In this short essay, Michael Rabe responds to Padma Kaimal’s review of his book, The Great Penance at Mamallapuram: Deciphering a Visual Text (Chennai, Institute of Asian Studies, 2001), published in caa.reviews January 14, 2003. Rabe’s text first appeared in the spring/summer 2003 issue of the American Council for Southern Asian Art Newsletter. With the admitted ulterior interest of an author subject to review, I would like to offer a response to a couple points made by Padma Kaimal, as my contribution to Rebecca Brown’s call for reflections on how we utilize written texts in our study of Indian art. The first goes to the very heart of my argument to the effect that the Great Penance Relief at Mamallapuram must be read as a visual text, and the second pertains more generally to scholarly method and integrity. First, am I guilty of being “logocentric” to insist that a prasasti reading of the Relief “trumps all others meanings the sculpture may carry”? Initially, I thought not, but after perusal of several among 2,920 Google hits on the subject I now agree. Yes, it is logocentric to defend a given text against the deconstructionist’s project of undermining the very notion that...