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Two Rājyas and a Dēvī: State Formation and Religious Processes in Central India (circa Fifth–Sixth Century ce)

This article analyses the formation of state polities in central India, where according to Ashokan edicts, āṭavī tribes had been present in the third century bce. From several of these tribes, āṭavīka-rājās (forest kings) arose by the fourth century ce and the Gupta monarch Samudragupta reduced them to the position of servants. This article argues that the two ruling houses—the Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa—rose to power in the second half of the fifth century ce in eastern Madhya Pradesh from āṭavīka background and erected their state apparatus similar to that of their overlord Gupta rulers. In the epigraphs of the Parivrājaka rulers, Ḍāhala region, comprising much of eastern Madhya Pradesh with Tripurī (near Jabalpur) as its centre, is mentioned as a part of their rājya. The Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa rājyas had common boundaries and the epigraphs indicate the presence of some territorial conflict between these two. The article proposes that both of these ruling houses, having being subordinated to the Guptas, made land grants to brahmanas and temples for the integration of their territories. The shrines of a local tribal goddess Piṣṭapurikādēvī received land grants from both the Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa rulers, and this paper argues that under the patronage of these same rulers, this goddess was absorbed into brahmanical pantheons as Lakṣmī—the consort of god Viṣṇu, due to the efforts of a non-brahmana individual, Chhōḍugōmika. The state formation, accompanied by cult assimilation in central India, therefore had been a complex and multilayered process.