vernaculars remained underdeveloped under their aegis. There was a
proliferation of sub-castes with a division of labor and a hierarchy that tended
to become increasingly rigidified wherein upward mobility was rare.^24 The
Ra ̄jputs viewed themselves not only as ks.atriyasbut also as heroic (vı ̄rya)
warriors. As part of their attempt to maintain that image and to demonstrate
Hindu orthopraxy, the widows in certain of the families by the fourteenth
century were often expected to immolate themselves on the funeral pyres
of their dead husbands in the practice known as satı ̄.
The Hindu chieftains and would-be kings of the north practiced a strategy
for retaining hegemony not unlike that of the Co ̄l
̄
as in the south. Most
particularly, there were three principal activities: 1) Brahmans were given
land grants and invited to be the court advisers and public relations agents.
This would assure that vaidikaculture was preserved and provide a “religious
umbrella” for all the peoples in the domain. 2) In some instances, large
temples were built to institutionalize the royal cult and serve as a centralizing
monument for the monarch. 3) Local deities, and especially goddesses, were
incorporated into the royal cult. In Orissa, for example, even as early as the
sixth century royal donations were made at the shrines of Maninages ́varı ̄
(“Goddess of the jewel serpent”) and of Stambhes ́varı ̄ (“Goddess of the
pillar”).^25 These acts of patronage served to give royal sanction to important
pilgrimage sites and incorporate into the kingdom those folk and village
communities for whom these goddesses were important. We will explore
these developments further.
Temple construction
There were at least five areas in which temple construction and/or art
proliferated in North India, especially between the ninth and twelfth
centuries. These were often in the domains governed by rulers who sought
to leave their stamp on the landscape. In Orissa, the Kalin.gas patronized the
building of impressive temples from 750 to 1250 CEin Puri, Bhubanes ́wara,
and Kona ̄rak. Both Bhubanes ́wara and Kona ̄rak had been centers of
Buddhism, so it is not coincidental that these sites became the centers
of Hindu dharma. Local kings, in fact, sought to outdo each other and
mandated that s ́ilpisspend their entire lives on a single temple. The Ra ̄jputs
patronized the construction of temples near Jodhpur, Rajasthan, between
the eighth and ninth centuries, but most of these monuments were
destroyed by various invaders. Khajura ̄ho became another important center
for temple architecture from 950–1050, thanks to the patronage of the
Candellas, a Ra ̄jput clan. The Ra ̄s.t.r.aku ̄t.as oversaw the construction of
temples, including that of Kaila ̄sana ̄tha, near Ellora, in the late eighth
108 The Post-classical Period