Negotiating Cultural Identity: Landscapes in Early Medieval South Asian History, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any ele... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.
Power, Presence, and Space: South Asian Rituals in Archaeological Context, 2021
Patterns of ritual power, presence and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the soci... more Patterns of ritual power, presence and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the societal and political power structures in which they are enacted. This book explores these connections in South Asia from the early Common Era until the present day. The chapters in the volume examine a wide range of themes, including a genealogy of ideas concerning Vedic rituals in European thought; Buddhist donative rituals of Gandhara and Andhra Pradesh in the early Common Era; land endowments, festivals and temple establishments in medieval Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; Mughal court rituals of the Mughal Empire and contemporary ritual complexes on the Nilgiri Plateau. This volume argues for the need to redress a historical neglect in identifying and theorising ritual and religion in material contexts within archaeology. Further, it challenges existing theoretical and methodological forms of documentation to propose new ways of understanding rituals in history. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, religion, archaeology and historical geography.
This book is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the renowned art historian, Vidya Deh... more This book is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the renowned art historian, Vidya Dehejia, and a specialist on stone carving, Peter Rockwell. It examines many of India's most famous rock-cut and structural temples at the sites of Ajanta, Ellora, Mamallapuram, Khajuraho, Bhubaneshvar, Halebidu, and Thanjavur. However, unlike most scholars who have examined the iconographical programs and architectural design of temples at these sites, the authors of this book focus on unfinished stonework. It is surprising-even to those of us who feel that we know these monuments intimately-that a significant percentage of their architectural and sculptural elements remain today in an incomplete state. In many cases, these elements appear to have been abandoned in mid-creation. Why is this the case and what can we learn from studying these unfinished expressions? Throughout the book, the authors chisel away at these questions and provide new and valuable information regarding the processes and techniques of stone carving employed at these sites. At the same time, they challenge our understanding of what it means to identify monuments as either "complete" or "unfinished," especially when we consider their ritual usability. The book is organized in two parts. Part one contains five chapters that provide the interpretative lens for examining the "why" of unfinished monuments. Important contributions include an innovative classification system for identifying India's unfinished stonework (chap. 2) and its application to monuments at Mamallapuram and the western caves (chapters 2 and 3). In chapter 4 the authors examine dedicatory inscriptions associated with these sites in order to develop more nuanced perspectives regarding the impact of donative activity in the excavation process. Chapter 5 continues with an analysis of epigraphical material, though here it shifts to the many sculptors' names found on the structural temples at Khajuraho. Rather than serving as a visual statement of pride for the artists, the authors surmise that the inclusion of names may have functioned as a way to keep track of work performed and payments due. Although chapter 5 concludes part one of the book, its emphasis on the agency of artists serves as a nice transition to part two, which highlights the tools, teams, and processes of stone carving. Three chapters (7, 8, and 9) address carving in the rock-cut tradition while the remaining chapters (10, 11, 12, and 13) examine built temples and their imagery. In their discussions of structural temples, the authors carefully reconstruct what they call the "rhythm of construction" in order to understand the many strategies at play in simultaneously building and sculpting elements. The book concludes with an epilogue that identifies the hands of artists working at Mamallapuram and an appendix by Randall Law, an archaeogeologist, who analyzes the geological characteristics of stone found across the subcontinent. Overall, the book is exceptional in scope and fills a significant void in the scholarship on Indian stone temple architecture. The close observations made by the authors, their collection of art historical and epigraphical data, and the beautiful photographs that accompany the descriptive text, all contribute to the importance of this book in advancing our knowledge of temples and their construction. Of primary importance are the authors' analyses of the types of stone found in India, a stone's workability, the tools used for stone carving, the methods of quarrying or extracting stone, and the labor force required for building and carving stone temples. This last point of discussion is fascinating, as the authors remind us that in addition to the stone carvers themselves, teams of workers who could build scaffolding and blacksmiths who could sharpen iron chisels were an equally important presence at the construction site. While the authors briefly look at the specializations of craftsmen also recorded in premodern textual material, it is their examinations of the monuments themselves that make this book a compelling read and one that every art historian of South Asian art should engage with. Another novel contribution of the book is the authors' classification system for identifying and understanding unfinished stonework. Though introduced in chapter 2, this system serves as a framework for viewing the monuments throughout the book. The authors subdivide the category of the "unfinished" into four groups: barely begun, unusable unfinished, usable unfinished, and almost finished. These distinctions are not only important for understanding the variant forms of unfinished work, but for identifying monuments that can be considered "complete" in terms of their consecration and
The Archaeology of Bhakti II: Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti, 2016
Among the earliest examples of Jain art and practice in Tamil Nadu are the rock-cut beds carved i... more Among the earliest examples of Jain art and practice in Tamil Nadu are the rock-cut beds carved into the floors of natural caverns found across the state. Dating as early as the third and second centuries bce, these sites seem to emphasize the rigorous practices of Jain ascetics who occupied these relatively small, bare spaces. Unlike contemporary Buddhist monasteries (particularly in western India) that exhibit rock-cut beds carved within individual rooms and elevated from cave floors, the accommodations of Jain sites offer only a modicum of comfort for their residents. Indeed, at most Jain sites, the only modifications made to the rocky landscape include separation ridges between shallowly cut beds, drip ledges to divert rainwater away from the residence, and an occasional rock-cut pillow. 1 The Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions that are found at most of these early sites provide further evidence of activities associated with these spaces. Specifically, these records document the type of object given (an incised stone bed, a canopy woven from palm fronds, the cutting of a drip ledge) and the name and place of residence of the lay donor (Mahadevan 2003: 128-139). The occupation of the lay donor is also sometimes included and 1
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 2001
Constructing Another Perspective for Ajantd's Fifth-Century Excavations* Since its British "disco... more Constructing Another Perspective for Ajantd's Fifth-Century Excavations* Since its British "discovery" in l8l9,r Ajantl has been accorded a privi, leged place in many sludies of Indian art. Not only are its spectacular pictorial programs the earliest surviving examples of Indian Buddhist painting, but Ajanla also lays claim to being the fi$t monastic complex to enshrine large anthropomorphic Buddha images inside its vihtrds.r Although the inclusion of Buddha images is ofien acknowledged as an innovative feature at the site, the significance of excavating a shrine within the monastic residence to house such images has not been fully investigated. Instead, most scholarly attention focuses on how Ajapla's shrine imagery demonstmtes that the site's fifth-century lihdras ate mature "Mahayana" excavations. The designation of Ajanta as a fully developed "Mahayana" site has also resulted in its positioning as the "original source" from which later sites such as Auraigabed and Ellora ultimately derive. This in tum has fostered the impression that these later excavations arc necessarily Tantric or esoledc. Furthemote, com, parisons between Ajania and only later sites thal have similar features, specifically Buddha images, have perpetuated (he strict categorization of the caves by both date and proposed sectarian afliliation-Due to these "restriclions," many scholars have not viewed AjalF's rock-cut architec, ture in light ofearlier excavations. In this essay, I will look at the fifth-century vilaras at Ajana from a perspective which incorporates a consideration of how lhey continue and * This essay is eirracted fmm my Mascr's thesis, 'lncating the Buddha: Ajanla's Ptae in Wesrem India's R@k-Cur Excavations," (Univcrsiry of Texas at Ausrin 1997) wnnen under fie suFnision of Jdi.e Leoshko and cresory Schopen. l. The caves were "discovered" in l8l9 by a company olofiic€rs in rhe Madras army who werc in he area hunring dgen. Ahhough the officers involved did nor publish an account of rheir firdings, one of rhem, John Srnith of rhe 28th Cavalry, scratched his name above a Buddhr painted on one oirhe inreriorpillffs of Crve 10. 2. Allhough the lerm vilrdrd is oflen translated as "monaslery," I am using ir as a conveni€nr gloss for the monasric rcsidence hall. ldual ol the Inenxnnt nl A*o(i'tioi d Brddrist Srnli.\ V.ltn.24. Numb.r l.2ml 'fhe Journal of the Inte mat iona I A ssociat ion of Buddhis t S t udies (ISSN 0193-600XX) is lhe organ ofrhe Intemational Association of Buddhist Studies. Inc. k welcom€s scholarly contributions pefiaining to all facels ofBuddhist Studics. JIABS is published twicc ycarly. in the summer and winter. Address manuscripls (two copies) and books for review to: The Edilors, JIABS, Section dc langues et civilisations orientales, Universit6 de Lausanne, BFSII 2, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzcrland. Address subscriplion orders and ducs, changes ofaddress, nnd business conespondenc€
The important practice and of carving long-enduring interior spaces art tradition into a in mount... more The important practice and of carving long-enduring interior spaces art tradition into a in mountainside India. This is to particularly be used for true devotional for the activities state of Maha-is an important and long-enduring art tradition in India. This is particularly true for the state of Maharashtra, which is home to a number of well-known rock-cut sites, including Ajanta, Elephanta, and Ellora. Of these sites, Ellora is perhaps the most noteworthy for its large number of caves and the fact that it is a multi-religious site, exhibiting ritual spaces for three of India's indigenous religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. As the site spans in date from the late sixth to the tenth century CE-with renewed activity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries-many dynasties are often associated with Ellora's excavations.1 Although Ellora's monuments are often considered to be the product of royal patronage, this attribution is based on limited inscriptional evidence and the assumption that royal funding was necessary to sustain such extensive excavation activities. In this article, I would like to reconsider the source of patronage at the site from the mid-eighth through the ninth century-a time when a dynasty of kings known as the Rästrakütas attained paramount sovereignty over the region. While I will briefly note the problematic epigraphical material associated with Ellora and the Rästraküta kings Dantidurga and Krsnarãja I, my examinations will focus on the art historical evidence at the site, for it is Ellora's monuments themselves that are the most reliable sources of information regarding issues of patronage. Donative images depicting acts of devotion are, for example, especially evident in Ellora's Jain caves. While most scholarship focuses on the site's Hindu and Buddhist monuments, very little attention has been paid to Ellora's Jain caves. The Jain caves are located at the northern end of the site and they date primarily to the ninth and tenth centuries.2 Though they are an important visual record of Jain artistic and devotional activities in early medieval India, they are generally treated in the scholarship as extraneous additions to a previously established sacred site.3 While the Archaeological Sur-I These include the Kalacuris, the Calukyas, the Rastrakutas, and the Yadavas. 2 Though the vast majority of excavation work appears to have been conducted during the ninth and tenth centuries, three Jina reliefs at the site appear to date much earlier. These reliefs were created when the artists first cut into the rock to form the large complex of caves commonly known as the Jagannãtha Sabhã. I am currently working on a detailed study of these Jina sculptures and their importance for dating initial Jain activity at the site. 3 Excavation activity at Ellora began in the late sixth century with a few Šaiva monuments. Approximately nine excavations date from this period, and in terms of their architectural plans and imagery they have some similarities with Cave i at Elephanta. A single cave (Cave 14) was most likely dedicated to the goddess Durgã and was carved in the early seventh century. For a relative chronology of Ellora's earliest caves, see Walter Spink, "Ellora's Earliest Phase," Bulletin of the American Academy ofBenaras 1 (1967): 11-22. While Cave 14 was under way, work began on the Buddhist monuments. There are twelve Buddhist caves at Ellora, located at the southern end of the site and traditionally dated from 600 to 730 CE. For an iconographical study of the caves and their imagery, see Geri H. Malandra, Unfolding a Mandala: The Buddhist Cave Temples at Ellora (Albany, N. Y. : State University of New York Press, 1993). During the mid-eighth through the tenth century, excavation activity continued to flourish, though the caves from this period belong to the Hindu and Jain religious traditions. Most publications on this phase of activity focus on the Kailãsanãtha 181
When we think of ancient and medieval rock-cut sites across the Indian subcontinent, the monument... more When we think of ancient and medieval rock-cut sites across the Indian subcontinent, the monuments at Ellora, Elephanta, and Ajanta (Ajaṇtā) immediately come to mind. These sites form a canon in the study of India's rock-cut monuments and have attracted decades of detailed, careful scholarship. The monuments at these sites have been examined for the ways that they mimic the interiors of structural temples as well as for the heightened devotional experience that one encounters when entering into a carved space. Indeed, much of one's experience of cave-temple architecture is shaped through the movement from outside to inside-from a dimly lit pillared hall to a small, dark rock-cut sanctum. There are, however, other types of rock-cut monuments in India that do not exhibit interior spaces or carved architectural features and thus remain outside this established canon. These are "boulder sites" that are found primarily in Tamil Nadu and were created and used extensively by Jains. One such site, located approximately fifteen miles west of Kovilpatti, is Kalugumalai. Like other boulder sites in this region, Kalugumalai features relief-carvings of Jinas and Jain deities across the surfaces of its rock formations. While these carvings still occupy a prominent place in Kalugumalai, they have today received only limited scholarly attention. Contributing to the relative neglect of this type of monument is the remote location (usually at the top of a hill or steep precipice) and the seemingly sporadic program of images that are carved on the boulders. In this essay, I consider how the boulders and reliefs at Kalugumalai define sacred space, though this is a space that one cannot physically enter. From this perspective, we can better understand how this site functioned for medieval Jain communities. My interest in Kalugumalai (and other Jain boulder sites in Tamil Nadu) stems 1 I am grateful to Janice Leoshko, Robert del Bontà, and Peter Flügel for their advice and valuable insights on an earlier form of this paper that I presented at the 2008 Jaina Studies Workshop at SOAS. I would also like to thank Leslie Orr for her comments on this essay and for helping me to better understand the inscriptional evidence and worship practices at Kalugumalai. My research at the site was conducted during the summer of 2007 and was funded by a faculty research grant from the University of North Texas. from previous work that I have conducted on Jain rock-cut monuments elsewhere in India, specifically those found at Aihole (Aihoḷe), Badami (Bādāmī), Dharashiva (Dhārāśiva), Ellora, and Ankai (Owen 2006a). While researching India's Jain cavetemples I discovered that boulder sites are not examined as sacred places for devotional activities but primarily as examples of medieval sculpture. In many survey texts of Jain art and architecture (Ghosh 1975; Sivaramamurti 1983; Hegewald 2009), individual relief-carvings from various boulder sites are selected and analyzed for their iconographical and stylistic attributes. The site of Kalugumalai, for example, is included in Ghosh's (1975: 229) edited volume under the chapter subheading "Sculpture in South Karnataka and Tamil Nadu." The text is accompanied by three photographs of the site: 1) a distant view of one of Kalugumalai's rock formations with surface carvings, 2) a detail of a relief depicting the goddess Ambikā, and 3) a relief featuring the Jina Pārśvanātha
Negotiating Cultural Identity: Landscapes in Early Medieval South Asian History, 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any ele... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.
Power, Presence, and Space: South Asian Rituals in Archaeological Context, 2021
Patterns of ritual power, presence and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the soci... more Patterns of ritual power, presence and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the societal and political power structures in which they are enacted. This book explores these connections in South Asia from the early Common Era until the present day. The chapters in the volume examine a wide range of themes, including a genealogy of ideas concerning Vedic rituals in European thought; Buddhist donative rituals of Gandhara and Andhra Pradesh in the early Common Era; land endowments, festivals and temple establishments in medieval Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; Mughal court rituals of the Mughal Empire and contemporary ritual complexes on the Nilgiri Plateau. This volume argues for the need to redress a historical neglect in identifying and theorising ritual and religion in material contexts within archaeology. Further, it challenges existing theoretical and methodological forms of documentation to propose new ways of understanding rituals in history. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, religion, archaeology and historical geography.
This book is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the renowned art historian, Vidya Deh... more This book is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the renowned art historian, Vidya Dehejia, and a specialist on stone carving, Peter Rockwell. It examines many of India's most famous rock-cut and structural temples at the sites of Ajanta, Ellora, Mamallapuram, Khajuraho, Bhubaneshvar, Halebidu, and Thanjavur. However, unlike most scholars who have examined the iconographical programs and architectural design of temples at these sites, the authors of this book focus on unfinished stonework. It is surprising-even to those of us who feel that we know these monuments intimately-that a significant percentage of their architectural and sculptural elements remain today in an incomplete state. In many cases, these elements appear to have been abandoned in mid-creation. Why is this the case and what can we learn from studying these unfinished expressions? Throughout the book, the authors chisel away at these questions and provide new and valuable information regarding the processes and techniques of stone carving employed at these sites. At the same time, they challenge our understanding of what it means to identify monuments as either "complete" or "unfinished," especially when we consider their ritual usability. The book is organized in two parts. Part one contains five chapters that provide the interpretative lens for examining the "why" of unfinished monuments. Important contributions include an innovative classification system for identifying India's unfinished stonework (chap. 2) and its application to monuments at Mamallapuram and the western caves (chapters 2 and 3). In chapter 4 the authors examine dedicatory inscriptions associated with these sites in order to develop more nuanced perspectives regarding the impact of donative activity in the excavation process. Chapter 5 continues with an analysis of epigraphical material, though here it shifts to the many sculptors' names found on the structural temples at Khajuraho. Rather than serving as a visual statement of pride for the artists, the authors surmise that the inclusion of names may have functioned as a way to keep track of work performed and payments due. Although chapter 5 concludes part one of the book, its emphasis on the agency of artists serves as a nice transition to part two, which highlights the tools, teams, and processes of stone carving. Three chapters (7, 8, and 9) address carving in the rock-cut tradition while the remaining chapters (10, 11, 12, and 13) examine built temples and their imagery. In their discussions of structural temples, the authors carefully reconstruct what they call the "rhythm of construction" in order to understand the many strategies at play in simultaneously building and sculpting elements. The book concludes with an epilogue that identifies the hands of artists working at Mamallapuram and an appendix by Randall Law, an archaeogeologist, who analyzes the geological characteristics of stone found across the subcontinent. Overall, the book is exceptional in scope and fills a significant void in the scholarship on Indian stone temple architecture. The close observations made by the authors, their collection of art historical and epigraphical data, and the beautiful photographs that accompany the descriptive text, all contribute to the importance of this book in advancing our knowledge of temples and their construction. Of primary importance are the authors' analyses of the types of stone found in India, a stone's workability, the tools used for stone carving, the methods of quarrying or extracting stone, and the labor force required for building and carving stone temples. This last point of discussion is fascinating, as the authors remind us that in addition to the stone carvers themselves, teams of workers who could build scaffolding and blacksmiths who could sharpen iron chisels were an equally important presence at the construction site. While the authors briefly look at the specializations of craftsmen also recorded in premodern textual material, it is their examinations of the monuments themselves that make this book a compelling read and one that every art historian of South Asian art should engage with. Another novel contribution of the book is the authors' classification system for identifying and understanding unfinished stonework. Though introduced in chapter 2, this system serves as a framework for viewing the monuments throughout the book. The authors subdivide the category of the "unfinished" into four groups: barely begun, unusable unfinished, usable unfinished, and almost finished. These distinctions are not only important for understanding the variant forms of unfinished work, but for identifying monuments that can be considered "complete" in terms of their consecration and
The Archaeology of Bhakti II: Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti, 2016
Among the earliest examples of Jain art and practice in Tamil Nadu are the rock-cut beds carved i... more Among the earliest examples of Jain art and practice in Tamil Nadu are the rock-cut beds carved into the floors of natural caverns found across the state. Dating as early as the third and second centuries bce, these sites seem to emphasize the rigorous practices of Jain ascetics who occupied these relatively small, bare spaces. Unlike contemporary Buddhist monasteries (particularly in western India) that exhibit rock-cut beds carved within individual rooms and elevated from cave floors, the accommodations of Jain sites offer only a modicum of comfort for their residents. Indeed, at most Jain sites, the only modifications made to the rocky landscape include separation ridges between shallowly cut beds, drip ledges to divert rainwater away from the residence, and an occasional rock-cut pillow. 1 The Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions that are found at most of these early sites provide further evidence of activities associated with these spaces. Specifically, these records document the type of object given (an incised stone bed, a canopy woven from palm fronds, the cutting of a drip ledge) and the name and place of residence of the lay donor (Mahadevan 2003: 128-139). The occupation of the lay donor is also sometimes included and 1
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 2001
Constructing Another Perspective for Ajantd's Fifth-Century Excavations* Since its British "disco... more Constructing Another Perspective for Ajantd's Fifth-Century Excavations* Since its British "discovery" in l8l9,r Ajantl has been accorded a privi, leged place in many sludies of Indian art. Not only are its spectacular pictorial programs the earliest surviving examples of Indian Buddhist painting, but Ajanla also lays claim to being the fi$t monastic complex to enshrine large anthropomorphic Buddha images inside its vihtrds.r Although the inclusion of Buddha images is ofien acknowledged as an innovative feature at the site, the significance of excavating a shrine within the monastic residence to house such images has not been fully investigated. Instead, most scholarly attention focuses on how Ajapla's shrine imagery demonstmtes that the site's fifth-century lihdras ate mature "Mahayana" excavations. The designation of Ajanta as a fully developed "Mahayana" site has also resulted in its positioning as the "original source" from which later sites such as Auraigabed and Ellora ultimately derive. This in tum has fostered the impression that these later excavations arc necessarily Tantric or esoledc. Furthemote, com, parisons between Ajania and only later sites thal have similar features, specifically Buddha images, have perpetuated (he strict categorization of the caves by both date and proposed sectarian afliliation-Due to these "restriclions," many scholars have not viewed AjalF's rock-cut architec, ture in light ofearlier excavations. In this essay, I will look at the fifth-century vilaras at Ajana from a perspective which incorporates a consideration of how lhey continue and * This essay is eirracted fmm my Mascr's thesis, 'lncating the Buddha: Ajanla's Ptae in Wesrem India's R@k-Cur Excavations," (Univcrsiry of Texas at Ausrin 1997) wnnen under fie suFnision of Jdi.e Leoshko and cresory Schopen. l. The caves were "discovered" in l8l9 by a company olofiic€rs in rhe Madras army who werc in he area hunring dgen. Ahhough the officers involved did nor publish an account of rheir firdings, one of rhem, John Srnith of rhe 28th Cavalry, scratched his name above a Buddhr painted on one oirhe inreriorpillffs of Crve 10. 2. Allhough the lerm vilrdrd is oflen translated as "monaslery," I am using ir as a conveni€nr gloss for the monasric rcsidence hall. ldual ol the Inenxnnt nl A*o(i'tioi d Brddrist Srnli.\ V.ltn.24. Numb.r l.2ml 'fhe Journal of the Inte mat iona I A ssociat ion of Buddhis t S t udies (ISSN 0193-600XX) is lhe organ ofrhe Intemational Association of Buddhist Studies. Inc. k welcom€s scholarly contributions pefiaining to all facels ofBuddhist Studics. JIABS is published twicc ycarly. in the summer and winter. Address manuscripls (two copies) and books for review to: The Edilors, JIABS, Section dc langues et civilisations orientales, Universit6 de Lausanne, BFSII 2, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzcrland. Address subscriplion orders and ducs, changes ofaddress, nnd business conespondenc€
The important practice and of carving long-enduring interior spaces art tradition into a in mount... more The important practice and of carving long-enduring interior spaces art tradition into a in mountainside India. This is to particularly be used for true devotional for the activities state of Maha-is an important and long-enduring art tradition in India. This is particularly true for the state of Maharashtra, which is home to a number of well-known rock-cut sites, including Ajanta, Elephanta, and Ellora. Of these sites, Ellora is perhaps the most noteworthy for its large number of caves and the fact that it is a multi-religious site, exhibiting ritual spaces for three of India's indigenous religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. As the site spans in date from the late sixth to the tenth century CE-with renewed activity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries-many dynasties are often associated with Ellora's excavations.1 Although Ellora's monuments are often considered to be the product of royal patronage, this attribution is based on limited inscriptional evidence and the assumption that royal funding was necessary to sustain such extensive excavation activities. In this article, I would like to reconsider the source of patronage at the site from the mid-eighth through the ninth century-a time when a dynasty of kings known as the Rästrakütas attained paramount sovereignty over the region. While I will briefly note the problematic epigraphical material associated with Ellora and the Rästraküta kings Dantidurga and Krsnarãja I, my examinations will focus on the art historical evidence at the site, for it is Ellora's monuments themselves that are the most reliable sources of information regarding issues of patronage. Donative images depicting acts of devotion are, for example, especially evident in Ellora's Jain caves. While most scholarship focuses on the site's Hindu and Buddhist monuments, very little attention has been paid to Ellora's Jain caves. The Jain caves are located at the northern end of the site and they date primarily to the ninth and tenth centuries.2 Though they are an important visual record of Jain artistic and devotional activities in early medieval India, they are generally treated in the scholarship as extraneous additions to a previously established sacred site.3 While the Archaeological Sur-I These include the Kalacuris, the Calukyas, the Rastrakutas, and the Yadavas. 2 Though the vast majority of excavation work appears to have been conducted during the ninth and tenth centuries, three Jina reliefs at the site appear to date much earlier. These reliefs were created when the artists first cut into the rock to form the large complex of caves commonly known as the Jagannãtha Sabhã. I am currently working on a detailed study of these Jina sculptures and their importance for dating initial Jain activity at the site. 3 Excavation activity at Ellora began in the late sixth century with a few Šaiva monuments. Approximately nine excavations date from this period, and in terms of their architectural plans and imagery they have some similarities with Cave i at Elephanta. A single cave (Cave 14) was most likely dedicated to the goddess Durgã and was carved in the early seventh century. For a relative chronology of Ellora's earliest caves, see Walter Spink, "Ellora's Earliest Phase," Bulletin of the American Academy ofBenaras 1 (1967): 11-22. While Cave 14 was under way, work began on the Buddhist monuments. There are twelve Buddhist caves at Ellora, located at the southern end of the site and traditionally dated from 600 to 730 CE. For an iconographical study of the caves and their imagery, see Geri H. Malandra, Unfolding a Mandala: The Buddhist Cave Temples at Ellora (Albany, N. Y. : State University of New York Press, 1993). During the mid-eighth through the tenth century, excavation activity continued to flourish, though the caves from this period belong to the Hindu and Jain religious traditions. Most publications on this phase of activity focus on the Kailãsanãtha 181
When we think of ancient and medieval rock-cut sites across the Indian subcontinent, the monument... more When we think of ancient and medieval rock-cut sites across the Indian subcontinent, the monuments at Ellora, Elephanta, and Ajanta (Ajaṇtā) immediately come to mind. These sites form a canon in the study of India's rock-cut monuments and have attracted decades of detailed, careful scholarship. The monuments at these sites have been examined for the ways that they mimic the interiors of structural temples as well as for the heightened devotional experience that one encounters when entering into a carved space. Indeed, much of one's experience of cave-temple architecture is shaped through the movement from outside to inside-from a dimly lit pillared hall to a small, dark rock-cut sanctum. There are, however, other types of rock-cut monuments in India that do not exhibit interior spaces or carved architectural features and thus remain outside this established canon. These are "boulder sites" that are found primarily in Tamil Nadu and were created and used extensively by Jains. One such site, located approximately fifteen miles west of Kovilpatti, is Kalugumalai. Like other boulder sites in this region, Kalugumalai features relief-carvings of Jinas and Jain deities across the surfaces of its rock formations. While these carvings still occupy a prominent place in Kalugumalai, they have today received only limited scholarly attention. Contributing to the relative neglect of this type of monument is the remote location (usually at the top of a hill or steep precipice) and the seemingly sporadic program of images that are carved on the boulders. In this essay, I consider how the boulders and reliefs at Kalugumalai define sacred space, though this is a space that one cannot physically enter. From this perspective, we can better understand how this site functioned for medieval Jain communities. My interest in Kalugumalai (and other Jain boulder sites in Tamil Nadu) stems 1 I am grateful to Janice Leoshko, Robert del Bontà, and Peter Flügel for their advice and valuable insights on an earlier form of this paper that I presented at the 2008 Jaina Studies Workshop at SOAS. I would also like to thank Leslie Orr for her comments on this essay and for helping me to better understand the inscriptional evidence and worship practices at Kalugumalai. My research at the site was conducted during the summer of 2007 and was funded by a faculty research grant from the University of North Texas. from previous work that I have conducted on Jain rock-cut monuments elsewhere in India, specifically those found at Aihole (Aihoḷe), Badami (Bādāmī), Dharashiva (Dhārāśiva), Ellora, and Ankai (Owen 2006a). While researching India's Jain cavetemples I discovered that boulder sites are not examined as sacred places for devotional activities but primarily as examples of medieval sculpture. In many survey texts of Jain art and architecture (Ghosh 1975; Sivaramamurti 1983; Hegewald 2009), individual relief-carvings from various boulder sites are selected and analyzed for their iconographical and stylistic attributes. The site of Kalugumalai, for example, is included in Ghosh's (1975: 229) edited volume under the chapter subheading "Sculpture in South Karnataka and Tamil Nadu." The text is accompanied by three photographs of the site: 1) a distant view of one of Kalugumalai's rock formations with surface carvings, 2) a detail of a relief depicting the goddess Ambikā, and 3) a relief featuring the Jina Pārśvanātha
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