Temple Networks in Early Modern South India: Narratives, Rituals, and Material Culture

• Applicants: Dr. Jonas Buchholz; Professorin Dr. Ute Hüsken
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428328143

The proposed project explores how the sacred space of the ancient South Indian temple town of Kāñcipuram is represented, negotiated and shaped through mythology transmitted in Sanskrit and Tamil sources in interaction with ritual practice and material culture. Kāñcipuram is one of the seven sacred cities for Hindus with innumerable temples and shrines. The major traditions of Hinduism – Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism and Śāktism – have for centuries not only co-existed, but interacted and competed in Kāñcipuram. The project employs the concept of temple networks to describe the fluid relations between the city’s various temples as well as their position vis à vis other temples outside Kāñcipuram. Several intersecting temple networks exist in parallel in Kāñcipuram, and their hierarchies have been constantly renegotiated by the different religious traditions that share the city’s space.Such processes find expression in local mythological texts (Māhātmyas / Sthalapurāṇas) that deal with Kāñcipuram as a sacred place. From the 15th/16th century onwards, several such texts have been composed in both Sanskrit and Tamil. These texts praise specific places, local deities and specific ritual activities, often contrasting them with other places, deities and ritual activities, which are then presented as inferior. The proposed project will investigate how the temple networks of Kāñcipuram are reflected and produced in the mythological texts. Adopting the texts’ own notion of Kāñcipuram as a “field” (kṣetra) of divine and human encounter, it looks at Kāñcipuram as a dynamic nodal point where diverse religious networks interact with each other.Many narratives that are found in the mythological texts are ritually enacted during temple festivals and are materially represented in the temples’ iconography, keeping these episodes alive in collective memory. Similar to the different interpretations of the basic narratives in the diverse texts, the ritual performances and sculptures also tell stories differently, and are moreover often at odds with the textual narratives. The proposed project will pay close attention to the relevant ritual performances and the iconographic program of the temples in order to assess how rituals and material relate to the texts.The team of this project will work on two interconnected case studies. The two subprojects complement each other: Subproject 1 accesses the dynamics of Vaiṣṇava temple networks through local mythological texts in Sanskrit and through the ritual enactments of mythological narratives during temple festivals. Subproject 2 investigates Śaiva temple networks mainly through the comparison of Sanskrit and Tamil mythological texts. In close collaboration the investigators will assess how the texts, the temples and the ritual practices of the diverse religious communities interact, representing, yet continuously re-configuring, networks within an ancient South Indian temple town.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants