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The horizontal spread of the state society accompanying the institution of land grants leading to the formation of a monarchical state polity is frequently witnessed during c. 300–600 CE. Among the many new and small kingdoms which surfaced during the time of the Guptas was the kingdom of Valkhā in Central India located on the banks of the Narmada. The kingdom, as it appears from their land grants, was situated on both sides of the Narmada river, at the southern periphery of the important Gupta strongholds in central India (Airikiṇa, Eran) and beyond the northern frontier of the Vākāṭakas kingdom to the south. In case of the Valkhā kingdom, it appears that in the process of transition from a pre-state to a state, it can be placed in a category where, with the formation of the kingdom around the mid-fourth century CE, Valkhā has just transcended the pre-state stage and could be placed in the genre of an early state. We seek to understand the early character of the Valkhā state through the lens of twenty-seven copper plates found together in a hoard and five others published in a scattered manner. It goes to the credit of K.V. Ramesh and S.P. Tewari who edited the plates in 1990 and revealed the names of the rulers of Valkhā. Through a reading of these charters we seek to understand the emergence and growth of the Valkhā state. Due to the donations, the donee assumes a significant position and so the nature of patronage of the Valkhā rulers becomes central to our study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The time of the imperial Guptas (c.fourth to sixth centuries CE) represents a pivotal moment in the development of ‘mature Hinduism’. This was characterised by many changes, but most conspicuously by the establishment of institutional worship in temples. Clear archaeological signatures were inscribed across the cultural and physical landscapes of India in the fourth and fifth centuries: away from zones of urbanisation, numerous settlement areas retain sculptural and architectural vestiges in stone, most of them religious in nature. These vestiges, anchored and distributed in space, and with site-specific contexts, reveal much about the production and reproduction of sacred and socio-economic space, which were inextricably tied to water and the environment. For the purpose of this special issue, this article focuses on the archaeological landscapes of Baḍoh-Paṭhāri (Vidiśā District, Madhya Pradesh), an historical site which developed as an important population centre from at least early historic times onwards, if not before, and was connected to the political, trade, and defensive networks of the upper Betwā Basin. Some important remains from Gupta and later Gupta times are found in the immediate surroundings of this place. Their study provides an interesting basis upon which to explore issues relating to the conception and spatiality of new devotional, institutional, and socio-economic domains; and the integration, articulation, and transformation of natural features and local geography in the making of gods’ territory during this crucial period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]