... authority, functions and prerogatives of priests, trustees and other personnel; the effort to standardize temple landholdings and landuse; and the effort to establish a central ecclesiastical organizationdirected ... them, temples create economic and political power, and social and ritual status. Trustees in the larger temples are oftenprominent landlords, former rajahs and zamindars and other localnotables. ... basicresponsibility for law and order, for setting public purposes and for attaining them.12 At such times, the state is firmly differentiated fromother organizations: it is autonomous, centralized and formally...