Art and History: Texts, Contexts and Visual Representations in Ancient and Early Medieval India

✍ Scribed by R Mahalakshi (editor)

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt. Ltd
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 545
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Art and History: Texts, Contexts and Visual Representations in Ancient and Early Medieval India seeks to locate the historical contexts of premodern Indian art traditions. The volume examines significant questions, such as:

What were the purposes served by art?
How were religious and political ideas and philosophies conveyed through visual representations?
How central were prescription, technique and style to the production of art?
Who were the makers and patrons of art?
How and why do certain art forms, meanings and symbols retain a relevance
across context?

With contributions from historians and art historians seeking to unravel the interface between art and history, the volume dwells on the significance of visual representations in specific regional historical contexts, the range of symbolic signification attached to these and the mythologies and textual prescriptions that contribute to the codification and use of representational forms.

Supplemented with over 60 images, this volume is a must-read for scholars and
researchers of history and art.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents

List of Images, Tables and Figure

Acknowledgements

Visual Representations as Historical Source in Ancient and Early Medieval India: An Introduction

—R. Mahalakshmi

I. Visualising Power: Sacred and Temporal

1. Power of Image and Image of Power in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands: Case Studies of Bactrian Greeks and the Indo-Greeks

—Suchandra Ghosh

1. The Ābhīraka Coin: Search for a New Identity

—Dev Kumar Jhanjh

1. Emblems of Faith, Monuments of Authority: Brahmanical Iconography in the Temples of the Cālukyas of Badami

—Niharika K. Sankrityayan

1. Controlling the Waters: Divine Imagery and Royal Enterprise in Early Medieval Tamil Nadu

—R. Mahalakshmi

II. Conceptualising the Divine Feminine: Forms, Meanings and Symbols

1. Giving Ākāra to the Goddess: Kālī in Textual and Visual Traditions

—Sneha Ganguly

1. Prajñāpāramitā: The Making of the First Buddhist Goddess

—Megha Yadav

1. Representation of Sixteen Mahāvidyā in the Dilwara Jaina Temple

—Virendra Singh Bithoo

III. Religious Traditions, Visual Representations and Regional Contexts

1. Icons and Patterns of Worship from the Fringes of South India: The Religious Landscape of Northern Tamil Nadu

—V. Selvakumar

1. From Virajā Tīrtha to ‘Allegorical’ Nābhi Gayā: Exploring the Changing Religious Landscape of Jajpur (Sixth to Fourteenth Centuries CE)

—Umakanta Mishra

1. Donors of Kurkihar Images: An Investigation into Their Socioeconomic Background

—Sayantani Pal

IV. Social Imaginaries and the Ocular

1. The Marriage Rite of Śiva-Pārvatī: Specimens of Early Medieval Indian Temple Art

—Neha Singh

1. Imagery of Love Making: Representation of the Erotic Body in the Temples of Early Medieval Odisha

—Sujata Rakshit

1. Of Men, Stones and Stories: Revisiting the Vīrakals of South India

—Malavika Binny

V. Prescriptions and Representations

1. The Gaṇa Who Consumed Himself: Kīrtimukha in North Indian Literature and Art, 400 CE–900 CE
   —Anisha Saxena

2. Buddhist Theory of Representation

3. Icons and Patterns of Worship from the Fringes of South India: The Religious Landscape of Northern Tamil Nadu

—V. Selvakumar

1. From Virajā Tīrtha to ‘Allegorical’ Nābhi Gayā: Exploring the Changing Religious Landscape of Jajpur (Sixth to Fourteenth Centuries CE)

—Umakanta Mishra

1. Donors of Kurkihar Images: An Investigation into Their Socioeconomic Background

—Sayantani Pal

IV. Social Imaginaries and the Ocular

1. The Marriage Rite of Śiva-Pārvatī: Specimens of Early Medieval Indian Temple Art

—Neha Singh

1. Imagery of Love Making: Representation of the Erotic Body in the Temples of Early Medieval Odisha

—Sujata Rakshit

1. Of Men, Stones and Stories: Revisiting the Vīrakals of South India

—Malavika Binny

V. Prescriptions and Representations

1. The Gaṇa Who Consumed Himself: Kīrtimukha in North Indian Literature and Art, 400 CE–900 CE

—Anisha Saxena

1. Buddhist Theory of Representation

—Y.S. Alone

About the Editor and Contributors

Index

—Y.S. Alone

About the Editor and Contributors

✦ Subjects

Art and History in India, Texts, Contexts and Visual Representations in Ancient and Early Medieval India