Temples to the Buddha and the Gods analyzes the patronage of diverse image houses built in the transnational Dra¯vi?a tradition of architecture in Sri Lanka—an architectural tradition that has been adopted across the Indian Ocean, from the premodern to the contemporary. Although the Dra¯vi?a tradition is generally associated with Hindu temple architecture, in Sri Lanka it was deployed to build temples to the Buddha as well as to Hindu and Buddhist deities. Framed along ethno-religious binaries, it is seen as 'foreign' or 'provincial' in previous studies of Sri Lanka’s art histories. In contrast, this book argues that temples constructed in the Dra¯vi?a architectural tradition in the medieval and the early modern periods in Sri Lanka should be understood as part of the larger transnational architectural tradition. Sujatha Arundathi Meegama brings together different types of image houses built by various patrons (e.g., monarchs, monks, ministers, and merchants) that were previously
