The Buddhist Monastic establishments across the Indian sub-continent were richly embellished with the sculptural panels of visual narratives. The narrative art mainly centered around the great events in the life time of Buddha and his Previous Birth Stories. In the early centuries of Christian era, the Kings and Donors gave more preference to the Previous Birth Stories of the Enlightened One as they convey morals and ethics, useful to the society.
The book entitled Jatakas in Buddhist Thought and Art is the first of its kind in which the author attempted to identify the Jatakas depicted in the panels and paintings noticed in various Buddhist monasteries with the canonical and non-canonical literary works. While doing so, he discovered some Jataka panels, left untouched by earlier scholars. The author has also highlighted the evolutionary stages of the art in sculptured panels and paintings from monoscenic to the sequential continuous narrative mode right from the Bharhut to Amaravati School of Art and its influence as reflected in the paintings at Ajanta and carvings at Kanheri and Aurangabad rock-cut caves. The book gives a vivid picture of the diffusion and distribution of Jataka narratives in the Indian sub-continent. The publication is well supplemented by neat photographs and drawings.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR B. Subrahmanyam
Born on 27.08.1950 at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, Dr. B. Subrahmanyam had pursued his post-graduation in ancient Indian History and Archaeology in the P.G. Centre at Guntur and took his M.A. degree in 1974 from Andhra University, Waltair. He joined in State Archaeological department as Technical Assistant in 1975. Since then, he actively participated in explorations, major excavations and transplantation of temples. He took his Ph.D. degree from Mysore University, Mysore in 1986. He also obtained P.G. Diploma in Public Relations from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad in 1993. at present he is working as Research & Training Officer in the State department of Archaeology & Museums, Hyderabad. He contributed a good number of research papers to various reputed journals and also to Indian History Congress, A.P. History Congress etc. He discovered a good number of new Buddhist settlements in North-Coastal Andhra Pradesh and conducted excavations at famous Buddhist sites, namely, Dantapura, Thotlakonda, Bavikonda, Dharapalem, Gopalapatma,. Amalapuram, Pavurallakonda, Majeru etc., and brought to light fresh information hitherto unknown. Apart from his participation in numerous seminars, he has to his credit published works, namely, Thotlakonda: A Buddhist Site in A.P. (1992), directory of Monuments: Antiquarian remains in Ananthapur district; A.P. Vol. I (1993), Pre, Proto and Early Historic Cultures of Krishna-Tungabhadra valley (1997), Andhra desamulo Buddha dhatu peteekalu (Telugu, 1997) etc. For his outstanding discovery of Buddhist relic caskets from Mahachaitya at Bavikonda (a Buddhist site in Visakhapatnam, A.P.) he has been awarded incentives in 1994 besides, personal appreciations by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
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