Mireille Benisti had made the study of stylistics of early Khmer and Indian art her life work. The present volume contains translations of Benisti’s major publications dealing with Khmer art. The main artaicle is a study of the relations between early Khmerr and Indian art, i.e. 7th and 8th centuries, the crucial period of the introduction of Indian religion and other components of Indian culture in the first well-organized kingdom of Khmer land. She has referred to the process of transfer of concepts and motifs; movable objects, such as statues, caskets, rituals objects, etc., transported decoration which could have inspired local artists. Madame Benistis held that art is a living entity and that it is always in a state of transformation. In this cotext, she has pointed out links and transitions between different styles, moments of evolution in which a particular style abandoned some characters and adopted the primitive aspect of new characters of a later style. Severeal articl
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mireille Benisti
Mireille Benisti (1909-1993) is a French indologist. She was trained by scholars such as Philippe Stern and Paul Mus who marked the first half of twentieth century, the first by his systematic method of style analysis in history of art, the second by his deep insights in the history of Buddhism and in the conceptions of religious monuments such as the stupa. In the same line, she has been the leading researcher and author in the second half of twentieth century in the fields of Buddhist art of India and the expansion of Indian art in Cambodia. Her contribution is basically in the domain of stylistics and extends also to iconography as well as to textual sources in Sanskrit. She has authored major books like “Relations between the first Khmer Art and Indian Artâ€, “Contribution to the study of the Indian Buddhist stupa: the minor stupas of Bodh-Gaya and Ratnagiriâ€. She has published a number of articles, on the stupa, on decorative motifs in Buddhist and Hindu art of Indian and Cambodia, on iconography in both areas, etc., leaving a rich harvest of facts, a model of method and a lot of innovative ideas.
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