Despite the prevalence of Bhuta worship, Sakti cult, Saivism and a few other creeds in the region, the late medieval Kanara, the Coastal Karnataka supported a congenial climate for the Vaisnav Brahmins. Jain monks, emergence of Muslim saints and missionaries, thus showing a meas- Christian ure of communal tolerance that is hard to come by elsewhere. Dr. Vasantha Madhava here tells a compelling story of religions in Coastal Karnataka suggesting how, in this region, the interplay among different faiths led to the fusion between Brahmanic and tribal religious forms, how the divergent creeds of the ruling chiefs determi- ned the fortunes of Jainism here. how the small Muslim population of the coastal belt ushered Islam in the area, and how the commerciel ventures of a Portuguese merchants paved way for Roman Catholicism in Kanara. few

A Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, Dr. Madhava drews on an astonishing range of inscriptional, literary, and historical archival evidence and revents in a scholarly effort As entirety, the Iste refidious scenario of Sources Karnataka. the vast avea between the rivers Chandragiri and Koll. And, throughout, he corrono- rates his findings with contempo- rary historical records. The author, focussing on a span of more than 250 years. from 1500 to 1763, also bringe into his lucid, 11-chapterlong narrative, an account of rituals. festivale and religious institutions in Coastal Karnatake. The study is the outcome of the project work, jointly financed by the Heras Society, Bombay and the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi.