Religious Endowments in Ancient India and the Institutionalization of Brahmin Caste Status

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8303659
AutoresTimothy Lubin (0000-0001-8352-5870, Adjunct Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University Jessie Ball duPont Professor of Religion and , Lexington 24450–2116, USA, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume63
Fascículo2
Páginas97-114
Data de publicação2023-11-15
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Journal of Legal History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-9319 • E-ISSN: 2161-797X
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ajlh/njad023
OpenAlexW4387478208
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3

Giving to worthy recipients has been meritorious public piety in India at least since the Mauryan empire. Most consequential were grants in perpetuity of land or capital as a ‘religious foundation’ for monks or Brahmins, conferred by means of a charter (śāsana). Grants to Brahmins typically created or supported an agrahāra, a residential enclave with attached farmland and villages, on terms analogous to those of grants to Buddhist or Jaina mendicants or monasteries. In these records (attested since the beginning of the Common Era), rulers cede their claims to certain normal obligations of subjects, such as tax revenue, compulsory labor, and billeting or provisions for officers of the state, and they often give the beneficiaries authority over internal legal administration. This article examines the implications of the fiscal and juridical autonomy conferred in such grants in providing state recognition and institutional support of Brahmins’ sacred status as a religious profession and a privileged caste

Archaeology · Buddhism · Caste · Charter · Economics · Institutionalisation · Perpetuity · Piety · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Law · Public Administration · South Asian Studies and Conflicts