This volume—the outcome of a workshop-cum-conference that took place from 1st to 12th August 2011 in the Pondicherry Centre of the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient,—is an invitation to practise the “archaeology of Bhakti” with the help of both textual and non-textual sources.

Bhakti, broadly defined as an attitude, a strategy or a style of devotion—one that may be intellectual, emotional or rooted in acts of worship—towards God or the Divine, manifests itself through the personal voices of devotees as well as through the collective effort that constitutes the building of a temple. The “archaeology of Bhakti” aims at correlating different realms of representation, such as texts and images, in order to illuminate the elusive, pan-Indian phenomenon of Bhakti. The focus is on sources, agencies and layers. A special attention is given to inscriptions, which belong both to the realm of artefacts and to that of texts, and which help to distinguish royal demonstrations of Bhakti from local manifestations. In the realm of textual sources, “archaeology” is put to work to identify how literary conventions and concepts have formed and been incorporated, layer upon layer, into a given composition.

After an introduction by the editors about the complexities of the concept and practices of Bhakti in the Indian world, essays by nine scholars explore the phenomena of Bhakti and their chronology from different perspectives (textual, epigraphical, archaeological, iconographical). In the course of these explorations, the reader is transported from the North to the South of the subcontinent, back and forth between Mathura and Maturai.

Contents

Introduction: Towards an Archaeology of Bhakti (Emmanuel Francis & Charlotte Schmid)

- Dharma, Yoga, and Viraha-Bhakti in Buddhacarita and Krsnacarita (Tracy Coleman)

- Skanda/Karttikeya and the Imperial Guptas: Coinage, Religion and Political Ideology (4th-5th century CE) (Cédric Ferrier)

- Bhakti in its Infancy: Genealogy Matters in the Kailasanatha of Kancipuram (Charlotte Schmid)

- Laksmi and the Tigers: A Goddess in the Shadows (Padma Kaimal)

- ‘Woe to Them!’: The Saiva Curse Inscription at Mahabalipuram (7th century CE) (Emmanuel Francis)

- A Medieval Tamil Poem on Bhakti: Tiruppavaiby Antal (Alexander Dubyanskiy)

- On the Non-Valmikian Sources of Kulacekara Alvar’s ‘Mini-Ramayana’ (Suganya Anandakichenin)

- When Tradition Meets Archaeological Reality: The Site of Tiruccentūr (Valérie Gillet)

- The Infant Krsna in the Guruvayur Templewith Particular Reference to the Narayaniya of Narayanabhatta (S.A.S. Sarma)