Forthcoming. Complete manuscript under contract at The University of California Press, to be publ... more Forthcoming. Complete manuscript under contract at The University of California Press, to be published in the series South Asia Across the Disciplines.
This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantri... more This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically approached through a philological analysis of its precursors from earlier Śaiva traditions. With this aim in mind, I begin by documenting for the first time that a thirteenth-century Sanskrit work of what I have called the Vīramāheśvara textual corpus, the Somanāthabhāṣya or Vīramāheśvarācārasāroddhārabhāṣya, was most likely authored by Pālkurikĕ Somanātha, best known for his vernacular Telugu Vīraśaiva literature. Second, I outline the indebtedness of the early Sanskrit and Telugu Vīramāheśvara corpus to a popular work of early lay Śaivism, the Śivadharmaśāstra, with particular attention to the co...
Ś aiva Advaita, or Ś ivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-centu... more Ś aiva Advaita, or Ś ivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century polymath Appayya Dīkṡita, who is said to have singlehandedly revived Ś rīkaṅṫha's commentary on the Brahmasūtras from obscurity. And yet, the theological rapprochement between South Indian Ś aivism and Advaita Vedānta philosophy has a much richer history, and one that left few South Indian Ś aiva communities untouched by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This article is an attempt to trace the outlines of what we can call a "Greater Ś aiva Advaita," defined as the interpenetration of nondualist Vedānta and a number of discrete South Indian Ś aiva lineages, including the Ś aiva Siddhānta in present-day Tamil Nadu (both Sanskritic and Tamil), the Sanskritic Vīraśaivas (writing in both Sanskrit and Kannada) based in heartlands of Vijayanagar, and the Brāhmaṅical Smārta Ś aivas. The article demonstrates, specifically, that Appayya Dīkṡita did not coin the term "Ś ivādvaita," but drew on an entire discursive sphere known variously as Ś ivādvaita or Ś aktiviśiṡṫādvaita, a school of Vīraśaiva theology that provides a crucial missing link in the transmission of Ś rīkaṅṫha's Ś aiva Vedānta across regions and language communities in early modern South India.
access to archival materials at collections includ the University of Mysore; Kāśī Jaṃgamwāḍī M Un... more access to archival materials at collections includ the University of Mysore; Kāśī Jaṃgamwāḍī M University of Dharwad Kannada Department; K tạdārya Matḥa, Gadag; Nāganūr Matḥa, Belgau Rājendra Brḥanmatḥa, Chitradurga; Suttūr Math Chennai; the library at the Institut français de P otherwise specified, all translations in this artic 1 OnMonday, March 19, 2018, the state gove the Lin ̇gāyat community as a distinct religion. S ligion: An Old Demand Powered by New Pol indianexpress.com/article/explained/separate -new-politics-5105058/; Anil Lula, “Karnataka Community; Siddaramaiah Risks Blowback Ah www.firstpost.com/politics/karnataka-govt-g -community-siddaramaiah-risks-blowback-ahe 2 The distinction between the terms Lin ̇gāyat debate, as Lin ̇gāyat reformers view the term
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianizati... more By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianization of its religious landscape. We observe a growing polarization among religious institutions, the social and economic networks they mediated, and religious discourse across genres, whether Sanskrit or vernacular, whether devotional poetry or systematic theology. The present article examines the textual culture that emerged from the intersectarian discourse of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tamil country. In particular, I focus on a definitive but overlooked dimension of this discourse that I refer to as ‘public philology’: text criticism that serves as public theology. During the early modern centuries, sectarian theologians across community boundaries increasingly challenged their rivals specifically on philological grounds, combing the scriptures of their rivals for textual corruptions and unstable recensions. Focusing on one particular case of public philology in practice – the debate concerning the scriptural justification for bearing the sectarian tilaka on the forehead – I argue that the philological ventures of these early modern theologians served simultaneously as public theology. This trans-sectarian public theology, far from being a strictly academic enterprise, served to solidify the boundaries between sectarian communities. By adjudicating public standards for orthodox religious belonging, ‘public philologians’ left a lasting impression on the religious landscape of south India up to the present day.
A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India Elaine Fisher This... more A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India Elaine Fisher This dissertation documents the earliest stages in the emergence of the Śmārta-Śaiva sectarian community of south India as captured by the theological writings of prominent Śaiva theologians. I examine the sectarianization of Hinduism in microcosm by telling the story of a particular Hindu sect in the process of coming into being. The Smārta-Śaiva tradition of south India ranks among a handful of independent Hindu lineages that palpably dominates the public religious life of south India today. As a sectarian religious system, Smārta-Śaivism comprises the institution of the Śaṅkarācārya Jagadgurus and the extensive lay populace that has cultivated a relationship of personal devotion with these iconic figures. Historically speaking, however, the Smārta-Śaiva tradition equally comprises the trailblazing theologians who first articulated the boundaries of the community, demarcating its distinct ...
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India, 2017
Luminos is the open access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framewo... more Luminos is the open access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Philip E. Lilienthal Asian Studies Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation, which was established by a major gift from Sally Lilienthal.
This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantri... more This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically ap-proached through a philological analysis of its precursors from earlier Śaiva traditions. With this aim in mind, I begin by documenting for the first time that a thirteenth-century Sanskrit work of what I have called the Vīramāheśvara textual corpus, the Somanāthabhāṣya or Vīramāheśvarācārasāroddhārabhāṣya, was most likely authored by Pālkurikĕ Somanātha, best known for his vernacular Telugu Vīraśaiva literature. Second, I outline the indebtedness of the early Sanskrit and Telugu Vīramāheśvara corpus to a popular work of early lay Śaivism, the Śivadharmaśāstra, with particular attention to the concepts of the jaṅgama and the iṣṭaliṅga. That the Vīramāheśvaras borrowed many of their formative concepts and practices directly from the Śivadharmaśāstra and other works of the Śaiva Age, I argue, belies the common assumption that Vīraśaivism originated as a social and religious revolution.
This article explores neglected currents in Vīraśaiva intellectual history by way of narrating an... more This article explores neglected currents in Vīraśaiva intellectual history by way of narrating an institutional microhistory of a single monastic lineage, situated in the village of Hooli in northern Karnataka. The lineage of what is today known as the Hooli Bṛhanmaṭha exemplifies Vīraśaivism's contribution to Sanskritic thought particularly through its close connection with the emergence of Śivādvaita as a philosophical school, best known for its expression in the writings of the sixteenth-century poly-math Appayya Dīkṣita. As attested in understudied works of Sanskrit and Kannada, moreover, pontiffs of the Hooli lineage from the sixteenth century onward were actively involved in the early systematization of what is now the Pañcācārya Vīraśaiva community, a project that drew no hard and fast boundaries between Sanskrit and the vernacular, or śāstric philosophy and devotion.
What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia... more What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia, the category of religion has been viewed with scepticism, perhaps to avoid painting India as the exotic 'Other' that failed to modernize in the eyes of Western social theory. And yet, Western narratives, drawn from secularization theory, fail to do justice to our historical archive. As a vehicle for approaching the experience of religion in early modern South India, this article invokes the category of space as a medium for the publicization and contestation of meaning across diverse language, caste, and religious publics. In the process, it excavates the codification of the 'Sacred Games of´Siva' as public religious canon of the city of Madurai, exemplifying the distinctive role played by religion in public space in early modern South India.
Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hindui... more Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hinduism for more than a century—and with a definition that, at best, may seem peculiarly idiosyncratic, and at worst dangerously misleading. In emplotting theistic difference as deviance, previous scholarship has gone too far in erasing the varie-gated textures of the Indic religious landscape, layers of difference that persist unabated to this day beneath the guise of Hindu unity. By reframing the diversity of Hinduism in light of its early modern precursors, this article aims to re‐situate Hindu sectarianism as a precolonial, and distinctively non‐Western form of religious pluralism. The sectarian religious publics of early modern South India provide us with an opportunity to rethink the very criteria for a non‐Western pluralism, founded not on the prescriptive model of a Western civil society but on a historically descriptive account of the role of religion in public space.
Śaiva Advaita, or Śivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century... more Śaiva Advaita, or Śivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, who is said to have single-handedly revived Śrīkaṇṭha's commentary on the Brahmasūtra's from obscurity. And yet, the theological rapprochement between south Indian Śaivism and Advaita Vedānta philosophy has a much richer history, and one that left few south Indian Śaiva communities untouched by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The present essay is an attempt to trace the outlines of what we can call a " Greater Śaiva Advaita, " defined as the interpenetration of non-dualist Vedānta and a number of discrete south Indian Śaiva lineages, including the Śaiva Siddhānta in present-day Tamil Nadu (both Sanskritic and Tamil), the Sanskritic Vīraśaivas (writing in both Sanskrit and Kannada) based in heartlands of Vijayanagar, and the Brahminical Smārta Śaivas. I argue, specifically, that Appayya Dīkṣita did not coin the term " Śivādvaita " but drew on an entire discursive sphere known variously as Śivādvaita or Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita, a school of Vīraśaiva theology that provides a crucial missing link in the transmission of Śrīkaṇṭha's Śaiva Vedānta across regions and language communities in early modern south India.
This dissertation, entitled A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century So... more This dissertation, entitled A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India, examines the rise of Hindu sectarianism as the defining feature of public religious culture in south India. I document for the first time the origins of the Smārta-Śaiva community of the Tamil region, which first emerged as a distinct religious tradition during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Beginning in this period, Sanskrit public intellectuals forged an unprecedented alliance with new religious institutions, including monasteries and temple complexes, fundamentally transforming the shape of public religious culture in south India. In particular, I demonstrate that the public Śaiva religiosity of contemporary Tamil Nadu owes its shape to the theological enterprises of seventeenth century intellectuals, whose polemical encounters defined the boundaries, both conceptual and institutional, between competing sectarian traditions.
Forthcoming. Complete manuscript under contract at The University of California Press, to be publ... more Forthcoming. Complete manuscript under contract at The University of California Press, to be published in the series South Asia Across the Disciplines.
This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantri... more This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically approached through a philological analysis of its precursors from earlier Śaiva traditions. With this aim in mind, I begin by documenting for the first time that a thirteenth-century Sanskrit work of what I have called the Vīramāheśvara textual corpus, the Somanāthabhāṣya or Vīramāheśvarācārasāroddhārabhāṣya, was most likely authored by Pālkurikĕ Somanātha, best known for his vernacular Telugu Vīraśaiva literature. Second, I outline the indebtedness of the early Sanskrit and Telugu Vīramāheśvara corpus to a popular work of early lay Śaivism, the Śivadharmaśāstra, with particular attention to the co...
Ś aiva Advaita, or Ś ivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-centu... more Ś aiva Advaita, or Ś ivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century polymath Appayya Dīkṡita, who is said to have singlehandedly revived Ś rīkaṅṫha's commentary on the Brahmasūtras from obscurity. And yet, the theological rapprochement between South Indian Ś aivism and Advaita Vedānta philosophy has a much richer history, and one that left few South Indian Ś aiva communities untouched by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This article is an attempt to trace the outlines of what we can call a "Greater Ś aiva Advaita," defined as the interpenetration of nondualist Vedānta and a number of discrete South Indian Ś aiva lineages, including the Ś aiva Siddhānta in present-day Tamil Nadu (both Sanskritic and Tamil), the Sanskritic Vīraśaivas (writing in both Sanskrit and Kannada) based in heartlands of Vijayanagar, and the Brāhmaṅical Smārta Ś aivas. The article demonstrates, specifically, that Appayya Dīkṡita did not coin the term "Ś ivādvaita," but drew on an entire discursive sphere known variously as Ś ivādvaita or Ś aktiviśiṡṫādvaita, a school of Vīraśaiva theology that provides a crucial missing link in the transmission of Ś rīkaṅṫha's Ś aiva Vedānta across regions and language communities in early modern South India.
access to archival materials at collections includ the University of Mysore; Kāśī Jaṃgamwāḍī M Un... more access to archival materials at collections includ the University of Mysore; Kāśī Jaṃgamwāḍī M University of Dharwad Kannada Department; K tạdārya Matḥa, Gadag; Nāganūr Matḥa, Belgau Rājendra Brḥanmatḥa, Chitradurga; Suttūr Math Chennai; the library at the Institut français de P otherwise specified, all translations in this artic 1 OnMonday, March 19, 2018, the state gove the Lin ̇gāyat community as a distinct religion. S ligion: An Old Demand Powered by New Pol indianexpress.com/article/explained/separate -new-politics-5105058/; Anil Lula, “Karnataka Community; Siddaramaiah Risks Blowback Ah www.firstpost.com/politics/karnataka-govt-g -community-siddaramaiah-risks-blowback-ahe 2 The distinction between the terms Lin ̇gāyat debate, as Lin ̇gāyat reformers view the term
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianizati... more By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianization of its religious landscape. We observe a growing polarization among religious institutions, the social and economic networks they mediated, and religious discourse across genres, whether Sanskrit or vernacular, whether devotional poetry or systematic theology. The present article examines the textual culture that emerged from the intersectarian discourse of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tamil country. In particular, I focus on a definitive but overlooked dimension of this discourse that I refer to as ‘public philology’: text criticism that serves as public theology. During the early modern centuries, sectarian theologians across community boundaries increasingly challenged their rivals specifically on philological grounds, combing the scriptures of their rivals for textual corruptions and unstable recensions. Focusing on one particular case of public philology in practice – the debate concerning the scriptural justification for bearing the sectarian tilaka on the forehead – I argue that the philological ventures of these early modern theologians served simultaneously as public theology. This trans-sectarian public theology, far from being a strictly academic enterprise, served to solidify the boundaries between sectarian communities. By adjudicating public standards for orthodox religious belonging, ‘public philologians’ left a lasting impression on the religious landscape of south India up to the present day.
A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India Elaine Fisher This... more A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India Elaine Fisher This dissertation documents the earliest stages in the emergence of the Śmārta-Śaiva sectarian community of south India as captured by the theological writings of prominent Śaiva theologians. I examine the sectarianization of Hinduism in microcosm by telling the story of a particular Hindu sect in the process of coming into being. The Smārta-Śaiva tradition of south India ranks among a handful of independent Hindu lineages that palpably dominates the public religious life of south India today. As a sectarian religious system, Smārta-Śaivism comprises the institution of the Śaṅkarācārya Jagadgurus and the extensive lay populace that has cultivated a relationship of personal devotion with these iconic figures. Historically speaking, however, the Smārta-Śaiva tradition equally comprises the trailblazing theologians who first articulated the boundaries of the community, demarcating its distinct ...
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India, 2017
Luminos is the open access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framewo... more Luminos is the open access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Philip E. Lilienthal Asian Studies Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation, which was established by a major gift from Sally Lilienthal.
This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantri... more This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically ap-proached through a philological analysis of its precursors from earlier Śaiva traditions. With this aim in mind, I begin by documenting for the first time that a thirteenth-century Sanskrit work of what I have called the Vīramāheśvara textual corpus, the Somanāthabhāṣya or Vīramāheśvarācārasāroddhārabhāṣya, was most likely authored by Pālkurikĕ Somanātha, best known for his vernacular Telugu Vīraśaiva literature. Second, I outline the indebtedness of the early Sanskrit and Telugu Vīramāheśvara corpus to a popular work of early lay Śaivism, the Śivadharmaśāstra, with particular attention to the concepts of the jaṅgama and the iṣṭaliṅga. That the Vīramāheśvaras borrowed many of their formative concepts and practices directly from the Śivadharmaśāstra and other works of the Śaiva Age, I argue, belies the common assumption that Vīraśaivism originated as a social and religious revolution.
This article explores neglected currents in Vīraśaiva intellectual history by way of narrating an... more This article explores neglected currents in Vīraśaiva intellectual history by way of narrating an institutional microhistory of a single monastic lineage, situated in the village of Hooli in northern Karnataka. The lineage of what is today known as the Hooli Bṛhanmaṭha exemplifies Vīraśaivism's contribution to Sanskritic thought particularly through its close connection with the emergence of Śivādvaita as a philosophical school, best known for its expression in the writings of the sixteenth-century poly-math Appayya Dīkṣita. As attested in understudied works of Sanskrit and Kannada, moreover, pontiffs of the Hooli lineage from the sixteenth century onward were actively involved in the early systematization of what is now the Pañcācārya Vīraśaiva community, a project that drew no hard and fast boundaries between Sanskrit and the vernacular, or śāstric philosophy and devotion.
What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia... more What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia, the category of religion has been viewed with scepticism, perhaps to avoid painting India as the exotic 'Other' that failed to modernize in the eyes of Western social theory. And yet, Western narratives, drawn from secularization theory, fail to do justice to our historical archive. As a vehicle for approaching the experience of religion in early modern South India, this article invokes the category of space as a medium for the publicization and contestation of meaning across diverse language, caste, and religious publics. In the process, it excavates the codification of the 'Sacred Games of´Siva' as public religious canon of the city of Madurai, exemplifying the distinctive role played by religion in public space in early modern South India.
Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hindui... more Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hinduism for more than a century—and with a definition that, at best, may seem peculiarly idiosyncratic, and at worst dangerously misleading. In emplotting theistic difference as deviance, previous scholarship has gone too far in erasing the varie-gated textures of the Indic religious landscape, layers of difference that persist unabated to this day beneath the guise of Hindu unity. By reframing the diversity of Hinduism in light of its early modern precursors, this article aims to re‐situate Hindu sectarianism as a precolonial, and distinctively non‐Western form of religious pluralism. The sectarian religious publics of early modern South India provide us with an opportunity to rethink the very criteria for a non‐Western pluralism, founded not on the prescriptive model of a Western civil society but on a historically descriptive account of the role of religion in public space.
Śaiva Advaita, or Śivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century... more Śaiva Advaita, or Śivādvaita, is typically regarded as an invention of the late sixteenth-century polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, who is said to have single-handedly revived Śrīkaṇṭha's commentary on the Brahmasūtra's from obscurity. And yet, the theological rapprochement between south Indian Śaivism and Advaita Vedānta philosophy has a much richer history, and one that left few south Indian Śaiva communities untouched by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The present essay is an attempt to trace the outlines of what we can call a " Greater Śaiva Advaita, " defined as the interpenetration of non-dualist Vedānta and a number of discrete south Indian Śaiva lineages, including the Śaiva Siddhānta in present-day Tamil Nadu (both Sanskritic and Tamil), the Sanskritic Vīraśaivas (writing in both Sanskrit and Kannada) based in heartlands of Vijayanagar, and the Brahminical Smārta Śaivas. I argue, specifically, that Appayya Dīkṣita did not coin the term " Śivādvaita " but drew on an entire discursive sphere known variously as Śivādvaita or Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita, a school of Vīraśaiva theology that provides a crucial missing link in the transmission of Śrīkaṇṭha's Śaiva Vedānta across regions and language communities in early modern south India.
This dissertation, entitled A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century So... more This dissertation, entitled A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India, examines the rise of Hindu sectarianism as the defining feature of public religious culture in south India. I document for the first time the origins of the Smārta-Śaiva community of the Tamil region, which first emerged as a distinct religious tradition during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Beginning in this period, Sanskrit public intellectuals forged an unprecedented alliance with new religious institutions, including monasteries and temple complexes, fundamentally transforming the shape of public religious culture in south India. In particular, I demonstrate that the public Śaiva religiosity of contemporary Tamil Nadu owes its shape to the theological enterprises of seventeenth century intellectuals, whose polemical encounters defined the boundaries, both conceptual and institutional, between competing sectarian traditions.
In both his literary endeavours and his theological oeuvre, Nalaka>bha DakXita, much like his gra... more In both his literary endeavours and his theological oeuvre, Nalaka>bha DakXita, much like his grand-uncle, the famed polymath Appayya DakXita, was an avowed Śaiva. Devoting his intellectual energies above all to the propagation and defense of Śaivism, Nalaka>bha inherited his grand-10 30
By the fifteenth century, the Śaiva Age, as Alexis Sanderson has represented the medieval period,... more By the fifteenth century, the Śaiva Age, as Alexis Sanderson has represented the medieval period, had come and gone in South India. While in previous centuries Śaiva exegetes had found themselves in a position of cultural dominance, their successors were forced to adopt a more accommodationist strategy, reaching out to currents of Brahminical theology that were soaring in popularity in the early centuries of the second millennium. Most notably among these was Advaita Vedānta. Whereas previously Śaiva theologians had defined themselves by their acceptance of the Śaiva Āgamas as the highest scriptural authority, on the cusp of early modernity sectarian communities in south India—both Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava—had come to structure their theology as a matter of course around competing interpretations of the Brahmasūtras. The result, succinctly, was an emerging hybrid current of sectarian Vedānta broadly classified as " Śaiva Advaita. " As I have discussed elsewhere, non dual Vedānta came to colonize Śaiva traditions across the Tamil country by means of the wholesale appropriation of a theological agenda based outside the Tamil region, primarily in Karnataka—the Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita school of the Sanskritic Vīraśaivas. Thus, while originally a product of the Vīraśaiva tradition, Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita, often otherwise known as Śivādvaita, left a lasting impact on south Indian Śaivism across regions by providing a central vehicle for the widespread synthesis of Śaivism with non-dualist Vedānta. I begin this presentation by outlining the evidence for this case, and move on to discuss my work in progress in modeling the institutional dynamics underpinning the transmission of Vīraśaiva theology to Tamil Nadu—namely, the spread of Vīraśaiva monastic lineages in the Tamil country. I discuss the interpenetration of Vīraśaiva and Tamil Śaiva monastic communities, focusing on the case of the Tiṟṟaiyūr Vīraśaiva Matha in Tiruvannamalai and the Pērīr Vīraśaiva Ādhīnam in Coimbatore.
Handout distributed at the American Oriental Society Annual Meeting in March 2015.
Schedule: htt... more Handout distributed at the American Oriental Society Annual Meeting in March 2015.
This paper, presented at the Madison South Asia Conference in 2013, discussed the concept of a Gr... more This paper, presented at the Madison South Asia Conference in 2013, discussed the concept of a Greater Śaiva Advaita, or a proclivity towards non-dual Vedānta, across Śaiva lineages in early modern Tamil Nadu. I argued specifically that this trend can be traced to the importation of Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita Vīraśaivism into the Tamil country, an important influence on the work of Appayya Dīkṣita, Śivāgrayogin, and other thinkers.
As Alexis Sanderson has argued in his magnum opus, " The Śaiva Age, " between the sixth and thirt... more As Alexis Sanderson has argued in his magnum opus, " The Śaiva Age, " between the sixth and thirteenth centuries, Śaivism became the site for a host of developments that fundamentally transformed the religious landscape of the Indian subcontinent. Over the past two decades, Sanderson and his students have demonstrated on philological grounds that the vocabulary of the Śaiva Mantramārga, or Śaiva Tantrism, provided a model through which doctrinal and ritual innovation crossed religious boundaries. Kindred currents of Buddhism, Jainism, and Vaiṣṇavism came to share a common ritual syntax, and strategic modes of engaging with royal polities. Where this narrative leaves off, however—and what follows in its wake—inspires as many questions as answers. By reframing both the ruptures and continuities heralded by the demise of the Śaiva Age, this symposium draws together the latest currents of research in south Indian Śaivism. In our classical narrative of Indian religions, for instance, the thirteenth century—the end of the Śaiva age—dovetails neatly with the transregional expansion of the bhakti movement, a form of religiosity often framed in opposition to the traditional values of Sanskrit textuality. As genre boundaries are rendered increasingly permeable with the spread of vernacularization, the many Śaivisms of south India, as entextualized in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam, inherit formative features of the earlier canon while speaking in a new idiom to local audiences. Śaiva institutions, such as the temple complex and monastery, established a framework for the efflorescence of new communities and publics, which engaged strategically with shifting social fabric of south India across regions. In drawing attention to key examples of rupture and continuity in the post-Śaiva age, each of the papers in this Symposium works in concert to rethink our inherited narratives about the history of religions in south India.
Announcing an international conference to be held May 6-7, 2015, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All talks are free and open to the public. Please see the conference website for participant bios.
Religion is omnipresent in modernity, and in spite of twentieth-century theorists who saw secularization as intrinsic to the process of modernization, shows no signs of disappearing. After discarding secularization as a plausible historical model, how do we understand the changes in religion that made way for the experience of modernity around the globe? From India to Ethiopia to Latin America to Safavid Iran, religion has remained a vital force in shaping the trajectories of non-Western modernities. And yet, no scholarship to date has provided an adequate model to account for changes that take place in religion around the world starting in the early modern period (ca. 1500-1800), which played a crucial role in shaping the varied experience of modernities that arose independently outside of the European Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment. In this conference, we aim to rethink global transformations in religion during the early modern centuries by raising the following questions in global perspective: Did religions across regions of the globe experience a synchronic series of reformations integral to their entry into the modern age? Do we witness any changes in the concept of religion or its place in society across continents as a result of these reformations?
Over the past few decades, scholars across disciplines have raised scrutiny to the singularity of the concept of modernity, such that the concept of multiple modernities has gained widespread currency across the humanities at large. As a result, recent scholarship has begun to lift the veneer of universalism once associated with the concept of a singular modernity: namely, the historical transformations experienced in Western Europe. And yet, the decline of religion—and the secularization of public space and discourse—stands out among metanarratives of European modernity that has left the study of religion today with a rather ambiguous legacy. In the contemporary Western world, observers have expressed considerable dismay at the apparent reversal of secularization, previously understood as an intrinsic aim of modernity itself. Many seeming anomalies of religion in the contemporary world—pluralism, communalist conflict, sectarian rivalry, the resurgence of religion in the public sphere—demand a more nuanced contextualization in both historical and global perspective.
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Schedule: https://www.americanorientalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AOSProgram2015.pdf
Announcing an international conference to be held May 6-7, 2015, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All talks are free and open to the public. Please see the conference website for participant bios.
Religion is omnipresent in modernity, and in spite of twentieth-century theorists who saw secularization as intrinsic to the process of modernization, shows no signs of disappearing. After discarding secularization as a plausible historical model, how do we understand the changes in religion that made way for the experience of modernity around the globe? From India to Ethiopia to Latin America to Safavid Iran, religion has remained a vital force in shaping the trajectories of non-Western modernities. And yet, no scholarship to date has provided an adequate model to account for changes that take place in religion around the world starting in the early modern period (ca. 1500-1800), which played a crucial role in shaping the varied experience of modernities that arose independently outside of the European Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment. In this conference, we aim to rethink global transformations in religion during the early modern centuries by raising the following questions in global perspective: Did religions across regions of the globe experience a synchronic series of reformations integral to their entry into the modern age? Do we witness any changes in the concept of religion or its place in society across continents as a result of these reformations?
Over the past few decades, scholars across disciplines have raised scrutiny to the singularity of the concept of modernity, such that the concept of multiple modernities has gained widespread currency across the humanities at large. As a result, recent scholarship has begun to lift the veneer of universalism once associated with the concept of a singular modernity: namely, the historical transformations experienced in Western Europe. And yet, the decline of religion—and the secularization of public space and discourse—stands out among metanarratives of European modernity that has left the study of religion today with a rather ambiguous legacy. In the contemporary Western world, observers have expressed considerable dismay at the apparent reversal of secularization, previously understood as an intrinsic aim of modernity itself. Many seeming anomalies of religion in the contemporary world—pluralism, communalist conflict, sectarian rivalry, the resurgence of religion in the public sphere—demand a more nuanced contextualization in both historical and global perspective.