Religious Landscape, Lineage & Politics

300-700 CE

I. Land grants & agricultural developmentII. Land grants and state benefitsIII. Religious elites & land grantsIV. Puranic traditionsV. DharmasastraVI. Temples & monasteries: social spaceVII. Temples & monasteries: protective spaceVIII. Human time & cosmic timeIX. Vishnu PuranaX. Mahavamsa

I. Land grants & agricultural development

Indirect development

Grants to individuals & families

Grants to religious specialists

II. Land grants & state benefits

State control

Landholder intermediaries

Economic expansion

Decentralized social service

Patron-client relations

Image of the patron

III. Religious elites & land grants

Brahmans/brahmins

Shramanic teachers

Jain & Buddhist monastics

IV. Puranic traditions

Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, Durga, Lakshmi

Vedic antecedents & local cults

Purana texts

Temple spaces

Sacrifice as ritual gift in temple

Purification & knowledge in ritual act

V. Dharmashastra

Treatises on social order

Codifications re: varna, age, gender

Religious & social diversity

Social & cosmic order

VI. Temples & monasteries as social space

Perform authority

Status & patronage

Networking

Pleasure & recreation

VII. Temples & monasteries: protective space

Access points to divine or suprahuman power

Signs & traces of the divine

Signs & traces of the shramanic teachers

VIII. Human time & cosmic time

Origin stories

Families & devotional communities

Arguments for lineage & inheritance

Arguments for human history & cosmic order

IX. Vishnu Purana

7-10 c. CE

History of universe

Biography of Vishnu

Histories & predictions of kings

Arguments for social order

Mapping landscape for ritual & pilgrimage

X. Mahavamsa

Late 5th c. CE

History of Buddhist tradition

History of royal lineage in Lanka (Sri Lanka)

History of potent traces of Buddha

Mapping landscape for ritual & pilgrimage