[INDOLOGY] New publication of the Institut Français de Pondichéry and the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient

Wed May 11 11:03:05 UTC 2016

*JUST RELEASED*

**

*The Archaeology of Bhakti II. Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti*****

edited by Emmanuel Francis & Charlotte Schmid, Collection Indologie n˚ 
132, Institut Français de Pondichéry / Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, 
2016, ix, 609 p.

Language: English. *1300 Rs (56 €). *ISBN: 978-81-8470-212-5 (IFP) / 
978-2-85539-221-9 (EFEO).

This volume is the fruit of the second workshop-cum-conference on the 
“Archaeology of Bhakti”, which took place from 31^st July to 13^th 
August 2013 in the Pondicherry Centre of the École française 
d’Extrême-Orient. “Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti” was the topic of this 
scholarly encounter and is the central theme of the present volume, 
which attempts to clarify the roles of kings, local elites and 
devotional communities in the development of Bhakti.

When we look at the monuments that are the material traces of Bhakti, we 
expect kings and their immediate relatives to have played a key role in 
producing them. But temples commissioned by ruling kings are in fact 
relatively rare: most sacred sites resonate with the voices of many 
different patrons responsible for commissioning the buildings or 
supporting the worship conducted there. Queens, princes, palace women, 
courtiers, local elites, Brahmin assemblies, merchant communities, and 
local individuals all contributed to the dynamism of Bhakti.

Far from downplaying the importance of kings as patrons, this volume 
explores the interactions between these different agents. Do they 
represent independent and separate streams of Bhakti? Or is there a 
continuum from large-scale royal temples to locally designed ones? What 
is the royal share in the development of a Bhakti deeply rooted in a 
specific place? And what is the local one? How did each respond to the 
other? Was the patronage by members of royal courts, especially women, 
of the same nature as that of ruling kings?

After an introduction by the editors, fifteen scholars address such 
issues by examining the textual foundations of Bhakti, the use of Bhakti 
by royal figures, the roles of artists and performers, the mediation of 
queens between the royal and local spheres, and the power of sacred 
places. The volume concludes with an afterword by Richard H. Davis.

*Keywords*:**devotion, temples, inscriptions, places

*About the Editors***

**

*Emmanuel Francis *was educated at the Université catholique de Louvain 
(Belgium), where he obtained his doctorate in languages and literatures 
(2009). He is currently a researcher at the Centre National de la 
Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and is affiliated to the Centre d’études 
de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud / Centre for South Asian Studies (CEIAS, 
UMR 8564, EHESS-CNRS) in Paris. Specialized in Sanskrit and Tamil 
philology and in the history of South India, his publications include 
several articles on Indian epigraphical sources. The first volume of his 
study on the royal ideology of the Pallava dynasty of South India (circa 
300–900), /Le discours royal en Inde du Sud ancienne/, has appeared in 
2013. The second volume will appear shortly.

**

*Charlotte Schmid *is director of studies of the École française 
d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO). She divides her research between two areas of 
field-work, the north and the south of the Indian subcontinent. After 
studying the earliest known representations of a major Hindu deity of 
Bhakti, those of Kr̥ṣṇa in Mathurā, she had the good fortune to spend 
several years in the Tamil-speaking South. Poring over inscriptions and 
sculptures produced during the Pallava and the Cōḻa periods (6^th -12^th 
century) and reading texts with the help of the Pandits at the centre of 
the EFEO in Pondicherry enabled her to produce her most recent books: 
/Sur le chemin de Kr̥ṣṇa : la flûte et ses voies/ and /La Bhakti d’une 
reine/.

*To order, contact:*

*Institut Français de Pondichéry *

P. B. 33, 11, St. Louis Street,,

Pondicherry-605001, INDIA

Ph: +91-413-2231660 / 661. Fax: +91 413-2231605,

E-mail: _library at ifpindia.org <mailto:library at ifpindia.org>_**

*Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient *

P.O. Box 151,16 & 19, Dumas Street

Pondicherry - 605001,INDIA

Ph: +91-413-2334539. Fax +91-413-2330886

E-mail: shanti at efeo-pondicherry.org <mailto:shanti at efeo-pondicherry.org>

-- 
Ms. Anurupa Naik
Head, Library and Publication Division
French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP)
UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAEE
P.B. 33
11, St. Louis Street
Pondicherry-605 001, INDIA

Tel: 91-413-2231660
Fax: 91-413-2231605
e-mail: anurupa.n at ifpindia.org
website: www.ifpindia.org

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