Storied Stones: Antiquarian Engagements with Pre-sultanate Architecture in Maharashtra

Abstract

This study is born of curiosity-driven research, both literally and literarily. It is guided by a set of curiosities ranging from some that are personal to others expressed by believing and non-believing individuals over the last nine centuries. These curiosities broadly concern the antiquity of pre-sultanate architectural remains at religious sites in Maharashtra. These remains, dating from around 300 BCE to 1300 CE, consist of rock-cut and structural shrines, sculptures, inscriptions, and archaeological mounds. Historians now attribute them to various dynasties that ruled the region. Yet until the 19th century, these once-mighty dynasties were virtually unknown to Marathi people, and the remains came to be interpreted differently from their original meanings. This study follows the lives, and particularly the paradoxical afterlives of these remains. By considering them as sites of antiquarian curiosity and historical remembrance, the study examines how meaning-making processes have unfolded around these religious sites over the last nine centuries. The thesis consists of eight chapters. The first opens with a 1981 newspaper debate, aiming to sensitise readers to how 21st-century Marathi people have inherited religious sites in the region. The second broadly introduces Maharashtra as a study region, the pre-sultanate architectural remains therein, and the associated antiquarian and mnemonic practices. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters review relatively worldly interactions of pre-colonial believers with the natural and built environments, inscriptions, and archaeological mounds, respectively. The sixth explores how the inscriptions likely contributed to the amnesia surrounding pre-sultanate dynasties. The seventh sketches a biography of the nomenclature of pre-sultanate temples as hemadpanti. The last chapter reviews the paradigmatic shift in understanding pre-sultanate architectural remains in the 19th and 20th centuries, reflecting on what has been gained and possibly lost in the process. Together, this thesis is an attempt to make sense of—even appreciate—the pre-sultanate built heritage at religious sites in Maharashtra, with the continuities and discontinuities within.