Asian Ethnology 83-1 | article The Idea of Madhyadeśa in Early India History of a Region’s Identity

P. K. Basant

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In the premodern world, many communities believed that they were located in the center of the world. The Hindu community, too, invented the idea of Madhyadeśa (Middle Country) in the first millennium bce. This space was as much a physical landscape as a set of cultural markers. The people of Madhyadeśa were believed to speak a “pure” language, follow the norms of a patriarchal caste order, and perform the right set of rituals. These cultural markers were contrasted with those of the people of Mlecchadeśa (Land of Barbarians). In the initial phase, the physical space identified with Madhyadeśa was fluid and malleable. The cultural markers, however, stayed the same or changed ever more slowly. Those cultural markers and ideologies continue to resonate in the lives of people. These ideas define the grammar of most marriages and political formations today. This can be demonstrated by comparing the performance of Madhyadeśa and Mlecchadeśa along a grid of indicators.