Hindu Temple Legends
Since 2022, the Pondicherry Centre is also the South India Office of the sixteen-year project “Hindu Temple Legends”. Jointly conducted by the EFEO and the Heidelberg Academy, and headed by Professor Ute Huesken of the Heidelberg Academy and Heidelberg University, and financed by the Union of German Academies, the project studies the sources for the temple legends of the South Indian city of Kanchipuram, focussing in particular on the pre-modern sthalapurāṇas (compendia of temple legends) in Sanskrit and Tamil, but taking into account also iconography and ritual practices that reflects this body of narrative.