Discourses and concepts of sacrality and sacralisation in the Hindu empire of Vijayanagara and in Portuguese Goa (14.-17. CE)

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Instances of sacrality and dynamics of their development are examined within the historical context of the South Indian empire of Vijayanagara. Textual sources from the intellectual environment of the Sringeri monastery, which at times maintained close links with the Vijayanagara rulers, are studied in detail. From the 14th century onwards, this Hindu kingdom developed into an empire which spanned the entire South of the subcontinent while large parts of India were ruled by Muslim sultans. The cultural policies of the Vijayanagara rulers and their intellectual élite are marked by a renaissance of Sanskrit literature, Hindu philosophy, art and architecture. Philosophers, religious leaders and institutions with a broad range of concerns vied for royal patronage. The analysis concentrates on a number of sacral phenomena and their representation in texts. The sacral phenomena are those that concern persons, texts, space, visual representations and concepts. The analysis further postulates three models of personal sacrality: the “royal model” (1) refers to new forms of the sacralisation of power and kingship. The monastic-ascetic model (2) is exemplified in the person of brahmin “ascetic saints” who exert considerable influence as spiritual teachers of the rulers and as prolific authors. Finally, the philosophical-theological model (3) is particularly expressed in the concept of the “liberated while living” as developed in illusionist monism which was the leading philosophical school in the early phase of the empire. The project examines how the three models function and combine in the formation of groupspecific religious identities, each of which strives for domination and which present themselves as supposed “Hindu identity” as such. These developments are put in relation to comparable processes during the Middle Ages in Europe. By incorporating Portuguese texts from the 15th to 17th centuries a supplementary and essentially Catholic outsiders` perspective on Indian and Hindu forms of sacrality is demonstrated, and another promising interface with the research group is opened.