The Body of God
An Emperor's Palace for Krishna in Eighth Century Kanchipuram
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP USA
- Date of Publication 25 September 2008
- ISBN 9780195369229
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages688 pages
- Size 236x168x45 mm
- Weight 1089 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 119 halftones 0
Categories
Long description:
This remarkable book is the crowning achievement of the great scholar of Hinduism, D. Dennis Hudson. Although Hudson died without completing it, the work has been edited and brought to fruition by editor Margaret Case. The book is a finely detailed study of a renowned Tamil Hindu temple, the Vaikuntha Perumal (ca. 770 C.E.). Hudson uses this temple as an illustration of one major current and historical stage in South Indian Vaisnava religion. He offers a sustained reading of the temple as a coherent, organized, minutely conceptualized mandala, whose code can be cracked by close analysis of the temple iconography and structure, in the light of major literary and religious texts. Hudson takes the reader step by step on a tour of the temple, moving from the bottom level up, from one sculpted panel to the next. His primary thesis is that the temple itself constitutes a summa theologica for the Bhagavata tradition centered on Krishna as it had developed through the eighth century-by which time this tradition was already at least a thousand years old and had spread widely across South Asia and into Southeast Asia. He argues that, through its full expression of the theology and religious practices of this tradition, the temple offers a crucial hermeneutical key for understanding other temples and texts of the Bhagavata religion.
Dennis Hudson's multidimensional 'decoding' of the 'Emperor's Palace' temple of Lord Vishnu in Kanchipuram is remarkable. He enables us to visualize a three-dimensional vision of God and God's cosmic body in which the central square of the temple symbolizes horizontally a cosmic day and night, and the four levels represent vertically God's transformations in creation and redemption... Dennis Hudson's crowning achievement, almost completed before his death, has been skillfully edited by Margaret Case. It is a gift to his many friends and to all readers who seek a deeper level of understanding of a central Hindu tradition of theology and worship.
Table of Contents:
Editor's Note: Margaret H. Case
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Introduction: The Discovery
Part I: The Approach to the Vishnu-house
1. The Significance of the Temple
2. Six Concepts
3. The Poem
4. The Emperor's Career Portrayed on the Prakara Wall
Part II The Secret Dimension of the Vishnu-house
5. The Temple Mandala and the Bottom-Floor Sanctum
6. The Middle-Floor Sanctum: The Sculpted Program of the Northern Path
7. Northern Panels of the Northern Path: Transforming Power
8. Northern Panels of the Northern Path: Fortifying Omniscience
9. The Middle-Floor Sanctum: The Sculpted Program of the Southern Path
10. The Southern Panels of the Southern Path: "The Path of the Southern Doctrine"
Part III The Public Dimension of the Vishnu-house
11. The Vimana Panels on the Western Side
12. The Panels on the Ardhamandapa or Porch
13. The Vimana Panels on the Northern Side
14. The Vimana Panels on the Eastern Side
Appendix 1. Who Are the Bhagavatas?
Appendix 2. Vasudeva's Path in the Satvata-samhita
Appendix 3. Prithu, the People's Indra
Appendix 4. Mantras in the Jayakhya-samhita
Appendix 5. Periya Tirumoli 2.9
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
