Storied Hills

On Landscape, Narratives and Sacredness of Ahobilam

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.25.2023.01.04

Keywords:

Ahobilam, sacredness, nature, culture, Ahobilamāhātmya, Narasiṃha, cultural ecology of literature, landscape

Abstract

Taking as the point of departure the Ahobilamāhātmya narratives that depict local hills as Narasiṃha‘s residence, the paper considers those hill narratives as a product of interrelatedness of nature and culture and examines the crucial role such a product may play in vesting Ahobilam with the notion of sacredness. To this end, the narratives‘ ability to mediate various concepts is explored from the wider perspective of cultural ecology of literature, which allows them to be viewed as a site where besides nature and culture other domains can be reintegrated and reconciled, e.g., the elements of local and Brahmanic traditions. In addition, as I argue, such narratives may also convey some shifts in perceiving the landscape.

References

Primary sources

Ahobilamāhātmya = Sri Ahobila Mahatmyam (Brahmanda Puranam). 2015. V. Krishnamachariyar (Tamil trans.), M. V. Anannthapadmanabhachariyar (ed.), S. Shreyas (Eng. trans.). Bangalore: Navbharat Press.

Grantha edition of the Srīmatahōpila Māhātmyam. 1912. https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP918-10-273 (accessed on 11.07.2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/lhb/1912058

http://www.prapatti.com/slokas/english/navanaarasimhamangalaashaasanam.pdf (accessed on 11.07.2023).

Perīya Tirumoḻi (1.7.1–10). K. Hart (trans.). https://www.projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0622_eng.html (accessed on 11.07.2023).

Secondary sources

Adluri, S. 2019. Viewing Telugu Inscriptions at Ahobila. In: South Asian Studies, 35(2): 168–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2019.1641968. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2019.1641968

Appadurai, A. 1977. Kings, Sects and Temples in South India, 1350–1700 A.D. In: The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 14(1): 47–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/001946467701400103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/001946467701400103

Biardeau, M. 1975. Narasiṁha et ses sanctuaires. In: Puruṣārtha. Recherches de sciences sociales sur l‘Asie du Sud: 49–66. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsehess.24203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsehess.24203

Buchholz, J. 2022. Sthalamāhātmyas and Talapurāṇams of Kanchipuram: A Network of Texts. In: M. Ambach, J. Buchholz and U. Hüsken (eds). Temples, Texts and Networks: South Indian Perspectives. Heidelberg:Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing: 11–40. https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.906.c13934.

Dębicka-Borek, E. 2016. When the God Meets a Tribal Girl: Narasiṃha‘s Second Marriage in the Light of the Vāsantikāpariṇayam. In: Cracow Indological Studies, 18: 301–338. https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.18.2016.18.12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.18.2016.18.12

Dębicka-Borek, E. 2019. Many Shades of bhakti: A Devoted Second Wife and Self-Decapitated Bhairava. In: Cracow Indological Studies, 21(1): 69–106. https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.21.2019.01.04. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.21.2019.01.04

Dębicka-Borek, E. 2022a. Connected Places, Networks of Shrines: Ahobilam in the Nets of Spatial Relationships. In: M. Ambach, J. Buchholz and U. Hüsken (eds). Temples, Texts and Network: South Indian Perspectives. Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing: 241–264. https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.906.c13941.

Dębicka-Borek, E. 2022b. Hunt without Hunting: The Reflexivity of All the Stories behind Paruveta (Hunting Festival/Procession) in Ahobilam. In: The Journal of Hindu Studies, 15(1): 26–62. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hiab024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hiab024

Dębicka-Borek, E. 2022c. On Poetic Modes of Glorifying a Ruler and Telling His Past: The Sāḷuvābhyudaya Narrative on Sāḷuva Narasiṃha the Ahobila Narasiṃha Incarnate. In: Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia, 35: 5–38. https://doi.org/10.60018/AcAsVa.buce9608. DOI: https://doi.org/10.60018/AcAsVa.buce9608

Doniger, W. 2009. The Hindus: An Alternative History. New Delhi–New York–Toronto: Penguin/Viking.

Doniger O‘Flaherty, W. 1988. The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Eck, D. L. 1981. India‘s ―tīrthas‖: ―Crossings‖ in Sacred Geography. In: History of Religions, 20(4): 323–344. https://doi.org/10.1086/462878. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/462878

Eck, D. L. 1998. The Imagined Landscape: Patterns in the Construction of Hindu Sacred Geography. In: Contributions to Indian Sociology, 32(2): 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/006996679803200202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/006996679803200202

Feller, D. 2004. The Sanskrit Epics‘ Representation of Vedic Myths. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Gonda, J. 1977. A History of Indian Literature, 2/1: Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz.

Granoff, P. 1998. Defining Sacred Place: Contest, Compromise, and Priestly Control in Some Māhātmya Texts. In: Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 79(1/4): 1–27.

Haberman, D. L. 2020. Loving Stones: Making the Impossible Possible in the Worship of Mount Govardhan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190086718.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190086718.001.0001

Jacobsen, K. A. 2013. Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space. Oxford: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203102510. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203102510

Letizia, C. 2018. The Sacred Confluence, Between Nature and Culture. In: M. Lecomte-Tilouine (ed.). Nature, Culture and Religion at the Crossroads of Asia. London–New York: Routledge: 344–369.

Michaels, A. 1990. Pilgrimage and Priesthood at the Paśupatinātha Temple of Deopatan (Nepal). In: H. Bakker (ed.). The History of Sacred Places in India as Reflected in Traditional Literature. Leiden: Brill: 131–159. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004646063_010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004646063_010

Narasimhachary, M. and M. S. Ramesh. 2008. Spiritual Heritage of Annamacharya. Vol. II. Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam.

Pinkney, A. M. 2013. An Ever-Present History in the Land of the Gods: Modern Māhātmya Writing on Uttarakhand. In: International Journal of Hindu Studies, 17(3): 231–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-014-9142-1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-014-9142-1

Ramaswamy Ayyangar, D. 1916. A Descriptive History of the Forgotten Shrines of Ahobilam (in the Kurnool District). Walajabad: Victoria Royal Press.

Rangachar, S. 1993. The Glory of Ahobilam Shrines. Mysore: Samskrita Sahitya Sadana.

Rangacharya, V. (ed.). 1919. A Topographical List of the Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency (Collected Till 1915) with Notes and References. Vol. II. Madras: Government Press.

Reddy, P. C. 2014. Hindu Pilgrimage: Shifting Patterns of Worldview of Shrī Shailam in South India. London–New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315815022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315815022

Sax, W. S. 2003. Divine Kingdoms in the Central Himalayas. In: N. Gutschow et al. (eds). Sacred Landscape of the Himalaya. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press: 177–194.

Schmid, C. 2014. The Edifice of Bhakti: Towards an ―Archaeological‖ Reading of Tēvāram and Periyapurāṇam. In: V. Gillet (ed.). Mapping the Chronology of Bhakti: Milestones, Stepping Stones, and Stumbling Stones. Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry–École Française D‘Extreme-Orient: 241–286.

Shulman, D. 1980. Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Saiva Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400856923. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400856923

Shulman, D. 1984. The Enemy Within: Idealism and Dissent in South Indian Hinduism. In: S. N. Eisenstadt et al. (eds). Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy and Dissent in India. Berlin–New York–Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers: 11–56. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110852561.11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110852561.11

Sitapati, P. 1982. Sri Ahobila Narasimha Swamy Temple: Temple Monograph. Hyderabad.

Sontheimer, G.-D. 1985. Folk Deities in the Vijayanagara Empire: Narasimha and Mallanna/Mailār. In: A. L. Dallapicolla and S. Z.-A. Lallemant (eds). Vijayanagara—City and Empire. New Currents on Research. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden: 144–158.

Stoker, V. 2016. Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyāsatīrtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court. Oakland: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.18

Sumant, S. 2010. Iconography of Nṛsiṃha Represented in the Karmapañjikā of the Paippalādins. In: Journal of the Oriental Institute, 60(1/2): 57–66.

Talbot, C. 2001. Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0195136616.001.0001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/0195136616.001.0001

Vasantha, R. 2001. Ahobilam. Sri Narasimha Swamy Temple. Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams.

Young, K. 2014. Śrīvaiṣṇava Topoi: Constructing a South Indian Sect through Place. In: V. Gillet (ed.). Mapping the Chronology of Bhakti: Milestones, Stepping Stones, and Stumbling Stones. Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry–École Française D‘Extreme-Orient: 318–335.

Zapf, H. 2016. Literature as Cultural Ecology: Sustainable Texts. London: Bloomsbury Academic. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474274685

Downloads

Published

2023-12-15

Issue

Vol. 25 No. 1 (2023): Cultural Ecology in the Literary Cultures of South Asia

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

“Storied Hills: On Landscape, Narratives and Sacredness of Ahobilam”. 2023. Cracow Indological Studies 25 (1): 113-58. https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.25.2023.01.04.

Funding data

Similar Articles

1-10 of 109

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.