Pub Date : 2023-12-15DOI: 10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.02
Jonas Buchholz
Numerous pre-modern literary works in Tamil begin with a lengthy description of a country and a city. This convention is a stock element of texts belonging to the kāppiyam and purāṇam genres, which can be defined as long narrative poems and mythological narrations, respectively. Such descriptions are particularly numerous in talapurāṇams, i.e., texts dealing with the mythology of sacred sites. This article discusses the description of the country and the city in the Kāñcippurāṇam (KP), a talapurāṇam of the city of Kanchipuram composed in the late 18th century by the author Civañāṉa Muṉivar. It will be shown that the description of Kanchipuram and its surroundings in the introductory chapters of the KP, rather than aiming at a realistic portrayal, is strongly based on Tamil literary conventions that can be traced back to ancient Tamil literature, but also to influential texts of the medieval period, such as the Kamparāmāyaṇam or the Periyapurāṇam. Moreover, the article examines how Civañāṉa Muṉivar correlates the literary landscape that he describes with the real-world geography of the region around Kanchipuram and Śaiva devotional topography, thus creating a complex multi-layered landscape.
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Pub Date : 2023-12-15DOI: 10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.08
Cinzia Pieruccini
The term sacred grove‘ is used to denote an area of vegetation that is afforded special protection on religious grounds. In India, where sacred groves are known by a wide repertoire of local names, such places may be found right from the Himalayas up to the far South. Sacred groves host veneration of natural phenomena or elements of landscape, but also ancestral, local, folk or tribal gods and Sanskritised deities; the use of their resources is strictly regulated. Research studies on sacred groves in India often consider them to be a legacy of archaic economic forms, possibly harking back to the stage of hunters-gatherers, and an expression of a religiosity dating back to a remote, non-Aryan, pre-Vedic antiquity. However, main sources for our knowledge of Indian antiquity, namely the literary sources, provide no direct record of voices of such archaic societies. Nonetheless, the same sources allow us to highlight some important aspects of the sacredness anciently ascribed to vegetation, forest, and specific places therein. The present paper proposes to focus on the Brahmanical hermit‘s distinct relationship with the forest and examine some aspects related to food.
{"title":"Sacred Groves, the Brahmanical Hermit, and Some Remarks on ahiṃsā and Vegetarianism","authors":"Cinzia Pieruccini","doi":"10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.08","url":null,"abstract":"The term sacred grove‘ is used to denote an area of vegetation that is afforded special protection on religious grounds. In India, where sacred groves are known by a wide repertoire of local names, such places may be found right from the Himalayas up to the far South. Sacred groves host veneration of natural phenomena or elements of landscape, but also ancestral, local, folk or tribal gods and Sanskritised deities; the use of their resources is strictly regulated. Research studies on sacred groves in India often consider them to be a legacy of archaic economic forms, possibly harking back to the stage of hunters-gatherers, and an expression of a religiosity dating back to a remote, non-Aryan, pre-Vedic antiquity. However, main sources for our knowledge of Indian antiquity, namely the literary sources, provide no direct record of voices of such archaic societies. Nonetheless, the same sources allow us to highlight some important aspects of the sacredness anciently ascribed to vegetation, forest, and specific places therein. The present paper proposes to focus on the Brahmanical hermit‘s distinct relationship with the forest and examine some aspects related to food.","PeriodicalId":36623,"journal":{"name":"Cracow Indological Studies","volume":"50 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138997384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-15DOI: 10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.01
Anjali C, Vishakha Kawathekar
This paper entails an investigation of the reciprocal relationship between the agrarian landscape and the cultic practice of teyyam prevailing in the cultural region of Kolattunāṭu. Focusing on the agrarian history, production pattern and the resultant social formations, it attempts an analytical reading of the socio-historical realities of teyyam in Kolattunāṭu. The characteristic features of teyyam performance and its consistent co-existence with the associated landscape have resulted in distinctive cultural and social formations in the region. The current research argues on the interdependencies of teyyam and its agrarian landscape and analyzes the multitude of ways in which liturgies of teyyam communicate exemplars of ecological and social sustainability. The aspects of sustainability intrinsic to the folk ritual are explored through three facets discussed in the paper. At the onset, the role of teyyam in shaping its sacred realm thereby simultaneously getting shaped by the singularities of geography is discussed. Second is an inquiry into the temporal and spatial dimensions of teyyam performance to establish the reciprocal relationship between teyyam and its ritualistic landscape. The third facet of the inquiry analyses the case of a folk performance through the spatial lens to decipher the layers of interdependencies within its sacred realm.
{"title":"Lessons of Sustainability: The Folk Reading of a Ritualistic Landscape","authors":"Anjali C, Vishakha Kawathekar","doi":"10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.01","url":null,"abstract":"This paper entails an investigation of the reciprocal relationship between the agrarian landscape and the cultic practice of teyyam prevailing in the cultural region of Kolattunāṭu. Focusing on the agrarian history, production pattern and the resultant social formations, it attempts an analytical reading of the socio-historical realities of teyyam in Kolattunāṭu. The characteristic features of teyyam performance and its consistent co-existence with the associated landscape have resulted in distinctive cultural and social formations in the region. The current research argues on the interdependencies of teyyam and its agrarian landscape and analyzes the multitude of ways in which liturgies of teyyam communicate exemplars of ecological and social sustainability. The aspects of sustainability intrinsic to the folk ritual are explored through three facets discussed in the paper. At the onset, the role of teyyam in shaping its sacred realm thereby simultaneously getting shaped by the singularities of geography is discussed. Second is an inquiry into the temporal and spatial dimensions of teyyam performance to establish the reciprocal relationship between teyyam and its ritualistic landscape. The third facet of the inquiry analyses the case of a folk performance through the spatial lens to decipher the layers of interdependencies within its sacred realm. ","PeriodicalId":36623,"journal":{"name":"Cracow Indological Studies","volume":"22 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138997770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-15DOI: 10.12797/cis.25.2023.01.10
Lidia Sudyka
The territory administered by the Nayakas, first from Keladi and later from Ikkeri (c. 1499–1763 CE), first on behalf of the Vijayanagara rulers and then in their own name, was the western strip of Karnataka, known as Kanara-Malnad. The Kanara coast is very fertile and the hills of neighbouring Malnad (Malladeśa) are noted for their biodiversity. The Śivatattvaratnākara, an encyclopaedic work in Sanskrit authored by the Keladi-Ikkeri king, Basavarāja (r. 1697–1714), besides discussions related to various fields of knowledge, holds not only passages describing the region and the history of its rulers, but also other content that may reveal a way of thinking about nature and human-nature relationships. Reference will also be made to Pietro della Valle's account of his travels in the area between 1623 and 1624.
纳亚卡人先是从凯拉迪（Keladi），后来又从伊凯里（Ikkeri，约公元 1499-1763 年），先是代表维贾亚纳伽拉统治者，然后以自己的名义管理的领土是卡纳塔克邦的西部地带，即卡纳拉-马尔纳德（Kanara-Malnad）。卡纳拉海岸非常肥沃，邻近的马尔纳德（Malladeśa）丘陵则以其生物多样性而闻名。Śivatattvaratnākara》是一部梵文百科全书式著作，由凯拉帝-伊克利国王巴萨瓦拉贾（1697-1714 年）撰写，除了与各知识领域相关的论述外，其中不仅有描述该地区及其统治者历史的段落，还有其他内容可能揭示了一种关于自然和人与自然关系的思维方式。此外，我们还将参考皮埃特罗-德拉瓦莱（Pietro della Valle）关于其 1623 年至 1624 年期间在该地区旅行的记载。
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Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.07
M. Czerniak-Drożdżowicz
Water bodies, being elements of the natural landscape, are often connected with religious holy sites and provide ready examples of a mutual relationship between nature and culture. The present article introduces nine holy ponds—tīrthas of the Śrīraṅgam Raṅganātha temple—each with its characteristic features directly connected with a particular tree, residing deity, resident ṛṣi, and certain boons. Short descriptions of the ponds are given in Chapter 10 of the Sanskrit text, the Śrīraṅgamāhātmya, which praises the glory of the holy place, kṣetra, and constitutes my main source material. Even though the nine ponds play an important role in the religious landscape of the site and the life of the religious community, they have not been studied till now. The article presents descriptions of the tīrthas found in the Śrīraṅgamāhātmya and supplements them with a brief report and some photographic evidence from the field research of 2020.
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Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.05
Claudine Bautze-Picron
The sheer intensity of the encounter between the Buddhist and Hindu pantheons in ‘Eastern India’ (comprising the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and present Bangladesh) from the 7th to the 12th century, was unmatched in any other region.1 It left, above all, a visual and textual trail in the Buddhist iconography, as attested by the presence of two Mātṛkas (Mothers) among the members of Māra’s army attacking the Buddha on the night of his Awakening, Brahmanical deities being incorporated into the Buddhist world: Vārāhī appears in the Jagdishpur sculpture, and Cāmuṇḍā in a large fragment from a sculpture which must have been as large as the Jagdishpur image and used to stand in Lakhisarai, more fragments of it being preserved in the Indian Museum (Fig. 1).2 Further, the key component of Vārāhī iconography,3 the hog head, became an integral part of the images of Buddhist deities like Mārīcī and Vajravārāhī. The cultural background within which the images of the goddess were incorporated helps to understand this twofold phenomenon, the representation of her being transferred to a Buddhist context and some of her specific features being embedded in the iconography of Buddhist deities.
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Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.01
J. Brockington
This article examines what we mean by a text: is it verbal (whether written or oral), mental, visual, or a combination? All of these forms are found within the various types of artistic expression centred on the Rāmāyaṇa tradition. I start with the relief sculptures, some of which are centuries early than any extant manuscripts. After a brief comment on the evolution of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa text, I then survey in turn some prestige illustrated Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa manuscripts, less notable Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa manuscripts, illustrated manuscripts of the Rāmcaritmānas and other vernacular versions, and sets or series of paintings illustrating the Rāma story (including some single paintings), showing the diverse range of forms it has taken over time and something of the adaptations it has undergone.
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Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.08
Ewa Dębicka-Borek, L. Sudyka
Taking as the case study the Ikkeri Nayakas’ Vīrabhadra temple in Keladi (the current Karnataka state), the paper discusses the potential correlation between the narrative and the image in terms of the temple’s artistic programme and the myths it draws on. With the assumption that the artistic production can serve as a political tool aimed at expressing a ruler’s agenda, our focus is on the depictions of certain hybrid creatures found within the premises of the temple and their multidimensional symbolism attested to in Hindu narratives. Our analysis of the visual and the narrative material against the backdrop of the early history of the temple’s royal patrons suggests that in the centre of their interest, while designing the temple, was the desire to set out their claims to power and present the milieu they lived in.
本文以位于克拉迪(现卡纳塔克邦)的Ikkeri Nayakas ' v ā rabhadra寺庙为例，从寺庙的艺术方案和它所借鉴的神话的角度讨论了叙事与形象之间的潜在关联。假设艺术作品可以作为旨在表达统治者议程的政治工具，我们的重点是在寺庙内发现的某些混合生物的描述及其在印度教叙事中证明的多维象征意义。我们对寺庙早期历史背景下的视觉和叙事材料的分析表明，在他们的兴趣中心，在设计寺庙的同时，他们希望展示他们对权力的要求，并展示他们生活的环境。
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Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.03
M. Ali, Marijn van Putten, Alison Ohta, S. Akcapar, Michael D. Willis
This essay examines a copy of the Qur’ān from India, now in the India Office Collections at the British Library. The manuscript, registered as IO Loth 4, belongs to the reasonably large group of early Qur’āns that date to the eighth and ninth centuries CE. While some of these manuscripts have charted histories, what is not widely known is that early Qur’āns also made their way to India. There they have their own special histories, meanings and associations. In attempt to address the long ‘after-life’ of these manuscripts, this paper will examine a single example that arrived in India in the Mughal period and was eventually presented to the Library of the East India House by Lord Dalhousie in 1853. While not the earliest of the Qur’āns brought to India, it nonetheless dates to the circa ninth century CE, making it older than any surviving manuscripts in Sanskrit or Prakrit in India proper.
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Pub Date : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.04
Monika Zin
Visual communication employs language different than literature. The economy of viewing calls for elements of representation familiar to the viewer, which, when shown in a recurring order, become comprehensible. For us, recognising these elements is often difficult as they can be entirely absent from the literary text. The person of the jester, whose appearance corresponds to the vidūṣaka of the Nāṭyaśāstra, is found frequently in narrative scenes depicted through visual means. His presence often indicates that another figure in the picture is about to withdraw from worldly life. The jester then expresses utter disapproval of his master’s decision. The viewer is able to recognise the meaning of the scene because the jester is shown also in erotic and humorous scenes, perhaps representative of the sensual atmosphere of theatre life, or related to the nāyaka and the vidūṣaka of the Kāmasūtra.
{"title":"About Visual Language, Drunken Women, Jesters and Escaping the World","authors":"Monika Zin","doi":"10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12797/cis.24.2022.02.04","url":null,"abstract":"Visual communication employs language different than literature. The economy of viewing calls for elements of representation familiar to the viewer, which, when shown in a recurring order, become comprehensible. For us, recognising these elements is often difficult as they can be entirely absent from the literary text. The person of the jester, whose appearance corresponds to the vidūṣaka of the Nāṭyaśāstra, is found frequently in narrative scenes depicted through visual means. His presence often indicates that another figure in the picture is about to withdraw from worldly life. The jester then expresses utter disapproval of his master’s decision. The viewer is able to recognise the meaning of the scene because the jester is shown also in erotic and humorous scenes, perhaps representative of the sensual atmosphere of theatre life, or related to the nāyaka and the vidūṣaka of the Kāmasūtra.","PeriodicalId":36623,"journal":{"name":"Cracow Indological Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48599231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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