Flight of Deities - Meenakshi Jain - #IndicTalks

In this #IndicTalk, Meenakshi Jain discusses the response of temple patrons and priests to the attacks on Hindu temples in the medieval period. She informs us that in several instances, ascetic sects were militarized and organized into akharas (martial arts/wrestling schools) to protect Hinduism from iconoclastic fervour.

She also informs how Aurangzeb’s policies prompted an exodus of deities from Braj in 1669. As a result, the deities of the Govindadeva, Gopinath, Madan Mohan, Radha Vallabh and several other temples sought shelter in nearby Rajasthan. In the case of South India, the burial of bronzes occurred on a very large scale.

One of the most famous cases of buried bronzes was that of the Pathur Nataraja where in the face of an impending attack, temple officials had ceremoniously buried the Nataraja bronze which was later recovered. On the whole, this talk narrates how countless temples in North and South India confronted the threat of Islamic Iconoclasm and responded in ingenious ways to protect the deities.
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Видео Flight of Deities - Meenakshi Jain - #IndicTalks канала Centre for Indic Studies