Alongside this site, a book is being written from the year's fieldwork. Below is its provisional shape — the parts it may contain. It will change as the writing does.
Story, space, time, rules, movement, excess and presence — the ideas and questions a temple presents, and how we have gone about following them.
The temples that were here, the temples that arrived, and the processional routes that tie them together, told through old maps and new.
The communities, lineages and roles — hereditary and appointed — that sustain a temple and lay claim to it.
Fifteen of Pondicherry's temples, each in context, with an illustrated plan and its ritual year: daily, monthly and annual.
The temples so farGopuram, threshold, kodimaram, mandapam, sanctum, tank and kitchen — illustrated and evoked rather than catalogued.
The repeating vocabularies of worship: alankaram, abhishekam, veethi purappadu or street procession, song, story, the swing, the divine wedding, prasadam, and more.
Festivals & rituals so farLonger meditations on a chosen few festivals, each a way into history, text, lineage and meaning-making across the seasonal and ritual year.
Festivals & rituals so farA closing reflection.
Much of what the book draws on appears here first, as field notes and temple and festival pages — and much that the book has no room for will live here too.