Review: Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court

Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court by Valerie Stoker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Valerie Stoker’s Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory is a deeply informed and highly readable study of the politics of religious patronage in the 16th century Vijayanagara Court. The book’s focus is on Vyasatirtha, a virtuoso intellectual of the Madhva school, who used Vijaynagara patronage and his own expertise in polemics to transform Madhva Brahmanism into a major intellectual, social and political force throughout South India.

While acknowledging the religiously diverse nature of the Vijaynagara court and polity, Stoker’s study of the inscriptional and narrative evidence demonstrates that the Vijayanagara court was, in fact, selective in its patronage of primarily Hindu religious institutions. Importantly, the motivations behind this selectivity, Stoker argues, were not always religious. Rather, Vijayanagara patronage of Hindu sectarian groups responded creatively to a variety of incentives in ways that reflected the particular circumstances of specific locations. This opportunistic flexibility of Vijayanagara patronage, coupled with its generosity, galvanized Hindu sectarian leaders to pursue certain kinds of intellectual projects as well as to form different intersectarian alliances and rivalries. The overlapping nature of these alliances and rivalries coupled with distinctions in doctrinal and practical matters had the effect of creating, simultaneously, a shared religious sensibility and significant sectarian divisions. One of the most rewarding aspects of the book is its focus not just on how specific socio-political factors implicated Hindu religious traditions but equally importantly on how theological argumentation and religious practice shaped social and political reality.


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