connected with the western quarter of
India. The Kitawara’s Veda is the Sama
Ve d a. Their mahavakya is “tattvamasi”
(“That thou art”) and their ascetic quality
is to eat very little. The Dashanami
divisions associated with this group are
Tirthaand Ashrama.
Koil
(also known as Koyal) One of the names
for the Indian cuckoo. See cuckoo.
Kokila
One of the names for the Indian cuckoo.
See cuckoo.
Konarak
Village on the Bay of Bengal in the state
of Orissa, about forty miles east of the
state capital, Bhubaneshvar. Konarak is
famous for its Sun Temple. Now in
ruins, the temple was built by king
Narasimhadeva (r. 1238–1264), a
monarch in the Ganga dynasty. The
entire temple was intended to be a like-
ness of the sun’s chariot. Twelve great
wheels were carved on the sides at the
temple’s lowest level; in front of the tem-
ple are statues of several colossal horses.
As at Khajuraho, the temple’s lower lev-
els are covered with eroticcarvings, giv-
ing rise to diverse interpretations: Some
claim the carvings sanction carnal plea-
sure as a religious path, while some
interpret them allegorically as repre-
senting human union with the divine.
Others view them as teaching that the
desire for pleasure must ultimately be
transcended to attain the divine.
The temple was built on a massive
scale. According to one estimate, the
massive central spire would have been
over 200 feet high. It is uncertain
whether this spire was ever completed,
since the sandy soil at its base would
have been unable to support the weight
of such an enormous structure. This
unstable soil has been the greatest
contributor to the temple’s increasing
deterioration. The primary structure left
at the site is the jagamohan(assembly
hall). During the nineteenth century,
the hall was filled with sand in an
effort to prevent further collapse. For
further information see Roy Craven,
Indian Art, 1997.Konkanastha
Another name for the brahmincommu-
nity of theChitpavan, a name that signi-
fies their historical home on the Konkan
coastline in the states of Goa and
Maharashtra. See Chitpavan.Korravai
Fierce form of the Goddess, worshiped
in southern India and originally
believed to have been an autochtho-
nous (“of the land”) deity. Korravai is
associated with the hunt and the battle-
field, and thus with blood, death, and
carnage. Perhaps because of these asso-
ciations, she was later identified with
other fierce manifestations of the
Mother Goddess, particularly the god-
dess Kali.Koshala
In the Ramayana, the earlier of the two
great Indian epics, this is the name of
the region along the banks of the river
Sarayu in which Rama’sfather, King
Dasharatharules.Kota
City on the Chambal River in the mod-
ern state of Rajasthan, about 100 miles
south of Jaipur. Before India’s indepen-
dence, Kota was the capital of a small
kingdom with the same name. Kota was
one of the centers of the Rajasthani
style of miniature painting, a genre
used to depict Hindu religious themes,
particularly incidents in the life of
Krishna. The Kota style is considered a
derivative of the Bundistyle because
Kota was ruled by a junior member of
the Bundi royal family. Both styles are
marked by their attention to nature,
shown by detailed depictions of trees
surrounding the paintings’ subjects. TheKota