Empires, inscriptions, and pilgrim itineraries

Detailed chapter description

itineraries Empire as a claim with uneven reach The appearance of the Mauryas, Guptas, and later supra- regional powers changes the scale at which the history of Mithila, Vajji, Anga, and the Nepal-facing corridor must be written. Empire did not erase local institutions or turn every settlement into an equally administered unit. Royal inscriptions, coins, pillars, seals, roads, tax relations, ritual patronage, and military claims each register different degrees of incorporation. A proclamation at a pillar is strong evidence that a ruler chose that place for public communication; it is not proof that every village nearby experienced identical administration. The historical problem is therefore to map imperial acts and networks without filling the spaces between them with an assumed uniform state (Thapar 2012; Lahiri 2015). Mauryan north Bihar: monument and text must be separated North Bihar preserves an unusually important group of monolithic pillars associated with Ashoka. Yet the pillars do not all carry the same evidence. Lauriya-Areraj and Lauriya- Nandangarh bear the first six Major Pillar Edicts, and at Rampurva one of the two known pillars is inscribed while its companion is uninscribed. The lion-capital pillar at Kolhua/Vaishali is conventionally accepted as Ashokan but carries no Ashokan inscription. This distinction matters. An inscribed pillar combines monument, royal language, script, and place; an uninscribed pillar establishes monumental intervention but requires other evidence for its purpose and date. A chapter on empire must never silently transfer an edict from one pillar to another (Hultzsch 1925; Falk 2006; Archaeological Survey of India, Patna Circle). 162 Stone, quarry, transport, and state capacity The polished sandstone pillars are also evidence for technologies and labour systems. Quarrying a large monolith, shaping and polishing it, transporting it over long distances, preparing a foundation, raising the shaft, and fitting a capital required skilled stoneworkers, transport crews, supervisors, and substantial logistical coordination. Those operations demonstrate state-supported capacity even when the surviving pillar is uninscribed. They do not tell us whether labour was paid, corvee, hereditary, or organized through contractors in any one locality. Material scale establishes a problem of mobilization; social relations of production r