The Hindu deity Skanda-Kārtikeya, also known as Kumāra, Mahāsena, Murukan, etc., is traced at least to the Mauryan period, and is written into Sanskrit literary and ritual traditions associated with medical, religious, and warrior cults. He appears as a multifaceted and transreligious deity on coinage during the Kuṣāṇa period. Skanda is eventually absorbed into the ever-growing pantheon of Śiva, as his son and leader to his marauding followers (gaṇas). Although remaining a relatively popular, secondary deity into modern times, Skanda's independent cult declined fully by the seventh century CE.
Richard Mann's long-anticipated study of Skanda is a welcome addition to scholarship on premodern Indian religions, South Asian art, social history, and Eurasian numismatics. This is a reworked version of his 2003 McMaster University dissertation written under Phyllis Granoff, and traces of her rigorous discipline and attention to detail are found throughout the volume. It also represents Mann's subsequent...
