12 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Sculptural depictions show such heroes wielding a dagger or long bows, wearing a tall hair-knot, and bare bodied except for the loin wrap—a picture of people not different from the present day hunting tribes of the region.9 Tribal chieftains perhaps drawn from the upper lineages with their traditional command over close-knit bands should have naturally gained greater political importance in this situation. A transition from tribe to state was gradually on its way; the rise of local chieftaincies controlling territorial pockets, like the Renandu Colas, the B anas, and the Vaidumbas, is in evidence in the inscriptions of the sixth to ninth centuries. These newly rising powers sought to retain their importance and identity in the then existing situation as this was a strategy necessary both for their survival and for promoting their political ambitions. They changed their affiliation often between the two rival powers—the Calukyas and the Pallavas—and claimed independence from both, when opportunities arose (Nilakantha Sastry and Venkataramayya, El 27:220ff.).^ The new political order created a new dominant class. While mercenary earnings and war booty may have contributed to the economy, the long-range sustenance of any socio-political order would have demanded the mobilization of more dependable and secure internal resources too. As it is, perhaps for the first time in this region, we find evidence in our inscriptions for the construction of irrigation tanks (ceruvulu) and the beginning of wet cultivation. The tanks at Turamella,10 Kondupalli,11 and Budidagaddapalle12 referred to in the early inscriptions may be cited as examples. The fact that some of these projects were promoted by the nobility and that they granted lands (or income from lands) sometimes to brahmans and temples shows that the new dominant classes had begun to acquire landed property or maintained control over it, heralding the emergence of a new political economy.13 An analysis of the contents of a number of inscriptions recording land grants further shows that a well recognizable landed class ha4 emerged. Many of the records mention the members of this class as either owners of land, donors or custodians of granted land, or witnesses to such transactions. While their personal names often reveal that they are from the local stock, the almost invariable suffixes found with them, like Rattodi, Rattallu, Rattagullu, BOya and BOla (plural ofBOya)14 show that a distinctive landed class/caste had begun to form itself. Spurred by the political and economic changes coming up in this period, the local tribal and peasant communities began to transform themselves into a stratified society, with the political nobility and the landed interests occupying the upper rungs of the scale.15 Almost as a sociological law, any new class on the upward move begins to organise itself with a lifestyle and culture pattern that Would not only provide it with an identity to distinguish itself from the commonality around it, but also help furthering its interests by way of opening up scope to operate in a larger social space. The nature of this re-formation is often determined by the choice the new class makes from the various options available to it. As stated in the beginning of this essay, one of the choices for which the various newly emerging classes in India opted was "Sanskritization," wherein ultimately the emerging class merges itself into the network of the pan-Indian "great culture."