This is a study of an aspect of the ethnohistory of North Indian peasant society: the importance of its military labor market for state and sect formation, for social change and for the energetic survival strategies of the village of Hindustan. It traces the history of the British Indian sepoy back to the fifteenth century, firmly rooting him in India's medieval past. It also shows that, from the anthropological point of view, it was not the hierarchically arranged castes, but rather the multiple alliances and fluid identities of the peasantry that were the central phenomena of North Indian...

This volume addresses recent research topics within the field of bhakti literature, the devotional poetry and other compositions of devotional character in the earlier literature of the modern South Asian languages. Its papers range from the roots of the bhakti tradition in the early history of krsna to its modern adaptations in nineteenth and twentieth-century culture. Geographically, they span Bengal to Sind, Panjab to Maharashtra. Materials in six modern languages are discussed: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi in its main literary forms, Marathi, Panjabi and Sindhi; with assessment also of...

When the Portuguese arrived on the shores of Sri Lanka in 1506, they opened an era in which religious identity became central to struggles for power on the island. During the reign of King Bhuvanekabahu VII (1521 51), they became the first European empire to dominate Lankan politics. This book sets out to explain the behaviour of the Portuguese and the Sinhalese as their relationship evolved over the century. Topics covered include the nature of Portuguese imperialism and indigenous state power in the earlier decades, the impact of Catholic mission on this Buddhist society and how this was...