State, Power and Legitimacy: The Gupta Kingdom presents a comprehensive account of
the Gupta state, with particular emphasis on its strategies of legitimizing its power.
The political strategies that characterized this crucial juncture of early Indian history,
termed ‘threshold times’ by Romila Thapar, employed certain features of ancient
Indian polity even as new political mechanisms were emerging. This volume argues
that this unique combination of political strategizing was a part of the process of
legitimizing royal authority, in which religion, literature and art were essential tools.
The volume also includes a large selection of prepublished essays which provide
the reader with a comprehensive idea of how the Gupta state has been studied by
earlier historians together with recent articles which help us to look at the Gupta
state and the manner in which it exercised and legitimized its power. A substantive
introduction suggests the need to move beyond the nationalist perspective that
views the rule of the Guptas as the ‘Golden Age’ or the Marxist model of ‘Indian
feudalism’.