Encountering Sivaism: The Deity, The Milieu, The Entourage

This book endeavours to signify a way by which the development of religion may be studied within the parameters of a defined geographical and chronological context. Encountering Sivaism has taken cognisance of the evolution of Siva's pantheon through the fluid process of cultural coalescence. The agencies of acculturation include the visual and the literary material. Art is looked at as an index to socio-religious change at macro and micro levels without restricting the study to specific doctrinal-theological developments, the focus has been on the rationale of religious developments in terms of the material mileu.