Constructing the Guru: Ritual Authority and Architectural Space in Medieval India

Abstract

At the central Indian site of Chandrehe stands a rare example of a monumental stone monastery, built in 973 by a sect of Shiva-worshiping ascetics known as the Mattamayuras. Its complex architectural program suggests that it was carefully designed to evoke the soteriological and ritual world of medieval Hindu monasteries, about which very little other evidence exists. Reinforcing the authority of the monastic community's leader, the guru, and constructing him as a divinized being for popular devotion, the building points to the importance of royally sponsored ascetics at pilgrimage sites located at the peripheries of dynastic states.