of publication fee waivers are available for authors who do not have institutional support to cover the cost of open-access publication. Please contact the guest editor for more information.

Dr. Caleb Simmons
Guest Editor

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 2008. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Assmann, Jan. 2003. The Price of Monotheism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Kantorowicz, Ernst. 1957. The King’s Two Bodies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schmitt, Carl. 2004. Political Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. First published 1922.
Yelle, Robert A. 2018. Sovereignty and the Sacred. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • kingship
  • religion
  • India
  • Jainism
  • Hinduism
  • Islam
  • Sikhism
  • empire
  • colonialism
  • sovereignty
  • politics
  • authority

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 295 KiB  
Article
Politics without Fear: King Janaka and Sovereignty in the Mahābhārata
by Brian Black
Religions 2022, 13(10), 898; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel13100898 - 25 Sep 2022
Viewed by 1198
Abstract
This paper will analyse a series of dialogues that features kings named Janaka, which appear in the Śānti Parvan of the Mahābhārata. Although there is some variation among these episodes, kings named Janaka tend to be characterised as exemplary rulers who engage [...] Read more.
This paper will analyse a series of dialogues that features kings named Janaka, which appear in the Śānti Parvan of the Mahābhārata. Although there is some variation among these episodes, kings named Janaka tend to be characterised as exemplary rulers who engage in dialogue with learned philosophers and who are strongly associated with the ideals of self-cultivation, renunciation, and liberation. I will argue that the name Janaka functions as a conceptual repertoire for ideas and practices associated with a particular understanding of royal authority. As I will show, the dialogues featuring kings named Janaka characterise sovereignty as both dynamic and fragile because the king is always in the process of displaying his knowledge and self-control. In this way, the different dialogical episodes featuring different Janakas conceptualise political authority differently, thus contributing to an ongoing, inter-textual and inter-religious discussion about sovereignty in ancient India. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm in Premodern South Asia)
27 pages, 793 KiB  
Article
Refashioning Kingship in Manipur in the 18th Century: The Politico-Religious Projects of Garibniwaz and Bhāgyacandra
by Rodney Sebastian
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1041; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel12121041 - 24 Nov 2021
Viewed by 4838
Abstract
In the 18th century, Manipuri kings Garibniwaz and Bhāgyacandra sought to transform the indigenous religious landscape to absorb Vaiṣṇava beliefs and practices due to increasing contact with other Indian states and hostilities with Burma. Garibniwaz aligned himself with the Rāmānandī Vaiṣṇava tradition because [...] Read more.
In the 18th century, Manipuri kings Garibniwaz and Bhāgyacandra sought to transform the indigenous religious landscape to absorb Vaiṣṇava beliefs and practices due to increasing contact with other Indian states and hostilities with Burma. Garibniwaz aligned himself with the Rāmānandī Vaiṣṇava tradition because he saw it as an effective way to increase his military prowess. He refashioned kingship to portray himself as a warrior king and a devotee of Rāmā. However, he met with resistance from other royal elites for oppressing the indigenous religious practices of Manipur. In contrast, Bhāgyacandra aligned himself with the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition and established his sovereignty on the basis of being a devotee of Krishna and patron of the indigenous gods. By carefully curating a hybrid religious schema, he was able to refashion Manipur kingship for generations to come. I compare the two strategies of negotiating transculturation and sociopolitical transformation and show that the latter approach proved more successful in the long term because it allowed a more organic unification of religious and political factions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm in Premodern South Asia)
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32 pages, 1152 KiB  
Article
From Tamil Pāṇar to the Bāṇas: Sanskritization and Sovereignty in South India
by Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan
Religions 2021, 12(11), 1031; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel12111031 - 22 Nov 2021
Viewed by 3253
Abstract
Historians include the Bāṇas among the important minor dynasties of South India. They are first mentioned as Bṛhadbāṇas in the Tāḷagunda inscription of the fifth century. Rulers with the Bāṇa name existed up to the sixteenth century in the Tamil country. During their [...] Read more.
Historians include the Bāṇas among the important minor dynasties of South India. They are first mentioned as Bṛhadbāṇas in the Tāḷagunda inscription of the fifth century. Rulers with the Bāṇa name existed up to the sixteenth century in the Tamil country. During their history, they also married into major dynasties like the Cōḻas and claimed to be descendants of a lineage starting from Bali. Many historians have noted the semantic similarity between the term Bṛhadbāṇa and the earlier Tamil bardic Perumpāṇaṉ of the Caṅkam literature. The historians, however, have not explicitly addressed the issues of whether the Bāṇas originated from the Tamil Pāṇar and why they chose to claim Purāṇic Bali to be their progenitor. In the present essay, based on an analysis of Caṅkam texts, and epigraphic data, it is shown first that the Bāṇas must have originated from the Tamil bards. Later, the reasons for the Bāṇas choosing to have Bali as the progenitor of their lineage are explored. It looks like Tamil bardic age values might have played a role in this. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm in Premodern South Asia)
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19 pages, 300 KiB  
Article
The King Never Dies: Royal Renunciation and the Fiction of Jain Sovereignty
by Sarah Pierce Taylor
Religions 2021, 12(11), 986; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel12110986 - 11 Nov 2021
Viewed by 2116
Abstract
To theorize Jain sovereignty, this essay takes up Ernst Kantorowicz’s underlying query of what happens when a king dies. In turning to medieval Jain authors such as Jinasena, we see how sovereignty and renunciation were mutually constituted such that the king’s renunciation completely [...] Read more.
To theorize Jain sovereignty, this essay takes up Ernst Kantorowicz’s underlying query of what happens when a king dies. In turning to medieval Jain authors such as Jinasena, we see how sovereignty and renunciation were mutually constituted such that the king’s renunciation completely subverts the problem of the king’s death. If the fiction of Jain kingship properly practiced culminates in renunciation, then such a movement yields up a new figure of the ascetic self-sovereign. Renunciation does not sever sovereignty but extends it into a higher spiritual domain. Worldly and spiritual sovereignty share a metaphorical language and set of techniques that render them as adjacent but hierarchical spheres of authority. In so doing, Jain authors provide a religious answer to a political problem and make the political inbuilt into the religious, thereby revealing their interpenetrating and bounded nature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm in Premodern South Asia)
22 pages, 1456 KiB  
Article
Devotional Foundations of Earthly Sovereignty: Conceptualizing Sovereignty and the Role of Devotion in Narrative Political Theology in Premodern India
by Caleb Simmons
Religions 2021, 12(11), 911; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel12110911 - 21 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2654
Abstract
The central premise of this article is that narrative literature from premodern India can give us insights into the ways that sovereignty was conceptualized within broader cosmological structures, creating what has been called “political theology” in other contexts. Looking to narratives for theology [...] Read more.
The central premise of this article is that narrative literature from premodern India can give us insights into the ways that sovereignty was conceptualized within broader cosmological structures, creating what has been called “political theology” in other contexts. Looking to narratives for theology can give us particular insights into a tradition’s self-description. It is through narratives that Indian kings and their courts were able to describe the intentional-agential worlds of political hierarchies on a cosmic scale and situate themselves within this broader structure. This article, therefore, examines narratives from Purāṇas, particularly the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and the Dēvī Māhātmya, and dynastic foundational stories and genealogies from Karnataka found in vaṃśāvaḷis and epigraphic praśastis, using a twelfth-century Western Gaṅga inscription as an example, to see the political theologies from the premodern courts of India as they are articulated and performed in and between the realms of the divine and on Earth. After an examination of these materials, this article offers a new model to explain how premodern courts viewed their sovereignty vis-à-vis other divine and earthly sovereigns and how they understood the constitution, transfer, and diffusion of sovereignty throughout this cosmic spectrum of divine and earthly royalty through devotion and giving. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sovereignty and Religion in India: Negotiating Authority, Rule, and Realm in Premodern South Asia)
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