The body of God
Subtitle: an emperor's palace for Krishna in eighth-century Kanchipuram
By: D. Dennis Hudson ; edited by Margaret H. Case.
Contributors: Case, Margaret H.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 660
ISBN-13: 9780195369229
Subjects: Nandivarman -- II, -- King of the Pallavas, -- fl. 732-796 -- Religion; Vaikuntha Perumal (Kānchipuram, India); Krishna (Hindu deity) -- Cult -- India -- Kānchipuram Region; Vaishnavism -- India -- Kānchipuram Region -- History
Description: "The book is a finely detailed examination of a virtually unstudied Tamil Hindu temple, the Vaikuntha Perumal (ca. 770 C.E.). Hudson offers a sustained reading of the temple as a coherent, organized, minutely conceptualized mandala. Its iconography and structure can be understood in the light of a ten-stanza poem by the Alvar poet Tirumangai, and of the Bhagavata Purana and other major religious texts, even as it in turn illuminates the meanings of those texts." "Hudson takes the reader step by step on a tour of the temple, telling the stories suggested by each of the 56 sculpted panels and showing how their relationship to one another brings out layers of meaning. He correlates the stories with stages in the spiritual growthof the king through the complex rituals that formed a crucial dimension of the religion. The result is a tapestry of interpretation that brings to life the richness of spiritual understanding embodied in the temple."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.