The Rashtrakutas and their Times c3.5

c3.5

Part III (Chapters XIII-XVII) attempts to delineate religious, social, literary, educational and economic conditions of the times. Here the back-ground had to be necessarily wider. The method in this part is also comparative. I have not only tried to show what the things were in the Deccan under the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, but also introduced comparisons with a view to illustrate the state of affairs in the earlier and later times. In this part the treatment has been mainly confined to the Deccan under the Rāṣṭrakūṭas; in a few cases evidence from Northern India is also considered with a view to emphasise the points of similarity and contrast. While considering the economic conditions, the data supplied by some Chola records had to be utilised, as it was necessary to do so in order to interpret properly the numerous Rāṣṭrakūṭa inscriptions, hailing from the northern districts of Tamil country. Epigraphical sources have been primarily relied upon, but at every step an effort has been made to show how far the realities of the situation, as disclosed by the inscriptions, confirm, modify or contradict the picture based upon the Smṛtis and Purāṇas. As social and religious customs and institutions do not change suddenly, the information in this part is in some cases supplemented by the data supplied by the 7th and the 11th century inscriptions also.