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procedure might entail, it was impracticable because we never determined the precise
years when any particular area thresholds were passed by the powers treated in this atlas,
whereas we did determine specific years when shifts in power status were made, as shown
by our dynastic bars. But had we used the 10% and 40% area criteria we would have
eliminated from consideration only seven of the sixty-two powers dealt with and might
barely—and only briefly—have added but two, the Sikh kingdom and the Husain Shāhīs
of Bengal; additionally, the Gurjara-Pratihāras might have been recognized as a pan-
Indian power for one or two decades. In a word, then, a uniform areal basis for analysis,
rather than the regional one we employed, would have had no very significant effect on
our universe of data.
19. At a symposium at Duke University (13–15 April 1973) at which this paper was originally
presented, Professor Ainslee Embree observed that the data presented in figure 14.4 sug-
gest that a periodization of Indian history different from the one employed might well
have been in order. From the point of view of an analysis of regional power configura-
tions, leaving other considerations aside, that might well be true. The following changes
would then be appropriate: (1) to end the Ancient Period about A.D. 470, when the Gupta
dynasty fell from pan-Indian to supra-regional status; (2) to consider the Early Medieval
Period as extending from c. 470 to c. 1150, during which time two contemporaneous
supra-regional states are fairly common, but three such states and any pan-Indian state
are rather rare; (3) to recognize a Late Medieval Period from c. 1150 to c. 1580, during
which three or more contemporaneous supra-regional states become fairly common and
at least two becomes the prevailing pattern; (4) to consider as "Proto-Modern" the period
from c. 1580 to c. 1800, during which a pan-Indian state, either Mughal or Maratha, is
normally present but not, as a rule, to the exclusion of one or more supra-regional pow-
ers; and (5) to consider the Modern Period as beginning only about 1800, after which
time a single pan-Indian state, either British or independent Indian, is continuously pres-
ent, generally with no contemporaneous supra-regional power (to which rule Bhonsle,
until 1819, and Pakistan, from 1947 to 1971, were the sole exceptions). While these new
time frames would unquestionably yield sharper differences among periods than those
we have presented, the basic arguments and conclusions of our analysis would in no way
be altered by a recasting of the data.
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