The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Post-classical revival

The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Post-classical revival PDF Author: Gamini Jayasinghe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789555994057
Category : Art, Buddhist
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Post-classical revival

The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Post-classical revival PDF Author: Gamini Jayasinghe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789555994057
Category : Art, Buddhist
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description


The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Southern tradition

The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Southern tradition PDF Author: Gamini Jayasinghe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789556713367
Category : Buddhist art
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Classical period

The Grandeur of Sinhala Buddhist Art: Classical period PDF Author: Gamini Jayasinghe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art, Buddhist
Languages : en
Pages :

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Buddha in the Crown

Buddha in the Crown PDF Author: John Clifford Holt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195362462
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Historical, anthropological, and philosophical in approach, Buddha in the Crown is a case study in religious and cultural change. It examines the various ways in which Avalokitesvara, the most well known and proliferated bodhisattva of Mahayana Buddhism throughout south, southeast, and east Asia, was assimilated into the transforming religious culture of Sri Lanka, one of the most pluralistic in Asia. Exploring the expressions of the bodhisattva's cult in Sanskrit and Sinhala literature, in iconography, epigraphy, ritual, symbol, and myth, the author develops a provocative thesis regarding the dynamics of religious change. Interdisciplinary in scope, addressing a wide variety of issues relating to Buddhist thought and practice, and providing new and original information on the rich cultural history of Sri Lanka, this book will interest students of Buddhism and South Asia.

The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity

The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity PDF Author: Harshana Rambukwella
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1787351289
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
What is the role of cultural authenticity in the making of nations? Much scholarly and popular commentary on nationalism dismisses authenticity as a romantic fantasy or, worse, a deliberately constructed mythology used for political manipulation. The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity places authenticity at the heart of Sinhala nationalism in late nineteenth and twentieth-century Sri Lanka. It argues that the passion for the ‘real’ or the ‘authentic’ has played a significant role in shaping nationalist thinking and argues for an empathetic yet critical engagement with the idea of authenticity. Through a series of fine-grained and historically grounded analyses of the writings of individual figures central to the making of Sinhala nationalist ideology the book demonstrates authenticity’s rich and varied presence in Sri Lankan public life and its key role in understanding postcolonial nationalism in Sri Lanka and elsewhere in South Asia and the world. It also explores how notions of authenticity shape certain strands of postcolonial criticism and offers a way of questioning the taken-for-granted nature of the nation as a unit of analysis but at the same time critically explore the deep imprint of nations and nationalisms on people's lives.

Rescued from the Nation

Rescued from the Nation PDF Author: Steven Kemper
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022619910X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Anagarika Dharmapala is one of the most galvanizing figures in Sri Lanka’s recent turbulent history. He is widely regarded as the nationalist hero who saved the Sinhala people from cultural collapse and whose “protestant” reformation of Buddhism drove monks toward increased political involvement and ethnic confrontation. Yet as tied to Sri Lankan nationalism as Dharmapala is in popular memory, he spent the vast majority of his life abroad, engaging other concerns. In Rescued from the Nation, Steven Kemper reevaluates this important figure in the light of an unprecedented number of his writings, ones that paint a picture not of a nationalist zealot but of a spiritual seeker earnest in his pursuit of salvation. Drawing on huge stores of source materials—nearly one hundred diaries and notebooks—Kemper reconfigures Dharmapala as a world-renouncer first and a political activist second. Following Dharmapala on his travels between East Asia, South Asia, Europe, and the United States, he traces his lifelong project of creating a unified Buddhist world, recovering the place of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, and imitating the Buddha’s life course. The result is a needed corrective to Dharmapala’s embattled legacy, one that resituates Sri Lanka’s political awakening within the religious one that was Dharmapala’s life project.

A Guide to the Bodhisattava's Way of Life

A Guide to the Bodhisattava's Way of Life PDF Author: Shantideva
Publisher: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives
ISBN: 8185102597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life) holds a unique place in Mahayana Buddhism akin to that of the Dhammapada in Hinayana Buddhism and the Bhagavadgita in Hinduism. In combining those rare qualities of scholastic precision, spiritual depth and poetical beauty, its appeal extends to a wide audience of Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. Composed in India during the 8th century of the Christian era, it has since been an inspiration to millions of people throughout the world. This present translation by Stephen Batchelor is based upon a 12th century Tibetan commentary as orally explained by Ven. Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. The ninth chapter on wisdom has been expanded for this edition with relevant commentarial passages.

The Global Connections of Gandhāran Art

The Global Connections of Gandhāran Art PDF Author: Wannaporn Rienjang
Publisher: Classical Art Research Centre
ISBN: 1789696968
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Gandhāran art is often regarded as the epitome of cultural exchange in antiquity. The ancient region of Gandhāra, centred on what is now the northern tip of Pakistan, has been called the ‘crossroads of Asia’. The Buddhist art produced in and around this area in the first few centuries AD exhibits extraordinary connections with other traditions across Asia and as far as the Mediterranean. Since the nineteenth century, the Graeco-Roman associations of Gandhāran art have attracted particular attention. Classically educated soldiers and administrators of that era were astonished by the uncanny resemblance of many works of Gandhāran sculpture to Greek and Roman art made thousands of miles to the west. More than a century later we can recognize that the Gandhāran artists’ appropriation of classical iconography and styles was diverse and extensive, but the explanation of this ‘influence’ remains puzzling and elusive. The Gandhāra Connections project at the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre was initiated principally to cast new light on this old problem. This volume is the third set of proceedings of the project’s annual workshop, and the first to address directly the question of cross-cultural influence on and by Gandhāran art. The contributors wrestle with old controversies, particularly the notion that Gandhāran art is a legacy of Hellenistic Greek rule in Central Asia and the growing consensus around the important role of the Roman Empire in shaping it. But they also seek to present a more complex and expansive view of the networks in which Gandhāra was embedded. Adopting a global perspective on the subject, they examine aspects of Gandhāra’s connections both within and beyond South Asia and Central Asia, including the profound influence which Gandhāran art itself had on the development of Buddhist art in China and India.

Rude Awakenings

Rude Awakenings PDF Author: Sucitto
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861714857
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Half down-and-dirty adventure and half inspirational memoir, this title documents an unusual pilgrimage taken by earthy scientist Nick Scott and fastidious Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto, who together retraced the Buddha's footsteps through India.

Violence and Serenity

Violence and Serenity PDF Author: Natasha Reichle
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824829247
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The mention of Buddhism in Indonesia calls to mind for many people the Central Javanese monument of Borobudur, one of the largest Buddhist monuments in the world and the subject of extensive scholarly scrutiny. The neglect of scholarship on Buddhist art from later periods might lead one to assume that after the tenth century Buddhism had been completely eclipsed by the predominantly Hindu Eastern Javanese dynasties. Yet, as the works discussed here illustrate, extraordinary Buddhist images were still being produced as late as the fourteenth century. Violence and Serenity offers a close examination of some of the impressive works from East Java and Sumatra and explores their political and religious roles. The number of clearly identifiable Buddhist works from the Singasari and Majapahit dynasties (1222–ca. 1520) is limited, yet existing examples are impressive. They demonstrate a remarkable level of craftsmanship and are exceptionally expressive, exhibiting a range of emotions from the ferocious to the serene. Following a brief discussion of the early history of Buddhism in Indonesia, Natasha Reichle focuses each chapter on a specific statue or group of statues and considers the larger issues evoked by the images. Through a rarely examined depiction of the last Singasari king, she explores the nature of religion in Java in the late thirteenth century and what we know about tantric practices and the syncretism of Hinduism and Buddhism. She reassesses the question of portraiture in ancient Javanese art while contemplating the famous Prajñāpāramitā from Singasari. Notions of kingship are discussed in light of a number of statues depicting the Buddhist deity Amoghapāśa and his attendants and the meanings of the Amoghapāśa maṇḍala. The final chapter examines the origins and significance of one of Indonesia’s most spectacular sculptures, a four-meter-high Buddhist bhairava (demon) discovered in West Sumatra.