Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory
Subtitle: Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Oakland, California
Language: eng
Number of pages: 230
ISBN-13: 9780520291836; 9780520965461
Subjects: Religion: general; Other non-Christian religions; Asian history; History
Description: How did the patronage activities of India?s Vijayanagara Empire (c. 1346?1565) influence Hindu sectarian identities? Although the empire has been commonly viewed as a Hindu bulwark against Islamic incursion from the north or as a religiously ecumenical state, Valerie Stoker argues that the Vijayanagara court was selective in its patronage of religious institutions. To understand the dynamic interaction between religious and royal institutions in this period, she focuses on the career of the Hindu intellectual and monastic leader Vy?sat?rtha. An agent of the state and a powerful religious authority, Vy?sat?rtha played an important role in expanding the empire?s economic and social networks. By examining his polemics against rival sects in the context of his work for the empire, Stoker provides a remarkably nuanced picture of the relationship between religious identity and sociopolitical reality under Vijayanagara rule.
Notes: English.