Keywords
Eklingji
Mewar
Sacred Landscape
Sacred Social Order
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper reconsiders the history of Mewar by treating it as a religious site rather than primarily a battlefield kingdom. It argues that Mewar’s sacred landscape, its temples, inscriptions, ritual economies, and oral repertoires, constituted a coherent sacred order that existing, martial-focused historiographies have only partially perceived. Using inscriptions (from Samoli to the Raj Prashasti), temple complexes at Eklingji, Nagda, and Chittorgarh, the sacred-industrial complex of Zawar, the refuge haveli of Shrinathji at Nathdwara, and fieldwork-based oral histories from sites such as Jagdish and Baan Mata, the study reconstructs what it terms Mewar’s “sacred economy” and “refuge kingship.” It shows that Brahmanical temple institutions, Sasan land grants, Bhil ritual covenants, pastoral Phad traditions, and Mirabai-centred devotional communities operated as distinct but interlocking channels through which a theology of divine trusteeship and absentee sovereignty was institutionalised and lived. Methodologically, the paper combines close reading of epigraphic and architectural evidence with ethnographic attention to oral narrative and ritual practice. In doing so, it reframes key Mewari sites and texts as parts of a single religious constitution and proposes Mewar as a critical case for understanding how pre-modern South Asian polities sustained religious identity under prolonged external pressure.
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Acknowledgement: This research is supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). The authors gratefully acknowledge the Council’s encouragement and financial assistance, which made this study possible.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Dr Madan Kumar, Dr Darshana Choudhury, Sumit Kumar, Naman Singhal, Purbasha Mukherji (Author)