Art The Integral Vision: Essays in Felicitation of Kapila Vatsyayan

Contents: Message/His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Preface to the Second Edition. Introduction. 1. Sarvadarsika. 2. Dialogue and Monologue with Kapilaji/Baidyanath Saraswati. 3. A Letter to Kapila Vatsyayan/Michael Meschke. 4. The Invention of Space/David Park. 5. Autonomy and Wholeness: Reflections on Creativity and Self-expression/S.C. Malik. 6. The Learning of the Imagination/Kathleen Raine. 7. Higher States of Consciousness in East and West/Peter Malekin. 8. Seeing Time in the Indian Miniature/Jim  C. Masselos. 9. A Gurjara-Pratihara Image of Viṣṇu Visvarupa/T.S. Maxwell. 10.Mudra: Its Metaphysical Basis in Kashmir Saivism/Bettina Baumer. 11. Radiance as an Aesthetic Value in the Art of Mesopotamia (With Some Indian Parallels)/Irene J. Winter. 12. Art and Meditation: Traditional Imagery and Contemporary Parallels as Seen Through Children’s Meditational Art/Madhu Khanna. 13. The Compleat Devotee and the Cosmic City: Hanuman at Hampi/John Mckim Malville. 14. Art and the Topology of Being: Introducing a Threefold Homage to Kapila Vatsyayan/Andre Scrima. 15. Sergiu Al-George and the Romanian School of indology/Radu Bercea. 16. Museum of the Future: The Project Gīta-govinda/Ranjit Makkuni. 17. Krsnalīla in Temple Art of Khajuraho/Devangana Desai. 18. Goddess Cybele in Hindu Śakta Tradition/M.C. Joshi. 19. The Formation of Medieval Style in Malwa Region (A Presentation of Hinglajgarh Sculptures)/Ratan Parimoo. 20. The Buddhist Bronzes of Surocolo/Lokesh Chandra and Sudarshana Devi Singhal. 21. What Is Desi About Brahaddesi?/Prem Lata Sharma. 22. ‘No Dance, and There is Only the Dance’: Dance and the Indian Arts/Sehdev Kumar and  Aaloka Mehndiratta. 23. The King, the Boar and the Waterhole: An Oral Narrative about the Recreation of Puṣkara/Aditya Malik. 24. The Membrane of Tolerance: Middle and Modern India/Michael W. Meister. 25. Is Religion a Human Invariant?/Raimon Panikkar. 26. A Question of Human Future/Keshav Malik. 27. India and the Future Culture of Man: A Search for New Perspectives/Meera Aster Patel. Index.

An assemblage of twenty-six scholarly essays: in honour of Dr Kapila Vatsyayan, the book attempts to conjure up the integral vision of art — exploring, as it does, the underlying unity of different disciplines. Written by distinguished Indian and foreign scholars: artists, art historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, scientists, philosophers and litterateurs, who have shared or subscribed to Dr Vatsyayan’s holistic vision of arts, these essays look for the linkages that have existed within the arts, between the arts, and across the cultures — focusing, contextually, on the form, the content, and the vision of art in terms of time and space. With at once stimulating alternative viewpoints available to humankind today, the authors consider space, time and consciousness as they are related to, and expressed in, metaphor, symbol and creative process. Together with cross-cultural comparisons of art, the book also explores the future of man as an artist. Art: The Integral Vision, besides the Editors’ Introduction giving an overview on the presentations, is blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s personal message. A foremost authority on Indian art and culture, Dr Kapila Vatsyayan is well-known to all serious scholars of art history, religion, philosophy and cosmology. A prolific author and recipient of several honours, including the prestigious Padma Shree (1990) and Padma Vibhushan (2011), she has convincingly spelt out the unifying principles of cultural plurality and the interdependence and interrelatedness of creative arts. This holistic vision — unmistakably manifest in her writings — has come to finest fruition in her setting up (in 1985) the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi. This is a fascinating book for wide-ranging specialists and students interested in the mathematical, geometrical, metaphysical, astrophysical, cosmological, philosophical, psychological, historical, mythological and metaphorical understanding of art, especially the Indian art.