Corporeal Experience and the Material World of the Vijayanagara Sacred Landscape: 600-1325 CE
Keywords: Corporeal experience
Early Medieval
Pilgrimage
Sacred landscapes
South Asian archaeology
Vijayanagara

The following dissertation is a digital exploration of medieval South Indian sacred landscapes through the corporeal and material developments at a specific pilgrimage center. I focus both on how particular devotional experiences were structured through corporeal management of devotees, and on their connection to the ritual, social, and political life of a historicized sacred space. Corporeal experience is analyzed through an examination of devotee movement, accessibility, and sensorial engagement with the material world. The material world refers specifically to both the natural and built environment, including landscape features, spatial organization, and architectural design, and consequently provides information about social interaction within these spaces. This thesis does not engage with abstract or mythological landscapes, which remain to be reconstructed for the period of investigation, though associations of the mythological with places in the landscape are noted where known. My spatial focus in this study is centered on the sacred Hemakuta Hill and the immediate surrounding area, in the imperial capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire, also called Vijayanagara, located in the Bellary District of Karnataka, India. My temporal focus is on the hitherto under-studied period of 600 CE to 1325 CE and the Early Imperial Phase years of the Vijayanagara Empire (c. 1336-1400 CE). During this time, the Hemakuta Hill area was a liminal river pilgrimage site associated with death rituals and folk deities. It subsequently expanded to also become the primary cult center for the Sanskritic deity, Virupaksha. Through the use of the spatio-temporal visualizing capabilities of ArcGIS, coupled with the immersive panoramic capabilities of Google Street View, I provide new insights into the development of the historic material world and ritual experiences in the Hemakuta Hill area, exposing the problems of homogenizing pre- and early imperial Vijayanagara architecture and sacred landscapes. The analytical methods I have created for this investigation recognize that a range of ritual needs and social situations are possible between a wide variety of actors, such as devotees, mourners, and worshippers, in addition to deities and ancestors who also had social and material presences of their own. Moreover, the spatial and structural patterns identified through my analysis have allowed me to distinguish a spectrum of additional group identities, local and non-local as well as elite and non-elite groups, with demonstrably distinct ritual, social, and political needs. These groups and their engagement with the landscape shaped the material world in the Hemakuta Hill area. These patterns also suggest that from 600 CE through 1325 CE and into the Early Imperial Phase, devotee corporeal experience was increasingly directed by dominant groups active in the sacred landscape with the intention of eliciting particular devotee ritual experiences. By examining the development of the landscape and identifying when and where and how space was altered, the palimpsestual nature of an early medieval South Asian sacred landscape has also been made visible.