Buddhist Paintings of Tun-Huang

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The Tun-huang caves are the sparkle of Buddhist art over the centuries, situated at the foot of the Mountain of Singing Sands, they are the brush of the Buddha, where an itinerant monk Yueh-ts’un watched the iridescent peaks in the sheen of blue satin, settled down to excavate the first cave in AD344, and to paint its walls with colours brought by birds as the folk legends has it. Speechless with joy, he had began a long journey of a thousand years of Buddhist meditation in the dazzling ecstasies of murals, scrolls and sculptures. This book reproduces and describes for the first time the paintings from Tun-huang in the National Museum, New Delhi. The 143 best scrolls have been narrated whose colours are still radiant images of the divine. The National Museum is one of the three major repositories of the Tun-huang paintings, the others being the British Museum London and the Musee Guimet, Paris. While the two latter collections have been published, this book fulfils a long-felt need and will cover a major lacuna of research in presenting the third large repository. The introduction traces the history of Tun-huang from the dreams of Chinese emperors to control the Deep Sands, the role of Yueh-chihs, the excavation of the first cave, the folk legends, the iconography of the murals from AD397-1368, etc. The Scrolls from Tun-huang are the charm of these caverns that once drew humans to their depths.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lokesh Chandra

Prof. Lokesh Chandra is a renowned scholar of Tibetan, Mongolian and Sino-Japanese Buddhism. He has to his credit over 400 works and text editions. Among them are classics like his Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, Buddhist Iconography of Tibet, and the present Dictionary of Buddhist Art in about 20 volumes. Prof. Lokesh Chandra was nominated by the President of the Republic of India to the Parliament in 1974-80 and again in 1980-86. He has been a Vice-President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. Presently he is Director, International Academy of Indian Culture.

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Bibliographic information

Title
Buddhist Paintings of Tun-Huang
Author
Edition
1st. ed.
Publisher
ISBN
9788192091235
Length
280p., Colour Illustrations; 12.5 inch x 9.5 inch
Subjects