| FB-55612-11 | Research Programs: Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars | Valerie Stoker | Polemics and Patronage: Vyasatirtha and the 16th-Century Vijayanagara Court | 7/1/2012 - 6/30/2013 | $50,400.00 | Valerie | | Stoker | | | | Wright State University | Dayton | OH | 45435-0001 | USA | 2010 | History of Religion | Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars | Research Programs | 50400 | 0 | 50400 | 0 |
This project examines the life and work of a Hindu religious leader, Vyasatirtha (1460-1539). Vyasatirtha was head of the Madhva Brahmin sect and active at the court of the historically significant pre-colonial South Indian polity, the Vijayanagara Empire (1336-1565). Vyasatirtha's life and work reflect a concerted effort on the part of a Hindu sectarian leader to curry favor, both with the imperial powers and with the populace, to raise his sect's profile. Vyasatirtha accomplished this through a combination of polemical criticism of his rivals as well as through selective interaction with those rivals in the arena of popular religious practice. Using a combined approach of biographical, textual, and philosophical analysis to illuminate Vyasatirtha's life and thought, this project reassesses conventional understandings of religious identity in early modern South India. |