Digital Approaches to Temple Environments

This workshop is based on the premise that digital technologies not only help in presenting the study of temple environments but are also useful analytical tools. Divya Kumar-Dumas, Mohit Manohar, and Pushkar Sohoni will discuss case studies from their research on Anwa, Sigiriya, Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram), and Daulatabad that use AutoCAD, ArcGIS, and Adobe Illustrator to visualize and interpret particular aspects of temples and affiliated structures. The workshop is planned as a forum in which interested scholars can share their expertise in using digital tools to study temple environments. It aims to encourage new work that utilizes the tools of digital humanities for the study of temple cultures and premodern worlds, and provide resources to scholars seeking to engage, or further engage, with digital technologies.

This event is part of Temple Cultures & Premodern Worlds across South Asia and the Indian Ocean, an inter-disciplinary conference presenting new research on Brahmanical, Buddhist, Islamic, and Jain built spaces as well as their intersections and interstices—in South and Southeast Asia. With a focus on the premodern period, papers conceive of “temple” in the broadest possible terms, to encompass basadi, chaitya, masjid, and prasada. The range of themes include: issues of temple spaces as material and cultural palimpsests, cross-fertilizations across architectural and cosmological models, problems of access to temple spaces, the role of esoteric religious practices in activating temple environments, the imaginative resources of temple sculptors, temple rituals and ritual objects, access to food, shelter, and even alcohol in quotidian temple life, and the long-distance land and maritime networks that sustained temples. In addressing these dimensions, scholars reanalyze current categories for understanding temple cultures, reassess the state of the field, and indicate developing fields of inquiry.

Please note: the time indicated refers to EST (Eastern Standard Time, GMT -4). Further details are available on the event page.

The event is supported by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institute and the Yale Macmillan Center South Asian Studies Council.

The conference is open to the public upon previous registration. For more information and to register, please visit the conference website or contact Lara Scaiola (Research Assistant) at lara.scaiola@khi.fi.it