Māhātmya, lit. “greatness”, is a genre of South Asian narrative texts glorifying a particular subject. Sanskrit māhātmyas form part of the vast corpus of purāṇic literature. However, māhātmya-like texts were also composed in various other South Indian languages during the medieval and early modern periods. The māhātmya genre includes texts dealing with the origin stories of particular saced places, which are sometimes also called sthalapurāṇas, but māhātmyas also exists on a variety of other topics. Whereas previous scholarship has tended to disparage māhātmyas for their often local outlook and their perceived lack of literary qualities, there recently has been a surge in māhātmya studies. More and more scholars have realized the value of māhātmyas as sources for social and religious history as well as their continued relevance for contemporary traditions. Moreover, there has been an increasing awareness of the multilingual nature of the māhātmya genre, with texts in the transregional language of Sanskrit coexisting, in various different constellations, with similar compositions in various regional South Asian languages. This panel brings together scholars from different academic backgrounds working on māhātmyas, who will present their work on topics including, but not limited to, the following: 1) The relationship between local māhātmyas and transregional purāṇic literature, 2) māhātmyas as sources for religious history, 3) the relevance of māhātmyas for contemporary religious traditions, and 4) the relationship between Sanskrit māhātmyas and similar text in other South Asian languages.
