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SRIRANGAMS NEW ANTIQUITY NEGOTIATING THE HINDU TEMPLES

DIVINE AND HISTORIC PASTS IN A GLOBAL PRESENT

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BY

SHRIYA SRIDHARAN

BA, Stella Maris College, 2000

MA, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, 2002

DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History
in the Graduate School of
Binghamton University
State University of New York
2012

UMI Number: 3522833

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted.

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In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI 3522833

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Copyright by Shriya Sridharan 2012
All Rights Reserved

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Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History
in the Graduate School of
Binghamton University
State University of New York
2012
October 28, 2011

Nancy Um, Faculty Advisor

Department of Art History, Binghamton University
Tom McDonough, Member
Department of Art History, Binghamton University
Pamela Smart, Member
Department of Anthropology and Art History, Binghamton University
Monika Mehta, Outside Examiner
Department of English, Binghamton University

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Abstract

Hindu temples have been predominantly framed in architectural histories within
teleological narratives of successive political occupations and stylistic developments
ending with the eighteenth century British colonial period in India. As representative
examples of Indian traditional architecture, Hindu temples are understood as relevant
and authentic mainly in pre-colonial periods. The spatial and temporal circumscription

of Indian sacred architecture within essentially indigenous and pre-colonial boundaries is

challenged and revised in this dissertation. The Ranganatha temple in Srirangam, marked

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as a representative example of seventeenth-eighteenth-century architecture in Indian art

history, is reframed as a contemporary site in my dissertation. In doing so, I move beyond

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a rigid interpretation of its age-old tradition replicated in its contemporary moment, with
a focus on how present-day practitioners actively revive and reinterpret traditional
modes even while propagating them as being authentic and unchanging. This way,
tradition is not seen as a precursor to, or defined only in terms of its opposition to,
modernity in my project.

Srirangams contemporary significance combines both its religious prominence as a

divinely originated site and its historic role given by the colonial authors. It is framed as a
site constituting layers of built spaces and discursive practices, which are mediated by
present temple groups tracing varied lineages and references to the past. The temples
past is not presented in this dissertation as a linear and singular trajectory to be retrieved
by the historian. Rather, the past is seen as continually mobilized, reconstructed and

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negotiated in contemporary architectural, ritual, spatial, visual and narrative practices

towards multiple self-representations and contestations over authority. This dissertation
will subvert the static and all encompassing aerial view of Srirangam, established in early
colonial histories, to identify the complexity created by its dynamic uses and
significations; this is done by critically inserting recent ethnographic data into its study.
Furthermore, the implied rootedness in the category of traditional, within which
Srirangam is identified as essentially indigenous architecture, is overturned by looking at
its global presence through the example of the Ranganatha temple in Pomona, North

America. The architectural history of Srirangam is thus written from a revised

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are emphasized rather than masked.

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perspective in this dissertation, in which discontinuities, multiplicities and ambiguities

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To V. Sridharan and Pushpa Sridharan

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Acknowledgments

There are so many people who have played important roles in my PhD journey, providing
me with inspiration, perspective, support and guidance. I take a lot of pleasure in writing
the following acknowledgement to thank all of them. I want to begin by thanking my
dissertation advisor, Nancy Um. She has been a role model to me in terms of her attention
to detail, teaching and writing standards, and hard work. I thank her for pushing me to

think on my own, for helping me hone my critical thinking without discounting other

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scholarly viewpoints and for guiding me to articulate my study and analysis with
effective writing. Beyond her generosity with time and ideas, Professor Um had been a

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key motivating factor for my dissertations completion, helping me to come back to my

writing trajectory at a time when my confidence was low. For this I will always be
indebted. I would like to thank Tom McDonough for his encouragement and help with
my dissertation. His graduate seminars helped me to develop an interest in architectural
theory and urbanism; a paper written for his seminar class, on the use of architectural
spaces, added an interesting dimension to my research on temple architecture. I am
grateful to Pamela Smart and Monika Mehta for agreeing to be part of my dissertation
committee and appreciate their support in the completion of my project. I am thankful to
all my committee members for their helpful feedback on my dissertation manuscript and
for accommodating my circumstances during the defense.

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I am also thankful to other faculty members in the department of Art History whose
courses I attended, especially, Anthony King, John Tagg, Barbara Abou-El-Haj, Abidin
Kusno and Aruna DSouza. Discussions and reading material from their seminar classes
have provided an important basis for my dissertations theoretical and interdisciplinary
framework. From Binghamton I would also like to thank Manisha Lal and Mahua
Sarkar. Mahua has been a great friend and mentor, and I will always remember our lunch
conversations once every week as being both engaging and comforting during my stay at
Binghamton. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues at Binghamton,

Natasha Shanker, Kivan Kilin, Meiqin Wang, Natasha Becker, Hye-ri Oh, Jeremy

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Culler, Ana Isabel Perez Gavilan, Raed Al Tal, Deniz Karakas, Hala Auji, Inhye Kang
and Gaudencio Fidelis. Discussions with them enriched my ideas and stay at

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Binghamton. I am especially grateful to Kivan, Hye-ri and Vikram Munishwar for their
help during my defense and dissertation submission. I am also thankful to Sylvia Rabeler
for her help, especially with my registrations when I lived away from Binghamton.

An important part of my dissertation was my fieldwork at Srirangam. I would like to

thank everyone I met and talked to at the temple town, including the Jiyars, Arayars,
priests, HR&CE and Sri Vaishnava Sri staff, whose interviews form an important aspect
of this dissertation. I want to specifically thank the HR&CE employees, T. Jayaraman, K.
Palanisamy and T. Lakshmipathy, who helped my fieldwork greatly and M. Kabir for his
initial introduction to the HR&CE. I am very grateful to S. Govindarajan and
Sathyabhama Govindarajan who I stayed with during my Srirangam visits. I want to
thank them for their generous hospitality and involvement in my project, and for

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introducing me to their circle of friends and acquaintances at Srirangam who helped me

understand the spatial uses and devotional experiences at the temple. I would also like to
thank Ranganayaki Srinivasan, Seetha Veeraraghavan and Dr. S. Veeraraghavan for their
help during my Srirangam visits. I am especially grateful to Seetha and Dr. S.
Veeraraghavan for their loving hospitality and enjoyable company. For my fieldwork at
Pomona, I am thankful to Dr. Venkat Kanumalla for his help with information on the
temple and for his prompt responses to my emails despite his busy schedule.

One of the most important influences outside Binghamton was provided when I worked

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for a year as adjunct instructor at Elon University in North Carolina. The people I met
during my stay there and the courses I was able to teach helped me to expand my

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thinking. I want to especially thank Evan Gatti and Kirstin Ringelberg for their support.
Their vision for developing an art history program with a critically engaged student body
inspired and energized me. I want to thank my friends Amy Allocco and Garima Saxena
at Elon for their great company. I thank Amy for her warm and intellectual company
during our many discussions in North Carolina and Chennai, and for her assistance with
the transliteration. I also want to thank Pika Ghosh for her insights and interest in my
project. I want to thank my friends in Carnegie Mellon University at Qatar for their help
during the defense.

I would like to thank my family. Not only have they provided me with great support over
the years, but have also inspired me to pursue my dreams. In the United States I want to
especially thank Harini and Sridhar. I will always be indebted to them for their

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generosity, hospitality and friendship. My life in the United States would not have been
so enjoyable without their presence nearby. I also want to thank Murari Sridharan and
Sudha Padmanabhan for their amazing company during my stay in Seattle. Their son and
my nephew Keshav should be thanked as well for providing me with delightful
inspiration when I wrote my dissertations first draft. In India, I would like to thank Dr.
Geetha Sridharan for inspiring me to pursue a PhD and for teaching me to think
analytically long before my graduate studies. I would also like to thank V.N
Vijayaraghavan and Sujatha Vijayaraghavan for being such magnanimous and inspiring

personalities. I want to thank my cousins Athulan, Shruthi, Govinda, Surabi and Aarabi,

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there and wishing well for me.

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my grandmother Champakalakshmi and my grandfather Venkatachari, for always being

Finally, I want to mention a few people without whose support my PhD would not have
been possible. I write very emotionally about these people, as they are also my most
intimate relationships. Words cannot express my thanks to Murari Sridharan, my brother,
who supported me financially and more importantly, emotionally, during my many ups
and downs in the United States. I would like to dedicate my dissertation to him as well;
without his initiation, generosity and confidence in me I would not have come to
Binghamton to pursue a doctoral degree. I am incredibly proud of his achievements and
one of my main motivating factors to work hard is to make him feel proud of me as well.
I want to acknowledge my mom and dad, Pushpa and Sridharan, for being my role
models and key sources of inspiration. I thank them deeply for their unconditional love
and faith in me, and for always having high aspirations for me. I would like to thank my

husband, Vinay Kolar, for his tremendous support in the completion of my dissertation
manuscript and defense. I am immensely thankful for our deep friendship and idealistic
conversations, which motivated me to complete my PhD and look forward to meaningful
work with great companionship in the future. Lastly I want to thank my son, Vishnu,
whose birth just days after my defense gave me wonderful joy and perspective at the

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completion of my doctoral degree.

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Table of Contents

31

Chapter 3: Narratives of Continuity: Srirangams Contemporary Antiquity

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List of Figures

Note on Transliteration

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Historiography of the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam

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1

119

Chapter 5: Change and the Unchanged

164

Chapter 6: Building Traditional Temples in the United States

197

Chapter 7: Conclusion

244

Figures

252

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Chapter 4: Architectural and Spatial Negotiations at Contemporary Srirangam

Appendix

274

Bibliography

281

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List of Figures
Aerial view of the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam (from the Srirangam
HR&CEs collection; provided to the author in 2005).

Figure 1.2.

Pranavakara vimanam of the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam (from the

Srirangam HR&CEs collection; provided to the author in 2005).

Figure 2.1.

The Council House at Calcutta (T. and W. Daniell, Oriental Scenery, pt.
2, pl. 3). Reproduced in Artistic strategy and the Rhetoric of Power, ed.
David Castriota, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, 90.

Figure 2.2.

Near Bandell on the River Hoogly (T. and W. Daniell, Oriental Scenery,
pt. 6, pl. 8). Reproduced in Artistic strategy and the Rhetoric of Power, ed.
David Castriota, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, 90.

Figure 2.3.

James Fergusson, Pagoda at Mahavellipore (James Fergusson,

Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan, London:
Hogarth, 1848). Reproduced in Monuments, Objects, Histories:
Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India, by Tapati GuhaThakurta, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, 14.

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Figure 1.1.

Figure 2.4.

James Fergusson, Gateway to the Temple at Chillambrum

[Chidambaram] (James Fergusson, Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient
Architecture in Hindostan, London: Hogarth, 1848). Reproduced in
Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and
Postcolonial India, by Tapati Guha-Thakurta, New York: Columbia
University Press, 2004, 15.

Figure 2.5.

Pillars with bodhigai protrusions at Srirangam; inside the Horse Court

mandapa (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 2.6.

Pillars with yali reliefs at Srirangam; at the entrance to the Rangavilasa

mandapa (Photograph by the author, 2006).

Figure 2.7.

Relief image of a life-size donor figure, of a Nayaka king; inside the

Garuda mandapa at Srirangam (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 2.8.

Vellai gopuram (from the website of Sri Ranganathar Swamy Temple

Srirangam, accessed October 9, 2011,
http://www.srirangam.org/photogallery.html).

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Sesharaya mandapa or the Horse Court (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 2.10.

The Thousand-Pillared Hall (from the Sri Ranganathar Swamy Temple

Srirangam website, accessed October 9, 2011,
http://www.srirangam.org/photogallery.html).

Figure 2.11.

The Horse Court pillars (from the Srirangam HR&CEs collection;

provided to the author in 2005).

Figure 2.12.

Photograph taken from the Gopurams Viewpoint (Photograph by the

author, 2005).

Figure 2.13.

James Fergusson, View of the eastern half of the Great Temple at

Srirangam. In History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, by James
Fergusson, rev. ed., Delhi: Munshiram Monoharlal Oriental Publishers,
1967, 371.

Figure 3.1.

Tenkalai tiruman painted on one of the Srirangam temple walls

(Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 3.2.

Vadakalai tiruman painted on the walls of the Ranganatha Temple at

Pomona, New York (from the website of Sri Ranganatha Temple,
Pomona, NY, accessed October 9, 2011,
https://picasaweb.google.com/SriRanganathaTemple).

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Figure 2.9.

Figure 4.1.

Srirangams rajagopuram (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 4.2.

The first emblem of Tamil Nadu designed by the artist Krishnarao (from
the website of Artist R. Krishna rao, accessed Oct 9, 2011,
http://www.artistrkrishnarao.com/krishnarao_paintings/images/image2.jpg

Figure 4.3.

Smaller Ranganatha image (detail) on the rajagopuram (from the website

of Sri Ranganathar Swamy Temple Srirangam, accessed October 9,
2011, http://www.srirangam.org/photogallery.html).

Figure 4.4.

Plan of the Ranganatha Temple at Srirangam (the four inner enclosures).

In Srirangam: The Paradise on Earth, by S. Aruniappan, 6th ed., Trichi:
Arulmigu Ranganathaswami Etc. Devasthanam, 2002, 32.

Figure 4.5.

Venugopala shrine (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 4.6.

Only Hindus are Allowed- Sign board at the entrance to the second
enclosure at Srirangam (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 4.7.

Camera not allowed- Sign board at the entrance to the second enclosure

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at Srirangam (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Relief sculptures on the walls of the Venugopala shrine at Srirangam
(Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 4.9.

Shops at the Rangavilasa mandapa (Photograph by the author, 2006).

Figure 4.10.

Alagiyamanavalan (utsavar image) at the center, flanked by the images of

Sri Devi and Bhu Devi (from the Srirangam HR&CEs collection;
provided to the author in 2005).

Figure 5.1.

The fiftieth Sriranganarayana Jiyar (Photograph by the author, 2005).

Figure 5.2.

Alagiyamanavalan (utsavar image) being carried by temple priests (from

the Srirangam HR&CEs collection; provided to the author in 2005).

Figure 5.3.

Alagiyamanavalan image passing through the Vaikuntam gateway during

the Vaikunta Ekadesi festival (from the website of Sri Ranganathar
Swamy Temple Srirangam, accessed October 9, 2011,
http://www.srirangam.org/photogallery.html).

Figure 5.4.

Alagiyamanavalan image on a horse vahana (from the website of Sri

Ranganathar Swamy Temple Srirangam, accessed October 9, 2011,
http://www.srirangam.org/photogallery.html).

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Figure 4.8.

Figure 5.5.

Alagiyamanavalan image in Mohini alangaram (from the Srirangam

HR&CEs collection; provided to the author in 2005).

Figure 6.1.

The Sri Ranganatha Temple at Pomona (from the website of Sri

Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed May 2, 2006,
http://www.ranganatha.org/).

Figure 6.2.

Dhvajastambha and entrance to the Sri Ranganatha Temple at Pomona

(from the website of Sri Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed
October 9, 2011, https://picasaweb.google.com/SriRanganathaTemple1).

Figure 6.3.

Interior of the Sri Ranganatha Temple at Pomona- upper floor (from the
website of Sri Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed October 9,
2011, https://picasaweb.google.com/SriRanganathaTemple).

Figure 6.4.

The vimana of the Sri Ranganatha Temple at Pomona; photo taken during
the temples kumbhabhisekam. (from the website of Sri Ranganatha
Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed May 2, 2006,
http://www.ranganatha.org/).

Figure 6.5.

Sanctum image of god Ranganatha in the Sri Ranganatha Temple at

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Pomona (from the website of Sri Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY,

accessed May 2, 2006, http://www.ranganatha.org/).
Mahalakshmi shrine with the mulavar and utsavar images (from the
website of Sri Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed October 9,
2011, https://picasaweb.google.com/SriRanganathaTemple).

Figure 6.7.

The Holstein cow, Hope, and her owner, Kimberley Camburn; photo
taken during the temples kumbhabhisekam. (from the website of Sri
Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed May 2, 2006,
http://www.ranganatha.org/).

Figure 6.8.

Priest ascending to the roof of the Pomona temple; photo taken during the
temples kumbhabhisekam. (from the website of Sri Ranganatha Temple,
Pomona, NY, accessed May 2, 2006, http://www.ranganatha.org/).

Figure 6.9.

Immersion of the sudharshana chakra idol into an Intex pool set (from the
website of Sri Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed October 9,
2011, https://picasaweb.google.com/SriRanganathaTemple1).

Figure 6.10.

Video documentation in the interior of the Pomona temple (from the

website of Sri Ranganatha Temple, Pomona, NY, accessed May 2,
2006, http://www.ranganatha.org/).

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Figure 6.6.

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Note on Transliteration

My transliteration decisions were based on a desire to produce a readable text

that would be accessible to a wider audience. To this end, I have omitted

diacritical marks, unless quoted directly from the sources, in the main body of the
dissertation manuscript. I have provided them instead in the Appendix, which lists

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the Tamil and Sanskrit words used often in the dissertation. The Appendix lists

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the terms as they appear in the main body of text, the transliterated spellings of
these terms with diacritical marks and a short explanation of the terms; the terms
appear in their standard transliterated forms. I have generally followed Sanskrit
spellings for religious, architectural, ritual, and other terms because these forms
would be most familiar to a wider audience and allow them to place my
discussions in conversation with other scholarly works on similar issues. For
example, I opt for daran rather than the Tamil taricaam, and bhakti instead of
the Tamil pakti. In a few cases I have struck a compromise between forms, and
render certain words in their Sanskrit form but with the addition of the final -m
that is typically found in spoken Tamil.

Examples of terms that reflect this

compromise are prasdam (Skt. prasda; Ta. piractam) and abhiekam (Skt.

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abhieka; Ta. apikam). Other Tamil words used are Kumbhbhiekam (Skt.
Kumbhbhieka), Vaikuam (Skt. Vaikua) and Gpuram (Skt. Gpura). For
some terms I use specifically rivaiava terms such as Tirumanjanam (for

abhiekam), Tiruman (for Nmam), Ncciyr (for Vishnu s consort) and Mlavar
(for Mla Mrti) as they are more commonly used in the context of Srirangam.
With ease of readability in mind, I have omitted diacritical marks for most proper

names, including the names of individuals, temples, rivers and places. Instead, I
use the most common English forms of these words, which facilitates

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identification and the reader s ability to locate places and temples on maps and in

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other scholarly studies. I italicize most foreign words; exceptions include words
for some sectarian names, temple groups and texts often used in the main text
such as tekalai, rivaiava, Arayar, gama and Pura. Finally, plurals are
indicated with a final -s rather than designated by appending the suffix -ka, as it
is done in spoken Tamil.

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Chapter 1
Introduction

This dissertation will frame the Ranganatha temple at Srirangam (which will be referred
to as just Srirangam from now) from the contemporary standpoint and by focusing on

its practitioners. Rather than a top down view of this temple town, as largely studied in

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art historical scholarship for its representative seventeenth- and eighteenth-century

architectural and stylistic details, the dissertation will unpack the meanings and meaning

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systems, contested narratives and lineages, and ritual and spatial uses, that are
simultaneously

negotiated

at

present

to

maintain

the

temples

predominant

representations. Rather than retrieve the temples past, this project will analyze the
complexity and constructedness of this past and its mobilizations at the present temple
site.

The disciplinary field of Indian architectural history, which was established in the
nineteenth century by the British, has a deeply embedded methodology of circumscribing
Hindu temples to the pre-colonial period and at a moment identified as the cultural
highpoint in the linear historical trajectory of a region. The legacy of colonial frameworks
is seen in current methodologies that continue to study temple sites as ancient ruins to be
documented and preserved as museum pieces, dislodged from their continuing and

changing contexts. Such studies marginalize the idea that many Hindu temples actively
function as living sites; their architectural, spatial, religious and historical elements are
continuously rearticulated, rebuilt and mobilized by successive generations of temple
practitioners. The Ranganatha temple at Srirangam provides a useful case study of an
ancient temple that is actively functioning at present. It was built around the time period
between 1-500CE, called the Sangam period in Tamil speaking regions, and has survived
through many religious and political shifts as well as functioned within changing
meaning systems. Hence, the temple at present carries traces of multiple trajectories of

narratives and layers of artistic and discursive practices. This dissertation focuses on the

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simultaneous negotiation of these multiple trajectories from the past, by the temples
managing groups and visitors, with the aim to disturb the study of Srirangam from a

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seeming cultural highpoint in the past and situate it at the contemporary moment.

The Ranganatha Temple at Srirangam

Srirangam is a temple town in southern India, located in the contemporary state of Tamil
Nadu. It occupies an area of 156 acres of land, making it the largest such site in India
(Figure 1.1). The present temple consists of seven concentric, rectangular prakaras
(enclosures), which are determined by tall rampart-like walls. Each enclosure is entered
through gopurams (gateway towers) placed at cardinal points, whose superstructures
increase in height outwards from the sanctum enclosure; there are twenty one gopurams
in total (three of them are incomplete). The sanctum (garbha griha) superstructure
(vimana) is a low dome, seen as being in the shape of Om or pranavam by practitioners,
and is hence called the pranavakara vimana (Figure 1.2). Srirangam is distinguished

architecturally by its seven enclosures, concentrically spread-out gopurams and the

pranavakara vimana. The main entrance to the temple town is through the southern
gopuram of the seventh enclosure, the base of which was laid in the sixteenth century and
superstructure completed in 1987. The outer three enclosures, containing the
Adaiyavalaindan street (seventh enclosure), Chittira street (sixth enclosure) and Utthra
street (fifth enclosure), accommodate residential houses, gardens, mutts (monasteries),
shops, markets and other services such as telephone booths, internet cafes and photo
studios at present. The temple town as such accommodates built forms and practices

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spanning a wide time frame- from the Sangam period until the twenty first century.

The above description of Srirangams seven enclosures and twenty-one gopurams has

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been the starting point for the study of the temple in architectural histories. Nineteenthcentury colonial authors, such as James Fergusson, read this overall layout, seen aerially
(Figure 1.1) as a single unit, without acknowledging the sites multiple time-periods and
varied contexts. Fergussons resilient colonial viewpoint is reframed in this dissertation,
which will discuss the present temple as built, damaged and renovated over many
centuries, and under shifting political and religious contexts. The aerial view of
Srirangam is a single snapshot of overlaid structures, meanings and discourses flattened
to read like an architectural palimpsest. Such a viewpoint leaves out other human and
temporal elements. Overturning the aerial perspective, this dissertation will describe the
temple space in terms of its users. By focusing on spatial practices, structures and
images- including their meanings and uses, in the inner four enclosures of the temple

(which form the main temple unit), the dissertation will discuss the ways in which the
temples layered history is mediated in everyday practices.

Srirangams patronage over its long time span is similarly complex. The temple was
patronized by ancient south Indian kingdoms, like the Cholas and the Pandyas, as well as
rulers who came from outside the Tamil-speaking region, such as the Hoysalas, Oddas
(Orissan) and the Vijayanagaras. While some kingdoms, like the Cholas, Pandyas and the
Vijayanagaras, are glorified in the temples institutional memory, as recorded in the

temple record called the Koil Olugu, other occupations such as the Orissan governance or

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the brief Muslim rule of the region, are viewed as disruptions to its long standing
practices. Srirangams patronage, to recount briefly from the Olugu, begins with the

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benevolence of Chola and Pandya kings, who span the time period from the temples
mythical origins1 till the thirteenth century. There were brief periods of occupation by the
Hoysalas and Oddas in the thirteenth century. Besides these political kingdoms, alvars
(Tamil Vaishnavite saints) and acaryas (priests or teachers) played an important role in
constructing, glorifying and establishing Srirangams structures, images, ritual and
administrative practices, during this time period. The religious groups of the
contemporary temple trace their past to the acaryas, especially Ramanuja who lived in
the eleventh century, and to the earlier alvars, who are believed to be incarnations of
Hindu gods. During the fourteenth century, Muslim generals from northern India invaded

1

The origin myth of Srirangam is recorded as the Sriranga Mahatmya and summarized in the Koil Olugu.
According to this myth, the sanctum and its image self-manifested from the primordial ocean of milk as a
result of god Brahmas (creator of the world) prayers to Vishnu during the process of creation. It records
that Dharmavarma Chola (a mythical king) built the earliest structures around the sanctum. Srirangams
practitioners trace its past from the temples self-manifestation (which connects the temple to the time of
god Rama) to later historical Chola and Pandya kings.

this region; this is marked as a period of disruption to temple patronage and property. The
temple record underscores the restoration of ancient practices and buildings at Srirangam,
glorified for having seen the patronage of celebrated south Indian kingdoms, saints and
teachers, following the Muslim invasions. The Vijayanagaras are credited for this crucial
restoration in 1371, and thus occupy an important position in the institutional record.
After the Vijayanagara reign, the temple saw patronage from the Nayakas (previously
governors of the Vijayanagara rulers) of Madurai and Tanjore, who renovated and rebuilt
many of its damaged structures between the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. It is

significant to note that political patronages at Srirangam are interspersed with patronage

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from religious groups such as the alvars and acaryas. Political patronages have been
predominantly used in architectural histories as temporal markers and to trace stylistic

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transformations. However, the rituals, distribution of honors and administrative practices

set up by alvars and acaryas are the most contested and negotiated aspects at the
contemporary temple.

The eighteenth century marks a period of European interventions in the Indian

subcontinent. During this period, Srirangams patronage saw intermittent donations and
building activities because of the political turmoil in southern India; when the Nawabs,
Mysore kings, Marattas, English and French armies were fighting for power and territory.
The Carnatic Wars between the British and French in the eighteenth century resulted in
the victory of the British by whom temple management was supervised till the midnineteenth century. Interestingly, a British collector named John Wallace compiled the
Koil Olugu from multiple sources in 1803. The compilation of the temple record as a