Breaking the Crown of Indra

The Pāṇḍyas and Their Dynastic Identity in the South Indian Context

David Pierdominici Leão (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

386 Seiten

2025
Brill (Verlag)
978-90-04-72072-5 (ISBN)

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The book offers a study of the royal identity of the Pāṇḍyas, an ancient Tamil dynasty of South India. Through the analysis of epigraphic and literary sources, the author traces the origin and development of the autoperception of these rulers.

From the first years of our era up to the 18th century, in between wars, conquests, defeats and stellar political risings: Breaking the Crown of Indra takes you through a long and engaging quest to answer the apparently simple question “Who were the Pāṇḍyas?”
With the help of epigraphic evidence, literary texts, and temple chronicles never translated before, David Pierdominici Leão reconstructs the evolution of the Pāṇḍya royal perception through the different periods of this Tamil kingdom. His study investigates the so-called phenomenon of the “Pāṇḍyaness”, a concept enriched by different dynastic identities, mythical narratives of deeds and divinised sovereigns.

David Pierdominici Leão, Ph.D. (2018), Sapienza University in Rome, is a Researcher in the Department of Languages and Cultures of India and South Asia at the Jagiellonian University. He is the author of several articles on Indian literature and history.

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

1 The concept of#x201C;Pāṇḍyaness”

2 Methodological considerations

3 Conclusive remarks

1 The World of the Caṅkam Heroes: Pāṇḍya rulers in the shadow of time

1 Historical background: the earliest references

2 The Caṅkam era and literature, and the Three Academies

3 The Puṟanāṉūṟu: tribal warriors of the South

4 “The Good Counsel in Madurai”: the King and the city

5 The Cilappatikāram: the beginning of the Pāṇḍya dynastic narratives

6 The kōvai string for the Pāṇḍya: aesthetics exemplified through the royal persona

7 Conclusive remarks

2 Family matters: dynastic perception and copper plates in the age of the#x201C;First Empire”

1 Historical scenario

2 The Early Pāṇḍya epigraphical corpus: preliminary considerations

3 The Pāṇḍya royal identity engraved on copper: the Vēḷvikuṭi plates

4 The#x201C;smaller” Ciṉṉamaṉūr plates

5 The Taḷavāypuram plates

6 The#x201C;larger” Ciṉṉamaṉūr charter

7 The Civakāci plates

8 Conclusive remarks

3 The Emerald King: the apogee of the Pāṇḍya power during the#x201C;Second Empire”

1 Historical introduction

2 The Pāṇḍya narratives#x201C;in exile” and during the reconquest

3 The#x201C;Second Empire”: the golden age of Jaṭāvarman SundaraI

4 Celebrating the glory of the dhārmika Emperor in Tirupati

5 The King and the god in#x015A;rīraṅgam: who is who?

6 Conclusive remarks

4 The Poet who sang the god in Teṅkāśi: sacralization of identity and precarious kingship

1 Historical frame

2 The Pāṇḍyas outside Madurai in the 14th–15th centuries

3 The Teṅkāśi kingdom in the 15th–16th centuries

4 Maṇḍalakavi and the Pāṇḍyakulodayamahākāvya

5 The Tiruviḷaiyāṭaṟpurāṇam and the Hālāsyamāhātmya

6 Thundering clouds and the#x201C;mortal man”: legitimising the divine power

7 A new city for the god: Teṅkāśi and Arikesari Parākrama

8 A god is born: the new idiom of the Pāṇḍya royal ideology

9 The hero of the poem: Jaṭilavarman Parākrama Kulaśekhara

10 The physical description of the Teṅkāśi King

11 The#x015B;āstric conception of Indian royalty

12 The royal body and alaṃkāras: the new sovereign in the kāvya production

13 Merging into the sacred: geopolitics and transfiguring digvijayas

14 Yelling against history:#x201C;epic of resistance” and cultural reaction

5 Flower garlands shading away: royal genealogies and the nostalgy of power

1 Historical introduction

2 Remembering the past, the ineffectiveness of the present: the later Teṅkāśi genealogies

3 The Putukkōṭṭai copper plates

4 The#x015A;rīvilliputtūr record

5 The Taḷavāyagrahāram plates (ś. 1504)

6 The Taḷavāyagrahāram plates (ś. 1510)

7 Last glimpse before the curtains fall: 1754 CE

Appendix1: List of Pāṇḍya Kings in the Puṟanāṉūṟu

Appendix2: Early Pāṇḍyas

Appendix3: Transition—The Second Empire

Appendix4: The Teṅkāśi Court in the 15th–16th centuries

Appendix5: Teṅkāśi after Parākrama Kulaśekhara

Appendix6: The most recurrent Pāṇḍya dynastic narratives

Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	06.03.2025
Reihe/Serie	Brill's Indological Library ; 61
Verlagsort	Leiden
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Gewicht	768 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
ISBN-10	90-04-72072-3 / 9004720723
ISBN-13	978-90-04-72072-5 / 9789004720725
Zustand	Neuware