Interstate Relations In Northern India (Circa 800-1200 CE)

FEEL highly gratified to bring out this book Interstate Relations in Northern India, quintessentially the PhD thesis of my husband, late Shri Shiv Gopal Bajpai, which was submitted to the University of London in 1967. For some reason, it couldn't be published while he was alive. Though, five decades are a long period, I find still merit in publishing this in-depth, scholarly and well-referenced thesis, for its relevance is beyond topicality as the study has its focus on a period, 800-1200 CH.

India has a huge depository of literature on interstate relations from the Vedic period. The Vedas, Mahabharata, Kautilya's Arthasastra, Manusmrti, Kamandaka Nitisära, Mänasollasa, a few Puranas, commentaries of Medhätithi, Govindaraja, Narayana and Kallaka on the Manusmrti, all deal extensively with the concept of interstate relations. In deciphering the nuances of rajanīti, the concept of mandala and its constituents played a pivotal role. Though concepts, contexts, methods of warfare and the constitution of mandala have changed drastically during the period under discussion from those of the ancient period, there is still a lot of similarity in the framework of the functioning of interstate relations.