Like most parts of India, Madhya Pradesh has benefited from publications with a regional focus. There are digests, such as Malati Mahajan, Madhya Pradesh, Cultural and Historical Geography from Place Names in Inscriptions, 2 vols. (Delhi, 2000) and K. K. Tripathi, Archaeology of Vidiśā (Daśārṇa) Region (Delhi, 2002). These books are not theoretically reflective, they simply accumulate information according to established tropes. Other publications are gazetteers, a popular genre, e.g. R. K. Sharma and O. P. Mishra, Archaeological Excavations in Central India (Delhi, 2003); but see the review by Jürgen Neuss in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, 2012, 189–91. Local histories abound, e.g. H. N. Dvivedi, Tomaroṃ kā itihāsa (Gwalior, 1973), M. D. Khare, Vidiśā (Bhopal, 1985) and D. E. U. Baker, Baghelkhand (Delhi, 2007). More acute is Samira Sheikh, Forging a Region: Sultans, Traders and Pilgrims in Gujarat (Delhi, 2010). This explores the social landscapes and complex hierarchies of medieval Gujarat and how a regional state developed political legitimacy, not only against the centre in Delhi but against the competing Sultanate in Malwa. Most recently, we have a landmark publication in Jürgen Neuss, Narmadāparikramā (Leiden, 2012).
Basant's book on Malwa comes as a welcome analytical addition to this literature. The book has nine chapters. The first two deal with the theoretical issues related to urbanization. Chapter 3 outlines the historical geography of Malwa. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the archaeological evidence across the region, while chapters 6 and 7 look at Sānchī and how the inscriptions and relief sculptures can be read as “constituents of the world view” of the times. Chapters 8 and 9 conclude with literary sources related to the organization and perception of the city. The book closes with tables of sites and inscriptions (pp. 289–348), a bibliography (pp. 349–66) and an unhelpfully short index (pp. 367–9). Some parts of the book have appeared already in “Urbanism and society in early India,” in A Social History of Early India, edited by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (Delhi, 2009), pp. 73–90.
Basant takes “early India” as his timeframe, thus the Chalcolithic to the early historic period, ending in the circa first century ce, but there is a disjuncture between the book's primary subject, early urbanism in central India, and the datasets on which the author draws. The author is aware of the problems (p. 52) and is to be praised for realizing that we need to attempt an overview despite the gaps. Here I will focus on some additional issues, beginning with the term Malwa. It is noted in chapter 3 that the early geographical term was Avantī, but we are not told that the term Mālava designates the region only when the Mālava people settled there between the seventh and ninth centuries ce, as shown by D. C. Sircar's study of the epigraphic evidence. While perceptions of the region are recognized as regime dependent, Basant asserts that the region's identity rests on the inherent “ethnicity of the population” (p. 56). This dangerous essentialism can be countered with Malcolm's Memoir of Central India (1823). Malcolm (who Basant cites) gives us an ethnography of bewildering complexity which must have always characterized Malwa, prior, at least, to the Henry Maine's reductionist intervention centred on indigenous race and tribe; on this issue, see Mahmood Mamdani, “What is a tribe?” LRB 34/17, 2012, 20–22. The treatment of language (p. 57) puts this problem in clearer relief. The regional vernacular is certainly Mālvī, but this is an extension of Rājasthānī dialects, suggesting a cultural migration following the Mālavas, a route subsequently followed (and presumably supported linguistically) by the Paramāras who came into central India from Rājasthān. If one is going to make points about this language, then it needs to be linked with inscriptions, for example the unusual vernacular from Gyāraspur, so far unread, in R. Salomon, Indo-Iranian Journal 39, 1996, 133–61 or, more prosaically, the Sānchī inscriptions. On the latter, Basant does not know Herman Tieken, “Aśoka and the Buddhist Samgha”, BSOAS 63/1, 2000, 1–30.
Chapters 4 and 5 give a hugely useful summary of the archaeological evidence from Chalcolithic times to the Iron Age. The author has made the best of an imprecise chronology and the fact that excavations are mostly unpublished (see the review by Neuss cited above). Still, one is struck by the fact that the concepts of urbanism do not sit comfortably with the archaeology, or at least the way the archaeology has been recorded and discussed in the literature. There are huge city sites in Malwa, Dangawada being one example (Dhangewade in map, p. 123; K. K. Chakrabarty et al., Dangawada Excavations (Bhopal, 1989) not cited). One cannot have a city like this without the apparatus of an urban centre and some kind of city-state. In the space of this review I cannot comment on the many points which this interesting book raises, but looking at the discussion of fortifications (pp. 135–8) we find no reference to Besnagar, very near Sānchī, which is discussed at length. This is probably because there is no notable publication on the subject. The square fortified city of Nandour is not mentioned, although there is a sketch plan in S. K. Pandey, Excavation at Nandour (Bhopal, 2004). This was an important early historic city, mentioned in the Sānchī inscriptions and a centre for minting early coins (not discussed).
I will pass over the issues raised by Basant's discussion of Sānchī in chapters 6 and 7 (innocent of Julia Shaw, Buddhist Landscapes in Central India, London, 2007), and turn to the final chapters dealing with literary references. Here, aside from the problematic dating and use of the Arthaśāstra (see my Archaeology of Hindu Ritual, Cambridge, 2009), one is struck by the anachronistic application of the Skandapurāṇa, etc., despite the author actually noting the problem. Surely the book would have been better if this was just side-stepped? There is also a lack of compelling links between Malwa and some texts, for example the Milindapañha. Exactly what Pali works tell us about early urbanism at – let's say Nandour – is unclear. In sum, this book has all the features of the Delhi school with its inward-looking historiography and desk-bound research unconcerned with site visits and country walking. Still, as long as we know what we are getting, this is a courageous work and an essential basis for future research.
