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The present and future landscapes and waterscapes of South Asia consist, in part, of many residues of the past-soils, slopes, and a range of water-related infrastructure. As such, many problems related to irrigation and rural water use are directly linked to the embodied histories of this region. Beyond lineal connections, many contemporary problems such as watershed protection, erosion, reservoir siltation, and falling water tables, were also faced by agriculturalists in the past. Archaeologies of flow thus may have some bearing on the present and future as well as the past. This paper provides a review of the evidence for changes in water use over the last 5,000 years in southern India, focusing on the semi-arid interior region of Karnataka state from the Southern Neolithic (c. 3000-1200 b.c.) to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The area around the city of Vijayanagara saw a large-scale expansion in irrigation works between the mid-fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries. Of these, reservoirs or ‘tanks’ played an important role in extending farming into areas beyond the reach of perennial irrigation. Reservoirs were linked to Hindu temples, not only through networks of patronage, but also physically, in aspects of form and decoration. Indeed, reservoirs can be thought of as temples themselves, as well as statements of power and authority, functional objects, and tangible connections to larger social and conceptual worlds. This paper presents reservoirs in four ways: as agricultural features, as (political) monuments, as oceans, and as temples. This juxtaposition is made possible only because of the intersection of textual representation and material form, different modes of representation which may be critically evaluated and compared. Reservoirs formed one part of a complex rural landscape of devotion that included field shrines, hero stones, and even archaeological sites of earlier eras. Through the long-term use-lives of reservoirs, we can see the ways in which rural devotion and practice both responded to the specifics of local histories and, over time, reshaped regional landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]