Download or read book Gandharan Buddhist Reliquaries written by David Jongeward and published by Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project, Seattle. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gandhara, the ancient name for the region around modern Peshawar in northern Pakistan, was of pivotal importance in the production of Buddhist texts and art in the first centuries CE. Since the mid-nineteenth century, excavations of Gandharan monastery sites have revolutionized the study of early Buddhism. Among the treasures unearthed are hundreds of reliquaries--containers housing relics of the Buddha. This volume combines art history, Buddhist history, ancient Indian history, archaeology, epigraphy, linguistics, and numismatics to clarify the significance and function of these reliquaries. The story begins with the Buddha's last days, his death and funerary arrangements, and the distribution of the cremated remains, which initiated a relic cult. Chapters describe Gandharan reliquary types and subgroups, the archaeological and historical significance of collections, and the paleographic and linguistic interpretation of the inscriptions on the reliquaries. The 400 reliquaries illustrated and surveyed are from museums and private collections in Pakistan, India, Japan, Europe, and North America. Stone is the primary material of construction, along with bronze, gold, and silver. Shapes range from spherical and cylindrical to miniature stupas, a configuration that provides valuable information about the history of this Buddhist monumental form. David Jongeward is a visiting scholar at the Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. Elizabeth Errington is curator of the Charles Masson Project, British Museum Department of Coins and Medals. Richard Salomon is professor of Asian languages and literature at the University of Washington. Stefan Baums is assistant adjunct professor of South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a research fellow at the School of Asian Studies, Leiden University.
Download or read book Buddhist Reliquaries from Ancient India written by Michael D. Willis and published by Art Media Resources. This book was released on 2000 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relics played a key role in early Buddhism. As Buddhism spread across Asia, so did the cult of relics and practice of building shrines to contain them. The 24 reliquaries from Sanchi and neighbouring sites in central India are the earliest examples known. This is a catalogue of this important material. All the reliquaries are illustrated, and critical editions of all the inscriptional texts are provided. The introduction examines early relic worship and the control of sacred space by the early monastic community, provides a reassessment of early Indian history, based on inscriptions and numismatics, and re-evaluates the chronology of early Indian sculpture.
Download or read book Gandharan Buddhism written by Kurt Behrendt and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient region of Gandhara, with its prominent Buddhist heritage, has long fascinated scholars of art history, archaeology, and textual studies. Discoveries of inscriptions, text fragments, sites, and artworks in the last decade have added new pieces to the Gandharan puzzle, redefining how we understand the region and its cultural complexity. The essays in this volume reassess Gandharan Buddhism in light of these findings, utilizing a multidisciplinary approach that illuminates the complex historical and cultural dynamics of the region. By integrating archaeology, art history, numismatics, epigraphy, and textual sources, the contributors articulate the nature of Gandharan Buddhism and its practices, along with the significance of the relic tradition. Contributions by several giants in the field, including Shoshin Kuwayama, John Rosenfield, and the late Maurizio Taddei, set the geographical, historical, and archaeological parameters for the collection. The result is a productive interdisciplinary conversation on the enigmatic nature of Gandharan Buddhism that joins together a number of significant pieces in a complex cultural mosaic. It will appeal to a large and diverse readership, including those interested in the early Buddhist religious tradition of Asia and its art, as well as specialists in the study of South and Central Asian Buddhist art, archaeology, and texts. A Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Religion.
Download or read book The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art written by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2007 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Relics Ritual and Representation in Buddhism written by Kevin Trainor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-06-13 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a serious study of relic veneration among South Asian Buddhists. Drawing on textual sources and archaeological evidence from India and Sri Lanka, including material rarely examined in the West, it looks specifically at the practice of relic veneration in the Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist tradition. The author portrays relic veneration as a technology of remembrance and representation which makes present the Buddha of the past for living Buddhists. By analysing the abstract ideas, emotional orientation and ritual behaviour centred on the Buddha's material remains, he contributes to the 'rematerializing' of Buddhism which is currently under way among Western scholars. This book is an excellent introduction to Buddhist relics. It is well written and accessible and will be read by scholars and serious students of Buddhism and religious studies for years to come.
Download or read book Embodying the Dharma written by David Germano and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embodying the Dharma explores the centrality of relic veneration in Asian Buddhist cultures. Long disregarded by Western scholars as a superstitious practice reflecting the popularization of "original" Buddhism, relic veneration has emerged as a topic of vital interest in the last two decades with the increased attention to Buddhist ritual practice and material culture. This volume includes studies of relic traditions in India, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, as well as broader comparative analyses, including comparisons of Buddhist and Christian relic veneration.
Download or read book Problems of Chronology in Gandh ran Art written by Wannaporn Rienjang and published by Archaeopress. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of Gandhāran studies in the nineteenth century, chronology has been one of the most significant challenges to the understanding of Gandhāran art. Many other ancient societies, including those of Greece and Rome, have left a wealth of textual sources which have put their fundamental chronological frameworks beyond doubt. In the absence of such sources on a similar scale, even the historical eras cited on inscribed Gandhāran works of art have been hard to place. Few sculptures have such inscriptions and the majority lack any record of find-spot or even general provenance. Those known to have been found at particular sites were sometimes moved and reused in antiquity. Consequently, the provisional dates assigned to extant Gandhāran sculptures have sometimes differed by centuries, while the narrative of artistic development remains doubtful and inconsistent. Building upon the most recent, cross-disciplinary research, debate and excavation, this volume reinforces a new consensus about the chronology of Gandhāra, bringing the history of Gandhāran art into sharper focus than ever. By considering this tradition in its wider context, alongside contemporary Indian art and subsequent developments in Central Asia, the authors also open up fresh questions and problems which a new phase of research will need to address. Problems of Chronology in Gandhāran Art is the first publication of the Gandhāra Connections project at the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre, which has been supported by the Bagri Foundation and the Neil Kreitman Foundation. It presents the proceedings of the first of three international workshops on fundamental questions in the study of Gandhāran art, held at Oxford in March 2017.
Download or read book Buddhism and Gandhara written by Himanshu Prabha Ray and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-12-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gandhara is a name central to Buddhist heritage and iconography. It is the ancient name of a region in present-day Pakistan, bounded on the west by the Hindu Kush mountain range and to the north by the foothills of the Himalayas. ‘Gandhara’ is also the term given to this region’s sculptural and architectural features between the first and sixth centuries CE. This book re-examines the archaeological material excavated in the region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and traces the link between archaeological work, histories of museum collections and related interpretations by art historians. The essays in the volume underscore the diverse cultural traditions of Gandhara – from a variety of sources and perspectives on language, ethnicity and material culture (including classical accounts, Chinese writings, coins and Sanskrit epics) – as well as interrogate the grand narrative of Hellenism of which Gandhara has been a part. The book explores the making of collections of what came to be described as Gandhara art and reviews the Buddhist artistic tradition through notions of mobility and dynamic networks of transmission. Wide ranging and rigorous, this volume will appeal to scholars and researchers of early South Asian history, archaeology, religion (especially Buddhist studies), art history and museums.
Download or read book The Global Connections of Gandha ran Art written by Wannaporn Rienjang and published by Classical Art Research Centre. This book was released on 2020-09-02 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Buddhist Art of Gandhara written by David Jongeward and published by Ashmolean Museum Oxford. This book was released on 2018-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Featuring many Gandharan objects never published before, and featuring all new photography, this is the complete catalog of the Ashmolean's Buddhist sculpture collection and related art of the historic Gandhara regionBuddhist Art of Gandhara is a scholarly catalog of the Ashmolean Museum's important but still largely unpublished holdings of the Buddhist sculpture and related art of the historic Gandhara region (modern North West Pakistan / East Afghanistan) in the early centuries AD (c. 0-600 AD). This region was a major center of Buddhist culture and facilitated the transmission of Buddhism and its art from India via the Silk Road to Central Asia, China and the Far East. The book contains introductory essays, with additional illustrations, suitable for the general reader as well as the specialist.
Download or read book The Geography of Gandh ran Art written by Wannaporn Rienjang and published by Archaeopress. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gandhāran art is usually regarded as a single phenomenon – a unified regional artistic tradition or 'school'. Indeed it has distinctive visual characteristics, materials, and functions, and is characterized by its extensive borrowings from the Graeco-Roman world. Yet this tradition is also highly varied. Even the superficial homogeneity of Gandhāran sculpture, which constitutes the bulk of documented artistic material from this region in the early centuries AD, belies a considerable range of styles, technical approaches, iconographic choices, and levels of artistic skill. The geographical variations in Gandhāran art have received less attention than they deserve. Many surviving Gandhāran artefacts are unprovenanced and the difficulty of tracing substantial assemblages of sculpture to particular sites has obscured the fine-grained picture of its artistic geography. Well documented modern excavations at particular sites and areas, such as the projects of the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Swat Valley, have demonstrated the value of looking at sculptures in context and considering distinctive aspects of their production, use, and reuse within a specific locality. However, insights of this kind have been harder to gain for other areas, including the Gandhāran heartland of the Peshawar basin. Even where large collections of artworks can be related to individual sites, the exercise of comparing material within and between these places is still at an early stage. The relationship between the Gandhāran artists or 'workshops', particular stone sources, and specific sites is still unclear. Addressing these and other questions, this second volume of the Gandhara Connections project at Oxford University’s Classical Art Research Centre presents the proceedings of a workshop held in March 2018. Its aim is to pick apart the regional geography of Gandhāran art, presenting new discoveries at particular sites, textual evidence, and the challenges and opportunities of exploring Gandhāra’s artistic geography.
Download or read book Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks across India and Southeast Asia written by Himanshu Prabha Ray and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-07-26 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book breaks new ground by examining trans-oceanic connectivity through the perspective of coastal shrines and maritime cultural landscapes across the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. It covers a period of expanding networks and cross-cultural encounters from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The book examines the distinctiveness of these shrines, and highlights their interconnections, and their role in social integration in South and Southeast Asia. By drawing on data from shipwreck sites, the author elaborates on the material and religious intersections and transmissions between cultures across the seas. Many of these coastal shrines survived into the colonial period when they came to be admired for their aesthetic value as ‘monuments’. As nation states of the region became independent, these shrines were often inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List on account of their Outstanding Universal Values. The book argues that in the 21st century there is a need to promote the cultural connectivity of the past as transnational heritage on UNESCO’s global platform to preserve and protect our shared heritage. The volume will be essential reading for academics and researchers of archaeology, anthropology, museum and heritage studies, history of South and Southeast Asia, religious studies, cultural studies, and Asian studies.
Download or read book Power Presence and Space written by Henry Albery and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-07-26 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patterns of ritual power, presence, and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the societal and political power structures in which they are enacted. This book explores these connections in South Asia from the early Common Era until the present day. The essays in the volume examine a wide range of themes, including a genealogy of ideas concerning Vedic rituals in European thought; Buddhist donative rituals of Gandhara and Andhra Pradesh in the early Common Era; land endowments, festivals, and temple establishments in medieval Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; Mughal court rituals of the Mughal Empire; and contemporary ritual complexes on the Nilgiri Plateau. This volume argues for the need to redress a historical neglect in identifying and theorising ritual and religion in material contexts within archaeology. Further, it challenges existing theoretical and methodological forms of documentation to propose new ways of understanding rituals in history. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, religion, archaeology, and historical geography.
Download or read book Handbuch der Orientalistik written by Kurt A. Behrendt and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2004 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurt Behrendt in this book for the first time and convincingly offers a description of the development of 2nd century B.C.E. to 8th century C.E. Buddhist sacred centers in ancient Gandhara, today northwest Pakistan.
Download or read book Gandh ran Sculpture written by Sarla D. Nagar and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gandharan Art and the Classical World A Short Introduction written by Peter Stewart and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-12-21 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an introduction to Gandharan art and the mystery of its relationship with the Graeco-Roman world of the Mediterranean. It presents an accessible explanation of the ancient and modern contexts of Gandharan art, the state of scholarship on the subject, and guidance for further, in-depth study.
Download or read book The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan written by Adriana G. Proser and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
