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The Mundwara alkaline plutonic complex (Rajasthan, north-western India) is considered a part of the Late Cretaceous–Palaeogene Deccan Traps flood basalt province, based on geochronological data (mainly 40Ar/39Ar, on whole rocks, biotite and hornblende). We have studied the petrology and mineral chemistry of some Mundwara mafic rocks containing mica and amphibole. Geothermobarometry indicates emplacement of the complex at middle to upper crustal levels. We have obtained new 40Ar/39Ar ages of 80–84 Ma on biotite separates from mafic rocks and 102–110 Ma on whole-rock nepheline syenites. There is no evidence for excess 40Ar. The combined results show that some of the constituent intrusions of the Mundwara complex are of Deccan age, but others are older and unrelated to the Deccan Traps. The Mundwara alkaline complex is thus polychronous and similar to many alkaline complexes around the world that show recurrent magmatism, sometimes over hundreds of millions of years. The primary biotite and amphibole in Mundwara mafic rocks indicate hydrous parental magmas, derived from hydrated mantle peridotite at relatively low temperatures, thus ruling out a mantle plume. This hydration and metasomatism of the Rajasthan lithospheric mantle may have occurred during Jurassic subduction under Gondwanaland, or Precambrian subduction events. Low-degree decompression melting of this old, enriched lithospheric mantle, due to periodic diffuse lithospheric extension, gradually built the Mundwara complex from the Early Cretaceous to Palaeogene time. © 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.