This article tries to show how the study of the Indian state in the recent decades by focusing on the understanding of processes has led to a nuanced reading of the sources in their entirety, and coherent long-term view of early India, which at times disturbs some of our cherished notions of the past. These studies enrich our understanding insofar as they unravel the regional trajectories of socio-political transformations and locate them in the wider context of their trans-regional linkages. They straddle a wide range of issues ranging from vana–kṣetra and tribe–caste continuum, through hierarchisation of society and evolving structures of legitimation to expanding resource bases and questions of identity formation.
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