Architecture of Sovereignty : Stone Bodies, Colonial Gazes, and Living Gods in South India

Pai, Gita V.

Cambridge University Press（2023/11発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 320 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781009150156
• DDC分類 726.145095482

Full Description

In this innovative study, Gita V. Pai traces the history of the Pudu Mandapam (Tamil, 'new hall') - a Hindu temple structure in Madurai - through the rise and fall of empires in south India from the seventeenth century to the present. This wide-ranging work illustrates how south Indian temples became entangled in broader conflicts over sovereignty, from early modern Nayaka kings, to British colonial rule, to the post-independence government today. Drawing from methodologies in anthropology, religious studies, and art and architectural history, the author argues that the small temple site provides profound insight into the relationship between aesthetics, sovereignty, and religion in modern South Asia.

Contents

List of Figures; Acknowledgments; Notes on Transliteration and Spelling; Introduction: Sovereignty's Trace in Architectural Forms; Part I. Stone Bodies: 1. Constructing Kingship: Nāyaka Rule in Early Modern Madurai; 2. Co-opting a Local Goddess in Madurai: From Warrior Queen to Śiva's Consort to Political Pawn; Part II. Colonial Gazes: 3. Imagining Civilization: Antiquarian Curiosities in Madura; 4. Tracing the Vernacular: Drawing Madura into Debates over Language in British India; 5. Illustrating Madura: Art as 'History' and State-Building; 6. Photographing Madura: The Living Temple as a Site of Ruin; Part III. Living Gods: 7. Producing Heritage: Culture as Commodity in Contemporary Madurai; Epilogue: Rejecting the State—Priestly Devotion and Protest in Modern Madurai; Bibliography; Index.