Kanchi or Kanchipuram, located on the Palar River in the South Indian state of Tamilnadu, is popularly known as a city of a thousand temples, with the list of favorites varying based on personal choice. Several scholars have written architectural histories of individual temples, from C. Minakshi's 1941 study of the Vaikuntha Perumal Temple at Kanchipuram to the subsequent overview of regional styles in the Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture (1983) by Michael Meister and M. A. Dhaky.1 The book under review moves away from the beaten path to address such themes as the relationships among the myriad temples, the interactions of the shrines and the landscape, and their location along transregional networks of religion and power. During the eighth to the thirteenth century Kanchi was the capital of two major dynasties of South India—the Pallavas and the Cholas. However, it was not royalty that brought Kanchi into prominence;...
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