Mapping the P??upata Landscape

In Mapping the P??upata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the ?aiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India, Elizabeth A. Cecil explores the sacred geography of the earliest community of ?iva devotees called the P??upatas. This book brings the narrative cartography of the Skandapur??a into conversation with physical landscapes, inscriptions, monuments, and icons in order to examine the ways in which P??upatas were emplaced in regional landscapes and to emphasize the use of material culture as media through which notions of belonging and identity were expressed. By exploring the ties between the formation of early P??upata communities and the locales in which they were embedded, this study reflects critically upon the ways in which community building was coincident with place-making in Early Medieval India.