Abstracts
SESSION 1 | 9:00 -11:45 AM
Pandyas in Cilappatikaram
Charlotte Schmid
We will present the identity-conveying discourse held on the Pāṇdyas through the deities animating the Cilappatikāram (5th-7th c.). Pāṇdyas are placed at the centre of this epic, commonly dated between the 5th and 7th c. AD and divided into three parts, the first dedicated to the Cōḻas, the second to the Pāṇdyas, and the third to the Cēras. If these are the three dynasties whose kings possess Tamiḻ (tamiḻkeḻu mūvar), the emphasis here is on the Pāṇḍyas. The main heroine, Kaṇṇaki, is the wife of Kōvalaṉ who, mistakenly considered a thief, is put to death in the capital of the Pāṇḍyas, Maturai, by an erring Pāṇdya king who dies as a result of the injustice he has committed. In this central Paṇḍyan part, much is made of the goddesses, for the tutelary deity of the Pāṇḍyas is a female deity, and many others gravitate around the dynasty in the whole of a narrative that ends on the transformation of Kaṇṇaki into a goddess. To put into perspective names, formulas and rituals associated with the Pāṇḍya deities and the Pāṇḍya king in the Cilappatikāram, we will correlate this poetic material with other texts (inscriptions, Caṅkam literature...) and the emergence of a specific iconographic tradition. Relations with North India may then appear as a key to the constitution of the goddess praised by the Pāṇdya—this Koṟṟavai whose mount is a “black antelope of twisted horns”.
The other Anklet of Madurai: Nupura Ganga, the Forested Hills, and the Handsome God of Tirumaliruncolai
Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida
This paper will explore the importance of Kallalakar and Alakar Kovil in Tirumaliruncolai (near Madurai) from several perspectives. The first part of the paper will focus on their significance for the Sri Vaishnava community on three registers: the initial grace shown to Malayadhvaja Pandyan (with a little side-bar on him), a hundred and eight verses on this temple by six alvars, as well as the physical and literary works of the acaryas connected with this divya desa. Notable among these is the Sundarabahustava of Kuresa. The second part of the paper builds on these texts but works on the ritual connections of the temple in a pluralistic milieu. These ritual networks probably emerged in the Nayaka period and connect the deity and the temple with Kudal Alakar (from the Vaishnava divya desa in Madurai) as well as with Madurai Minakshi. Kallalakar also has spatial connections with Karupannaswamy, a guardian deity of the temple and the main deity for several local communities, as well as with the popular Tamil god, Murugan, who has one of his six domains (Pazhamudircolai) on the same hill. The crystal clear Nupura Ganga is said to spring from the anklets of Trivikrama, identified as Kallalakar and this stream connects the major temples on the hill. Connecting communities and caste groups, these ritual and spatial networks, I argue, offer a different perspective on regional sectarianism on the ground level.
The Contrasting Imaginaries of Pāṇṭiyanāṭu and Cōḻanāṭu in Tamil Purāṇic and Historical Narratives
Jay Ramesh, Columbia University
From the 13th century onward, Tamil poems celebrating temple legends, particularly those describing Śaiva sites, became a highly popular form of courtly and monastic literature. Despite the overwhelming importance of the Kaveri river and its environs in the Tamil Śaiva imagination – the majority of its most celebrated sites are located in Cōḻanāṭu – undoubtedly the most popular set of temple stories in Tamil Nadu today are those related to Madurai, as these gained popularity far outside the space that could be described as Pāṇṭiyanāṭu. In the Tamil Śaiva imagination, three cities in particular are given special importance: Chidambaram and Thanjavur in Cōḻanāṭu and Madurai in Pāṇṭiyanāṭu. This paper thus examines the long history of these narratives and their reception, beginning with the medieval and early modern Tamil and Sanskrit Śaiva poems written about Madurai, Chidambaram and Thanjavur through representations of the two aforementioned regional formations in contemporary media sources, such as the novels of Kalki Krishnamurthy and Akilan as well as mid-20th century Tamil popular cinema. As I will show, different sources of these narratives reflect contrasting visions of religion, sovereignty, regional identity and the Tamil language itself.
Pandya Nadu: The Heart of Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s Empire (?)
Ilanit Loewy Shacham
In modern historical accounts, as well as in popular imagination, Vijayanagara’s most celebrated monarch, Kṛṣṇadevarāya (r.1509-1529), is identified with the empire’s eponymous capital, located in the Karnata land, in the northwestern part of the empire. From this royal center Kṛṣṇadevarāya ruled the vast space of South India, and from it, he set out to battle his neighbors along the empire’s northern borders, resulting in further territorial gains. However, in the Telugu poem Kṛṣṇadevarāya composed, Āmuktamālyada (Giver of the Worn Garland), the Karnata land and the royal capital are absent. Instead, the Tamil land, specifically Pandya Nadu, take center stage. Previous scholarship has given little attention to the prominence of the deep Tamil south in the Āmuktamālyada and if discussed, it is understood as a simple reflection of Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s personal (Śrīvaiṣṇava) faith. In this paper I discuss Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s odd construction of Pandya Nadu through Srivilliputtur, Tirukkurungudi and Madurai, and the significance of these specific nodes in the Āmuktamālyada. I argue that movement within and from Pandya Nadu helps articulate a political vision in which previous schemes of power are inverted, in which the so-called margins—social, geographic, linguistic, and religious—form the core of a different kind of imperial ideology.
SESSION 2 | 1:20-3:20 PM
Ambasamudram and its 9th and 10th century temples
Valerie Gillet
Ambasamudram, which bears the ancient name of Iḷaṅkoykkuṭi, was a very active nexus in the Pāṇḍyanādu during the 9th and the 10th centuries as the inscriptions found in the two temples of this period, the Ericcavuṭaiyār and the Tirumūlanātha, testify. Based on an analysis of the epigraphs of this period, I will explore the role and functioning of the communities which appear in those two temples, and their eventual link to a higher power embodied by the Pāṇḍya kings.
Phantom Places and Spatial Absence: Specular Images of Cities in Pandyanadu according to the Tenkasi Sanskrit Production and Inscriptions
David Pierdominici Leão, Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland
Madurai and Tenkasi represent the two main political centres of the Pāṇḍya dynasty in its long
history. If the former was the historical capital from the establishment of the kingdom up to the 14th century—the date that marked the ending of the second imperial phase—Tenkasi represents the more recent centre that has risen in the 15th century in the Tirunelveli district after the Muslim invasions of the South. This locality, which became the capital of the new Pāṇḍya dynasty, developed around the Viśvanātha temple, erected by King Arikesari Parākrama (1422-1463) between 1446 and 1462. Therefore, Madurai and Tenkasi constitute the two historical polarities around which the Pāṇḍya past orbited around; somehow, the two toponyms may be considered twins, specular images of each other.
The paper is devoted to the parallel study of the foundation narratives of these two localities, as they appear in a Sanskrit mahākāvya, Maṇḍalakavi’s Pāṇḍyakulodaya (15th -16th century), and the strategies employed in these literary frescos. After an overview on the myth of Madurai (II, 40-60), the presentation will focus on passages concerning the establishment of Tenkasi (IX, 5-10) and the Kāśiviśvanātha temple, with the parallel analysis of inscriptional evidence from the latter.
Gods and Kings in Southernmost Pandya Nadu
Leslie Orr, Concordia University
The erstwhile Tirunelveli district (now divided into Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, and Tenkasi districts) is filled with temples – many with extensive campuses and striking architectural features, including massive gopuras. Leaving aside those in the Tenkasi region, we know almost nothing about who is responsible for the building of these temples. Temple inscriptions do tell us about the sponsorship of temple activities, but royal figures appear quite rarely (again, outside the Tenkasi region). When we do meet with Pandya rulers involved in temple affairs, these tend not to be the kings of the “first empire” of the 7th to 10th centuries, or the “imperial Pandyas” of the 13th century; they are, instead, royal figures of intermediate times – the “medieval Pandyas” of the 11th and 12th centuries or Pandya rulers on the cusp of the 13th to 14th centuries. This paper seeks to use the epigraphical evidence to suggest alternative political histories for the Pandyas –looking away from the Madurai capital and further towards the south – and to explore the relationships that these rulers had with the gods of southernmost Pandya Nadu.
SESSION 3 | 4:05-6:05 PM
Making Space for the Sacred in Tirukkurungudi
Crispin Branfoot, SOAS University of London
Among the wealth of magnificent temples in Tamil south India, Tirukkurungudi is revered as one of the 108 Divya Deshas, the sites that are sacred to the community of Tamil Vaishnavas(Srivaishnavas). Located in southern Tamil Nadu, at the base of the Western Ghats bordering Kerala, the small village of Tirukkurungudi is home to a large and impressive Vishnu temple. As the alvars’ poetry and the inscriptions suggest, this has been a sacred site from the ninth century, but like many temples in southern Tamil Nadu there are few undisturbed traces of the earliest shrines. In this paper, I wish to explore two aspects of this temple’s building history, first in the 12-13th centuries when the main shrines used today were built, and in the 15-17th centuries when the temple expanded to its greatest extent. What makes this temple unusual is that there is not one shrine to Vishnu but three dedicated to standing, sitting and reclining forms of the deity. While at a select few Vaishnava temples in Tamil Nadu these three forms of the deity are arranged vertically, one above the other, at Tirukkurungudi three separate shrines are placed alongside each other and probably built at different periods. Does this sequence relate to a specific religious tradition, or can the temple’s southern location explain such an unusual layout? The later phase is characterised by the construction and ornamentation of ritual space in three key mandapas, each with large-scale figural sculptures of deities and portraits. The very far south of the Tamil country has the widest range of subjects – including both pan-Indian and local deities such as Minakshi and Draupadi, together with folk figures such as the kuravan and his female counterpart (kuratti) – and the finest examples of this distinctive Nayaka-period architectural sculpture. By considering both architectural planning and innovative sculptural designs and subjects, I wish to situate individual temples within larger networks of religious and artistic knowledge in the regions of southern India furthest from better-known centres to the north.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts
Anna Lise Seastrand, University of Minnesota
Gopuras, the tall, gracefully sloping towers that mark the entrances into and through South Indian temples, punctuate the landscape of the Tamil country. They rise to great heights, out of dazzlingly green paddy fields, or soaring above village houses, their profiles silhouetted against the bright sky. The figural sculptures that adorn the tower, and the door guardians that flank its apertures, focus attention on its exteriority, its function as a space through which one moves, crossing from the mundane world and into the sacred space of the temple. While gopuras are most familiar as technicolor multiforms, my research in Pandya Nadu confirms that the interiors of these spaces were also carefully planned as programmatic works of art. This seems to be a phenomenon particular, though not limited, to Pandya Nadu. This paper explores the question of why interior adornments seem to be a feature of gopuras in this region through a survey of their sculptural programs and relationship to regional myth, poetry, and theological expression.
Cosmic Doorway: Time, Space and Transformation in ‘Goodbye, Mokṣa’ at Tirukkurungudi
Archana Venkatesan, University of California, Davis
On the eleventh day of the waxing moon in Mārkaḻi (December-January), the doorway to heaven opens, and Viṣṇu descends to earth. This is Vaikuṇṭha Ekādaśī, the most sacred day for Śrīvaiṣṇavas. Viṣṇu repeats this descent every evening for ten days, transforming himself into an earthly form, and earth into heaven. During these ten days, he listens to the sweet Tamil songs of Nammāḻvār, who petitions him for mokṣa. On the tenth and final day, Viṣṇu grants Nammāḻvār his desire, and god and devotee return to heaven, leaving earth and all her people, bereft. The temple of Tirukkurungudi in Tirunelveli district marks these ten days much like other important Tamil Vaiṣṇava sites—with the recitation of the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham, with spectacular ornamentations of gods and devotees, noisy processions and copious amounts of food. However, there is one significant difference. On the eleventh day, after the festival has purportedly concluded, Viṣṇu descends one last time, because his devotee (Nammāḻvār) has decided that heaven isn’t for him. He wants to return, back to earth, even if that earth is now absent the god. Viṣṇu accedes to this rejection of mokṣa, and goes back to Vaikuṇṭha, leaving his devotee behind. If the pretext for Viṣṇu’s descent following Vaikuṇṭha Ekādaśī is to grant mokṣa, what purpose does this festival, known as Vīṭu Viṭai (Goodbye, Mokṣa), which rejects that very goal, serve? In this paper, I chart the temporal and spatial transformations of the Vaikuṇṭha Ekādaśī Festival at the Tirukkurungudi temple that continually destabilize the boundaries between god and devotee. In doing so, I demonstrate that the Vīṭu Viṭai (Goodbye, Mokṣa) ultimately resolves to vest authority in the stable body of the Maṭha attached to the temple and its titular head.