Remapping Southern Karnataka into Sacred Geography

Imagining places and representing them through their deities has been a practice in India for nearly 1500 years. Beginning with works such as the Nilamatapurana, which dates back to the sixth or the seventh century, and the Skandapurana, of which the oldest surviving version is available from a ninth century manuscript, the practice developed to assume the form of sthalamahatmyas or sthalapuranas, produced in great numbers until the close of the nineteenth century and, at times, even later. There also exist a large number of oral texts that belong to this class, which unlike the written accounts have found only an occasional discussion in the existing scholarship. Caleb Simmons’s Singing the Goddess into Place is an attempt to introduce one such text from southern Karnataka, Bettada Chamundi (translated as Chamundi of the Hill), with a critical assessment and a translation.