26 SOCIAL SCIENTIST counter arguments and alternative constructs have remained confined to political process/es. Thus, the interrelationship between the economic and political changes on the one hand and those in the social sphere on the other is still very nebular. Also, study of the feudal mind and mentality has hardly begun in India.4 II Broadly speaking, the feudal construct has given rise to two alternative paradigms which tend to underline the segmentary or integrative aspects of the early medieval polity. While the former has been worked out in greater details in the context of peninsular India,5 the latter has so far received larger attention in the context of Rajasthan and Orissa.6 One may, therefore, see certain complementarity of the two paradigms in terms of their geographical dispersal—indeed, between them there are a few other similarities as well. Much has been written about the exposition of the 'Segmentary State,' specially in the context of medieval south India.7 Prolonged debates amongst historians have pointed out severe limitations of this critique of the feudal model and relevance of the idea of 'peasant state' has also been questioned at various fora, including this forum. In most of these critiques the focus had largely been on the evidence from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In the last couple of years, however, very welcome analyses of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala evidences have also been brought out. In a recent study8 of the Chalukya-Cholas, the Kakatiyas, the Reddis, the Gajapatis and the Rayas in the Eastern Chats of Andhra Pradesh between AD 1000 and 1500 based on an extensive use of the Kalifiyat literature, epigraphic references and anthropological parallels, case has been made out for the state being a major variable in the manipulation of physical and social environment with an intensification of forest clearance, founding of new villages and expansion of agrarian order. 'In this process of integration of the forested zones with the king's domain, the forest people (hunter-gatherers like Boya and Chenchu) and pastoralists (e.g. Golla) became historically important . . . The State made alliance with the hunter-gatherers and pastoralists by allocating services; as a consequence emerged a new pattern of resource exploitation, mobilisation and distribution . . .t9 In this new mechanism of surplus appropriation, mathadhipatis and pithadhipatis became willing collaborators and sustainers of kingly authority. Without being an overt critique of the 'Segmentary State', this significant micro analysis gives a severe jolt to the notions of the core and the periphery and their linkages with the political and ritual suzerainty respectively, which were hitherto considered to be cornerstones of the concept of the segmentary state.*