Kanara temples: Architectural transactions on the edge of empire

Karnataka\u27s coastal tract, Kanara, underwent dramatic transformations with its incorporation into the Vijayanagara Empire in the 14th century. Formerly quite isolated, the narrow zone became a crucial territorial linchpin in the functioning of the upland empire, serving as its primary international trade and communications link. Kanara\u27s longstanding dynasty of autonomous kings was replaced by a complex, multi-layered administrative structure under which the vast majority of the region was left to the governance of a constellation of local chieftains, their rule only loosely linked to a minimal imperial presence maintained in three of the zone\u27s port cities. Powerful trans-territorial trade guilds formed a third layer in the region\u27s authoritative structure, one that facilitated the bonds between the center and this coastal periphery. One result of Kanara\u27s sudden economic stimulation was a boom in temple building, much of it in unprecedented architectural modes. This study posits that these temples were sites where the delicate balance of the region\u27s political structures and the relationships between its local chieftains and their imperial overlords could be conspicuously negotiated. Employed to test this hypothesis are three distinct case studies—the region\u27s best-known and most impressive monument, a series of small temples at a single site, and a group of dispersed monuments connected by a common typology—patronized by differing combinations of the region\u27s three layers of overlapping authority. Through both formal and inscriptional evidence, this study reveals how these monuments were used across an entire spectrum of modes of negotiation, from a statement of collaboration between the imperial center and multiple political entities in the peripheral zone, to an attempt by a newly immigrant mercantile community to incorporate itself into the economic mainstream flowing to the capital, to bold assertions of autonomy by Kanara\u27s chieftains. These monuments illuminate the complexities of this coastal province\u27s political and economic relationships with Vijayanagara and help to reshape our understanding of the interdependencies in the structures of this South Indian empire straddling the boundaries of the late-medieval and early-modern periods