Published Paper Details:

Abstract The eminent historian R.S. Sharma maintained that a decentralised agrarian system, with landholding elites exerting political and economic control over their areas, best described feudalism in India. He emphasised the significance of caste-based relationships and the way feudal rulers took advantage of the people. Another well-known historian, Burton Stein, found the concept of 'feudalism' insufficient to describe the sociopolitical processes of mediaeval India. He surmised that the Indian social structure did not cleanly fit the European feudal model and offered substitute notions like 'segmentary state' and 'stateless societies' to describe the convoluted political system of the time. Indian history expert Hermann Kulke proposed an integrated processual approach to analysing feudalism in India. Kulke emphasised the need to comprehend the historical factors that contributed to the development and evolution of feudal ties in various geographic areas. His research on the development of feudalism and its interactions with various forms of power in mediaeval Indian culture brought to light the interdependence of economic, social, and political variables. The points made in the feudalism discussion by Sharma, Stein, and Kulke are critically analysed in this study. It evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy and pinpoints points of convergence and divergence. By combining these ideas, the study aims to further our knowledge of feudalism in mediaeval India and illuminate the larger socio-political setting of the era.