Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule : A South Indian Case Paperback / softback

Although temples have been important in South Indian society and history, there have been few attempts to study them within an integrated anthropological framework.

Professor Appadurai develops such a framework in this ethnohistorical case study, in which he interprets the politics of worship in the Sri Partasarati Svami Temple, a famous ancient Sri Vaisnava shrine in India.

The author uses the methods and concepts of both cultural anthropology and social history to construct a model of institutional change in South Asia under colonial rule.

Focusing on the problem of authority as a cultural concept and as a managerial reality, Professor Appadurai considers some classic problems of South Asian anthropology: problems of deference, sumptuary symbolism, and religious organization.

In addition, he addresses such issues as the nature of conflict under a hybrid colonial legal system, the political implications of sumptuary disputes, and the structure of relations between polity and religion in pre-modern South Asia.

These aspects of the study should interest a broad range of scholars.