This volume deals with the political culture of the NAyaka period in medieval South India, an era which extends from the early sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century. The book looks at the three major Nayaka states --- ruled from Senji, Tanjavur, and MAadurai/Tiruccirapalli --- aswell as at minor states located at their periphery. While these states had differing life-spans, devlopmental patterns, geo-ecological environments, as well as distinct forms of historical experience, they shared salient structural and cultural features. At their height, in the early seventeenthcentury, they encompassed the greater part of the Tamil country. Supplementing standard sources by an imaginative use of Dutch, Portugese, Tamil, Sanskrit, and Telugu sources, the authors show how the Nayakas witnessed, and partly produced, a profound shift in the conceptual and institutional basesof South Indian civilization.