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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...
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 Gandhār...
This book considers Gandhāran art in relation to its religious contexts and meanings within ancient Buddhism. Addressing the responses of patrons and worshippers at the monasteries and shrines of Gandhāra, papers seek to understand more about why Gandhāran art was made and what its iconographical repertoire meant to ancient viewers.
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. Con...
From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Gandhāra Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandhāran art.
Explores the problems for studying art and religion in Eurasia arising from ancestral, colonial and post-colonial biases in historiography.
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.
With such ancient beginnings, Zoroastrianism is as remarkably enduring as it is venerable. The principle religion of Iran until the Advent of Islam, it has also been influential beyond its own followers, interacting with other, younger faiths and shaping their views on the nature of evil, the coming of a saviour and the last days. The resonant message of Zarathustra (or Zoroaster), the founder of the religion, is encapsulated in its most sacred scripture, the Gathas, whose poetic power can still be appreciated today. This richly illustrated book explores many important themes of Zoroastrianism: its rise during the second millennium BCE, its doctrines, rituals and teachings, its growth into t...
South Asian Archaeology 2007 Special Sessions 1