Dennis Hudson writes in his Introduction that he first began to study the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram in 1979, and first visited it in 1983. It must have been in that period that I met him—as South Asian editor at Princeton University Press at that time, I sought out scholars whose work might eventually be published at the Press. I recall walking with him on a sunny path and his saying it would be a few years before he would be ready to submit a book to a publisher. I am sure that neither of us imagined it would be about twenty-five years.
In the meantime, I occasionally kept in touch with Dennis. I left Princeton University Press in 1992 and began spending time in the Vaishnava town of Vrindaban, India. In these years I came into more frequent contact with him, as we sometimes attended the same conferences and once were on the same plane from Delhi to New York. In the spring of 2003 he sent me seven chapters of his book on the temple, asking me to edit it and saying that the eighth chapter, the last on the middle floor of the sanctum, would follow at the end of the summer. I did read the manuscript, found very little to change or suggest, and put it on a shelf. At the end of the summer, he said he had agreed to write a “Guidebook” to the temple for publication in Chennai, and that it should take him no more than a year or so—after which he would resume work on the larger manuscript.
After that, I wrote or talked to him few times about the book, now called The Body of God, and heard his various reasons for not finishing it: his continuing work on the “Guidebook” and his preoccupation with family. I did not know that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and found this out only in the spring of 2006, after he had been struggling with the illness for over ten years. John S. (Jack) Hawley at Barnard College and I talked that spring and summer about our wish to help him any way we could. Then in early October, I had a call from the historian Romila Thapar, who was visiting Dennis in Northampton for the weekend. She said that Dennis was no longer receiving treatment, was in hospice care, and probably could not work much longer. She said he would be glad if I were willing to help with the book. Jack and I drove to Northampton the following weekend, and we all agreed that I would put The Body of God together, while Jack would collect and edit a volume of Dennis’s essays.
In assembling the book, the materials I worked with were the manuscript text of the “Guidebook,” The Vaikuntha Perumal Temple, Kanchipuram: Interpreted by D. Dennis Hudson, which was in press in India, and a manuscript of The Body of God that included chapters on the whole temple. He had not considered it finished, he said, because there were always more connections that he became aware of, other paths he wanted to explore. The “Guidebook” had grown to over four hundred pages, and the other manuscript was quite a bit longer. There was overlap, of course, but Dennis’s line of thought had changed as he worked, and the two manuscripts were organized differently. The approach we agreed on was to use the “Guidebook” (which we now called the “core text”) as the framework, and add to it material from the longer work—as well as notes and diacritics, which were missing from the core text. Dennis was still able to work two or three hours most days, and he read through the larger text, marking sections that he wanted to include. Back home, I set to work as hard as I could to put it all together while he would still know that it was happening.
I made two more trips to Northampton for long weekends, and Jack joined us for a day or two each trip. I felt privileged to be briefly a part of Dennis and Lori’s warm and vibrant household and extended family, all of whom were enormously supportive of this undertaking. The fall weather was mild, and we sat in or looked out on the garden as we talked and read manuscripts. The garden faded each week, and it was hard to see Dennis growing weaker as well. But as we talked, and Jack and I asked him questions, he seemed to draw on a deep reserve. It was clear that his wide-ranging knowledge and understanding of the temple and of Bhagavata religion were part of his core of life and strength. Despite the dire circumstances, I found these trips—and the manuscript itself—profoundly energizing.
Before Thanksgiving I was able to tell Dennis and his family that “we have a book”—it was cobbled together and had a shape, although much remained to be done. We were all relieved that Dennis’s lifetime of involvement with the temple would in fact result in a book. About three weeks later, Dennis died. I heard that at the end he was clearly going through the temple in his mind’s eye.+++(5)+++
The present text, the result of several more weeks of concentrated effort, now includes virtually everything Dennis had marked, as well as some other material from the larger manuscript that I thought should not be lost. Two sections were left out: a meditation on the meaning of Krishna’s many wives, and a study of the depiction of the Devi Mahatmyam at Mamallapuram. We hope to publish these elsewhere. Four indigestible but relevant pieces were assigned to Appendixes. Dennis intended to write a conclusion, “The Pancharatra Agama, Bhagavata Dharma, and the Bhagavata Purana.” This was never written, so we are left to draw the conclusions ourselves, taking our cues from the interconnections he so abundantly suggests.
Dennis’s writing was fluid, uncluttered, and approachable, and his attention to the details of bibliography and annotation was remarkable. The usual “housekeeping” chores of a copyeditor were virtually unnecessary. He complained that toward the end he suffered from confusion, and it is likely that some of his textual citations have become corrupted. He had put off introducing diacritics, which existed only here and there in the texts as I had them. We agreed that they should appear not in the body of the book but rather in a glossary, and much of my effort had been to construct this. Diacritics also appear in the bibliography.
Acknowledgments
Dennis Hudson was unable to compile his acknowledgments for this volume, though he was always generous in thanking the many people who helped him. He did record his thanks in the Indian publication, The Vaikuntha Perumal Temple, Kanchipuram, which provides the structure and much of the writing for this volume. That is reprinted here, with minor editing:
“It’s impossible to acknowledge all the help with this study I’ve received over the years, beginning in 1979 with Marylin M. Rhie at Smith College. Doris Meth Srinivasan introduced me to the American Council on South Asian Art and its scholarly world of art historians. Thanks to her support I received a fellowship for college teachers and independent scholars from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and during 1988–1989, with the long-suffering support of my family, I was free to work full time in ‘decoding’ the temple. This ‘decoding’ was further honed by invaluable critical responses received through lectures and talks at various forums. These include the annual workshops of the Committee on Religion in South India, meetings of the South Asian section of the American Academy of Religion, and meetings of the American Council on South Asian Art, and in classes on bhakti taught by John B. Carman at Harvard Divinity School. Steven J. Rosen opened his Journal of Vaishnava Studies to various papers I wrote introducing the temple, summarizing my developing interpretation, and discussing what I see as this temple’s implications for the history of Krishna worship in India. John S. Hawley carried this discussion to a climax in 2002 through a symposium he organized at Barnard College and the Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University, resulting in the JVS issue of Fall 2002 (vol. 11, no. 1).
“In India, Dr. K. V. Raman, retired from the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology of the University of Madras, read my early writings on the temple. His eager and continuing vote of confidence in my approach to the study of this archaeological monument he knows well has been indispensable to my continuing despite many delays…. The guidebook version of my study would not exist except that Ranvir Shah and his colleague V. R. Devika of the Prakriti Foundation suggested it, and with patient enthusiasm nudged me gently to its completion. They brought on Subhashree Krishnaswamy to edit it for a nonacademic audience, and Sathya Seelan to photograph it professionally.
“For critical readings of the text in its various stages I am indebted to the early guidance of my friend John Bollard, a Celticist and editor. And to my friend John Hellwig, a professor of theater delighting in South and Southeast Asian lore and performance, whose critical responses brought clarity to my later crafting of this [work]. Finally, there are my ‘cheerleaders’ on the sidelines these many years, growing ever more enthusiastic: David Hudson, Megan Hudson, Jake Hudson, Alexa Hudson, and Anil Pillay. Yet, for enthusiastic support, for patience, and for generous self-sacrifice over the course of these years there is no one I am more indebted to than my wife, my friend, and my spiritual companion, Lori Divine Hudson.”
In bringing this volume together after Dennis’s death, I very much missed his help in answering questions and filling in blanks. Many scholars were generous in addressing my questions: Vidya Dehajia, Jack Hawley, Steven Hopkins, Katherine Kasdorf, Timothy Lubin, Anna Seastrand, H. Daniel Smith, Travis Smith, and Donald Stadtner. Jack Hawley and David Mellins devoted many hours to correcting and amplifying the Sanskrit diacritics; and D. Samuel Sudanandha and Ravi Sriramachandran kindly vetted the Tamil diacritics. Dr. Sudanandha also copied the poem in Appenxix 5 onto a disk. Without their help, the glossary would have been impossible, and even with it I fear that others will find mistakes, for which I of course bear responsibility. The diagrams were drafted by my son Nat Case and his assistant Chris Sandgren of Hedberg Maps, Minneapolis. The photographs are those that appear in the Indian publication; the list of illustrations below record the photographers and sources as far as these could be determined.
At Oxford University Press, Cynthia Read encouraged Dennis for many years, and for her unflagging support for this project, as for so many works of South Asian scholarship, many of us are very grateful. Linda Donnelly, the production editor, has as always been a pleasure to work with.
We are grateful to Molly A. Daniels-Ramanujan for permision to reprint the translations by A. K. Ramanujan that grace Dennis’s discussion.
Above all, I am indebted to Dennis’s family, especially Lori Divine Hudson and Jake Hudson, and to my husband Marston, for their support and encouragement in this enterprise, which has been as rewarding as it has been arduous.