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Studies on Fortification in India. Collection Indologie, vol. 104.

Four Forts of the Deccan vol. 111. Senji (Gingee): A Fortified City in
the Tamil Country. vol. 101 by Jean Deloch...

Article  in  Journal of the American Oriental Society · January 2010

DOI: 10.2307/23044522

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272 Journal of the American Oriental Society 130.2 (2010)

and in some ways we should count ourselves lucky that he was able to trace the photography at all.
The bonanza in volume 3, part 1 is the material that was excavated from Harappa between 1986 and
2007, first by George F. Dales and then by his colleagues Richard Meadow and J. Mark Kenoyer. Much,
perhaps all, of this new material had appeared in preliminary reports on these excavations, as well as in
other publications, but the preliminary reports were photocopied and distributed more or less privately.
I am not finding fault with this manner of dealing with preliminary reports but it is not the same as
a printed book that is widely available. But now we have it all together, between two covers, where
everyone in the world has easy access, and that is an achievement of some significance.
There are four relatively short essays in this book, all of which deserve to be read. First there is
Parpola’s illuminating preface. Ute Franke has contributed an article titled “From the Oxus to the
Indus: Two Compartmented Seals from Mohenjo-daro.” This paper was originally published in Ger-
man in 1995 but it is very convenient to have the English translation readily available in this volume.
Then J. Mark Kenoyer and Richard H. Meadow present “Inscribed Objects from Harappa Excavations
1986–2007.” This piece allows them to contextualize the inscribed objects presented in this book, as
well as to discuss technological changes in seal-carving technology and style. They also present a chro-
nology for aspects of boss types. Finally, Parpola gives us “New Light on ‘Major Clark,’ Owner of the
First Published Indus Seal.” The full name of Major Clark was not known until Parpola did some good
archival work and found not only the full name but some interesting biographical details.
I sometimes think about what I call the “shelf life” of a book. That is, how long will a book con-
tinue to be a productive source, molding and shaping our intellectual lives and when will it slip out of
that active role and simply become an historical document with no dynamic meaning other than that it
played a role for a short period of time in the history of the discipline? For archaeologists our excava-
tion reports will generally have quite a long shelf life because they are primary documents. But the
same is not true for the average edited book that emerges from a conference or colloquium. They tend
to have more immediate impact and then are gradually downshifted to being historical documents. The
Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions will certainly have a long, perhaps permanent, shelf life because
of the comprehensive nature of the undertaking and the care that Professor Parpola and his colleagues,
Jagat Pati Joshi, Sayid Ghulam Mustafa Shah, B. M. Pande, Petteri Koskikallio, Richard H. Meadow,
and J. Mark Kenoyer, have taken in their work.

Gregory L. Possehl
University of Pennsylvania

Studies on Fortification in India. By Jean Deloche. Collection Indologie, vol. 104. Pondichéry:
Institut Français de Pondichéry, 2007. Pp. 266. Rs. 800. Four Forts of the Deccan. By Jean
Deloche. Collection Indologie, vol. 111. Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry, 2009.
Pp. 206. Senji (Gingee): A Fortified City in the Tamil Country. By Jean Deloche. Collection
Indologie, vol. 101. Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry, 2005. Pp. 391.

This trio of books celebrates the military architecture of the southern Indian subcontinent from the
earliest era through the medieval and early modern periods, and follows up in book form several of the
author’s seminal articles from the 1990s. The present volumes are not about military history, nor about
the “grand strategies” of expansion and conquest by subcontinental states. Instead, they provide details
and commentary on the layouts and architectural embellishments of fortified sites. The principal focus
of the first two books is a descriptive catalog of architectural elements that can be traced to the period
before and after the development of artillery; the third book is a single-site study of Senji in the Indian
state of Tamil Nadu that examines the pre- and post-gunpowder era through original fieldwork.
As Deloche notes, researchers have devoted a great deal of attention to India’s religious monuments
but have generally ignored their secular counterparts. Fortifications, however, are testament to much
 Reviews of Books 273

larger quantities of labor and materials for their construction, with long-term building and modification
programs that became the focal point for local populations as well as for their leaders. Often placed
at points of the landscape that already were natural strongholds and places of ritual devotion, the for-
tifications are marked by the investment of political authorities in place-making through monumental
encircling ramparts, imposing gateways, and complex entranceways designed to foil invaders.
Fortifications also are places where the material history of the medieval and early colonial period
can be documented. The “tit-for-tat” of that era’s arms race was one in which greater and more versatile
artillery was utilized against the massive encircling fortifications, with a physical record of change that
is evident in material remains. Cannons became larger and larger (up to truly gargantuan size, such as
the 55-ton cannon named the Malik-i-Maidan at Bijapur). At the same time, fortifications were modi-
fied to withstand increasingly powerful attacks, both through the use of mortar and the replacement of
structurally vulnerable square towers with rounded or polygonal ones. New types of architecture also
were added to existing fortifications, such as merlons (crenellations) that provided cover to defenders
shooting from the top of the fortification.
Each of the three volumes focuses on a slightly different aspect of the study of military defenses.
Studies on Fortification in India provides a general background starting in the Harappan period (c. 2500
b.c.) and continuing through the Early Historic and medieval eras. It is rather unfortunate that for the
medieval period the volume covers only the southern subcontinent, leaving out two regions that are
famously well fortified: Rajasthan in northwestern India and the area around Delhi with its magnificent
medieval strongholds. The more-detailed Four Forts of the Deccan examines four of the southern
Indian forts, including the well-known site of Daulatabad along with Mudugal, Gandikota, and Gutti.
Deloche is candid about the amount of work that he has carried out independently at these sites, which
is sometimes limited to visits and the compilation of previous research.
The third book is a report on original fieldwork carried out at Senji (Gingee) by Deloche and a
multidisciplinary team. The site, perched on a series of natural hills, had a long period of occupation
and use that included some of the most significant rulers in the subcontinent, including the Nayakas,
Bijapuris, Shivaji, and the Mughals. Early European visitors spoke admiringly of the fortifications and
their efficacy: in 1597 the Jesuit Nicholas Pimenta said that it was bigger than any other city in Portu-
gal except for Lisbon, and in 1615 Samuel Kindt described the southern fort and city of Senji as “as
large as Amsterdam.” Like many fortifications of its era, Senji eventually passed into European hands,
becoming an outpost of the French colonial rule at Pondichéry.
In addition to the use of textual sources and architectural fieldwork for measuring and document-
ing the structures that remain at Senji, Deloche stresses the utility of collecting oral traditions in order
to identify places that might no longer exist but which are retained in toponyms (a challenging study,
given that every conqueror renamed the fort and often the surrounding landmarks as well). There is a
thorough discussion of the water supply systems, a particularly important component of both warfare
and daily life in this seasonally arid region. The volume includes many illustrations; one useful orga-
nizational aspect is the use of the text margins to identify the photographs, plans, and drawings that
illustrate the feature discussed.
The three volumes complement each other, and make a good collection for cross-referencing. In
addition to comparing different South Indian forts, Deloche compares the techniques of pre- and post-
gunpowder fortifications between the subcontinent and Europe. He notes that innovations in India
made use of pre-existing architectural conventions that continued to emphasize the strength of walls
and the height of towers. In Europe after the introduction of gunpowder artillery, fortifications actually
got lower; in India this strategic advantage was developed through the use of the fausse-braye, which
was a lower outer fortification. The story of military architecture and its modifications is one in which
fortifications were always effective as a showpiece, even if they never served as defenses against an
invading army. As Deloche reminds us, most forts were taken by subterfuge or treaty, rather than by
outright destruction and military infiltration.
In all three volumes Deloche integrates the study of standing architecture with the examination of
historic maps, inscriptions found on the walls and on cannons, contemporary texts, and colonial-era
 274 Journal of the American Oriental Society 130.2 (2010)

documents. For the earliest periods of fortifications (early centuries b.c./a.d.) in Studies, he reproduces
figures from Buddhist sites that show ancient battle scenes, while for the later periods he calls upon
Mughal and other medieval illustrations. As for the physical remains present today, fortifications are
notoriously difficult to study archaeologically. They are massive and generally known only from very
time-consuming excavations through the rampart or a gateway, or from the uppermost constructions,
which may represent considerably later additions (as our team has experienced in the excavations of
Sisupalgarh, an Early Historic fortified site).
Deloche notes that many acts of both passive and active degradation have affected the architecture
of fortifications. Some of the sites were heavily damaged by artillery fire in the course of their use,
while others were actively dismantled by the British after the start of the colonial period. Even in the
best of circumstances, the upper portions of fortifications often are dilapidated, making it difficult to
reconstruct a fortification’s finishing touches. Finally, the study of fortifications is made challenging by
ongoing occupation; in a footnote in Studies, Deloche warns aspiring scholars of military architecture
that they will face considerable challenges ranging from tangled overgrowth to the continued use of
passages as modern roads that makes an unwise proposition of contemplative study while standing in
an ancient gateway. His work is a call to document and analyze these significant forts while there is
still something to study. Earthen ramparts and even stone structures are vanishing rapidly as villagers
and developers dismantle them for building material, and he does not flinch from showing these con-
temporary degradations as part of his photographic portrayal of the fortifications that he has studied.
A full appreciation of Deloche’s painstaking recreation of architectural timelines is, however,
marred by some of the terminology utilized. Rather than describing the military fortifications as pre-
and post-gunpowder artillery, he often utilizes the terms “Hindu” and “Muslim” to refer to the two eras.
Even if this was a convenient shorthand inherited from previous scholars, the continued use of the Hin-
du/Muslim dichotomy seems insensitive to current conditions in the subcontinent. It is the technology
of offense and defense, rather than the ideological outlook of rulers, that marks the essential difference
in the way that fortifications were made and used. The use of a Hindu/Muslim dichotomy also greatly
oversimplifies the connection between religious ideology and political expansion, as if populations and
leaders easily altered their religious allegiances as the result of every conquest.
Deloche’s work—while comprehensive—is limited to the architecture itself, and readers looking
for an examination of political economy or the dynamics of statecraft will have to look elsewhere. In
Studies the reader only finds out about actual battle tactics as an aside, such as when Deloche notes
that certain types of multiple ditches on the exterior of medieval forts were likely to have been placed
to “impede the approach of elephants.” It would have been very interesting, for example, to discuss
the relative merits of different types of assaults (cavalry, elephants, foot soldiers) and different types
of siege engines (which are mentioned but never described) as components of warfare that affected the
design and layout of fortifications. The architectural studies also could be updated through new com-
puter technologies such as three-dimensional reconstructions and fly-throughs that would enable the
testing of various hypotheses of battle tactics and construction sequences. (Daulatabad and Senji might
be particularly appropriate, given the amount of research done on those sites.) Thus, it might be most
useful to characterize these volumes as providing the all-important background work for subsequent
studies of the landscape of warfare and statecraft, where monumental fortifications presented the most
dramatic and long-lived expression of political authority.

Monica L. Smith
University of California, Los Angeles

Dharma, Disorder and the Political in Ancient India: The Āpaddharmaparvan of the Mahābhārata. By
Adam Bowles. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Pp. xvi + 430. $171.

The present work is the first monograph devoted to the important and understudied topic of
āpaddharma, the laws for distress and emergency, in ancient India. The author is also the translator

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