This book, according to author, is an humble attempt to identify the schools of art and architecture reflected in the temples, mosques and mausoleums and their synthesis in the process in India in the perspective of historical evolution of constructional art and technology during the different regimes in various parts of the country in the medieval age as accepted by historians. The pictorial presentation of the relics is perhaps more important than the textual content of the book that attempts to analyse the cultural contents of the buildings. It shows how the personal interest of the ruling hierarchy has influenced the progress of construction of the buildings referred to and the mingling of various cultures in them through the mobility of artisans and masons as well as the passion and perception of the ruling gentry. It underscores how these pieces of art have transcended the religious beliefs and aspirations almost unconsciously on the part of the promoters themselves.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Saktipada Datta
Being all through a student of Calcutta University since matruiculation, Saktipada Datta completed his post-graduation in 1958 and joined college service in 1959. While in service, he obtained his PH.D. Degree in 1971. He published a large number of research papers in the economic Notebook of renowned newspapers as well as economic journals. He underwent an orientation course as Academic Counselor in the Eastern regional centre in Calcutta of the Indira Gandhi national Open University in 1991 and has been continuing since then in that capacity (Counseling in post-graduate level). He emulates the spirit (in his opinion, as a humble student), of Masxism that has imbibed in his think-reservoir an outlook of treating Social science –and explaining social phenomena –in their totality embracing Political Economy, Political Philosophy, History and Sociology, and more importantly, from the standpoint of a particular philosophy. While expressing his position in regard to the same in the worlds of Karl Marx himself. “ All I know is that I am not a Marxist†but this time not in the same sense as the great philosopher. He has since realized that there is a self in man which cannot be appropriated. On philosophical plane, the Author is an existentialist in individual life perception and considered human freedom as sacrosanct above everything else, and naturally an anti-conventionalist and non-conformist in his outlook of life.
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