Contents: Volume I : Foreword/M.A. Dhaky. Preface and Acknowledgements. I. Buddhist Monuments and Icons: 1. The Ashokan Stupa at Sopara/M.K. Dhavalikar. 2. Romancing the Silk Road: Gandharan Art from the Hirayama Collection, Japan/Pratapaditya Pal. 3. Kanganhalli (Sannati) and the Amaravati School: Some Observations/lizabeth Rosen Stone. 4. Miracle of Shravasti Depicted in the Art of Kanheri and Kondivate/Suraj A. Pandit. II. Iconography, Narrative Sculpture and Images: 5. Mathura’s ‘Personality’ and the Development of Narrative Art/Doris Meth Srinivasan. 6. Varaheshvara from Bezeklik/Devendra Handa. 7. A Terracotta Vishnu from Rajghat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art/Amy G. Poster. 8. The Position of Matrika Varahi in Vaishnavism/Haripriya Rangarajan. 9. How Come Sarasvati is a Consort of Vishnu in Eastern India?/Gouriswar Bhattacharya. 10. Hitherto Unrecorded Dashavatara Stone Panels at Gaya and Related Sculptures from South Bihar/Gerd J.R. Mevissen. 11. The Woman and Dwarf Motif in Western Indian Sculpture/Gauri Parimoo Krishnan. 12. In the Gaze of the Guru: Shikshadana Scenes at Khajuraho/Tamara I. Sears. 13. Challenging Cosmic Order: Ravana’s Encounters with Shiva at Belur and Halebidu/Parul Pandya Dhar/14. Gopika Vastrapaharana Sculptures of Kerala/Preeta Nayar. 15. Narratives in Stone: The Ramayana in Early Sculptures/Himanshu Prabha Ray. 16. Jaina Cave Temples: Patrons, Images and Legends, with Special Reference to Dharashiv and Ellora/A.P. Jamkhedkar. 17. Jaina Episodic Panels, with Special Reference to the Jabareshvara Temple at Phaltan/Kumud Kanitkar. 18. The Kali Yantra: The Changing Iconography of Goddess Dakshina Kali in Bengal/Madhu Khanna. 19. Astronomy, Iconography and Calligraphy: The Constellation Figures on Ziauddin Muhammad’s Celestial Globe of 1653-54 CE/Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma. 20. Temple Sculpture in Colonial Madurai: The Reconsecration of the Minakshi-Sundareshvara Temple in the 1870s/Crispin Branfoot. 21. Folk Bronzes of the Dang Region: An Ethnological Study/Shridhar Andhare.
Volume II: III. Monuments (Architecture): 22. The Mandasor Silk Weavers’ Inscription of 437 CE and Temples of the Aulikaras/K.L. Mankodi. 23. Pipad (Pipar) and the Transmission of Architectural Knowledge/Michael W. Meister. 24. Ashapuri: Resurrecting a Medieval Temple Site/Adam Hardy. 25. Revelation in Rock: Thal/Nachiket Chanchani. 26. Kadwaha Temples/Arvind K. Singh. 27. Enigmatic Mathas (Monasteries) and Madha (Temple) Remains from Panna in Central India/Amrendra K. Singh. 28. Three Little Known Water Structures of Gujarat/Snehal Shah. 29. ‘Meru’ as Symbolised in the Vidyashankara Temple, Sringeri/Purnima Srikrishna. 30. Udumbara: The Threshold at the Entrance of a Temple-Origin, Meaning and the Aesthetics of a Liminal Space/Jutta Jain-Neubauer. IV. Painting: 31. Rajaraja Worshipping at Chidambaram: The Earliest Identifiable Royal Portrait in Indian Painting/George Michell. 32. The Saptarishis, in the Eyes of a Painter/B.N. Goswamy. 33. Ramayana Murals in the Vasanta Mandapa at Kallalagar Temple, Alagar Koyil/Anna L. Dallapiccola. 34. King and Courtly Life as Depicted in the Murals in Ramalinga Vilasam, Ramanathapuram/Anila Verghese. V. General Themes: 35. From Mriganayani to Gajagamini: A Celebration of Indian Womanhood/Harsha V. Dehejia. 36. Rasa as Reflected in Stone Sculptures/Kamal Giri. 37. Interpretation and the Leap from Iconography to Iconology/Ratan Parimoo.
These two volumes of papers by a galaxy of scholars are a tribute to the eminent art historian Dr. Devangana Desai, who has made an invaluable contribution in the field of Indian art, iconology and architecture.
The thirty-seven thematic essays in Art, Icon and Architecture in South Asia include many by senior and very illustrious scholars as well as some by younger researchers who are now making their mark. They are divided into five broad groups, in each the essays are arranged in a more or less chronological order. The first comprises four articles relating to Buddhist monuments and icons. The second group is the largest with seventeen essays that explore different aspects of iconography, images and narrative reliefs. The next is a set of nine papers on monuments, ranging from temples, to the transmission of architectural knowledge and even to water structures. The following group includes four papers that relate to painting, three of them touch on south Indian murals and one on miniature painting. The last group comprises three papers of a more general nature, dealing with the portrayal of women in Indian art, rasa, and the leap required to be made from iconography to iconology. The inclusion of the latter paper is significant given the seminal contribution that Dr. Devangana Desai has made to iconology through her book Religious Imagery of Khajuraho (1996).
Bringing together as it does a large number of papers on a variety of themes related to Indian art, architecture and iconography, this book will be of much interest both to scholars as well as to students of art and aesthetics of South Asia.
