State formation and cultural complex in western Himalaya: Chamba genealogy and epigraphs—700-1650 C.E.

Abstract

This article explores an interface between the cultural complex and state formation in Chamba, emphasising a continuous process of change and transition, forging vertical linkages with the north Indian polity and religious processes that mutated significantly over the long-dur»e. Such linkages were replicated in peripheries as well, which connected them vertically with the nucleus and horizontally with competing segments. Such correlation not only influenced the socio-economic and political structures, but also the normative system through which the society and state viewed itself. The duality of state-society perception sustained alternative sectarian space and symbols that ‘shaped’ and in turn ‘were shaped’, in as much to seek legitimisation as to create a consent for rule over a period of time. That the state crystallised the graded social-cultural identity around religious symbols (text, temple and ritual), kingship and language is critical in comprehending the relationship between the state process and the cultural complex.