India, Aug. 15 -- After zamindars, the most significant patrons of terracotta temples were merchants. The surge in textile exports and the monetization of the economy under the Mughals in the 17th and 18th centuries enabled merchants to become wealthy and to replicate the temple sponsorship of the landholding classes.

Inscriptions record temple-building as acts of devotion, but in practice, they also signalled the patron's wealth and prospects, attracting cultivators and artisans to the merchant's village. The temple compound was where the Vaishnav community gathered for daily kirtan and annual festivals, practices that bound them to one another and to the patron-sponsor.

Hitesranjan Sanyal has shown that the number of merchant-sponsore...