Corporeal Experience and the Material World of the Vijayanagara Sacred Landscape: 600-1325 CE

The following dissertation is a digital exploration of medieval South Indian sacred landscapes through the corporeal and material developments at a specific pilgrimage center. I focus both on how particular devotional experiences were structured through corporeal management of devotees, and on their connection to the ritual, social, and political life of a historicized sacred space. Corporeal experience is analyzed through an examination of devotee movement, accessibility, and sensorial engagement with the material world. The material world refers specifically to both the natural and built environment, including landscape features, spatial organization, and architectural design, and consequently provides information about social interaction within these spaces. This thesis does not engage with abstract or mythological landscapes, which remain to be reconstructed for the period of investigation, though associations of the mythological with places in the landscape are noted where known. My spatial focus in this study is centered on the sacred Hemakuta Hill and the immediate surrounding area, in the imperial capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire, also called Vijayanagara, located in the Bellary District of Karnataka, India. My temporal focus is on the hitherto under-studied period of 600 CE to 1325 CE and the Early Imperial Phase years of the Vijayanagara Empire (c. 1336-1400 CE). During this time, the Hemakuta Hill area was a liminal river pilgrimage site associated with death rituals and folk deities. It subsequently expanded to also become the primary cult center for the Sanskritic deity, Virupaksha. Through the use of the spatio-temporal visualizing capabilities of ArcGIS, coupled with the immersive panoramic capabilities of Google Street View, I provide new insights into the development of the historic material world and ritual experiences in the Hemakuta Hill area, exposing the problems of homogenizing pre- and early imperial Vijayanagara archi