Timeless Books
Showing all 22 books
Much has been written about the splendors of Delhi in books on history , architecture and travel, and of those who built, abandoned and rebuilt the city. There are those on Yudhisthira who founded Indraprastha, the Tomar Rajputs and Raja Dhilu, the kings of the Delhi Sultanate and the Great Mughals and finally the British before freedom was wrested from them and Delhi truly became India’s capital. There are also books on individual monuments and buildings ...
For many years the outside world had no name for Bhutan, although its people call it Druk Yul, The Land of the Thunder Dragon. Perched precariously between India and Tibet, it is a remote and little-known kingdom which until 1974 admitted no foreign tourists. Now its spectacular mountain beauty and a way of life still firmly rooted in medieval tradition attract visitors from all over the world, although the Bhutanese, well aware of how easily their ‘gross ...
Since its inception in the second decade of the 20th century, the Bombay-based Indian film industry--Bollywood--has developed a unique visual language, articulated by the vivid hand-painted movie posters that have since become highly-desirable collectors' items. While Bollywood poster artists produced a staggering number of these hand-painted images, their ephemeral work has traditionally been presented unevenly, with shoddy reprints and re-release posters. ...
Built to astonish and to celebrate the magnificence of the most powerful families in the world, royal palaces and houses are the consequences of an age in which the splendour and opulence of a prince or a people could be measured by the d?cor of a salon, by the grandeur of a building or the originality of a fountain. Suspended between the sky and the earth, as occurred in the Far East, or solidly rooted to the ground, as was the norm in Europe, the house of the ...
From the austere dignity of a Jain Thirthankara sculpture to the rich colors of Rajput paintings, the Indian collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts represents the scope of Indian art at its most expressive. Widely regarded as one of the finest in the United States, this collection was established in 1968 when funds provided by Paul Mellon enabled the Museum to purchase more than a hundred paintings, sculptures, textiles, and decorative objects from New ...
With the increasing British involvement in Indian affairs in the 18 century, several civil and military officers of the east India company started taking an interest in the scientific investigation of local fauna, particularly birds. Most of them were amateur bird-watchers who spent their leisure moments observing birds. This satisfying hobby soon became a passion resulting in scholarly papers and books with coloured plates, thus laying the scientific foundation ...
This is a book about the splendour of trees. It is about some of the most popular trees in India and tells their tale first hand. Trees are one class of plants that humans relate to with total familiarity, since they are everywhere’ Large, beautiful, useful and often used as landmarks, trees mean a million things to different people. Trees are treated with reverence and affection because they are used in numerous ways in everyday life, and it is this ...
For many years the need has been felt for a comprehensive book on the Ranas of Nepal. These pictures provide a valuable socio-historical record of an age that has disappeared, but has left its indelible imprint upon Nepal. To go through this sumptuously produced and lavishly illustrated volume is to take a journey into the past, and yet the book is not merely an exercise in nostalgia. It provides rich background for the history and culture of the beautiful ...
This book presents the traditional jewellery of Nepal, Tibet and the Himalayas in all its splendour, and tells the fascinating stories of trade, conquest, faith and fortune that lie behind it. The jewellery of the region has an extraordinary visual impact, with its vibrant combination of gold and silver with turquoise, coral, amber and pearls, elements of which were traded from countries far distant from the Himalayas. It is worn as much for its religious and ...
At the very tip of northern India lives Ladakh. This primitive land of wind-swept plateaux and snow-scarred deserts is spread across the towering citadels of the Great Himalayan and Karakoram ranges. During the last fourteen years Purkayastha has journeyed endlessly through this wilderness, where time has ceased to march on. For, in this last bastion of ancient Tibetan culture, breathes a magical way of life in which little has changed through the centuries. And, ...
Indian courtly jewellery is among the most sumptuous and finely wrought in the world, while the subcontinent's folk jewellery abounds in stunningly bold and powerful designs. The wide availability of gemstones, the centuries-old traditions of craftsmanship and the customs of a culture steeped in religion and symbolism all make for a wealth of adornment, to complement the rich textiles and bright colours of Indian dress. The V and A's collection is unparalleled in ...
This book presents fifteen new dramatic paintings by Hyderabad-based artist Vaikuntam. The artist grew up in a village called Boorugupalli in the Karimnagar district within the Telangana heartland of Andhra Pradesh. The people of his village have often been depicted in his work, especially his portrayals of women - they could be his mother, an entertainer, a neighbour, a labourer, a gaze encountered in the teeming bazaar, even a family friend from his childhood. ...
It is a pleasure and an honour to introduce Expedition Naga--Diaries From the Hills in Northeast India by Peter van Ham and Jamie Saul. One particular interest in this fascinating account of various visits to the Naga Hills on the Assam-Burma border is the way in which it weaves back and forth from the tours that the Deputy Commissioner for the Naga Hills, J.H. Hutton, made through the unadministered areas as early as 1921 and then again in 1923, followed by his ...