Himanshu Prabha Ray is Research Fellow at Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford, UK. She was the first Chairperson of the National Monuments Authority, Ministry of Culture in New Delhi, India, from 2012 to 2015, and former Professor at Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research interests cover Archaeology of Religion in Asia, Maritime History and Archaeology of the Indian Ocean. Her recent books include Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks Across India and Southeast Asia (2021), Archaeology and Buddhism in South Asia (2018), Buddhism and Gandhara: An Archaeology of Museum Collections (ed. 2018), The Archaeology of Sacred Spaces: The Temple in Western India, 2nd Century BCE to 8th Century CE (with Susan Verma Mishra, 2017), The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation (2014) and The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia (2003).

Salila Kulshreshtha is Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Art and Art History at New York University Abu Dhabi. She secured her PhD degree in history from Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is the author of From Temple to Museum: Colonial Collections and Uma Mahesvara Icons in the Middle Ganga Valley (2018). She has worked on issues of urban heritage and heritage education with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) (2004) and with the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, Mumbai (2011-2012). She has taught Art history, History and Humanities in Mumbai at Rizvi College of Architecture and Indian Education Society's College of Architecture (2012-2013) and in the USA at the Old Dominion University and Virginia Wesleyan College (2005-2007). She is currently based in Dubai. Her research interests include religious iconography, colonial archaeology and museum collections.

Uthara Suvrathan completed her MA and MPhil degrees in Jawaharlal Nehru University and her PhD degree in University of Michigan. She works at the intersection of archaeology and history to examine the organization of polities and places on the margins of larger states and empires in premodern South Asia. She is also interested in archaeological approaches to landscape studies and in issues of premodern trade and contact across the Indian Ocean. In addition, she works on issues of museum education, public outreach and the digital humanities, with a particular interest in the sharing of information among researchers, and between academics and the wider public. She is currently Assistant Professor at Aziz Premji University, Bengaluru, India.

Introduction: Hindu temples: social histories

Section I: The temple and royalty

1. Introduction to temple and royalty

Salila Kulshreshtha

2. The sacred geography of a medieval capital: Hampi-Vijayanagara - a case study

Anila Verghese

3. Beyond the king-brahmana-temple paradigm: mapping the socio-cultural landscape of Hindu temples in central India (c. 4th-6th century CE)

Ashish Kumar

4. Constructing temple, constructing power: temple reconstruction process in 10th-century Tamil-speaking South with a special emphasis on Govindapputt¿r

Valérie Gillet

Section II: Temple rituals

5. Introduction to temple and rituals

Salila Kulshreshtha

6. The stepwell as gift of water: Danadharma

Kirit Mankodi

7. Medieval food as deity worship: the elaboration of food offerings in Chola-era ritual practice

Andrea Gutiérrez

8. Social history of the Western-Himalayan temple: rituals and priests

Mahesh Sharma

Section III: Temple as social space

9. Introduction to temple as social space

Uthara Suvrathan

10. Methods for murals: temple painting in southeastern India

Anna Lise Seastrand

11. Tirthas, temples and the architecture of Hindu pilgrimage

Crispin Branfoot

12. Amour and upah¿ra in the garbha-g¿ha: the temple as social space in the Kath¿sarits¿gara

Tara Sheemar Malhan

Section IV: Temple landscapes

13. Introduction to temple landscapes

Uthara Suvrathan

14. Temples of Swat: the ¿¿hi archaeological landscape of Barikot

Luca M. Oliveri

15. Shared spaces: cultural landscapes and early Hindu temples in peninsular India

Himanshu Prabha Ray

16. Sacred spaces and local places: temples and shrines in the religious landscape of Tekkalakota

C.M. Manohar, V. Ashok Abkari and Namita Sanjay Sugandhi

Section V: The temple and beyond

17. The temple and beyond

Himanshu Prabha Ray

18. Movement across the divine threshold in medieval Tamil Nadu: dynamics and interactions in the space of the temple and beyond

Leslie C. Orr

19. Monasticism and the Hindu Temple

Himanshu Prabha Ray

20. Building belonging: Shaiva temple communities in South and Southeast Asia

Elizabeth A. Cecil

Section VI: The colonial interlude

21. Introduction to the colonial interlude

Himanshu Prabha Ray

22. Symbiotic sacred spaces: an indexical study of premodern Malabar

Percy Arfeen

23. From the forest to the valley: temple architecture, landscape and history in Goa

Pedro Pombo

24. The afterlife of temples: western India

Susan Verma Mishra

25. The remaking of Ramtek Hill under the Yadavas and Bhosles of Nagpur

Cathleen A. Cummings