King of Hunters, Warriors, and Shepherds: Essays on Khandoba by Gunther-Dietz Sontheimer

When Günther-Dietz Sontheimer died in 1992, he left unfulfilled his wish to write a history of the Maharashtrian deity Khandoba. The volume brings together Sontheimer's English-language articles on Khandoba and the equivalent gods Mallanna in Andhra Pradesh and Mailra in Karnataka.Taken together, the essays in this volume show how Sontheimer's thoughts about Khandoba developed, and illustrate the great breadth of his understanding of the cult. The articles take into account the differing traditions of the wide variety of castes and tribes for whose members Khandoba (or Mallanna or Mailra) is an important god, and make use of the various kinds of source materials that Sontheimer gathered - ovs, oral epics, of the Dhangar shepherds; narratives, comments and statements made by people belonging to various groups; the songs (padem) of the Vghys and Murals, Khandoba's "bards" and "courtesans"; the Sanskrit and Marathi Mahatmyas composed by Brahmanas; descriptions and remarks searched out in the literature of Mahanubhavs, the Virkars, and other medieval saints; and stray references culled from published and unpublished historical documents.Sontheimer understood the Khandoba cult to be a "mirror of Hinduism". His writings on Khandoba provide an extraordinarily rich glimpse into that mirror.