Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court

Valerie Stoker

book: Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory

Open Access Published by University of California Press 2016

Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory

Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court

Valerie Stoker

In the series South Asia Across the Disciplines

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780520965461

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About this book

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

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 Vyasatirtha. An agent of the state and a powerful religious authority, Vyasatirtha 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.

Author / Editor information

Stoker Valerie :

Valerie Stoker is Associate Professor of South Asian Religions and Director of the Master of Humanities Program at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
Note on Transliteration and Translation Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
1. Hindu Sectarianism and the City of Victory Open Access Download PDF	1
2. Royal and Religious Authority in Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara: A Maṭhādhipati at Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s Court Open Access Download PDF	17
3. Sectarian Rivalries at an Ecumenical Court: Vyāsatīrtha, Advaita Vedānta, and the Smārta Brahmins Open Access Download PDF	45
4. Allies or Rivals? Vyāsatīrtha’s Material, Social, and Ritual Interactions with the Śrīvaiṣṇavas Open Access Download PDF	73
5. The Social Life of Vedānta Philosophy: Vyāsatīrtha’s Polemics against Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta Open Access Download PDF	106
6. Hindu, Ecumenical, Sectarian: Religion and the Vijayanagara Court Open Access Download PDF	130
Notes Open Access Download PDF	143
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	191
Index Open Access Download PDF	203

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 230

eBook

Published: September 30, 2016
ISBN: 9780520965461