Vidya Dehejia
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Story-telling is an ever popular activity that occurs space and time. Which child has not sat enthralled by the magic of story-tellers, and which adult has not succumbed to the seduction of reenactments of great legends? India's ancient Buddhist capitalized on the lure of stories, portraying them visually in stone reliefs and painted murals, to introduce viewers to the Buddhist faith and to confirm them in their belief. Commencing in the first century BC. ...
The sheer number of unfinished stone monuments in India is staggering and examples appear at some of India's most famous and well-studied sites that include rock-cut Ellora, Ajanta, and Mamallapuram. Unfinished work also appears on built temples celebrated for the intricacy of their sculpted decoration, such as those in Hoysala kingdom or in Orissa. This detailed study provides an overall coverage of India's unfinished work while addressing a range of issues ...
At the Turn of the Millennium, photography is ubiquitous and unquestioned. A century and a half ago however, notes curator and scholar Vidya Dehejia, "the simple ability to produce a photograph was in itself a marvel... The early decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the pursuit of a dream, an obsession with cajoling nature into a miraculous reflection upon a surface where it would be captured and retained for all time." India was at the vanguard ...
Located on top of a hill at Sanchi in Central India is an ancient Buddhist monastery with a dynamic fifteen-hundred-year history. It has an inscribed column of the Maurya Emperor Ashoka, a great stupa with magnificent sculpted toranas, and a variety of monastic adjuncts and temples, some built as late as the twelfth century. Sanchi is indeed a microcosm of the Buddhist experience in India. And animating it all is the unseen presence of the Buddha. He is first ...
The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India is a significant addition to the literature on the exquisite temple bronzes produced during the Chola period, a time of unparalleled creativity in the history of the Indian subcontinent. This publication accompanies a major traveling exhibition of the same name, organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. For more than four hundred years, from ...
In the Tamil country of south India, during the last millennium, a powerful cult of saints has been in existence. These saints referred to themselves as adiyar or tondar, both words meaning "slaves"—of the Lord. Although the south Indian saints are lesser known than those of northern India, or of Europe, they are in a manner more significant. For the sacred canon of south India, both of Saivites and Vaishnavas, consists of the poems composed by these ...
Delight in Design is a richly illustrated volume that focuses on the remarkable ornamented silverware produced by Indian craftsmen during the period of the British Raj. Silversmiths created elegant silver tea services, bowls, wine and water ewers, beer mugs, and goblets to adorn the sideboard or mantelpiece inj a British Raj home, producing European forms fulfilling European requirements. These same silversmiths then adopted a unique manner of ...