Diwali Celebration 2026 - A New Kind of Literature and the Emergence of Śiva Devotion: Examining a Dramatic Cultural Moment in Premodern South India

Why would a classical, centuries-old literary culture suddenly—over the brief period of just a few decades—make way for a very new kind of literature? And what would such rapid change look like on a textual level? In this lecture, Dr. Gil Ben-Herut will discuss a dramatic moment in the history of Kannada literature that occurred during the second half of the twelfth century and was tied to the eme