The Return of the Buddha
The Return of the Buddha

Author: Himanshu Prabha Ray

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-08-07

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1317560051

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The Return of the Buddha traces the development of Buddhist archaeology in colonial India, examines its impact on the reconstruction of India’s Buddhist past, and the making of a public and academic discourse around these archaeological discoveries. The book discusses the role of the state and modern Buddhist institutions in the reconstitution of national heritage through promulgation of laws for the protection of Buddhist monuments, acquiring of land around the sites, restoration of edifices, and organization of the display and dissemination of relics. It also highlights the engagement of prominent Indian figures, such as Nehru, Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Tagore, with Buddhist themes in their writings. Stressing upon the lasting legacy of Buddhism in independent India, the author explores the use of Buddhist symbols and imagery in nation-building and the making of the constitution, as also the recent efforts to resurrect Buddhist centers of learning such as Nalanda. With rich archival sources, the book will immensely interest scholars, researchers and students of modern Indian history, culture, archaeology, Buddhist studies, and heritage management.

World Antiquarianism
World Antiquarianism

Author: Alain Schnapp

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2014-02-01

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 1606061488

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The term antiquarianism refers to engagement with the material heritage of the past—an engagement that preceded the modern academic discipline of archaeology. Antiquarian activities result in the elaboration of particular social behaviors and the production of tools for exploring the collective memory. This book is the first to compare antiquarianism in a global context, examining its roots in the ancient Near East, its flourishing in early modern Europe and East Asia, and its manifestations in nonliterate societies of Melanesia and Polynesia. By establishing wide-reaching geographical and historical perspectives, the essays reveal the universality of antiquarianism as an embodiment of the human mind and open new avenues for understanding the representation of the past, from ancient societies to the present.

Muqarnas, Volume 24
Muqarnas, Volume 24

Author: Gülru Necipoglu

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007-12-31

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9047423321

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Muqarnas is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Muqarnas articles are being published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.

The Geography of Gandhāran Art
The Geography of Gandhāran Art

Author: Wannaporn Rienjang

Publisher: Archaeopress

Published: 2019-03-15

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1789691877

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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 Gandhāran artefacts are unprovenanced and the difficulty of tracing substantial assemblages of sculpture to particular sites has obscured the fine-grained picture of its artistic geography. Well documented modern excavations at particular sites and areas, such as the projects of the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Swat Valley, have demonstrated the value of looking at sculptures in context and considering distinctive aspects of their production, use, and reuse within a specific locality. However, insights of this kind have been harder to gain for other areas, including the Gandhāran heartland of the Peshawar basin. Even where large collections of artworks can be related to individual sites, the exercise of comparing material within and between these places is still at an early stage. The relationship between the Gandhāran artists or 'workshops', particular stone sources, and specific sites is still unclear. Addressing these and other questions, this second volume of the Gandhara Connections project at Oxford University’s Classical Art Research Centre presents the proceedings of a workshop held in March 2018. Its aim is to pick apart the regional geography of Gandhāran art, presenting new discoveries at particular sites, textual evidence, and the challenges and opportunities of exploring Gandhāra’s artistic geography.

Records, Recoveries, Remnants and Inter-Asian Interconnections
Records, Recoveries, Remnants and Inter-Asian Interconnections

Author: Anjana Sharma

Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.

Published: 2018-05-24

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9814786438

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Records, Recoveries, Remnants and Inter-Asian Interconnections: Decoding Cultural Heritage has its conceptual core in the inter-regional networks of Nalanda Mahavihara and its unique place in the Asian imaginary. The revival of Nalanda university in 2010 as a symbol of a shared inter-Asian heritage is this collection's core narrative. The multidisciplinary essays interrogate ways in which ideas, objects, texts, and travellers have shaped - and in turn have been shaped by - changing global politics and the historical imperative that underpins them. The question of what constitutes cultural authenticity and heritage valuation is inscribed from positions that support, negate, or reframe existing discourses with reference to Southeast and East Asia. The essays in this collection offer critical, scholarly, and nuanced views on the vexed questions of regional and inter-regional dynamics, of racial politics and their flattening hegemonic discourses in relation to the rich tangible and intangible heritage that defines an interconnected Asia.