Center for Soft Power contributor Silky Pruthi met eminent Sanskritists and Hampi experts Professor P S Filliozat and Dr Vasundhara Filliozat at the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) at New Delhi on February 27.
The scholars spoke about "What does Pampamahatmya reveal about the cultural history of Hampi?” They are editors and translators of project ‘Pampa Mahatmaya’.
While their work at Hampi has been essentially archaeological in aims and techniques, they have appreciated the importance of contemporary literature in vernacular languages, especially medieval Kannada, for interpreting the physical remains of the site.
To make these available to an English-speaking audience, they attracted literary scholars to the Project. The late Dr Asim Krishna Das helped to compile and also translated part of the Pampamahatmya (sometimes referred to as the Hemakutakhanda), a body of local Sanskrit writings on the religious lore of the Shaivite tirtha at the Vijayanagara site.
A detailed report follows.
