The Blueprint For an Atlas of Early Indian Religions

This Has Been A Dream Venture Of The Author For The Last More Than Three Decades. It Is An Attempt To Show Directions For Mapping Religious Histories Of The Indian SubContinent Over A Period Of Several Millennia From The Prehistoric Times To C.1300 Ce. It Goes Beyond Conventional Frontiers Of An *Atlas By Transcending Narrow Confines Of The Discipline Of Geography By Including Such Dimensions As Types Of Religions And Anthropology Of The Sacred. How Do Topography And Ecology And The SoCalled Highland And Lowland Cultures Affect Cultic Practices? Do Religions Act As Catalyst For Urban Growth? Can Any Pattern Be Discerned In The Origin And Dispersal Of Shiva, The Mahadeva And His Followers? Why Do Lord Rama And Lord Krishna Emerge As Avatars Of Vishnu But Lord Ganesh And Devi Ganga Respectively Remain Son And Daughter Of Shiva? How And Why Does Lakulish, Allegedly The Founder Of The Pashupata Sect Of The Shaivas Acquire A Club In His Hand After The Eighth Century Ce In Karnataka? How Do We Account For Iconographic Changes In Representations Of Deities Across Temporal And Spatial Axes? Why Are HeroStones More Prolific In Upland Areas And Relatively Infrequent In The Large Agricultural Tracts Of The Indus And The Ganga Valleys And In The Agriculturally Rich Delta Areas Of The Peninsula? Do The Phenomena Of HeroStones And Emergence Of More Than 3000 Tirthas Between C.600 And C.1300 Ce Have Any Links With The Simultaneous Proliferation Of Land Grants To Religious Beneficiaries Of Varied Hues? How Does The Tracking Of InterReligious And IntraReligious Spaces Help Us In Understanding Strategies Adopted By Different Religions VisVis One Another? This Monograph Seeks To Answer Such Questions By Suggesting Ways Of Cartographic Delineation Of Religious Developments In Early India. Data Comprising Of 6,000 Entries On Deities, Religious Epithets And Structures, Sites, Monuments, Sculptures And Other Art Remains Bearing On Early Indian Religions Based On Epigraphia Indica, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum And Annual Reports Of The Archaeological Survey Of India (190203 To 193637) Are Being Presented Here. Two Maps Illustrating The Modus Operandi Of This Experimental Exercise Are Also Included In This Monograph.