The Art of Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent : In Cross-Cultural Perspective

Contents: Foreword. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Central Asia as the path of Sutras/Lokesh Chandra. 2. Upayakausalya in the Saddharmapundarikasutram: Reflections in the paintings of Dunhuang/Anupa Pande. 3. Meaning of the Non-religious figures in Vimalakirti Bianxiang in Dunhuang/Haewon Kim. 4. Dharani, the protective spell and Dharani Pillar/K. Sankarnarayan. 5. Scribes and painters on the road: inquiry into image and text in Indian Buddhism and its transmission to Central Asia and Tibet/Cristina Scherrer-Schaub. 6. Heritage of Kusana art in 'Greater Gandhara'/D.P. Sharma. 7. Portrait sculptures: Kusana and others (Central Asian and Indian pedigree)/R.N. Misra. 8. The fate of a bowl (or bowls): representations of the Buddha's bowl and early Indian Buddhism/Juhyung Rhi. 9. Traces of Buddhist art along the route where the Karakoram, Hindukush and Himalayan ranges meet/Haruko Tsuchiya. 10. Offering the flesh of the body: Jataka stories in Central Asian and Himalayan art/Ratan Parimoo. 11. Depiction of Dipankara Jataka in North-West India, Afghanistan and Central Asia/Sampa Biswas. 12. New research on the Buddhist monastery of Fondukistan, Afghanistan/Susanne Novotny. 13. Monks, monasteries and monastic life as gleaned from the Central Asian Buddhist Literature and Art/Gauri Parimoo Krishnan. 14. The role of meditation among the Monastic communities of Kucha/Angela F. Howard. 15. Buddhism in Kizil: texts and painted imagery/Rajeshwari Ghose. 16. Maitreya in Kizil--iconography and dating/Marianne Yaldiz. 17. Ritual, instruction and experiment: esoteric drawings from Dunhuang/Christian Luczanits. 18. IDP: A tool for cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary studies on Central Asia/Alastair Morrison. 19. Breaking barriers: creating a new historical narrative/Susan Whitfield. 20. Dandan-Uiliq panels for the divine protection of Khotan/Lokesh Chandra. 21. Sogdian or Indian iconography and religious influences in Dandan-Uiliq: the murals of Buddhist temple D13/Christoph Baumer. 22. Buddhism and Iranian religious among Sogdians: religious interactions in Sogdian Funeral Art--a Buddhist perspective/Mariko Namba Walter. 23. Remarks on the Sogdian religious iconography in 7 century Samarkand/Matteo Compareti. 24. Buddhism--an emblem of Indo-Central Asian relations/Mansura Haidar. 25. The Chalipa and Svastika motifs on Iranian and Central Asian art objects and architecture during the Islamic period/Samad Samanian. 26. Hittites, Tiaras and Dervishes in Anatolian iconography/Mustafa Soykut. 27. Textiles of the silk road: enigmas and riddles/Arputha Rani Sengupta. 28. Maha-Vinayaka: The iconography of Central Asian Ganesa/M.K. Dhavalikar. List of contributors. Index.

"The volume is the outcome of an effort to bring into print the proceedings of an International Seminar on The Art of Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent : In Cross-Cultural Perspective (1 Century CE-14 Century CE) organised by the Department of History of Art, National Museum Institute, in March 2007. The work contains scholarly and thought-provoking papers by distinguished art-historians, historians and other leading intellectuals of the world. These scholars come from reputed universities and institutions of Asia, Europe and America. What makes the volume distinctive is not only the variety of themes that it embraces but the intimate glimpses which it provides into some of the lesser-known but otherwise important aspects of Central Asian Art. The essays, twenty-eight in number, encompass diverse aspects of the Art of Central Asia, and thus cover a large geographical expanse. While some of them offer a  scholarly discussion of the sources of Buddhist art in Central Asia and the scribes and artists who flourished in the region, some others provide an in-depth analysis of the Buddhist art as it thrived in such important regions as Gandhara, Kucha, Kizil and Dunhuang. Again, there are papers which provide an interesting insight into the cross-cultural facets of Central Asia, connections between Buddhism and West Asia, and the monasteries and shrines that existed in the region. The study of Buddhist and Hindu iconography is the theme of some other stimulating papers.

The strikingly illustrated book is a significant contribution to the field of Central Asian Studies and is valuable for students and scholars alike." (jacket)