Temple as Geographic Marker: Mapping the Tenth-Century Sectarian Landscape

Chapter 1: Temple as Geographic Marker remaps the tenth century temple landscape of Mewār, Chhapan, and Vagada along fluvial routes. Rather than relying on dynastic or stylistic categories alone, clusters of temples with iconographic, sectarian, and artistic affinities across Uparamāla and Mēḍapaṭa reveal groups along the Banas and the Som Rivers. Some temples share tenth-century dynastic links to the Guhilas, or sectarian links to the Paśupata Śaivas, others reveal no specific inscriptional link to dynasty or sect. This chapter introduces the core temples of this study, including sites previously unknown, unphotographed, and/or unpublished in English such as Āaṭ found near Jagat in 2002, and Hita found on the road between Bambora and Chittōr in 2009. New sites change our understanding of tantra, mantra, and routes beyond dynasty and sect alone.