THE REGIONAL KINGDOMS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIAthe end of Gupta rule and definitely by the sixth century a new meaning
of the term had gained universal currency. Samanta had come to mean a
subjected but reinstated tributary prince of a realm.
The rise of the samantas was a distinctive structural feature of the
growth of medieval realms. Whereas in the ancient empires administrators
had been imposed from above by imperial appointment, the medieval
realms were controlled by princes who had once been subjected but then
reinstated and were then obliged to pay a tribute and to serve the king
loyally. In the late Gupta period, this type of administrator was
occasionally found in the border provinces but in Harsha’s time and later
on they became powerful figures even in the core area of the empire. They
enjoyed a great deal of autonomy within their territory and soon surpassed
the old type of provincial governor in wealth and prestige. In order to
integrate these too powerful subjects into the hierarchy of the realm they
were often given high positions at the court of the king. Thus the king of
Valabhi in western India who was defeated by Harsha not only gained
recognition as a mahasamanta but rose to the high positions of a
‘Guardian of the Royal Gateway’ (mahapratihara) and ‘Royal Field-
marshal’ (mahadandanayaka). Conversely, the high officers of the central
court demanded similar recognition as the defeated kings and princes and
obtained it in due course. But the magnificent title alone would not do, the
officers also wanted some territory to go with it. This then was the process
of the ‘samantisation’ of the realm which we may regard as the Indian
variety of feudalism.
This process was accelerated by two factors: the lack of cash for the
payment of salaries and the new idea that royal prestige depended on the
size of a king’s ‘circle of tributary princes’ (samantacakra). Old treatises
on the art of government, like the Arthashastra, provide detailed lists of
the salaries of officers and Xuanzang reported that high officers received
their salaries in cash even in the seventh century. But the recession of
international trade and the reduced circulation of coins made it necessary
for officers to be paid by the assignment of the revenue of some villages
or of whole districts which they held as a prebend. Medieval texts like
the Kathasaritsagara tell us that kings were eager to cancel such
assignments, particularly if the officer concerned had displeased the ruler.
But in general the process of samantisation was stronger than the will of
the central ruler.
Samantisation slowly eroded the power base of the ruler even in the
core area of his realm as this assignment of prebends diminished the area
directly controlled by the central administration. This process of the
fragmentation of central power occurred in other countries, too, but in
India it became a legitimate feature of kingship: the great emphasis placed
on the samantachakra made a virtue out of necessity. Medieval inscriptions
and texts are full of enthusiastic descriptions of the glitter of the crowns