Leaves of a Pipal Tree : Aesthetic Reflections on Some Hindu Myths and Symbols

Contents: 1. The Pipal tree: where we hear the hymns of the Veda. 2. The genesis of Ganesa: the aesthetics of boundaries. 3. The Nayika of Srngara Rasa: a mirror of Indian aesthetic sensibility. 4. Srngara Rasa: the essence of ethos of Vaisnavism. 5. The life and death of Kamadeva: the refinement of desire. 6. The marriage of Siva Parvati: resonances of Kasmir Saivism. 7. Sakti: Universal Mother, primal energy. 8. Sesasayi Visnu: a paradigm of Yoga. 9. The Rangamandapa: a visual representation of aesthetic experience. 10. Objects of beauty, not art objects: an object is not just an object. 11. Kalasa: the womb of the universe. 12. Adbhuta Rasa: the wonder of wonders. List of images. Glossary.

"India is a civilisation of many images, a culture of many visual feasts, a tradition where the visible and the palpable are as important as the oral and the occurrent, where our highest truths are embodied in our kathas and gathas, our songs and stories, where our temples are not only places of worship but equally a gallery of beautiful forms and figures, where myth is as important as doctrine, where ancient memories are full of cherished narratives, where mythic beings are real in many different ways and we enrich our lives by festivals which celebrate events from the lives of our mythic Gods and Goddesses, and where knowledge is gained as much from itinerant performers as it is from learned discourses and where when the wind blows through the Pipal tree is as if we hear the hymns of the Vedas.

Harsha V. Dehejia presents in this book selected myths and symbols from the Hindu tradition and offers a refreshingly different aesthetic and non-theistic analysis and shows how these mythic narratives and visual symbols are an alternative form of knowledge.

The essays are richly illustrated with paintings and objects from his personal collection." (jacket)