Le discours royal : inscriptions et monuments pallava (IVème-IXème siècles)
(2009)
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- Abstract
- This work is a study of the royal ideology in Hindu India based on the case of the Pallavas (South India, ca 4th to 9th century CE). The sources are stone inscriptions, copper-plates, temples, images, coins and a Tamil court-poem named Nantikkalampakam. From the point of view of practice, gift-giving which implies the subordination of the donee to the donor appears as the main activity of kings. From the point of view of panegyric, the king is shown as observing the rajadharma in accordance to the brahmanical conceptualisation of kingship. But there is also place for a specific royal discourse contesting the ritual and social pre-eminence of the Brahmins. In their genealogies Pallavas pretend to be descendants of a pure brahmanical lineage which was later on infused by royal blood. In their panegyrics, kings very often compare themselves to gods or heroes. This implies that the Pallavas incarnate both brahman and kshatra and that, from an ontological point of view, they stand between human and divine. This is a royal claim to the mediation between the worlds of gods and men. This role is also emphasised in the iconography most notably with the representations of the fall of the Ganges on earth and with the Somaskandamurti. The royal ideology of the Pallavas is thus a solution to the conundrum of kingship identified by J. C. Heesterman and also to the dilemma of kingship between otherworldly desires and action in this world.
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Francis, E. (2009). Le discours royal : inscriptions et monuments pallava (IVème-IXème siècles). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/71139