All in all, the book provides a well-written and expertly exposed overview of the plastic art of Nalanda, based as it is on a solid foundation of iconographic and stylistic analyses. Mrs. Paul reveals a natural feeling for forms of style and displays a spontaneous flow of expression which make the reading of the volume all the more a pleasure. Her sincere quest for an understanding of the artistic past of the site has led the author gain quite a few penetrating insights into the process of development of styles which are the greatest asset of her work. Now that Dr. Debjani Paul’s study is going to reappear in print in her native country, it deserves to be widely read and appreciated both in India and elsewhere. A renowned meeting ground of Buddhist Asia, Nalanda was also a prolific centre of artistic output imbued with remarkable aesthetic vision and innovative skill. The book is the first major study of the Buddhist sculpture from the site in multiple media like stone, metal and stucco. It provides a succinct account of the development of plastic from basing on a solid foundation of iconographic and stylistic analysis. After tracing its Kusana-Gandhara and Gupta-Sarnath heritage as well as by touching upon its legacy on the art of Tibet in particular, the author has aptly characterized Nalanda as the seed-bed for later Buddhist art and iconography of a far wider region beyond the geographical boundary of eastern India.
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