Tribe and State in Asia through Twenty-Five Centuries Tribe and State in Asia through Twenty-Five Centuries Sumit Guha ASIA SHORTS Published by the Association for Asian Studies Asia Shorts, Number 10 www.asianstudies.org The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Formed in 1941, the Association for Asian Studies (AAS)—the largest society of its kind, with over 6,500 members worldwide—is a scholarly, non-political, non- profit professional association open to all persons interested in Asia. For further information, please visit www.asianstudies.org. ©2021 by the Association for Asian Studies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Written permission must be secured to use or reproduce any part of this book. Published by Association for Asian Studies, 825 Victors Way, Suite 310, Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA Cover image: A Bhil hunter with a flare, helping a hunter with a bow to hunt deer at night. 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This new series complements and leverages the success of the pedagogically-oriented AAS series, “Key Issues in Asian Studies” and is designed to engage broad audiences with up-to-date scholarship on important topics in Asian studies. “Asia Shorts” books: • Have a clear point of view, a well-defined, and even provocative argument rooted in a strong base of evidence and current scholarship. • Are written in an accessible, jargon-free style suitable for non-specialist audiences. • Are written by a single author or a small group of authors (scholars, journalists, or policymakers). • Are rigorously peer reviewed. For further information, visit the AAS website: www.asianstudies.org AAS books are distributed by Columbia University Press. For orders or inquiries, please visit https://cup.columbia.edu About the Author Sumit Guha is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He was born in New Delhi, India and educated in St. Stephen’s College and JNU Delhi before winning a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he was awarded the PhD in History in 1981. His books include Environment and Ethnicity in India, 1200–1991, Health and Population in South Asia from Earliest Times to the Present, and Beyond Caste: Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present. His most recent book is History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200– 2000 (University of Washington Press, 2019). Developing out of the work of Maurice Halbwachs, it is a long-period and comparative study of the frameworks of collective memory. His next work is a study of the political ecology of empires in South Asia from 1400 to 1900. Acknowledgments This book owes its origin to the gentle encouragement of Ramya Sreenivasan, who first suggested that I write a comparative trans-Asian study for the AAS. It would not exist without her help and support. Bill Tsutsui and Jon Wilson have helped me concretize the project and answered many questions, both large and small, along the way. When venturing out of my own specialization in South Asia, I have sought the advice of many specialists who took the time to answer numerous queries. I am therefore deeply indebted to Christopher Atwood for sharing his immense knowledge of Mongolia and the Mongols, and to Erdenchuluu Khohchahar for explaining the intricacies of Mongol terminology. Pamela Crossley has answered many rounds of questions about China and the Manchu. Peter Golden took time out of working on a new edition of his classic, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples, to read and comment on an early draft. Alan Mikhail provided an important etymology for an Arabic term. Indrani Chatterjee deepened my understanding of social networks. Johannes Feddema generously offered access to the underlying data for his revision of the Thornthwaite climate map. William Delgado drew a simplified, gray-scale version for this book (Figure 2). Jon Wilson helped create Figure 1 from open access materials. Two anonymous readers read the manuscript closely and offered important suggestions for its improvement. A third reader pointed to significant lacunae—since remedied. Mike Jauchen patiently copyedited the text. Finally, Kirtan Patel read the proofs with an unerring eye for errors. Needless to say, I am of course responsible for any errors, oversimplifications, and overgeneralizations that may be found. A Note on Transcriptions I have for the sake of readability sought to eliminate diacriticals from this text. Words from Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Marathi etc have only been used where essential and transcribed in simple roman script forms. I do not read Mongolian or Chinese and have therefore followed my source in rendering words from these languages. I have however, given Pinyin equivalents in parenthesis for Wade- Giles renderings where necessary. In no case have I changed an author’s preferred rendering of her or his name.