This essay studies the manner in which the Pallavas of K & amacr;nc & imacr;puram, the dominant ruling power in the Tamil region from the seventh to ninth centuries ce, engaged with nature, ecology and the surrounding physical world to fashion a meta-language to articulate their political ideology. The eco-poetic contexts (tinai) in the Cankam poems show rich emotional and semantic associations that the early Tamils had with the natural world and landscapes. However, the physical environment was also a key point of political interest in the early medieval period, especially with the dramatic expansion of agriculture in the river valleys, construction of artificial irrigation apparatuses and the expansion of oceanic and inland trade, which provided a basis for the growing bureaucratic monarchical systems through the revenue generated. Aside from economic and military dominance, legitimation of power was a significant concern for the evolving monarchies, and this took different forms. Appropriation of semantic and cultural connotations associated with nature and ecology and their deployment in their epigraphic, literary and artistic rhetoric was one of the methods adopted by the Pallavas of K & amacr;nc & imacr;puram to legitimise their rulership over the Tamil region, especially from the time of Mahendravarman I (580-630 ce) to Nandivarman II, Pallavamalla (731-96 ce). This essay will examine the beliefs and ideas associated with the natural world and their use in Pallava political rhetoric.
This article argues that the construction of the Hindustan-Tibet Road (from the 1850s) functioned not only as infrastructure but also as a strategic tool of colonial governance. It transformed the western Himalayan frontier from a flexible trans-regional exchange zone into a controlled imperial corridor. Focusing on the Shimla Hill States, the article illustrates how colonial intervention reconfigured existing trade networks, increased labour extraction through the system of begar and facilitated the appropriation of forest resources to serve imperial economic and geopolitical goals. The article demonstrates that the road was an example of colonial infrastructural power that served simultaneously as a commercial route, a military corridor and an instrument of colonial administration, enabling the British colonial state to reorganise trade, mobilise labour and consolidate frontier governance in the western Himalayas. Rather than establishing new economic structures, colonial infrastructure reorganised and regulated existing networks, thereby integrating the region into the empire's political economy.
