The present volume is an original and updated account of the history and culture of the Sarayupara region, a geographical unit, located to the south of Nepal tarai and north of the river Sarayu, which comprises the present districts of Gonda, Bharaich, Sravasti, Balrampur, Basti, Sant Kabirnagar, Gorakhpur, Siddharthnagar, Maharajganj, Kushinagar and Deoria of the eastern Uttar Pradesh. Though the region has famously been known in historical and cultural writings for its unique contributions to the rise of earliest prehistoric rice-farming communities in India and sermons of Buddha and Mahavira and also for the rise of several clans practicing the republican constitutions, it rarely enjoyed an independent profile as it formed an integral part of the north Indian empires, subjugating the region time and again. It was however during the mid of the ninth century C.E. that the term Sarayupara came into vogue which expressly marks it as a distinct geographical unit and also betrays its independent political rise. The present volume critically examines the factors involved in its making and explores afresh its chequered history under the Kalachuris, Malayaketus, and the Gahadavalas during the 9th-12th centuries C.E. on the basis of freshly discovered epigraphical evidence, which provides enough scope to question and reject several long-held misleading notions about the region. It also makes a maiden effort to explore and analyze the cultural milieu which emerges prominently in the region during the period. This includes the vigorous rise of Saivism, Vaisnaviam and the solar cults, the arrival and dispersal of sun-worshipping Maga priests from the Sakadvipa, the in-and-out bound migrations of a number of the Brahmin clans leading to their distinct regional categorizations, arrival of several Rajaputa tribes in course of their militaristic and administrative career leading to the amalgamation of their blood with the local Ksatriya populace and development of art and iconography, expressing the impact of the changed socio-religious environs. With all these facets documented critically on the basis of the extant archaeological sources, the study stands as an invaluable piece of research for those scholars and students who have an inking to understand the region of Sarayupara vis-a-vis its interconnections to the empires which rose in its vicinity and tried to hamper its independent rise again and again.

Content - Preface, Foreword, List of Plates, 1. The Sources, 2. Rise of Sarayupara as a Political Unit during 900-1200 Centuries CE., 3. New Geo-Political Entities: Their Nature and Identification, 4. Statecraft and the Class of Officials, 5. Changing Spectrum of Society and Emergence of New Classes and Castes, 6. Religious Beliefs and Practices, 7. Art-Remains: Architecture and Images, Appendix I: Settlements of the Sakadvipiya or Maga Brahmanas in the region of Sarayupara, Bibliography, Plates