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Beginning with the sixth century CE, Karnataka witnessed the rise of dying as a cherished value. Warriors who swore fealty to a master committed suicide upon the latter's death, men who lost their lives on the battlefield and women who died performing sati upon the death of her husbands were eulogized, and Jainas practiced voluntary termination of life as a rite. These practices, recorded in considerable numbers for over six centuries, were on the decline by the twelfth century. In its stead appeared another sought-after value, viz., acts of killing. Valorizing homicide - hitherto limited to kings and soldiers - was now turning into a desirable act. The talk is an attempt to describe and account for this transformation.

Manu V. Devadevan teaches history at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India. He went to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for graduate school and Mangalore University for doctoral research on the history of literary practices in Kerala (CE 1200-1800). He is a multilingual author with published books in English, Kannada and Malayalam, and a work in progress in Hindi. A practicing poet in Kannada with four books of poetry, Devadevan is also a multilingual translator. His publications include A Prehistory of Hinduism (DeGruyter, 2016) and The 'Early Medieval' Origins of India (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

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