J Hindu Studies 2009 Ray 76 96

The Shrine in Early Hinduism:

The Changing Sacred Landscape

Himanshu Prabha Ray

Abstract: Archaeological data forms the primary source material for this paperon the early Hindu temple in South Asia. The paper traces the study of thetemple from its ‘discovery’ in the nineteenth century to the present andinterrogates the traditional links often suggested between the temple as anagent of political legitimisation and the emergence of the State in the firstmillennium AD in ancient India. The paper uses the term ‘Hindu’ to articulate apan-Indian cultural identity of the local population of the subcontinent longbefore the European discovery of the term in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies and suggests that cultural practices, rituals and imagery as evidentfrom a study of religious architecture formed the substratum of this self-perception and distinctiveness.

Let him who wishes to enter the worlds that are reached by sacrificial offeringsand the performance of religious obligations (iṣṭāpūrta) build a temple to thegods, by doing which he attains both the results of sacrifice and the performanceof religious obligations (Bṛhat Saṃhitā, LV:2).

Theistic developments in the Indian subcontinent have often been seen as lateroverlays on what has been termed the portable ideational religion of the Vedasconcerned largely with sacrifices and rituals. The key concept here is the notionof religious spots as being mobile as opposed to these being defined in terms of spe-cific locales and geographic places. The shrine, no doubt, signifies an altered under-standing of religious traditions. It embodies the demarcation of sacred space andinteraction with a community that provided patronage to it and maintained it. Itunderscores the local and regional contexts of religious traditions, while the widermilieu is created by linkages through pilgrimage, linkages that vary over time andcan be charted both spatially and temporally. The narratives on the walls of tem-ples at one level, indicate the centrality of this new sacred geography in the trans-mission of religious ideas, and at another, recitation and performance withintemple precincts are crucial indicators of the changing philosophical and religiousenvironment of the period. The textual tradition itself has been interrogated, withscholars questioning the ways in which a religious text pervades religious actionand examining the importance of text for liturgical action. Thus, the shrine negoti-ates the gulf between precept and practice.

© The Author 2009. Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved.For permissions, please email [email protected]

The Journal of Hindu Studies 2009;2:76–96 Doi: 10.1093/jhs/hip006Advance Access Publication 9 March 2009

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How does this altered human landscape reflect transformations in religious tra-ditions? In current historical writing, the emphasis has been on the agrarianexpansion around the fourth–fifth centuries AD, the spread of Sanskritic culturethrough movements of brāhmaṇas at the behest of the emerging regional states,and the consolidation of a feudal order. Three major historical processes have beenpostulated for the early medieval period dated from sixth–seventh to twelfth–thir-teenth century: expansion of state society; assimilation and acculturation of tribalpeople; and integration of local religious cults and practices (Chattopadhyaya1994:167, 181). Does the archaeological study of the shrine validate this existingperspective? Can a brāhmaṇical hegemony, which subsumed other religious tradi-tions, be detected through the study of religious architecture? Did the emergenceof the temple constitute a disjunction in the religious tradition of the subconti-nent? The basic issue is: does the temple represent a work of art established bybrāhmaṇas to legitimise the rule of the newly emerging states or did contemporarysocieties perceive it as an abode of spiritual power? To what extent did colonialintervention alter the parameters within which the temple came to be studied?

This paper traces the study of the Hindu temple from its beginnings in the 19th and20th century and contends that the social history of religious architecture has contin-ued to be neglected thereby devaluing the role of the temple in creating religiousidentity. Relevant for this discussion are negotiations between religious communitiesas evident from an analysis of the locales of Buddhist, Jaina, and Hindu shrines.Instead of the linear view of religious change that emerges in historical writing, thispaper argues for reinvention of sacred spaces over time and interaction between reli-gious architecture and the community, which reinvigorates the relevance of theshrine. The temple is thus a crucial link between the community, the religious precep-tor, the textual tradition, and the story-teller, and through its wider linkages in theoverall sacred geography connected to other major shrines, cult spots, and centres ofpilgrimage, its reach extended beyond political frontiers. This paper makes the casefor study and research of the social history of the temple, a theme that has been over-shadowed in historical writings that have tended to focus on origins of temples, eco-nomic base of the shrine, and patronage provided by the political elite.

The ‘new’ disciplines: Archaeology & art history

A linear view of religious development emerged in the nineteenth century with thebeginnings of the study of stone architecture dated to the fourth–third centuriesBC and attributed largely to Greek influence. The connection between architecturalform and religious change was firmly established and the quest for chronologysecurely rooted the architecture within linear time. More importantly, this lineardevelopment of Buddhist–Jain–Hindu architecture accepted notions of origins anddecline and antagonism between the different religions of the subcontinent,co-existence being ruled out.

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The Western caves afford the most vivid illustration of the rise and progress ofall the great religions that prevailed in India in the early centuries of this eraand the one before it. They show how Buddhist religion rose and spread, andhow its form later became corrupt and idolatrous. They explain how it conse-quently came to be superseded by the nearly cognate form of Jainism and theantagonistic development of the revived religion of the Brahmins (Fergusonand Burgess 1969:166).

James Ferguson (1808–86) came to India to work for the family firm of Fairlie,Ferguson & Co. in Calcutta. Soon his interest shifted from merchandising to archi-tecture and for about 6 years from 1836 to 1841, he travelled to various parts ofIndia, studying and documenting Indian architecture. After returning to Londonin 1845, his sketches were lithographed and published in a book entitled, Illustra-tions of the Rock Cut Temples of India, which consisted of eighteen plates.1

In Ferguson’s frame of reference, Indian architecture provided an importantmissing link in the development of architecture in the world, especially thetwelfth–thirteenth century flowering of architecture in Europe. Besides, eventhough India could never reach ‘the intellectual supremacy of Greece, or the moralgreatness of Rome’, architecture in India was still a living art, which could informin a variety of ways about the developments in Europe (Ferguson 1910:4–5). Thiswas significant, since there was a lack of historical texts in India and post-fifth cen-tury Indian history could only be studied through monuments and inscriptions.Ferguson’s classification was essentially within a racial–religious framework andthe limits of Dravidian architecture were defined by the spread of people speakingTamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kanarese (Ferguson 1910:39–40, 302). A characteris-tic feature of Dravidian temples was the emphasis on ornamentation and almostevery nook and corner was elaborately sculpted to the detriment of architecturalplanning. Another failing of the region was that Dravidian temples were a fortui-tous aggregation of parts, arranged without plan unlike the European architecture,which adopted a uniform plan, changing only with the progress of time.

Thus, James Ferguson established a link between architectural form, ethnicity,and religious affiliation. Within this framework, an apsidal shrine, such as thatof the Durga temple at Aihole in north Karnataka could only be associated withBuddhism and since the eighth century Durga temple was dedicated to Sūrya,the explanation suggested by Ferguson underscored its conversion to Hinduismlater. By the 1860s, the Durga temple featured ‘as an inglorious, structural versionof a Buddhist caitya hall, appropriated by Brāhmaṇical Hindus and buried underrubble at a site of the ancient Chalukya dynasty’ (Tartakov 1997:6). As a result ofsubsequent investigation by Gary Tartakov not only on the plan of the temple,but also on its rich imagery, it is now evident that the Durga temple is one ofthe nearly one hundred and fifty temples built across 450 km of the Deccan inthe seventh–eighth centuries AD, albeit the Durga temple is the largest and mostlavishly constructed monument dating to around 725–30 AD.

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In a perceptive reanalysis of Ferguson’s inputs and the development of the historyof architecture through the works of stalwarts, such as Ram Raz, D.R. Bhandarkar,E.B. Havell, Stella Kramrisch, Anand Coomaraswamy, S.K. Saraswati, M.A. Dhaky,and Krishna Deva, Pramod Chandra concluded:

One of the more promising ways to study Indian temple architecture from theIndian point of view would be to have recourse to the śilpa texts and the practi-cing śilpis for the light that these throw on the art. And this is precisely whatFerguson and his followers had been unable to do (1975:25).

The debate continues and it is not the intention of this paper to retrace its tra-jectory. More recent studies, however, have moved beyond the dichotomy of textversus architecture. Devangana Desai, for example, adopts a holistic approach andfocuses on the placement of images within the overall architectural configurationof the temple with reference to the underlying philosophy of the construction(Desai 1996). Michell (1988) explains the cultural, religious, and architectural signif-icance of the temple, while Adam Hardy’s work compares and contrasts the twostreams of Indian temple architecture, i.e. Nagara and Dravida to illustrate conti-nuities and distinctions between them. Temple architecture is defined essentiallyas the architecture of imagery bound up with political patronage (Hardy 2007).In contrast, R.N. Misra devotes his study to the role of artisans and the practiceof the craft (Misra 2009).

How does one assess Ferguson’s work vis-à-vis that of some of his contempor-aries such as Alexander Cunningham (1814–93), though the latter worked largelyin the north of the Vindhyas and had seen very little further south except ‘the cele-brated Buddhist caves of Elephanta and Kanheri’ (Cunningham 1963:viii)? One waywould be to compare Ferguson’s treatment of early temples with an emphasis onarchitectural development with Cunningham’s approach to the study of Gupta tem-ples. One major point of discord between the two was on the dating of architecturalremains. For Cunningham, inscriptions were important indicators of chronology,while Ferguson was a firm believer of styles and techniques as indicators of date.

Cunningham’s methodology in terms of cataloguing and documentation ofarchaeological data was extensive, though never comprehensive. Unlike Ferguson’sreliance on photography, Cunningham moved from site to site, often visiting asmany as 30 sites in one season. Based on a detailed study of the characteristicsof the temples, he formulated the Gupta style of temples, thereby providing a linkbetween political dynasties and religious architecture, a link that remains unques-tioned into the present.2

Based on stylistic analysis Ferguson dated the caves at Kanheri to the fourth–fifth centuries AD, but Cunningham argued for a much earlier date based on thereference to 30 of Śakādityakāla or AD 108 in one of the inscriptions. Similarly, Fer-guson dated Karle caves to first–second centuries BC, whereas for Cunninghamthey belonged to the beginning of the second century (Cunningham 1871:xxii).



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Thus, the reliance on the inscriptions was firmly established, though their contextwas seldom discussed. This legacy continues with the placement of inscriptions onreligious architecture being an issue that is yet to receive attention – an exceptionbeing the work of Orr (2008).

At this point, Rajendralal Mitra’s contributions need to be brought into the dis-cussion and compared and contrasted with those of the other two. Mitra distin-guished himself on account of his knowledge of Indian languages such asSanskrit, Persian, Urdu, and Hindi, and edited several Sanskrit texts like TheSanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal published in 1882. He was closely associated withthe Asiatic Society of Bengal and wrote about its centenary history that wassubsequently published in 1885. Besides editing, translating, and cataloguingmanuscripts, his two pioneering works were, The Antiquities of Orissa (1875, 1880)and Buddha Gaya, the Hermitage of Sakya Muni (1878).

Much has been written about Mitra’s project to write history based on India’sancient architecture and sculpture following the work of Ram Raz, his claim thatthe Hindu temple qualified as an elevated art form and his subsequent differenceswith Ferguson on the Greek legacy in Indian stone sculpture, which led the latter towrite a book in 1884 titled Archaeology in India, with special reference to the Works ofBabu Rajendralal Mitra. This has been seen as colonial insecurity against a Western-educated native scholar in the context of the politics of the Ilbert Bill of 1883,which threatened to subject the British in India to the jurisdiction of native judges(Chakrabarti 1997:111–6; Guha-Thakurta 2004:108–11).

The question that needs to be addressed relates to Mitra’s methodology in thestudy of religious architecture and the extent to which it differed from that of Cun-ningham and Ferguson? As he states in the Preface to his Antiquities of Orissa, ‘I hadtwo objectives in mind: one to record accurately the plans, etc. of historicalremains and the second to use this for a social history of the ages, such as that writ-ten by Sir Gardner Wilkinson titled Ancient Egyptians’ (1875:i). Mitra stresses that‘every literature, however fabulous or mythical may be its character, has a histor-ical value and that of India cannot be an exception. In the same way, almost everymonument or carved stone … bears on its face an index to the intellectual condi-tion of some individual or community and may be made, with proper care to yieldan acceptable contribution to the cause of history’ (1875:v). Thus, of all the three,Mitra’s canvas as it related to a study of the visual data for a social history of Indiawas perhaps the widest – a methodology largely neglected in subsequent writings.

The early 20th century saw the appointment of Sir John Marshall as Director-Gen-eral of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928. On 20 September 1924Marshall announced to the world in the Illustrated London News of the discovery of anew civilisation that was older than any known civilisation of the subcontinent.Marshall (1931) published his 3-volume study of the Indus Civilisation. Given theextensive area covered by the civilisation Marshall suggested that the inhabitantsspoke more than one language, which perhaps belonged to the Dravidian group.As regard to Indus religion, Marshall argued for the ritual importance of water,



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and continuity of several traditions into later periods such as worship of a male godidentified with Śiva, the presence of fertility cults, and worship of the female prin-ciple (Marshall 1931:41–2). Inadvertently, he initiated a trend to trace the begin-nings of several later religious developments to the Harappan civilisation.

Alternative interpretations have been suggested …. [H]owever, it is only Mar-shall’s explanation [of the Proto-Shiva seal] which makes sense in the light ofHinduism (Chakrabarti 2001:42).

A more nuanced utilisation of the Vedas and the Mahābhārata and the correlationwith the archaeological data to comprehend religious developments in Mathurafrom the second century BC to the third century AD is evident in Doris MethSrinivasan’s study of the multiplicity convention in early iconography, viz. theappearance of multi-headed and multi-armed images. She highlights the unique-ness of the multiplicity convention in the Indic world, even though the arts ofother cultures in antiquity, such as examples from ancient Greece and Rome, doshow the presence of minor deities with multiple body parts. ‘It must also be regis-tered that the multiplicity convention is deeply in tune with the ways of concep-tualising Hinduism’ (Srinivasan 1997:9). It is in this capacity to acknowledgemultiple forms of one deity and the cyclic nature of time that the Indic cultureis unique and it is here that the early Sanskrit textual tradition provides insightsfor possible de-codification of symbols. Significantly for this paper, Srinivasan’sresearch also provides ways of comprehending the religious tradition withreference to the material culture and presents a contrasting perspective to thatof several historians of ancient India.

The temple in the writing of ancient Indian history

The framework propounded by Ferguson has survived with extraordinary tenacityin the post-independence period and has resulted in a general disregard for multi-religious sites, shared architectural vocabulary, and plurality of religious forms inthe academic discourse. Romila Thapar makes a distinction between Brāhmanismand Śramanism and stresses antagonism between the two (Thapar 2000:967). Thelatter term, according to her, included a variety of Buddhist, Jaina, Ājīvika, andother sects, which denied the fundamentals of Brāhmanism such as Vedic Śrutiand Smṛti. She then traces the essentials of Śāktism to Harappan times and statesthat the worship of the goddess was later accepted in some brāhmaṇical sects. Hin-duism for Thapar is a ‘mosaic of distinct cults, deities, sects, and ideas and theadjusting, juxtaposing, or distancing of these to existing ones, the placement draw-ing not only on belief and ideas but also on the socio-economic reality’ (Thapar2000:972). Implicit in this understanding is an emphasis on antagonism betweenreligions and the perception that religious development can only be understoodthrough the ‘socio-economic reality’.



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In contrast, Kapila Vatsyayan suggests that at the conceptual level, structuraledifices translated the imagery of speculative thought of the Upaniṣads and themethodology (vidhi) of the ritual concretised in the Brāhmaṇas in terms of measuresand designs to a language of artistic form. Myth and legend constituted the contentand are as it were superimposed on the abstraction; in turn formalised into the lan-guage of iconography (Vatsyayan 1983:104). Thus at one level, religious edificesshow continuity in terms of adherence to underlying principles, while at anotherlevel they indicate interrelationship amongst different art forms in a region.

This is however not accepted by historians writing within the socio-economicframework of Indian History who define the post-fourth century period as markinga transitional phase between the sacrificial Vedic religion and the emergence ofPurāṇic worship marked by devotion to a deity. This transformation, it is sug-gested, was brought about by the migration of brāhmaṇas from the towns andthe development of tīrthas or sacred pilgrimage spots (Nandi 1986). Brāhmaṇasare credited with being agents of acculturation among the tribal populations fromthe fifth century AD onwards. It is suggested that at numerous feudal centres, tem-ples were constructed using permanent material such as stone for the first time inthe fifth century AD ‘inspired by the growing importance of bhakti and by the newlyestablished Smārta-Paurāṇic religion, which was associated with the new socialsetup’ (Desai 1989–90:31; Nath 2001). Regional states emerged from the seventhto the tenth centuries marked by complex changes in religious dimensions ofthe society and it is ‘believed that Bhakti and the worship through Bhakti ofGod as a Lord located in a temple, was the key ideological strand of the period’(Chattopadhyaya 1994:29).

In the next section, it would be useful to examine the extent to which this fra-mework can be substantiated by archaeological data.

The early temple from the archaeological record

The archaeological record indicates the presence of shrines dedicated to severaldeities from the second to first century BC onwards. The Besnagar Brahmi pillar ded-ication from Vidisha in central India, dated to late second century BC on a Garuḍapillar of Vāsudeva, the god of gods, states that it was commissioned by Heliodoros,son of Dion from Taxila, a worshipper of Viṣṇu. The Śiva liṅga at Gudimallam in Chit-toor district of Andhra dates to the second–first century BC and was enshrined in abrick shrine dated to the first century AD. Intense archaeological exploration at theconfluence of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers has brought to light a remarkableseries of brick temples. Mostly square on plan, these contained pebble liṅgas andhave been dated between the second and sixth centuries AD (Sarma 1982:18).

Perhaps one of the earliest inscriptions indicating a dedication to a Śaiva shrinewas found engraved in characters dated to first century AD on a flat rectangularred sandstone slab at a place called Chaurāsi at Mathura. The epigraph recordsthe donation of a tank, garden, sabhā, stone tablets, and shrines (devakulāni) by a



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villager named Magakujitakheda for the grace of bhagavān Śiva. A śrīvatsa andsvāstika are engraved on the two ends of the inscription (Srinivasan 1981:9–10).

It is significant that in addition to shrines to Viṣṇu and Śiva, there is evidencefor temples to the Nāga and to Lajjā-Gaurī. An apsidal structure dedicated to theNāga cult was excavated at the site of Sonkh in Mathura district. The site was firstsettled in 800 BC, but the earliest evidence for an apsidal shrine (no. 1) of bakedbrick in the habitation area dates to the first century AD (Härtel 1993:86). It wasrebuilt and extended several times and was most likely located in the centre ofthe settlement. A 19-cm high stone relief of a seated Mātṛkā with two devoteeson both sides was found on the floor of the shrine. Also, a number of terracottaplaques showing the goddess battling the buffalo demon were recovered eitherfrom the temple or its close proximity. It would seem that Mahiśāsuramardinīwas a popular deity in Mathura in the early centuries AD, as 34 images of the god-dess were found in the area. The fight with the demon was an important part of hercult, though there are no satisfactory references for it either in the Vedas or in theMahābhārata. The multiple facets of the goddess are elaborately described in a latertext, the Devīmāhātmya, but there is incongruence between the textual descriptionand the imagery (Srinivasan 1997:16).

A second apsidal temple (no. 2) was found 400 m north of the main excavatedarea and this dates to a somewhat earlier period in the first century BC. The earlyphase of the structure is oriented east–west, with the entrance on the east side. Theremains of roof tiles found near the wall indicate a larger, roofed entrance area.The religious affiliation of the first century BC shrine is, however, unclear, but mostlikely was dedicated to the Nāga cult as evident from the finds (Härtel 2007:330–1).It is interesting that an image of Nāgarāja of the Kusana period is housed in a mod-ern temple on the top of the mound and worshipped as Cāmaradevī by the womenof the village. In addition to Mathura another early centre known for the worshipof the Nāga cult is Rajgir. Excavations at the site unearthed a brick shrine dated tothe second–first century BC and several terracotta figurines of Nāgas (ArchaeologicalSurvey of India Annual Report 1935–36:53). Further information for worship ofNāginīs or Snake Goddesses comes from the analyses of four lifesized images datingto the first century AD, probably made in Mathura and taken for worship toNandan, about 100–10 km from Mathura in the present state of Uttar Pradesh.These figures sculpted of red sandstone in the round are now dispersed in differentmuseums of the world, but a detailed stylistic analysis has traced them to Nandanand has also suggested precedents for them at Sanchi. Nor was the Nāginī cultlimited to the early centuries AD. The Rauravāgama, a Śaiva ritual text from southIndia dated to the seventh century AD, presents detailed descriptions in twochapters (38 and 57) of the proper rituals to install Nāga images and the benefitsof such worship (Srinivasan 2007:351–84).

Another local cult that gained ground in the post-Mauryan period was the wor-ship of Lajjā-Gaurī. This was, in all probability, a fertility cult, which originatedfrom the worship of a supine image, especially during childbirth. It is significant



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that shrines dedicated to Lajjā-Gaurī are now known from excavated sites. One ofthese is the site of Padri in the Talaja tahsil of Bhavnagar district of Gujarat hardly2 km from the Gulf of Cambay.3 The site has Harappan beginnings, but was againoccupied around the first century BC.

Early Indian coins further substantiate the data from archaeological excavationsand are a valuable source of information. A depiction of a temple may be seen ona square copper coin of the Audumbaras dated to second–first century BC. It showsa pillared shrine with a curvilinear spire flanked by pillars. The temple occurs onother issues of the Audumbaras such as those of king Dharaghoṣa, Śivadāsa, andRudradāsa. Representations of multi-storeyed structures on a square plan are alsoknown on coins of the Trigartas and Yaudheyas from north India. The diversity inthe shrine-types illustrated indicates regional variations (Handa 2007:41–55). It isevident from this brief overview that there is archaeological confirmation for theemergence of the shrine in the second to first century BC in several regions ofthe subcontinent. Rather than marking a disjunction between the Vedic and Puranictradition, the temple indicates a reconfiguration of religious thought and practice.Inscriptions from the second century onwards indicate that the political elite con-tinued to perform Vedic sacrifices. Michael Willis has shown that pūjā became anoverarching ritual category and Vedic rituals were transformed to meet the changedritual needs. Vedic texts, such as the Āpastamba Gṛhya Sūtra prescribe ritualsequences and styles of worship for veneration of images, which later with the emer-gence of the temple became standard elements of fifth century AD Gupta rituals. Bali,caru, and sattra, which occur in accounts of pañcamahāyajña or daily domestic ritualsin Vedic texts are frequently mentioned in epigraphs of the fifth–sixth centuries as apart of the ritual of pūjā. The fifth century Podagarh inscription recounts how a kingset up a shrine for Viṣṇu’s footprints and then set up a sattra to feed brāhmaṇas,ascetics, and the destitute (Epigraphia Indica 21, 1931–32:153–7). This indicates thatthe temples had become the loci of endowed charitable activity termed sattra andthat this was conceived as an aspect of pūjā (Willis 2009:chap. 5).

Another category of archaeological finds, viz. the fire altars for the performanceof human sacrifice or puruṣamedha as described in the Vedic corpus, and unearthedat historical sites such as Kausambi dated to 200 BC (Sharma 1969:118) have oftenbeen disregarded by historians. Bakker has recently reviewed the evidence, espe-cially with reference to the site of Mansar excavated by J.P. Joshi and A.K. Sharmafrom 1998 to 2000 (Joshi and Sharma 2005) and concluded that the male terracottafigure found in fifth century context marks the remains of a construction sacrifice(Bakker 2007). Unlike Kausambi, no human remains were found at Mansar. Insteada more than a lifesized figure of Puruṣa made of lime with the head smashed wasunearthed half-way up the hill in an area covered with brick construction. Bakkerconcludes that the Vedic concept of the Cosmic Man and the agnicayana ritual wastransformed on association with the temple and reemerged as the constructionsacrifice, which is repeated in Sanskrit texts such as the Āgamas and the Śilpaśāstras(Bakker 2007:192–3).



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A second significant conclusion evident from the archaeological record isthe diverse religious landscape that emerged with shrines dedicated not only toŚiva and Viṣṇu, but also to Nāgas, Mātṛkās, Lajjā-Gaurī, and so on. We have not dis-cussed Buddhist and Jaina shrines in this section, but they were also prominent onthe sacred landscape and continued to share space with the Hindu temple. A recentstudy of historic places in Hinduism discusses the relation of the sacred to ordinaryexistence as it is mediated through arts, sciences, rituals, and philosophical ideas,thereby highlighting the mosaic of religious sites as evident in the archaeologicalrecord (Glucklich 2008). In addition, inscriptions refer to a variety of places of wor-ship such as a devikula (shrine) of a Jaina saint, a sabhā (assembly hall) for āyāga(worship), a prāsāda (temple or palace), a prapā (cistern), a railing, an architravefor a gate of a śailadevagṛha, so a stone temple and one resembling a mountain(parvato-prāsāde) (Raven 2008). Thus, while the shrine met the requirements of adiverse range of religious groups, it was by no means the sole indicator of religiousarchitecture. How then does one address the issue of brāhmaṇical hegemony that issaid to have subsumed an indigenous tradition? What is the evidence for the pre-sence of a native religious tradition?

The autochthonous goddess and open-air shrines

D.D. Kosambi (1907–66), the mathematician, historian, and eclectic thinker adoptedthe historical materialist approach for the study of India’s ancient past. He arguedfor continuity of Indian culture and its survival in the present peasant commu-nities. He proposed that the long survival of observances that have no sanctionin the official brāhmanic works can only have originated in the most primitivestages of human society and this has been the prevailing orthodoxy in Indian his-tory writing (Kosambi 1956:20). It is often argued that the cult of the mother god-dess was Dravidian in origin and that religious customs of the tribes and low-castegroups can provide insights into archaic practices that were later incorporated intobrāhmaṇical religion. Thus, it is suggested that terracotta figurines found atarchaeological sites formed a part of the folk tradition, which was later integratedinto the brāhmaṇical fold.

This section considers the role of terracotta figurines found at archaeologicalsites dated from 300 BC to AD 300 within the larger domain of diverse ritual prac-tices prevalent during this period, rather as an attempt to trace the origins of the‘goddess cult’. Though terracotta figurines have been found in a variety of contextsdating from the Harappan civilisation onwards, the largest number occur between600 BC and AD 600 and are found extensively across north India, but are more lim-ited in number in the far south. Stephen Huyler refers to terracotta figurines asvotive offerings at shrines (1986:58–63), while Krishan and Jayaswal’s study focuseson terracotta figurines associated with thāna worship, the thāna being an auspiciouscult spot worshipped by devotees of all castes and strata (1986:143–6).



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Terracotta plaques and shards with auspicious symbols were integral to Gaṅgāvalley religious traditions and the repertoire included a range of deities.Atranjikhera, for example, has yielded a gaja-lakṣmī plaque in terracotta dated to200–100 BC, and another first–second centuries AD specimen depicting mahiśāsura-mardinī comes from Mathura. Excavations at Kapilavastu have revealed habitationalevidence from 800 BC to third century AD of terracotta Buddha figures, Śaiva heads,and nude Jina figures (Srivastava 1996). At Tamluk, representations of Buddha,Bodhisattva, and other deities are known in terracotta, while only one Buddhafigure has so far been reported from Chandraketugarh (Mandal 1987:25–7). Otherrepresentations include corpulent yakṣa images and plaques with female Nāgafigurines, and several specimens found at Chandraketugarh are now in the Kanoriacollection (Roy Chowdhury 1995–96:69).

It is striking that already by the second–first centuries BC these terracotta imageswere housed in a variety of structures and worshipped. Two of the open-air shrineshave been identified on terracotta objects from Chandraketugarh dated to the first–second centuries AD and they show enclosures marked by railings. Terracotta pla-ques depicting a female figurine enshrined in a pillared maṇḍapa accompanied byattendants with fans and umbrellas, and devotees with bowls or even with a haloaround the head have been found in lower Bengal (Bautze 1995). Another represen-tation shows the female figurine standing on a pot or ghata containing coins and sheis shown showering money on a worshipper (Bautze 1995:plates 12, 13).

Interesting data regarding terracotta figurines come from the site of Sringaver-apura, 36 km west northwest of Allahabad where a brick tank dated from the sec-ond half of the first century BC to the end of the first century AD was unearthedduring archaeological excavations from 1977 to 1986. Fragments of human terra-cotta figurines were recovered from the tank complex and their size indicates thatthese were large, often lifesize. The iconography helps identify a range of deitiessuch as Śiva, Pārvati, Kubera, Nāga/Nāgi, Hariti, and Pañcika (Lal 1993:108).

The three sites in the Deccan that stand out for the large collections of terra-cotta figurines are those of Ter in the District Osmanabad, Kondapur, 70 km north-west of Hyderabad and Nagarjunakonda in the lower Krishna valley. The finds fromTer come largely through surface collections and are now in the private collectionof Shri Ramalingappa Lamture. Henry Cousens visited Ter, about 45 km east ofBarsi, a great cotton centre, in 1901 and remarked on the extensive mounds aroundthe town littered with brickbats and potshards. The remains of several brick-builtHindu, Jaina and Buddhist shrines and scattered sculptures were extant at the site.Clearly, Ter was a multi-religious site with a diverse religious architecture, whichcontinued from the early centuries of the Christian era into the present. Epigraphsfrom the temples range between AD 1000 and the sixteenth century and a copper-plate grant in Persian dated AD 1659 states that the Qazi of Ter ratified certain pri-vileges to the head of the Teli community (Cousens 1904:195–204). Subsequentarchaeological excavations at the site unearthed the base of a large brick Buddhist



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stupa and an apsidal brick temple with a stupa in the apse and a wooden maṇḍapain the front (Indian Archaeology – A Review, 1967–68:35).

The cultural deposit at Kondapur extends over a 1-km area and in 1941–42Ghulam Yazdani excavated the site on behalf of the Archaeological Departmentof Hyderabad. The excavated material showed that Kondapur was a thriving townfrom around the second century BC to the third century AD. Hundreds of terracottafigurines made from double moulds, clay bullae made in imitation of Roman coins,the finds of Sātavāhana coins, and a large collection of personal ornaments indicatethe prosperity of the site. These represent deities such as bodhisattvas, yakṣas,yakṣiṇīs, and other religious or semi-religious beings. The modelling of these terra-cottas is exquisite and present expressive faces and elaborate coiffures. As was alsousual in the early historical period, Kondapur was home to a large Buddhist mon-astic community represented in the archaeological excavations by stupas andvihāras (Yazdani 1960:775).

The secluded Nagarjunakonda valley shut in on three sides by offshoots of theNallamalai Hill Range has yielded archaeological evidence for settlement fromthe earliest Neolithic period in the third millennium BC to the sixteenth century.More than thirty Buddhist establishments, nineteen Hindu temples, and a few med-ieval Jaina shrines were unearthed in several seasons of archaeological excavationsconducted at the site after its discovery in 1920 until its submergence in 1960. Theearliest evidence of working in stone is indicated by Iron Age burials dated to thelatter half of the first millennium BC. Stone circles surrounded the burials or mega-liths, which included both pit-burials and cists made of dressed stone covered withheaps of stone. In addition to the burials, the excavations unearthed Hindu tem-ples, Buddhist monastic complexes discussed above, and 22 memorial pillars oftenassociated with religious architecture. Another form of architecture comprised flat-roofed open pillared halls found all around the valley at Nagarjunakonda. Thus, thecomplex patterning of secular and religious space is evident.

In conclusion to this section, it is evident that rather than representing a Dra-vidian/autochthonous tradition, terracotta female figurines by no means form ahomogenous category. Instead, they include a range of forms and were distributedboth locally and across a larger region such as the Gaṅgā valley or the Deccan. Amultiplicity of functions and religious affiliations are evident, as in the represen-tation of Hindu and Buddhist deities in terracotta. It is then evident that ratherthan representing folk or archaic practices later incorporated into the Hindu foldby brāhmaṇas, terracotta images often worshipped in open-air shrines formed apart of the diverse sacred landscape and continued well into the present. Canwe place them in hierarchical order with the temple patronised by royalty atone end of the scale? I would suggest that the issue of patronage of templesrequires revisiting.



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Patronage, inscriptions, and the temple

There is a need to critically evaluate the question of patronage since temples areusually associated with royalty in secondary writings. Though Kulke disagrees withBurton Stein on the extent of autonomy enjoyed by nuclear areas of sub-regionalpowers from sixth to twelfth century AD, in the context of Orissa he does concedethat these core regions of Hindu civilisation emerged as a result of a ‘sustained dis-placement of tribally organised, pastoral, and hunting society of forests and uplandareas by caste-organised village-based societies’ (Stein 1969:185). In this colonisa-tion of nuclear areas, the temple was indispensable to Indian kingship (Kulke1993:3). In this section, we analyse the location of temples vis-à-vis political centresand the extent to which the inscriptional record supports the case of royaldonations. In the context of Karnataka, for example, only seven out of hundredand forty temples record a dedication of the royal family of the Chalukyas. Further-more, these ‘royal’ shrines are scattered within the larger domain associated withthe Chalukyas, rather than being clustered in proximity to political space. This isan issue that has been analysed in several writings on temples from south India.

A majority of the thirteenth century inscriptions from Andhra, for example,were either engraved on temple walls or on pillars and slabs within the temple pre-cincts. Not all temples have provided evidence for inscriptions. Based on an analy-sis of the eight hundred and ninety five inscriptions from Andhra dated from 1175to 1325 AD, as also the dimensions of the temples where they are found, Talbot hasconcluded that their geographic distribution in the region was uneven, with a clus-tering of temples in the coastal areas (Talbot 1991). It is evident that several largetemple complexes in the coastal regions were also centres of pilgrimage and wereable to attract large endowments. The three most popular temple complexes werelocated at Tripurantakam in Prakasam district, Daksharama in East Godavari dis-trict, and Vijayawada in Krishna district. It is suggested that there were two differ-ing patterns of donations: one, a tightly focused network in the highly patronisedtemples in the coastal regions; and another a more diffuse network comprisingscattered and smaller temples in the interior. It is at this time from 1163 to1323 that political power was consolidated under the Kakatiyas, who ruled fromtheir capital in the interior at Warangal. In contrast, the major coastal templesdrew their patronage from non-landed boyas identified as pastoralists, settis or mer-chants, and women, while donations for the minor temples in the interior camefrom nāyakas or military officials, and mahārājas or the political elite. The sanctityof the larger temples was mainly due to the orthodoxy of their rituals and the San-skritic affiliations of their myths (Talbot 1991). These conclusions are significantand are also valid for other regions of the subcontinent.

An analysis of stone inscriptions from the eighth to thirteenth century in theTamil country indicates that the number of royal inscriptions recording gifts totemples is nowhere greater than 1%. Chola rulers were overshadowed as patronsto temples not only by their queens, but more significantly also by their predeces-



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sors, the Pandya kings. ‘The notion that the Chola monarchs were paradigmatictemple patrons is questionable not only because of the small number of their gifts,but also because of their lack of chronological priority’ (Orr 2007:94). Instead thepattern for royalty seems to be to donate generously to specific sacred sites, bothŚaiva and Vaiṣṇava in newly conquered territories to project themselves aslegitimate inheritors of the tradition. For example, the Pandyas, donated liberallyto four major temples in the Chola heartland, viz. Chidambaram, Kattumannargudi,Srirangam, and Tiruvanaikka. When Vijayanagara rulers seized power in the four-teenth century, they ‘sought to represent themselves as legitimate successors ofthe Pandyas’ as evident from the fourteenth century poem Madhurāvijaya(Orr 2007:95). It is then evident that temples need to be studied in regional ratherthan dynastic terms.

Instead of looking for royal figures or dynasties as the agents of change, as thoseresponsible for inspiring or instituting new religious and artistic forms, wewould do well to attend to the ways in which variations and transformationswere related to a complex and shifting backdrop of regional and local on-the-ground realities .... Our ideas of empire, of government, of temple life, and ofIndian kingship have been coloured by the history of more recent times, andwe must exercise caution in using these ideas to interpret the past (Orr 2007:97).

How then does one identify the role of the temple in the society? In this finalsection, I suggest that rather than interpreting religious structures as static indica-tors of royal generosity, the involvement of the community needs to be factored in,as well as the fact that maintenance and survival of religious shrines depended onreinvention and support by groups who had interest and stake in it.

Based on ethnographic analysis, Meister concludes that temples are ritualinstruments and their function is ‘to web individuals and communities into a com-plicated and inconsistent social fabric through time’ (Meister 2000:24). It is thestrands of this social fabric that need to be understood and appreciated. One ofthe basic questions that emerges is, who has proprietary rights (svāmitva) over atemple? This question is not easy to answer since proprietary rights at a templeor other sacred site in India can be multiple and overlapping. At the most basiclevel these claims are based on the continuity of the priest’s service or sevā tothe temple. In some cases, these are exclusivist claims since the pujārīs or priestsare also in total control over the temple, while in other cases they are partialclaims as the pujārīs have hereditary rights, which cannot be alienated.

It is significant that while the origin myths of most of these temples associatetheir founding with a royal patron, yet there is little historical evidence for thisduring most of their existence. Another basis for proprietary claim is genealogicaland the fact that a particular community has a special relationship with the deity.For example, Dadhimati is said to be the kuladevī or caste goddess of the Dahimabrāhmaṇas and it is on this basis that Dahimas have staked claims to the sole pro-



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prietorship of the temple (Meister 2000:40). Rights to worship a deity may also bebased on an alternative identity of the image. For example, the main image in theKesariyaji temple south of Udaipur is worshipped by the Jains as the Jina Adinatha,while the local Bhil tribals worship it as Kalaji or Karia Baba. The incorporation ofethnographic data underscores the role of the temple within the community andthe need to discuss it within issues of identity formation and pilgrimage.

The temple as a marker of cultural identity

Two views persist with reference to the term Hindu and its use as a marker of cul-tural identity in the pre-colonial period.4 One regards it as a single, great traditionof many interrelated parts stemming from the revelation (śruti) of the Vedas. Theother sees Hinduism as a nineteenth-century construction with no social orreligious identity (Flood 1995). I would like to suggest that pan-Indian culturalpractices, rituals, and imagery formed the substratum of a self-perception andidentity of the local population of the subcontinent long before the European dis-covery of the term ‘Hindu’ and a judicious use of archaeological data provides evi-dence to unearth this identity. Significantly archaeology presents a very differentperspective on the study of religious transformation and patronage in early southAsia when compared to conventional historical writings on the subject. The crucialelement in the Asian landscape was the religious shrine and it is important tolocate it in a social context and to unravel the multiple levels at which sacred sitesinteracted with a diverse range of communities and negotiated between these (Ray2007a).

Scholars (Flood 1995; Hardy 1990) have contested the prevailing notion that Hin-duism was purely the construction of Western orientalists to make sense of theplurality of religious phenomena within the vast geographical area of South Asia(Halbfass 1991:1–22; von Stietencron 1991:1–22). The basic issue concerns the defi-nition of the term ‘religion’ as belief or faith, which has developed out of a largelyProtestant understanding. To what extent has the perception of Hinduism beenmediated by Western understanding of the nature of religion, and the projectionof Hinduism as an ‘other’ to the West’s Christianity (Inden 1990)? It is evident thatthe present definition of religion is inadequate and would need to be modified toinclude a variety of cultural practices, which formed an integral part of religion inthe ancient period. ‘Religion needs to be located squarely within human society andculture; there is no privileged discourse of religion outside particular cultures andsocieties’ (Flood 1995).

The sacredness exists entirely within culture and manifests itself in a variety ofcontexts: temples, locations, images, and people. The sacredness of time, objects, orpersons depends upon context, and the boundaries between the sacred and theeveryday routine are fluid. A temple image or icon prior to consecration is merelystone, metal, or wood; once consecrated, however, it is empowered and becomesthe focus of mediation (Flood 1995). Within this redefinition of ‘religion’ what a



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Hindu does is more important than what he or she believes. Hinduism is not cree-dal and adherence to dharma is therefore not an acceptance of certain beliefs butthe performance of certain duties, which are defined in accordance with dharmicsocial stratification. This position is further supported by Frits Staal who states thata Hindu ‘may be a theist, pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever helikes, but what makes him a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and therules to which he adheres, in short, what he does’ (Staal 1989:389). These ritualsand social rules are derived from the Hindu primary revelation, the Veda, and fromthe secondary revelation, the inspired texts of human authorship. One may addthat these rules find expression in various forms, such as a range of Vedicsacrifices, which continued to be performed well into the historical period, domes-tic rituals, and pūjā or worship as manifested within the physical form of thetemple.

This is especially important in the context of the temple complexes of Aihole,Badami, and Pattadakal, which redefined sacred space in the Malaprabha valleyin north Karnataka in the sixth–seventh centuries AD. The setting up of the reli-gious sites not only altered the physical and cultural landscape, but also thesestructures continued to be altered and reinvented. At both ends of the 25 km longfertile valley of the Malaprabha river (a tributary of the Krishna) in Bagalkot dis-trict, the hills close in and Badami lies some distance outside the southern entranceto the enclosed terrain. Here, between the cliffs there is a huge tank and templesare scattered around this water-body. Aihole (Aryapura/Ahivolal) is located at theopposite entrance to the valley almost 50 km from Badami and in the middle of thevalley lies Pattadakal (ancient Kisuvolal), where a complex of temples were built onthe banks of Malaprabha, which at this point runs auspiciously from south to north.Mahakuta lies 5 km east of Badami as the crow flies in a cleft in the hills and con-tinues to be a place of pilgrimage, with most of the shrines built around a sacredtank within a walled enclosure. Other significant places include the site ofNāganātha temple, in the forested area; rock shelters at B.N. Jalihalla andSiddhanakolla in the hills near Aihole; Sandur in Bellary district; Banavasi, theancient Kadamba capital; Kudaveli Sangam; Satyavolu; and Alampur, 150 km orso to the east (Ray 2007b).

Seven out of hundred and forty temples bear an inscription recording a dedica-tion of the royal family of the Chalukyas and three of these are at Pattadakal, twoat Badami, one at Mahakuta and one at Alampur. What then was the role of thekings, considering that very few temples provide evidence of being patronisedby the ruling elite? A response to this question necessarily involves an examinationof the unique spatial context of these sites and the diverse nature of these shrines,which were not only dedicated to a host of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain deities, butalso owed affiliation to fertility cults such as that of Lajjā-Gaurī.

Local tradition as recorded in the Mahākūṭa Māhātmya narrates that this was thescene of destruction of the demon brothers Vatapi and Ilvala by the saint Agastya.Śakambari Māhātmya, a section of Skanda Purāṇa mentions the sacred place –



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Mahakuta as the original abode of Devī Śakambari. Near the steps on the west sideof the tank stands a liṅga-shrine in the water with a pañcamukhaliṅga, while in thecourtyard are a number of small liṅga temples and a cell with an image of Lajjā-Gaurī. The only two temples of any size in the courtyard are those of Mallikārjunaand Mahākūṭeśvara, and it is the latter that has three inscriptions. The first is inthe porch of the temple and belongs to the time of the Chalukya king Vijayāditya.It records that one of his concubines prāṇa-vallabhā Vināpoti bestowed the entiregift of a hiraṇyagarbha and having made a pedestal for the god with rubies andhaving set up its silver umbrella, gave a field called Mangalulle (of the measureof) eight hundred.

Several phases of temple construction have been identified at Aihole startingfrom the late sixth century, which continued until the twelfth century with severalrenovations and additions. In the Durga temple, for example, a stepwell and ashrine were added in the later Kalyani Chalukya period (AD 973–1198), whileKonti-guddi group received additional structures in the Rashtrakuta period (AD757–973). No stone temples were, however, created at Aihole after the twelfth cen-tury. There seems to have been a lateral shift at some centres. Thus, the Galagnathaat Pattadakal replicates the Visva Brahmā at Alampur – the former was the first atPattadakal and the latter was the last at Alampur. From the eighth to the tenthcentury, the temples were distributed widely across the Deccan. In addition tothe continuation of earlier shrines, new constructions came up and especially sig-nificant are the two relatively large Jaina shrines at Melagudi at Hallur and theJaina temple at Pattadakal, a few hundred metres from the complex dated to theearly Chalukya period. At Kukkanur, in Dharwar district, temples of different per-iods were found in the middle of the town and fifteen inscriptions were identifieddating from AD 1005 to 1186, as well as a few of the Vijayanagara period (Cousens1926:72).

In the thirteenth–fifteenth century, with the expansion of the Vijayanagar king-dom, the sacred geography of peninsular India was redefined and many of the tem-ples bear imprints of this. The city of Hampi expanded from a small temple centrewith at the most a few thousand inhabitants in the thirteenth and early fourteenthcenturies, to one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Asia (indeed theworld) by the mid-fifteenth century. This expansion coincided with the presenceof inscriptions dated to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries over an extensivearea. Thus, the nine temples at Alampur were reclaimed as Nava Brahmā in a cop-per-plate inscription dated 1526 AD (Khan 1973:23). The Kālāmukhas became adominant sect in the region from the ninth century onwards and their maṭhas atAlampur and Papanasi wielded enormous influence, as a result Alampur was knownas Brahmeśvara sthāna (Sarma 1972:42–5). This ties in with the origin narrative asmentioned in the region’s sthala purāṇa, which states that Brahmā established thenine temples at Alampur (Ramesan 1962:34). Thus, it is evident that the temples inthe Malaprabha valley were affiliated to a range of deities: two were Śaiva (cave 1at Badami and the Ravalaphadi, Aihole), two Vaiṣṇava (caves 2 and 3 at Badami)



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and two Jaina (cave 4, Badami and the Jaina cave temple at Aihole). The Meguti inAihole was also a Jaina temple, while there was a two-storeyed Buddhist vihāra atAihole, built against the hillside beneath the Meguti. Most temples of the laterphase, however, were dedicated to Śiva and the three garbhagṛhas of Jambuliṅgeśvara,Badami housed the trinity of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva. In addition, there were tem-ples dedicated to Sūrya, the most prominent of these being the Durga temple atAihole. The final point is evident – without the support of the community the tem-ples at Aihole and Pattadakal lost their relevance and survived only as relics of thepast. In contrast, those at Badami and Mahakuta underwent several changes, rein-vented themselves and continued almost uninterruptedly.

Conclusion

In the final analysis it is evident that a spatial analysis of religious architectureemphasises continued sanctity of several locations from the prehistoric periodonwards, as a result of which sites such as Badami or Aihole retain their religiousposition for a very long period. Others such as Mahakuta owe their religious signif-icance to myths associated with them and repeated in the Purāṇas and the Māhāt-myas. Secondly, the diverse nature of religious architecture and the coexistence ofBuddhist, Jain, and Hindu shrines along with those of local cults is obvious. Of par-ticular relevance is the reinvention of rock shelters within the changed landscapeof Hindu shrines and networks of pilgrimage and the location of Lajjā-Gaurī shrinesin close proximity to temples as at the rock shelter at Siddhanakolla near Aihole.The site continues to be in worship as an annual fair is held at the time of saṅkrāntiwhen devotees come in large numbers and a modern temple has been built at thesite. A final realisation evident from the archaeological record is the close associa-tion between religious architecture and the community. This interaction is bestexemplified by shared agrarian spaces as indicated by the presence of water sys-tems, for example, the tanks at Badami and Mahakuta and the large number ofstepped wells at Aihole.

Historians have tended to discuss the temple in terms of acculturation and Sanskri-tisation suggesting the integration of local cults and deities. The above survey indi-cates that this may perhaps be a simplification of a complex process that involvedsharing and negotiation rather than hegemony and assimilation. This sharing andnegotiation was a bilateral process founded on the basic relevance of religious sitesand structures to the community that maintained and supported them.

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Notes1 James Ferguson’s History of Architecture first appeared in 1855 as part of his well-known Handbook. A new edition very liberally enlarged appeared in 1862 also as partof a similar general History of Architecture in all Countries, while the third edition waspublished as History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, London: John Murray in 1876.

2 The chief characteristic features of Gupta temples are

1. flat roofs, without spires of any kind, as in the cave temples;2. prolongation of the head of the doorway beyond the jambs as in Egyptian

temples;3. statues of the rivers Ganges and Jumna guarding the entrance door;4. pillars, with massive square capitals, ornamented with two lions back to

back, with a tree between them;5. bosses on the capitals and friezes of a very peculiar form like Buddhist stu-

pas, or beehives, with projecting horns;6. continuation of the architrave of the portico as a moulding all around the

building;7. deviation in plan from the cardinal points (Cunningham 1879:42–3).

3 The 7.14 hectare site with a 3.2 m thick habitational deposit has provided data forthree cultural periods. Period I is Early Harappan (3000–2600 BC), Period II is MatureHarappan (2500–1900 BC), and the third period is Early Historic (first century BC tofirst century AD). The third period has yielded a range of ceramics such as Red ware,Red slipped ware and Grey ware together with bangles, beads, and terracotta objects(Paul 2000:53–66).

4 Contrary to the general perception that in Arabic texts, ‘Al-Hind’ defines people ofmodern day India (Thapar 1993:77) and indicates the earliest use of the term, ‘Hindu’or Hindush first occurs on the Apadana at Persepolis to indicate tribute-bearers tothe Persian court of Darius in the fifth–fourth centuries BC and is distinguished fromthe residents of Gandhara. The ‘ism’ was added to ‘Hindu’ around 1830 to denote theculture and religion of the Brahmans, which was then appropriated by Indiansthemselves as they tried to establish a national identity separate to colonialism.



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