Book Reviews J 319

This important collection of essays should be read not just by students

of Sufism, but by all those interested in the cultural history of medieval
and modern north India, especially the Punjab.

Richard M. Eaton
University of Arizona
USA

Devika Rangachari, Invisible Women, Visible Histories: Gender, Society

and Polity in North India (Seventh to Twelfth Century AD), Manohar,
New Delhi, 2009, 531 pages.
DOI: 10.1177/097194581001300206

The visibility or otherwise of women in historiographical traditions

relating to early (and one may add, in the present context, early medieval)
India has been the subject of discussion for the last two decades. Some
scholars, most notably Uma Chakravarti, have drawn attention to the
paradoxical visibility that women have had in historical investigations
into the past that were typical of the 19th and the 20th centuries. Women
(often used as a short-hand for upper caste/class women of north India
located within the Brahmanical framework) were regarded as embodi-
ments of indices of ‘status’ and were, therefore, the subject of long dis-
cussions. These focused on the age of marriage, access to ritual and social
domains, and to what were viewed as prestigious modes of learning.
Clearly, both the kinds of women focused on, as well as the issues that
were raised, were limited. Thus, while some women (who were regarded
as representative of all women) were conceded a degree of visibility,
this was at the cost of rendering the histories of the vast majority of
women invisible. While many of us have offered critiques of the entire
project of reducing women to markers of civilisation or the lack of it,
Rangachari reverts to this framework, and, through an intensive, extensive
and exhaustive survey, succeeds in convincing us that the potential of
‘conventional’ historiographical questions is by no means exhausted even
in the 21st century.
Rangachari focuses on three regions—Kashmir, Kanauj and eastern
India. To some extent, the choice of regions seems to be constrained by

The Medieval History Journal, 13, 2 (2010): 315–329 J

Downloaded from mhj.sagepub.com at UNIV PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND on February 8, 2015

320 J The Medieval History Journal, 13, 2 (2010): 315–329

the availability or otherwise of sources. While this is a perennial problem

in attempts to reconstruct histories of gender relations, the options exer-
cised could have, perhaps, been pushed further. One wished, for instance,
that the R€trak™˜as, more than adequately explored in secondary sources,
and known from a wealth of inscriptional and textual material, had been
included within the survey, especially given the close interaction amongst
these polities.
The sources Rangachari taps include, inevitably, the R€jatarangiŠ….
Clearly, this is her favourite—all the other texts she considers do not
quite measure up to it in terms of precision. Yet, while conceding this,
we also need to remind ourselves that not all the authors shared similar
objectives; and there could have been differences in terms of audience
and transmission. In other words, the contexts of creation and circulation
of texts need to be kept in mind, even as we acknowledge that our under-
standing of many of these issues is nebulous at best. It is also evident
that the author regards inscriptional evidence as somewhat more tangible
(e.g., p. 13). While this may be literally true, it is also evident that the
texts of inscriptions were also composed according to certain norms and
ideals, which partly coincided with those of the more overtly literary
sources.
The organisation of the information that Rangachari retrieves and
analyses is sometimes too neat for comfort. The entire text is divided
into three sections, each devoted to a specific region. Each section, once
again, is split into three or four chapters. Of these, the first is devoted to
summarising political history. While these introductory chapters are rea-
sonably detailed, they have little that is startlingly new. The subsequent
chapters in each section, which focus more centrally on issues of gender,
are far more interesting and challenging, while the concluding chapters
attempt to pull together the major conclusions. Throughout, the author
writes with a rare combination of lucidity, clarity and passion.
Rangachari juxtaposes the evidence of women rulers that she recovers
with the positions elucidated in normative texts, as well as in narratives,
such as the epics and the J€takas, which have a strong normative under-
pinning. Expectedly, she highlights that there was virtually no space to
accommodate the woman ruler within the normative tradition. Perhaps
more interesting is the skill with which she unpacks the preconceptions
about women’s nature that underlie much of modern historiography on
the theme. Here she underscores the reluctance to accept that women

Downloaded from mhj.sagepub.com at UNIV PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND on February 8, 2015

 Book Reviews J 321

may have had political ambitions of their own, and the consequent ten-
sions and ambivalences vis-à-vis women who claimed power. One of
the most stark instances of this is the case of M.A. Stein, who carefully
edited, translated and annotated the R€jatarangiŠ…, but excised the women
rulers from the genealogical tables he prepared, simply acknowledging
them as wives (p. 90).
In the context of Kanauj, Rangachari argues for assigning a significant
role in political processes and events to R€jyar…, the sister of the better-
known Haravardhana, and the widow of Grahavarman, the Maukhari
ruler of Kanauj. As the author points out, Haravardhana’s claims to
Kanauj rested on his association with his sister. Rangachari bolsters her
case by piecing together fragile bits of evidence to lend substance to a
shadowy figure. Yet, one has the feeling that the author overstates the
case in attributing agency to R€jyar… (p. 239). It is more likely that she
was a pawn, indeed a valuable one, in complicated dynastic strategies
that became particularly significant in the early seventh century CE.
The author also documents inscriptional evidence to élite women in
all its variety—as figures in genealogies, as donors to religious insti-
tutions, and as personages who seem to have been significant in a var-
iety of socio-political transactions. The patterns she traces, as well as the
variations in these, are interesting and thought-provoking.
At another level, Rangachari carefully collates references to women
within a variety of textual traditions, attempting, where possible, to move
away from the focus on élite women, almost inevitable, given the nature
of the sources at her disposal. Particularly interesting are her discus-
sions on women involved in sex work, where she acknowledges that
some texts at least represent these women not merely as victims or vamps
but in more nuanced ways. Once again, she attempts to work with and
through the ambivalences of the Sanskrit textual traditions, such as
D€modaragupta’s Kut˜˜an…matam and Kemendra’s Samayam€tk€ to
argue for a complex socio-cultural location for women engaged in sex
work beyond the binaries of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ women. At the same time,
she is perhaps somewhat unnecessarily concerned with trying to recover
the ‘general social attitude’ (p. 156) towards such women, a near-impossi-
bility, given both the nature of the sources and the societies that generated
them.
The author also painstakingly documents the representations of a range
of other women. There are discussions on br€hmaŠa women, on nurses,

The Medieval History Journal, 13, 2 (2010): 315–329 J

Downloaded from mhj.sagepub.com at UNIV PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND on February 8, 2015

322 J The Medieval History Journal, 13, 2 (2010): 315–329

maids, and on women located within feudal structures. She also assesses
their situations as wives and widows, and tries to disentangle the pre-
occupations of the authors to arrive at alternative understandings of their
situation. This strategy, however, is occasionally troubling, as Rangachari
tends to attribute intentionality and agency to characters in plays and
other texts, and assigns them a degree of independence and autonomy
that abstracts them from the contexts in which they are located. This is
evident, for instance, in her discussion on V€savadatt€ and Udayana,
who figure in the plays attributed to Hara. While Rangachari’s plea
(p. 266), for a gendered analysis of these compositions is more than
valid, this needs to move beyond a literal reading of the text. Such readings
become particularly problematic when literary constructions (for instance,
those attributed to Hara and R€jaekhara) are juxtaposed to argue for a
change in the status of the chief queen over a period of three centuries.
The questions we need to pose are probably more about why strategies
of representation change, if indeed they do, rather than reading these
representations as mirroring ‘reality’.
At another level Rangachari disaggregates inscriptional references to
women—focusing on similarities and differences that emerge through
comparisons between royal and non-royal women, as well as variations
in the ways in which the presence of both categories were recognised
within the epigraphic record. In discussing these minutiae she opens up
the inscriptions for fresh scrutiny, moving away from the preoccupation
with fitting kings into more or less neat linear patterns of succession. In
drawing attention to the untidiness that has vexed most historians of
dynastic history, she opens up the possibility of recognising variations
that create space for the presence of women. What is also scrupulously
avoided is any attempt to flatten references to women into a monochrome
picture: Rangachari’s narrative provides for diversity, for areas that
remain grey in spite of attempts to explain/understand them, and for
uncertainties.
Rangachari also addresses the vexed question of the implications of
the participation of women in rituals and festivals, as also the even more
problematic issue of the social significance of the worship of goddesses/
women. Here, refreshingly, she eschews a simplistic understanding of
such representations as symbols of women’s power and is careful not to
conflate visibility with power.

Downloaded from mhj.sagepub.com at UNIV PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND on February 8, 2015

 Book Reviews J 323

The text would have benefited from a more careful scrutiny of the
Sanskrit passages that are cited. Many of these citations (e.g., p. 86) are
marred by wrong diacritics as well as errors of transliteration. Given
that the author does not offer fresh interpretations for the Sanskrit ter-
minology, these passages could have been retained as translations. Also,
somewhat intriguing are the references to verses in the Haracarita when
the author seems to be citing lines from the extensive prose sections of
the text (e.g., p. 234).
In spite of these technical limitations, Rangachari’s work opens up
possibilities for future scholars. By retrieving women who were visible
in the published record, but nonetheless marginalised, within 19th and
20th century historiographical traditions, she redefines the scope of dyna-
stic histories and reminds us of the need to reinvestigate both textual and
inscriptional source for fresh insights. The possibility of posing other
questions from these sources remains.

Kumkum Roy
Centre for Historical Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi

Felipe Fernández-Armesto and James Muldoon (eds), Internal Colon-

ization in Medieval Europe, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Farnham/
Burlington, 2008, pp. xxiv + 385 (The Expansion of Latin Europe,
1000–1500, 2), ISBN 978-0-7546-5972-3.
DOI: 10.1177/097194581001300207

This collection is the second volume of an ambitious new series com-

prising 14 volumes consecrated to ‘The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–
1500’. While the first volume brought together articles relating to the
medieval ‘frontiers’ of Latin Christendom and the development as well
as the export of techniques of colonisation, the second volume proposes
to elucidate the mechanisms of ‘internal colonisation’ in medieval Europe.
Its 15 contributions, originally published between 1921 and 1996, are
thematically organised into four sections, consecrated to (i) the question

The Medieval History Journal, 13, 2 (2010): 315–329 J

Downloaded from mhj.sagepub.com at UNIV PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND on February 8, 2015