List of Figures; Acknowledgments; Notes on Transliteration and Spelling; Introduction: Sovereignty's Trace in Architectural Forms; Part I. Stone Bodies: 1. Constructing Kingship: Nāyaka Rule in Early Modern Madurai; 2. Co-opting a Local Goddess in Madurai: From Warrior Queen to Śiva's Consort to Political Pawn; Part II. Colonial Gazes: 3. Imagining Civilization: Antiquarian Curiosities in Madura; 4. Tracing the Vernacular: Drawing Madura into Debates over Language in British India; 5. Illustrating Madura: Art as 'History' and State-Building; 6. Photographing Madura: The Living Temple as a Site of Ruin; Part III. Living Gods: 7. Producing Heritage: Culture as Commodity in Contemporary Madurai; Epilogue: Rejecting the State—Priestly Devotion and Protest in Modern Madurai; Bibliography; Index.
Demonstrates how religious spaces are sites of contestation over sovereignty and broader debates about governance as they have been reconceived repeatedly.
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.
'Architecture of Sovereignty is a refreshing new examination of the
south Indian Minaksi-Sundaresvara temple. Focusing on the temple's
Pudu Mandapam, Pai expertly engages methodologies from history, art
history, religious studies, and architecture to produce a rigorous
diachronic biography and reception history of this prominent site
from the 1630s through the present day. In doing so, the author
adds important new chapters to the history of this celebrated
temple and, more broadly, demonstrates how religious spaces—both
grand and small—can serve as sites for the contestation of
sovereignty, power, and governance as they are reconceived again
and again throughout their histories.' Caleb Simmons, The
University of Arizona
'In this work of critical and historical geography, Gita Pai tracks
the Pudu Mandapam, a south Indian ritual hall constructed in the
1630s, through nearly four centuries of transformations. Richly
documented with historical drawings, photographs, travel accounts,
and court documents, this deep study situates the hall within the
changing authority systems of late medieval Hindu kingship, British
colonial rule, and the postcolonial Indian nation-state within a
globalized economy, while remaining alive to the many divergent
perspectives that have made up the complex identity of the
Mandapam.' Richard H. Davis, Bard College
'Gita Pai's rich and meticulously researched book draws us into a
dynamic diorama of Madurai's New Hall and provides us with
insightful models of authority and dominance. Held by pillars of
power, the Pudu Mandapam is inhabited by royal and divine actors,
colonial rulers, and thronging multitudes. A veritable tour de
force, Pai's Architecture of Sovereignty ambitiously, yet
assuredly, moves through several registers of deities and devotees
as well as economic and aesthetic structures in the pre-colonial,
colonial, and postcolonial states, as we walk through the contested
spaces of the bustling capacious stone pavilion and the areas near
Madurai. Its vision and interdisciplinarity are commanding;
architecture, festivals, rulership, and intrigue are drawn together
elegantly in this breathtaking volume. This book should be read by
not just scholars of South Asia but all those interested in
structures of divine kingship and colonialism.' Vasudha Narayanan,
University of Florida
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