ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines processes in the constitution of British imperial sovereignty in south India as these encompassed the undermining of the sovereignty of ‘spiritual potentates’. Imperial sovereignty emerged importantly in continuous processes of adjudication in courts of law. Here the protection of property was a major focus. In cases involving the property of religious institutions judges were to follow ‘customary’ practice. Guru heads of mathas (‘monasteries’) could be spiritually sovereign over network domains of mathas, often attached to temples, some domains encompassing thousands of villages. According to judicial conceptions, the renunciation of a guru matha head required withdrawal from judicially defined ‘worldly’ concerns. Matha gurus, however, engaged in continuous transactions involving gifting as part of their spiritual practice. In courts of law such gifting was condemned as embezzlement of matha and temple funds, as rivals for status and authority in these institutions engaged in litigation. Indian advocates of religious reform in the public sphere came to share in the imperial notion of strict ascetic withdrawal and agreed that the courts reign in powerful gurus. I illustrate these points with reference to litigation involving one of the richest and most revered temple sites in India, the Tirumala Tirupati Devastanams in today’s Andhra Pradesh.
