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A Bibliography of "Divine Kings" in S. Asia

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Contributed by Pankaj Jain, University of North Texas

"Ancient Indian Kingship from the Religious Point of View" by Jan Gonda.

"Kings" or "Kingship" in both the Encyclopedia of Religion (first edited by Eliade), the article will have a short bibliography, and the older Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, a gold mine of information.

Also see if Lord of the Four Quarters: The Mythology of Kingship by John Weir Perry is of help.

Tambiah also provides a very good discussion of Clifford Geertz's theories about divine kingship in Bali (?) in his (Tambiah's) biography of Edmund Leach. Here he also give a very good account of Leach's own thinking on the matter.

Geertz's ideas are also critically (and very amusingly) discussed in Adam Kuper's polemical attack on the culture concept in American anthropology (in his book _Culture_). The most useful part, however, are the references to further reading he provides, esp. on Geertz's ideas about divine kingship.

Adrian C. Mayer. "Rulership and Divinity: The Case of the Modern Hindu Prince and Beyond." Modern Asian Studies 25, 4 (1991), pp. 765-790.

(This brief essay has a good discussion of what it means to be "divine" in Indic contexts, as well as discussions of several different royal practices.)

Two essays by John Cort on Jain theories of kingship, one in the volume Open Boundaries (1998), the other in a volume edited by Jayandra Soni in 2001, Vasantagauravam."

1.R.S. Sharma, Aspects o Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidass, ( Revised Edition), 1996

2. Hermann Kulke,ed., The State in India 1000=1700, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995."

 

Dumont, Louis. "The Conception of Kingship in Ancient India," *Religion,
Politics and History in India: Collected Papers in Indian Sociology*. Paris:
NP, 1970.

Gonda, J. *Ancient Indian Kingship*. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966.

Heesterman, J. C. "The Conundrum of the King?s Authority," *Kingship and
Authority in South Asia*. Ed. J. F. Richards. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

---. *Ancient Indian Royal Consecration: The Rajasuya Described According
to the Yajus Texts & Annotated*. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1957.

---. *The Rajasuya, The Ancient Indian Royal Consecration, The Rajasuya
described according to the yajus texts and annotated*. ?s-Gravenhage:
Mouton, 1957.

Hocart, Arthur Maurice. *Kingship*. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927.

Inden, Roland. "Ritual, Authority, and Cyclic Time in Hindu Kingship,"
*Kingship and Authority in South Asia*. Ed. J. F.
Richards. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Narayanan, M. G. C. and Kesavan Veluthat, "Feudal Ideology: Bhakti Movement
in South India," *The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early
Medieval India*. Ed. D. N. Jha. New Delhi: Manohar Publication, 2000.

Panikkar, Sardar K. M*. Origin & Evolution of Kingship in India*.
Baroda State Press,
1938.

Witzel, Michael. "Coronation Rituals of Nepal with Special Reference to the
Coronation of King Birendra (1975)," *Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley:
Proceedings of an International Conference in Lubeck*, 1987. Sankt Augustin:
VGH- Wiss. ?Verl, 1987.

Yamazaki, Gen?ichi. "Kingship in Ancient India as Described in Literary
Sources and Inscriptions," *Kingship in Indian History*, ed. Noboru
Karashima. New Delhi: Manohar Publication, 1999.

 

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Revised: October 13, 2011