Architecture and Art of Southern India

Architecture and Art of Southern India PDF Author: George Michell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521441100
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
George Michell provides a pioneering and richly illustrated introduction to the architecture, sculpture and painting of Southern India under the Vijayanagara empire and the states that succeeded it. This period, encompassing some four hundred years, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, was endowed with an abundance of religious and royal monuments which remain as testimonies to the history and ideology behind their evolution. The author evaluates the legacy of this artistic heritage, describing and illustrating buildings, sculptures and paintings that have never been published before. In a previously neglected area of art history, the author presents an original and much-needed reassessment.

Architecture and Art of Southern India

Architecture and Art of Southern India PDF Author: George Michell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521441100
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
George Michell provides a pioneering and richly illustrated introduction to the architecture, sculpture and painting of Southern India under the Vijayanagara empire and the states that succeeded it. This period, encompassing some four hundred years, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, was endowed with an abundance of religious and royal monuments which remain as testimonies to the history and ideology behind their evolution. The author evaluates the legacy of this artistic heritage, describing and illustrating buildings, sculptures and paintings that have never been published before. In a previously neglected area of art history, the author presents an original and much-needed reassessment.

Divinizing in South Asian Traditions

Divinizing in South Asian Traditions PDF Author: Diana Dimitrova
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351123602
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The issue of divinizing in South Asian traditions has not been examined before as a process involving various methods to affect the socio-cultural cognition of the community. It is therefore essential to consider the context of "divinizing" and to analyse what groups, institutions or individuals define the discourse, what are the ideological positions that they represent, and who or what is being divinized. This book deals with the issue of divinizing in South Asian traditions. It aims at studying cultural questions related to the representations and the mythologizing of the divine. It also explores the human relations to the "divine other." It studies the interpretations of the divine in religious texts and the embodiment of the "divine other" in ritual practices. The focus is on studying the phenomenon of divinizing in its religious, cultural, and ideological implications. The book comprises eight chapters that explore the question of divinizing from the 2nd century CE up to present-day in North and South India. The chapters discuss the issue both from insider and outsider perspectives, within the framework of textual study as well as ideological and anthropological analysis. All articles explore various aspects of the cultural phenomenon of being in relation to the divine other, of the process of interpreting and embodying the divine, and of the representation of the divinizing process, as revealed in the literatures and cultures of South Asia. Applying theoretical models of religious and cultural studies to discuss texts written in South Asian languages and engage in critical dialogue with current scholarship, this book is an indispensable study of literary, religious and cultural production in South Asia. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of South Asian studies, Asian Studies, religious and cultural studies as well as comparative religion.

The Courts of Pre-Colonial South India

The Courts of Pre-Colonial South India PDF Author: Jennifer Howes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135789967
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This book investigates how the material culture of South Indian courts was perceived by those who lived there in the pre-colonial period. Howes peels away the standard categories used to study Indian palace space, such as public/private and male/female, and replaces them with indigenous descriptions of space found in court poetry, vastu shastra and painted representations of courtly life. Set against the historical background of the events which led to the formation of the Ramnad Kingdom, the Kingdom's material circumstances are examined, beginning with the innermost region of the palace and moving out to the Kingdom via the palace compound itself and the walled town which surrounded it. An important study for both art historians and South India specialists. The volume is richly illustrated in colour.

Hindu Art

Hindu Art PDF Author: T. Richard Blurton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674391895
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
From the linga of Shiva to ritual lamps, from a Vishnu temple to a heap of stones streaked with sacred vermilion, from illustrations of the epic adventures of Rama to a terracotta goddess figurine, the art Hinduism has inspired over the centuries is as rich and various as the religion itself - and, for most Westerners, as unknown. Hindu Art offers a key to this mystery. A splendid, richly illustrated introduction, the book opens to readers the manifold glories of the religious art of the Indian subcontinent. The narratives that Hindu artists illustrate, the gods they depict, and the forms they observe are the products of thousands of years of tradition and development. In a survey that stretches back to prehistory, T. Richard Blurton discusses religious, cultural and historical influences that figure in Hindu art, as well as those that Hinduism shares with Buddhism and Jainism. Tracing the development of Hindu art, he shows how it has come to embrace the widely varying styles of regions from Nepal to Afghanistan, from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh. Against this historical background, Blurton considers the use of images from the three major cults of Hinduism - the worship of Shiva, Vishnu and the Great Goddess - in painting, sculpture and temple architecture. As fascinating as it is informative, Hindu Art offers invaluable insight into one of the world's great and ancient cultures. It will prove an indispensable resource for anyone with an interest in the art of India.

Indian Art in Detail

Indian Art in Detail PDF Author: Anna Libera Dallapiccola
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674026919
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
The rich and diverse cultures of India are represented in exquisite detail in this book, which begins with a simple question: what is Indian art? Each thematically organized chapter delves into such topics as religion and myth, epics, festivals, courtly and village life, and the natural world.

Animals in Stone

Animals in Stone PDF Author: Alexandra van der Geer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 904744356X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 880

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Book Description
The art history of South Asia covers a time span of roughly four and a half thousand years. During this period, a vast number of animal stone sculptures has been produced, ranging from the pre-historic period till today and covering a great variety of motifs and imagery in different regions and religious traditions. Even so, the number of studies devoted to these animal sculptures has remained extremely limited. The present book aims at filling this knowledge gap. With this richly illustrated book, the first of its kind, Van der Geer offers a comparative study of the ways in which various animals have been depicted and a lucid analysis of the sculptors’ treatment of their “models”: living animals. The art history of sculptured animals is contextualized with a description of the use of animals as can be read from ancient texts, archaeological evidence and contemporaneous culture. In doing so, parallels as well as differences in style or iconography are highlighted, elucidating the variety of animal depictions across regions, religious contexts and through time. The corpus of discussed material ranges from Indus seals, stupa panels and railings, monumental temples from North and South India, non-religious palace and fort architecture to loose sculptures in museum collections.

Portraiture in South Asia since the Mughals

Portraiture in South Asia since the Mughals PDF Author: Crispin Branfoot
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838608966
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
One of the most remarkable artistic achievements of the Mughal Empire was the emergence in the early seventeenth century of portraits of identifiable individuals, unprecedented in both South Asia and the Islamic world. Appearing at a time of increasing contact between Europe and Asia, portraits from the reigns of the great Mughal emperor-patrons Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan are among the best-known paintings produced in South Asia. In the following centuries portraiture became more widespread in the visual culture of South Asia, especially in the rich and varied traditions of painting, but also in sculpture and later prints and photography. This collection seeks to understand the intended purpose of a range of portrait traditions in South Asia and how their style, setting and representation may have advanced a range of aesthetic, social and political functions. The chapters range across a wide historical period, exploring ideals of portraiture in Sanskrit and Persian literature, the emergence and political symbolism of Mughal portraiture, through to the paintings of the Rajput courts, sculpture in Tamil temples and the transformation of portraiture in colonial north India and post-independence Pakistan. This specially commissioned collection of studies from a strong list of established scholars and rising stars makes a significant contribution to South Asian history, art and visual culture.

A Priest's Guide for the Great Festival

A Priest's Guide for the Great Festival PDF Author: Aghoraśivācārya
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195378520
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
The Mahotsavavidhi, a twelfth-century Sanskrit text, provides detailed guidelines for a Saiva temple priest in performing a nine-day "great festival" for the god Siva. The author, Aghorasiva, is one of the most esteemed and influential authors in the Saiva Siddhanta school, and his lengthy work on ritual procedures, Kriyakramadyotika, (of which the Mahotsavavidhi is a part), is by all accounts the Agama work most employed by modern temple priests and pious Saivas in their practice of worship. Richard Davis's translation of this important text is the first translation into a European language of any medieval work on temple festivals. Because the text was intended for an expert audience of working twelfth-century priests, Aghorasiva employs a highly technical idiom. For that reason, Davis annotates his translation extensively with explanations and expansions drawn from other Agama works. There have been numerous studies of temple festivals and processions based on ethnographic observations and on recent historical data, but the historical study of this dramatic religious practice during earlier periods has relied on speculation. Davis's groundbreaking volume will provide a new foundation for the study of the history of South Indian temple festivals as a cultural practice.

The East

The East PDF Author: Christopher Tadgell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136753834
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 1968

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Book Description
Continuing the Architecture in Context series, this second volume narrates the development of architecture across a huge swathe of the world, from the Indian subcontinent to the Japanese archipelago, over a period extending from prehistory to the arrival of Islam and its distinct traditions from the eleventh century onwards. Fantastically illustrated, with over 1,000 photographs and drawings, Christopher Tadgell covers the major architectural traditions of India, China, Thailand and Japan as well as the spectacular architecture of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Korea, Myenmar, Bhutan and Tibet. As with the first volume – Antiquity – The East presents not only the buildings themselves, but the cultures and peoples that they are a part of. Unprecedented in its scope, this volume is a beautiful guide to the fascinating history of Eastern architecture.

Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions

Rethinking the Body in South Asian Traditions PDF Author: Diana Dimitrova
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000257959
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
This book analyses cultural questions related to representations of the body in South Asian traditions, human perceptions and attitudes toward the body in religious and cultural contexts, as well as the processes of interpreting notions of the body in religious and literary texts. Utilising an interdisciplinary perspective by means of textual study and ideological analysis, anthropological analysis, and phenomenological analysis, the book explores both insider- and outsider perspectives and issues related to the body from the 2nd century CE up to the present-day. Chapters assess various aspects of the body including processes of embodiment and questions of mythologizing the divine body and othering the human body, as revealed in the literatures and cultures of South Asia. The book analyses notions of mythologizing and "othering" of the body as a powerful ideological discourse, which empowers or marginalizes at all levels of the human condition. Offering a deep insight into the study of religion and issues of the body in South Asian literature, religion and culture, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of South Asian studies, South Asian religions, South Asian literatures, cultural studies, philosophy and comparative literature.