Table of Contents

Editor's Note: Margaret H. Case ; List of Illustrations ; Abbreviations ; Introduction: The Discovery ; Part I: The Approach to the Vishnu-house ; 1. The Significance of the Temple ; 2. Six Concepts ; 3. The Poem ; 4. The Emperor's Career Portrayed on the Prakara Wall ; Part II The Secret Dimension of the Vishnu-house ; 5. The Temple Mandala and the Bottom-Floor Sanctum ; 6. The Middle-Floor Sanctum: The Sculpted Program of the Northern Path ; 7. Northern Panels of the Northern Path: Transforming Power ; 8. Northern Panels of the Northern Path: Fortifying Omniscience ; 9. The Middle-Floor Sanctum: The Sculpted Program of the Southern Path ; 10. The Southern Panels of the Southern Path: "The Path of the Southern Doctrine" ; Part III The Public Dimension of the Vishnu-house ; 11. The Vimana Panels on the Western Side ; 12. The Panels on the Ardhamandapa or Porch ; 13. The Vimana Panels on the Northern Side ; 14. The Vimana Panels on the Eastern Side ; Appendix 1. Who Are the Bhagavatas? ; Appendix 2. Vasudeva's Path in the Satvata-samhita ; Appendix 3. Prithu, the People's Indra ; Appendix 4. Mantras in the Jayakhya-samhita ; Appendix 5. Periya Tirumoli 2.9 ; Notes ; Glossary ; Bibliography ; Index

About the Author

About the author: D. Dennis Hudson (1938-2006) was Professor Emeritus of World Religions at Smith College from 1970 until his retirement in 2000. He published numerous articles, most related to his lifelong study of Vaikintha Perumal Temple in Kanchipuram. In addition, he published Protestant Origins in India: Tamil Evangelical Christians, 1706-1835 in 2000.

About the editor: Margaret Case was for many years Asian Studies editor at Princeton University Press. She is the editor of Govindadeva: A Dialogue in Stone (1996) and author of Seeing Krishna: The Religious World of a Brahman Family in Vrindaban (2000). She organized this volume from virtually complete but differently structured chapters, and compiled the glossary with diacritical marks.

Reviews

"Dennis Hudson's multidimensional 'decoding' of the 'Emperor's Palace' temple of Lord Vishnu in Kanchipuram is remarkable. He enables us to visualize a three-dimensional vision of God and God's cosmic body in which the central square of the temple symbolizes horizontally a cosmic day and night, and the four levels represent vertically God's transformations in creation and redemption... Dennis Hudson's crowning achievement, almost completed before his death, has
been skillfully edited by Margaret Case. It is a gift to his many friends and to all readers who seek a deeper level of understanding of a central Hindu tradition of theology and worship." --John B.
Carman, author of The Theology of Ramanuja: An Essay in Interreligious Understanding and Majesty and Meekness: A Comparative Study of Contrast and Harmony in the Concept of God
"In his insightful analysis of the relationship between an eighth-century sacred poem and a Pallava temple, both of which celebrate Vishnu and the temple's royal patron, Dennis Hudson has compelled the monument to reveal its mysteries. Never again will one be able to read temple sculptures as a simple celebration of myth. An interpretive tour de force!" --Vidya Dehejia, author of The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India
"The Body of God is a magnum opus in every sense -- the product of decades of thought and research; huge in its physical and mental bulk; and a new sort of fulcrum for balancing architectural and textual studies in India. It is a daring work. If Hudson is right, the magnificent and mysterious temple of Vaikuntha Perumal affords a vision of how the Bhagavata tradition -- the worship of Vishnu -- stayed vibrant over the course of centuries, through its
intellectual sophistication and its engagement with royal power. Fittingly, Hudson's findings have already had an impact on how that temple is revered today." --John Stratton Hawley, Professor of Religion,
Barnard College, Columbia University and author of Three Bhakti Voices and, forthcoming, The Memory of Love
"Dennis Hudson's multidimensional 'decoding' of the 'Emperor's Palace' temple of Lord Vishnu in Kanchipuram is remarkable. He enables us to visualize a three-dimensional vision of God and God's cosmic body in which the central square of the temple symbolizes horizontally a cosmic day and night, and the four levels represent vertically God's transformations in creation and redemption... Dennis Hudson's crowning achievement, almost completed before his death, has
been skillfully edited by Margaret Case. It is a gift to his many friends and to all readers who seek a deeper level of understanding of a central Hindu tradition of theology and worship." --John B.
Carman, author of The Theology of Ramanuja: An Essay in Interreligious Understanding and Majesty and Meekness: A Comparative Study of Contrast and Harmony in the Concept of God
"In his insightful analysis of the relationship between an eighth-century sacred poem and a Pallava temple, both of which celebrate Vishnu and the temple's royal patron, Dennis Hudson has compelled the monument to reveal its mysteries. Never again will one be able to read temple sculptures as a simple celebration of myth. An interpretive tour de force!" --Vidya Dehejia, author of The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India
"The Body of God is a magnum opus in every sense -- the product of decades of thought and research; huge in its physical and mental bulk; and a new sort of fulcrum for balancing architectural and textual studies in India. It is a daring work. If Hudson is right, the magnificent and mysterious temple of Vaikuntha Perumal affords a vision of how the Bhagavata tradition -- the worship of Vishnu -- stayed vibrant over the course of centuries, through its
intellectual sophistication and its engagement with royal power. Fittingly, Hudson's findings have already had an impact on how that temple is revered today." --John Stratton Hawley, Professor of Religion,
Barnard College, Columbia University, and author of Three Bhakti Voices and, forthcoming, The Memory of Love