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"Architecture of Sovereignty focuses on the Pudu Mandapam (in Tamil, 'new hall'), which is a Hindu structure in Madurai, a major pilgrimage town in Tamil Nadu. From various stages in South Indian history, the site has symbolically encoded the power of several regimes as far back as Nayaka rule in the seventeenth century. The proposed monograph 'reads' these layers of political power as embodied in aesthetic forms in and around the Pudu Mandapam. Relying upon sources including temple manuscripts and legends, physical architecture, sculptures, ritual, letters, travelogues, bronze models, paintings and drawings, photographs, tourism ephemera, and interviews, the narrative employs a multidisciplinary approach to illustrate how religious, economic, domestic, and foreign influences converge in shaping and conceptualizing the Pudu Mandapam as a place, and India as an object and problem of government. In so doing, it shows how the art and architecture of the Pudu Mandapam have been put to different uses towards diverse ends by ruling groups from early modern times to British colonialism to the postcolonial period"--
List of contents
List of Figures; Acknowledgments; Notes on Transliteration and Spelling; Introduction: Sovereignty's Trace in Architectural Forms; Part I. Stone Bodies: 1. Constructing Kingship: Näyaka Rule in Early Modern Madurai; 2. Co-opting a Local Goddess in Madurai: From Warrior Queen to ¿iva'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.
About the author
Gita V. Pai is a cultural historian of South Asia. She is Professor of History and Director of International and Global Studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
Summary
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.
Foreword
Demonstrates how religious spaces are sites of contestation over sovereignty and broader debates about governance as they have been reconceived repeatedly.
