ABSTRACT
So far, this book has focused on a diachronic reading of south Indian kingdoms, beginning with sixteenth-century Vijayanagara, then seventeenth-century Madurai and eighteenth-century Ramnad. One aim of this chronology has been to establish a chain of stylistic inheritance which runs alongside an ideological inheritance. As has been shown, an ideological connection did exist: Ramnad looked upon the Nayakas of Madurai as the bestowers of their legitimacy, while Nayaka Madurai similarly set up Vijayanagara as the endowers of their right to rule. These kingdoms also drew upon the stylistic elements of their predecessors’ courts, as is seen through the architectural and planning traditions they used. The connection between the material and ideological sides of south Indian courtly culture, as presented through a diachronic analysis, can be made more abstract through two approaches. First, this fusion of material and ideological circumstances conforms with the idealized pyramidal model of the segmentary state, which places Vijayanagara at the pinnacle, Madurai beneath it and Ramnad under them both. Second, the material hierarchy interpretation of courtly material culture also fits squarely with the diachronic reading. Each kingdom was a scaled-down version of the most important one, so the Vijayanagara Raya was the top-ranking king, and correspondingly had the largest court, while the courts of lower-ranking rulers were correspondingly smaller.
