Envisioning a No-Man’s Land: Hermitage as a Site of Exemption in Ancient and Early Medieval Indian Literature

Abstract

Right from the emergence of sedentary settled society in early Indian history, there has been a perceived dichotomy between settled society (grāma) and the forest (araṇya). Though each operated more or less independently, the state gradually became aware of the forest’s resource potential and sought to establish its authority over the forest realm. Forest hermitages, the residences of ascetics who had renounced the organisation of the settled society, occupied a space between these two contrasting worlds. Hermits often acted as the agents of the settled society, a channel through which its hegemonic religious and cultural mores could enter the forest-scape. In return, the hermitages were granted certain exemptions. As ancient Indian literature shows, royal authority ended at the thresholds of the hermitages, where the king had to leave behind his royal symbols and paraphernalia. The Early Medieval period (sixth to thirteenth centuries) saw royal claims over the forest increase in India, especially as the kings started to donate forest land to various religious beneficiaries who were also granted tax exemptions. However, the idea of the hermitage as a ›no man’s land‹, exempted not only from tax but from all forms of royal authority, remained present in Early Medieval texts.