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Ellora is one of the great cave temple sites of India, with thirty-four major Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain monuments of the late sixth to tenth centuries A. D. This book describes the Buddhist caves at Ellora and places them in the context of Buddhist art and iconography. Ellora's twelve Buddhist cave temples, dating from the early seventh to the early eighth centuries, preserve an unparalleled one-hundred-year sequence of architectural and iconographical development. They reveal the evolution of a Buddhist mandala at sites in other regions often considered "peripheral" to the heartland of Buddhism in eastern India. At Ellora, the mandala, ordinarily conceived as a two-dimensional diagram used to focus meditation, is unfolded into the three-dimensional program of the cave temples themselves, enabling devotees to walk through the mandala during worship. The mandala's development at Ellora is explained and its significance is considered for the evolution of Buddhist art and iconography elsewhere in India.
"Since the earliest encounters between tantric traditions and Western scholars, tantra has posed a challenge. Representation of tantra has tended to emphasize the antinomian, decadent aspects, which, as attention-grabbing as they were for Western audiences, hampered the study of the field. The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies is intended to overcome these obstacles, facilitating collaboration between scholars working on different forms of tantra, and in different disciplines. With more than forty chapters and a global pool of contributors, the Handbook aims to be the definitive reference work in the field, exploring core topics such as action, transformation, embodiment, art, language, and...
The expansion of the Cholas from their base in the Kaveri Delta saw this growing power subdue the kingdoms of southern India, as well as occupy Sri Lanka and the Maldives, by the early eleventh century. It was also during this period that the Cholas initiated links with Song China. Concurrently, the Southeast Asian polity of Sriwijaya had, through its Sumatran and Malayan ports, come to occupy a key position in East-West maritime trade, requiring engagement with both Song China to the north and the Chola kingdom to its west. The apparently friendly relations pursued were, however, to be disrupted in 1025 by Chola naval expeditions against fourteen key port cities in Southeast Asia. This volume examines the background, course and effects of these expeditions, as well as the regional context of the events. It brings to light many aspects of this key period in Asian history. Unprecedented in the degree of detail assigned to the story of the Chola expeditions, this volume is also unique in that it includes translations of the contemporary Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions relating to Southeast Asia and of the Song dynasty Chinese texts relating to the Chola Kingdom.
This handbook is a comprehensive study of the archaeology, social history and the cultural landscape of the Hindu temple. Perhaps the most recognizable of the material forms of Hinduism, temples are lived, dynamic spaces. They are significant sites for the creation of cultural heritage, both in the past and in the present. Drawing on historiographical surveys and in-depth case studies, the volume centres the material form of the Hindu temple as an entry point to study its many adaptations and transformations from the early centuries CE to the 20th century. It highlights the vibrancy and dynamism of the shrine in different locales and studies the active participation of the community for its ...
Includes entries for maps and atlases.
The story of the materialist prince Paesi is the only larger legend common to Jain and Buddhist (Payasi in the Digha-nikaya) canonical literature and a rare sample of a lively dialogue. Its subject, the corporeality of the soul, is denied by the Jains. In contrast the Buddhists consider the "I" a facon de parler for practical reasons. Modern brain research tends in favour of the Buddhist view of the ego as being impermanent and therefore an illusion created by the brain. The problem in this dialogue of Paesi with a Jain monk, which is set in the axial age of reflexion on and discussion of the soul (6th century BCE), but in its present literary form dates some centuries later, has therefore in two millennia not lost its actuality. Differently from the Buddhist version the story of Paesi ends tragically; after his conversion the prince is murdered by his wife. The single arguments in the discussion show many ancient Indian realia (birth ritual, diseases, etiquette, ethnic list of female servants, execution of thieves, regicide, 72 professions, similes etc.) which have been commented upon in the notes.