Figure ane: Dancing Ganesha, Lord of Obstacles. Eleventh to twelfth century, Bangladesh, Dinajpur District. Sculpture. Phyllite (65.41 x 33.66 10 12.seven cm). Source: Los Angeles County Museum of Art website at https://tinyurl.com/yy2s5sxo.
There are many ways to talk most the fine art of Republic of india (here, Bharat is a bruskhand for the S Asian subcontinent). From a serene stone sculpture of a meditating Buddha to the dynamic paradigm of Dancing Shiva in bronze, to catholic symbolism of soaring temples covered in sensuous celestial bodies built in rock to the perfect compages of Taj Mahal, to colorful paintings of heroes and heroines of dear stories and myths to intricate carvings on ivory, to stunning mitt-woven or embroidered textiles, there is no bruskage of wondrous sights to admire when information technology comes to Indian art. Exploring this kaleidoscopic world tin exist daunting and overwhelming for any instructor or pupil unfamiliar with the subcontinent'southward culture and history.i One needs a claw to enter this esoteric world: patronage and religion are perhaps the two most common threads used to tell the story about the art of premodern South Asia. In this essay, we propose however another lens through which to nowadays the story of Indian art: that of ritual, which is frequently neglected in more conventional accounts of India's rich artistic traditions. Considering creative outputs through the lens of ritual allows united states of america to see various ways in which fine art served (and is still serving) Indic religious communities non only by illustrating mythic narratives and doctrinal teachings, but besides by manifesting the belief and the worldview of the people who sponsored, engineered, and used it. It is important to recognize that art in South asia, peculiarly during premodern times, was non made for the sake of beauty or to express an individual artist's originality or creativity. Nosotros have to embrace a completely different working definition of fine art: fine art that can be living and functional as auspicious/divine presence and works to be enjoyed and experienced not just through the sight simply likewise through all other senses. In this definition, art is something to be touched, adorned, and performed. Thinking about India'due south art through ritual helps us appreciate this performative aspect that may be lost in a museum setting or in a historical narrative focused on patronage, politics, or doctrine.
A stone sculpture of Dancing Ganesha, the hugely popular elephant-caputed Hindu god, the remover of obstacles, now resides in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Information technology may exist a visual delight to study the pot-bellied, creature-caputed god who gracefully dances on tiptoe on the back of his vehicle idur (pronounced "ee-dur," a rodent), which is carved expertly on gray-black rock with a polished sheen (Effigy ane). If this Ganesha from medieval Bengal, spotless in a climate-controlled gallery environment, may bask curious admiration by museum visitors in N America, on whatever given twenty-four hour period, another dancing Ganesha installed in the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu (southern Indian state), enjoys devotees' daily homage in the form of bloom garlands, application of unguents, and other colorful and fragrant substances smeared upon his body while standing outdoors nether an cheering tree. This Ganesh welcomes pilgrims and worshippers to the famed temple defended to the Hindu goddess Meenakshi and her married man, Sundareshwar (literally "beautiful lord," a class of Shiva) (Figure 2). This sculpture is no longer just a piece of stone carved into a specific form—in this case, a iv-armed, dancing Ganesha—but rather an firsthand presence of the Hindu god Ganesha that interacts with the devotees directly in a physical and manifested manner.
This understanding of the tactility and immediacy of the transcendent divine predominates the practices of Indic religious traditions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, and in a style helps united states explore why figurative forms prevail in South Asian artistic traditions, whether in the fantastic images of gods and goddesses with multiple heads or limbs, or in heroes and heroines of beloved poems and epics. If the sensuous bodily form is the "leitmotif of Indian fine art," exploring India through ritual art puts the body of the people who designed, sponsored, and used these images in the very context of its production and use.2 Before moving to explore some salient characteristics of Indian art with this in mind, we need to articulate away a number of common misconceptions.
Early scholars held that "truthful Buddhists" followed a rational, atheistic belief arrangement and that most focused on meditation, fervently intent on nirvana realization; "true Hindus," too, were those devoted to yoga and samadhi (trance meditation) in pursuit of moksha (final liberation from rebirth). This elitist Western stereotype also posits that as fourth dimension went on, both traditions were corrupted by "pop" practices—especially rituals directed to "idols" and countless "superstitious" practices. These ideas take endured, especially in mutual portrayals of Hinduism and Buddhism in the West, and echoed by modern reformers in Republic of india. In fact, this "first typhoon of history" is wildly wrong. What the earliest canonical texts and archaeological remains show, instead, is that both traditions had a much broader scope, far beyond the few religious virtuosos. The Buddha taught—as function of his Dharma ("teachings")—that Buddhist monastics and householders must perform rituals: the one-time as role of their communal life, the latter by earning merit and securing worldly blessings through rituals focusing on shrines and images. As well, from its origins in the Vedic hymns, Hindu traditions were centered on rituals that were designed to delight the gods, especially through offerings in a homa (sacred fire). In fact, most of the Veda consists of hymns to be chanted and detailed instructions for doing homa and many other rituals. A scholarly survey of both traditions from their origins onward show that in practice Hinduism and Buddhism were—and are—as much concerned with securing worldly blessings through ritual actions as they are with seeking transcendent goals. Both have a broad spectrum of focuses and functions.
The Meenakshi Teemple, Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Source: Wikimedia Eatables at https://tinyurl.com/ya34zwh4.
Anyone who has visited Hindu communities in South Asia or Buddhist communities across Asia (or been welcomed in Asian immigrant temples in the West) tin can witness the reality of pragmatic practices dominating these faiths and how fine art serves this key purpose. It would be extremely rare, in fact, to find the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita or a Buddhist philosophical text such as the Dhammapada existence read in a temple or monastery! It is important for students to sympathize the breadth of paths and personal possibilities in being a "good Buddhist" or "good Hindu."3 With this bones understanding of Indian traditions in mind, let us now plow to the get-go topic: how to understand the many heads and limbs of the deities.
Multiplicity and Unity: Multi-Armed, Multi-Headed Gods and Goddesses
South Asian religious images, especially those in Buddhist meditation halls or ashrams (Hindu mondayasteries), are made to convey the key spiritual ideals of the religion. The body of a Buddha, for exaplenty, should convey concrete strength, mental tranquility, detachment, and discernment; the ancient tradition specifies thirty-ii feature bodily features that each have a meaning. Most by and large, Buddha images should be beautiful, conveying at-home, discernment, disengagement, and mastery of this life. Similarly, the multiarmed Hindu deities convey their attendance, multiple powers, and readiness to aid devotees. Shiva as Nataraja ("King of the Trip the light fantastic toe") can encode an entire theology (see sidebar), equally practice depictions of Krishna (one of the human being incarnations of Vishnu) dancing with the Cowherdesses (Gopis). Art can also provide a basis for sympathiseing subtle theological conceptions, especially when accompanied by oral teaching.
One of the most mutual questions that students encountering the art of India for the beginning time ask is why there are many limbs and heads on a deity.4 For example, a painted prototype of Avalokiteshvara, a bodhisattva (a Buddhist enlightened being postponing the entrance to nirvana or last extinction to aid suffering beings) surviving in a sumptuously painted medieval Buddhist temple (chosen Sumtsek, literally "iii-storied edifice") at Alchi in the Indian Himalayas (in today's Ladakh) can be bewildering at first sight (Figure 3): the standing figure of this benign bodhisattva of compassion shows eleven heads in three different colors (white, carmine, and bluish) and varying countenances (from peaceful to wrathful) stacked alpine (3–3–3–i–ane configuration) and twenty-two artillery splayed around like a torso-halo holding various objects. Some (like vajra and ghanta, a thunderbolt and a bell held in uppermost hands on either side) are important ritual tools in sure Buddhist circles or symbolic attributes (like a rosary, a manuscript, a noose, and the gesture of giving), while others are weapons (like bow and pointer). How to comprehend such an arable multiplicity in bodily forms? Two key terms can aid: abstraction through figuration and unity in multiplicity.
First, it is important to recognize that these images manifest the abstract, whether the divine or the transcendent, in the most graspable, immediate form, of a man body. (The torso hither is non the anatomically correct, concrete trunk of a human that is valorized in Renaissance art simply rather the idealized torso that tin can be reduced to a filigree or a symbolic system in abstraction.) Every aspect of a deity's power is made immediately visible through multiple limbs and the attributes they concord, like all the marvelous weapons that, for example, the goddess Durga wields in her eight arms in slaying the buffalo demon, Mahishasura (Figure 4). To infringe today's superhero comics illustration, the calorie-freening on Flash's adjust along with scarlet and yellow trim signal his superpower, that of lightning speed. Buddhist and Hindu deities are mighty powerful in ways that make the whole bandage of the Avengers pale in comparison. Their extraordinary bodily features—like the 20-two arms and xi heads of the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara—represent, quite literally, his manifold ability to listen to and see the sufferings of all sentient beings, relieve their distress, and lead them on the path to enlightenment. The force and ability of Indian deities to intervene in devotees' lives are clearly articulated in their fantastic forms with the various tools they hold at one time. Consider, for example, the goddess Durga in a 12th-century metal sculpture from the Himalayan foothills in Figure 4: she holds a sword and a shield, a skull cup and a bong, a bow and an arrow, a trident and the demon she subdued. Historical studies have shown that these tools changed and developed over time. To go along the superhero comics illustration, but as new suits of armor or new versions of superheroes announced in dissimilar circumstances or universes, the iconographic forms of Indian deities take changed in response to the different social, political, and environmental needs of the communities that revered them. For this reason, 1 encounters many unlike forms of the aforementioned deity, and a deity can be called in many different names or epithets: the more popular a deity, the more names and forms are used to refer to the god or goddess.
2nd, the multiple limbs (and heads) on a single body ingeniously capture multiple moments of interventions in one frame. Avalokiteshvara'southward ability to meet all effectually and arbitrate whenever and wherever is encapsulated in i frame, as if multiple rescue scenes are overlapped in 1 image. (This is peculiarly true in a course known as the thousand-armed Avalokiteśvara.) What would require multiple panels in a comic strip or a manipulated time lapse in a picture is conveniently packaged in one body: a still image that is intended to be seen every bit constantly moving, transcending time. While delivering the bulletin of awesome ability immediately, such complex iconographies also can incite the onlooker to offset recounting the stories that are compressed within them or to search for a teacher who tin explain the code. The eight arms of the goddess Durga, seen in the twelfth-century metal paradigm from the Chamba Valley (Himachal Pradesh, India), would immediately convey her magnificent power (see Figure four). Once that recognition sets in, those in the know tin can start telling the story of how the male person gods who could not deal with one monstrous buffalo demon had come together to ask the goddess to aid and then requite each of their signature weapons to her. This moment is non depicted hither but can be pulled out from the details included in the image. Durga heroically steps on the buffalo while striking it with a trident, a weapon of Shiva, while her vehicle, the true-blue lion, bites the animal in the behind. In one version of the story, the goddess chops the head of the buffalo off, and the demon who has taken the animal's form escapes from the severed neck. Here, the unnamed artist depicts the buffalo'southward head intact but indicates that the lifeforce of the buffalo has left past depicting his tongue rolling on the ground. The goddess grabs the helpless demon who emerged out of the buffalo by the top of his hair: in his terminal resistance, the demon holds up his tiny sword confronting the mighty goddess, but his diminutive size and compromised position brand his futile attempt appear almost comical.
These stories, whether Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain, have been essential to the growth and maintenance of religious communities. Until very contempo human history, the master ideas that constituted the bases of all religions were conveyed through narratives told in spoken word and through visual images in art. Painting and sculpture in the temples and monasteries of South asia have been fabricated for centuries to educate followers. As is true of all societies, religious traditions have had to be continuously explained and illustrated for the young.
Shiva equally Lord of Dance (Nataraja), Chola period, ca. eleventh century, Tamil Nadu, copper alloy (68.3 cm x 56.5 cm). Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.fourscore.1.
The Trip the light fantastic toe of Shiva
by Todd Lewis
One of the well-nigh lyrical and evocative symbols of Hinduism, particularly in the sweeping design of Due south Indian artisans, is that of Nataraja, Shiva as Lord of the Trip the light fantastic toe. The upper right hand holds the twin-sided pulsate, from which sacred sound emerges, counting time and originating sound's creative resonance. The opposite manus shows on it a flame and then that in Shiva'southward agreeing a fire, he points to his being a refuge in the fires of samsara. Fire as well alludes to this deity's office as destroyer at the finish of a great world era. Both hands motility together in Shiva's keen dance, ceaselessly integrating cosmic cosmos and destruction, including all the gods. Another hand shows the "fear-not" gesture, and the quaternary points to his upraised foot, the identify Hindu devotees touch well-nigh often in ritual. Shiva dances while treading on a demon who symbolizes heedlessness. Thus, to enter into the Dance of Shiva means to brave the circle of rebirth, transcend the limitations of fourth dimension and apparent opposites, and join with the divine powers of the great deity whose grace and eternal free energy can remove spiritual obstacles. Because the cosmos has existcome a manifestation of Shiva'due south power, a dance washed only for the purpose of his own amusement, wherever individuals tin can cultivate artistic pleasance, they can find spousal relationship with Shiva.
Storytelling and Narratives: Educational and Community-Edifice Power of Art
Figure 4: The Goddess Durga Slaying the Demon Buffalo Mahisha, twelfth century. Probably Chamba Valley, Himachal Pradesh. Brass (57.2 cm 10 33 cm x 21.6 cm). Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art 2008.271.
All-encompassing narrative art traditions developed to serve Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain communities include sculpture and paintings that skillfully illustrate of import tales about the lives of the Buddha or the Jina Mahavira (for Jains) or the glorious acts of the Hindu gods, such equally Shiva, Vishnu, Durga, etc. The world-famous fifth-century murals at Ajanta Caves (in Maharashtra, India) show how Buddhists may have experienced the Buddha and his teaching, especially through the visual narratives that illustrate details of the Buddha's life and jataka (his previous lives), forth with more than devotional offerings and cheering symbols and images of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Walls in Buddhist monasteries in Sri Lanka are also routinely covered with paintings illustrating details of the Buddha's life and the jataka tales.
As the world's outset missionary faith, Buddhism spread from its state of origins in northeast India to all of Due south and Southeast Asia, then to China and Due east Asia. Monks and nuns were instructed by the Buddha to use colloquial dialects, matching the level of teaching with the capacity of the audience to follow. In this tradition, a wealth of fine art was created and designed to explain the Dharma, the Buddha'southward pedagogy. Virtually famous and well-employed would be the "Wheel of Life," which shows the half-dozen major rebirth venues for living beings in samsara, our world characterized by suffering, impermanence, and ignorance; according to one Buddhist monastic lawmaking, the Buddha instructs the monastics to place these paintings at the archway of a monastery to educate visitors. Information technology is still found at the entrance to most living Himalayan Buddhist monasteries like the Lamayuru monastery in Ladakh, India (Effigy v).
The story of the dandy goddess Durga, which informs the brass sculpture discussed above, is told in the Devimahatmya (literally The Hymn to the Great Goddess), an important Sanskrit text that extols the goddess under whose anxiety were subdued many powerful demons. The episode of her killing the buffalo demon narrated in the text became popular all over the subcontinent from the seventh century onward; many temples, especially royally sponsored temples, carry the narrative on their walls, equally seen on the impressive panel on the wall of a cave shrine (known as the Mahishasura Cavern) at Mamallapuram in today'southward Tamil Nadu (Effigy six). Carved out of granite, one of the hardest stones to sculpt, this tableau vivant tells the story of the goddess's victory confronting the buffalo demon by choosing the moment before the goddess slays the buffalo. With more than space and with more actors, the drama unfolds: the goddess strides over her mighty lion facing the buffalo demon, shown here in an anthropomorphic form with a buffalo head. Although hither she is petite in size in comparison to the demon, there is no mistaking her victory: the buffalo demon retreats with his army, some of whom is already fallen to ground, while the goddess sits alpine on her mount, charging with her bow and other weapons against the enemy. Her many ganas (dwarf-like figures around her) also come to her assistance, and a female warrior strikes a victim with a sword in forepart of the goddess just as another victim falls headfirst from above this warrior.
The fate of the world hangs in remainder: the artist(s) took pain to betoken the extreme danger posed past the buffalo demon, besides marked by an umbrella over his caput, a sign of respect and importance in the Indic context. His size hither that is larger than the goddess conveys his power as a woeful foe, although the private stances and the composition propose that the goddess will ultimately prevail. Clever details and variations supplied past the unnamed artists add wit and humor, which incites telling of a story that can be further embellished and expanded past the knowledge experts such as a priest or elder in the community. Such images are often fundamental to teaching religious and moral values, only at the same time, we should recall that performing these stories, which were conducted frequently with images—whether it is a street operation of the Hindu epic Ramayana or a singing about a local hero like Pabuji in Rajasthani villages or a storytelling session by a Buddhist priest in Nepal or singing of the hymns to the goddess during the Durga festival in West Bengal—provided (and still provides) entertainment and spectacles, bringing each customs together.
Figure 7: Krishna Raising Mt. Govardhan, c. 1825, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India. Pigments and gold on paper. Source: Philadelphia Museum of Fine art 1994 148–507.
Stories about Krishna, Vishnu'due south incarnation, became a major impetus inspiring artistic creations from the sixteenth century onward every bit the devotional communities centered effectually the mischievous yet charming and youthful god grew exponentially across northern India. Painters serving ladylike patrons were skilled at bringing out the subtle humor and please from well-known Krishna stories (recorded in texts like the Bhagavata Purana). So in an early nineteenth-century painting from the Himalayan foothills (Mandi, today'southward Himachal Pradesh, India), the artist portrays Krishna holding up the Mount Govardhan with a single pinky to protect the townspeople of the boondocks Vrindavan, while angry Indra riding his white elephant brings virtually a torrential storm with lightning (Effigy vii). The sky is night with swirling gold, and one can well-nigh hear the thunder. The townspeople look upward gratefully while Krishna stands with his hip swayed to 1 side and i leg bent in a relaxed posture, gazing gently toward a lady who is adoringly touching his arm. The painter added delightful details of petty pods under which families gather hiding from the rain (ane of the men dearly holds a calf) and small children running about effectually women's and Krishna'south anxiety, further animating the scene.
While such a ladylike production, especially in the grade of miniature, may accept had a limited audience, sure creative strategies developed in these circles did trickle down to inform artists serving communities with lesser means. Today, pilgrims visiting the town of Nathdwara, an important Krishna pilgrimage site in Rajasthan, can selection up pilgrims' souvenirs in various mass-produced media, like printed and framed images of Shrinathji, the special form of Krishna enshrined in the main temple, while painted images produced by the local artist workshops who serve the temple are also bachelor. Miniature wooden dolls of Jagannath (a local form of Vishnu) with his brother and sister, and including many sets of dresses to alter them, are popular souvenir items that pilgrims acquire from another important Vaishnava pilgrimage site of Puri in Odisha, ofttimes brought habitation to make their own Jagannath shrine ritually enlivened (Figure eight).
Living Arts and the Museum
Figure nine: Maharao Kishor Singh Ii (1781–1828) of Kota Worshipping Krishna as Brij Rajji, c. 1825. Rajput Kingdom of Kota, Rajasthan. Gum tempera, tin can, and gold on paper; overall: 24.5 ten 18.8 cm. Source: The Cleveland Museum of Art, James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund 1978.71.
A Buddhist or Hindu deity in a living shrine, whether at dwelling or in a major temple, is treated as a living presence. In add-on to the offerings of prayers, lamplight, incense, flowers, and food, the deities get special outfits, ornaments, jewelries, and furnishings. Sometimes these furnishings can become quite elaborate, which can include a bed, a sofa, and even a swing. In an early nineteenth-century painting from a Rajasthani court at Kota, the king (identified as Maharao Kishor Singh II of Kota, 1781– 1828) offers his evening prayer while holding his puja tray with a burning lamp and flowers in forepart of an elaborate miniature silver shrine (Figure 9). The shrine is dedicated to miniature images of Krishna, and ii consorts dressed in finery. In the lower terrace of the multitiered shrine structure is a chess prepare with mini cushions on either side, as if ready to be played by the god. Hanging glass lanterns in multiple colors and a chandelier, all with a heavy dose of aureate trimming everywhere (well-nigh likely painted in existent gold), suggest the opulence of the patron devotee. Information technology also shows the intimate physical environment in which many of these images were interacted with and venerated. These enshrined images were meant to exist touched and cared for, just every bit the dancing Ganesha welcoming devotees to a major Hindu temple similar the Meenakshi Temple mentioned at the kickoff of this essay.
The goddess Durga, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art (introduced earlier, see Figure 4), was most likely an enshrined image similar the Krishna image in the painting. The goddess stands in front of an extravagant backbasis, which was cast separately to support the paradigm from backside as a frame. Topped past a tiered roof with a lobed discus called amalaka, typical of the architectural finial of a Hindu temple, the design of the backdrop intimates that the goddess is installed inside a shrine. That the image must have been ritually activated and used is also indicated past the pedestal with a protruding sprout, which is designed to channel the water from ablutions offered to the deity. Another important physical trace of its function equally a focal betoken of a ritual is the abrasion noticeable on the surface of the goddess's head. The smoothen on the forehead that well-nigh obliterates her eyebrows, parts of the hair, and the diadem is due to repeated touching.
Touching the deity (or the living presence of the deity in an image) with sandalwood pulverization or vermilion powder is 1 of the most common devotional actions performed in South Asia. Unlike in a museum (or even a Christian church), touching is, in fact, the most natural devotional activity in the Indic context.5 The divine is present in a living image for immediate, tactile access. Many images that nosotros meet today in a museum setting were most often living presences to the communities in Due south Asia, and rarely seen in this denuded class without ornaments and garments when they were ritually active (Figure 10). If the image has been empowered with the divine presence through consecration and proper ritual maintenance by priests, and it has a proven record of aqueducting the divine presence and blessings to devoted petitioners, its artful appearance is, in a manner, secondary to the purpose of the image.
It has in recent years become a source of argue equally to whether to introduce the original ritual context to an object in a museum or not, and how much ritual reactivation is appropriate. In the Newark Museum of Art in Newark, New Jersey, a metal image of the goddess Parvati that entered its collection was reactivated through a induction ritual performed past a local priest with donations from the S Asian diaspora customs (Figure 11). The goddess is installed with garments and jewelry as she would be installed in a living shrine, while the other sculptures from south Bharat in the same display example remain blank as museum objects with miniature crowns installed in betwixt them along with a photo showing enshrined images from a living temple in due south India, a way of acknowledging their original ritual context. According to Katherine Paul, the curator behind this experiment, this epitome receives special reverence from visitors from the diaspora community. 6
In South asia, Brahmins and Buddhist ritual masters perform dozens of rituals that define existence a Hindu or Buddhist. Ane essential practice that ritualists of both traditions do for devotees is to draw downward the presence of the focal divinity then it tin can be worshipped by them with songs, chants, nutrient offerings, incense, etc. The image along with a kalasha (special vase) is essential for the successful performance of the puja (anniversary). For this purpose, devotees can use whatever image of the deity they have; it can be an exquisite work of art, a simple dirt statue, or an inexpensive lithograph print. The sanctity of the art is non contingent on its beauty since the success of the ritual depends on the operation of the priest. An inexpensive lithograph that is sold beyond India for the pop Vishnu Satya Narayan Vrata conveniently shows the entire ritual context (Effigy 12). The Brahmin priest on the right conducts the ritual using a text in folio for a married man and wife sitting opposite him. Lamps and food offerings separate them (annotation the kalasha vase on the tray), equally these accept been laid out before a four-armed Vishnu standing behind holding his characteristic objects (conch, lotus, mace, discus) flanked by ii Brahmin assistants.
Nearly Hindu or Buddhist householders of limited wealth cannot afford exquisite images similar those now coveted past fine art collectors. For this reason, there are artists across South Asia who produce a dandy multifariousness of images and paintings for use throughout the festival year that cost little and are typically sold in the market every bit festivals for the various deities approach. Although these may lack the refined qualities, these images bring the presence of the divine into the minds and hearts of practitioners. Even lithographs and their knockoff copies sold on the streets can exist venerated as artworks channeling the living divine presence later a ritual. Ultimately, the degree of sanctity in an paradigm largely depends on the actions of its users, not only the correct functioning of an appropriate ritual(s) but also the repeated devotional acts that get out concrete traces.
This article is dedicated to the retention of Dina Bangdel.
NOTES
There are a number of introductory essays and online teaching tools bachelor for educators to engage with this textile. A number of resource on the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art's website are useful. For a general introduction to the fine art of South Asia, meet https://tinyurl.com/y5s5xepr; for educational resources relating to Indian art assembled under the Timeline of Art, see the essay and related resource under https://tinyurl.com/y5fcnyjt; a sample lesson plan for didactics with the Indian art material, like dancing Shiva image, run into https://tinyurl.com/yyaobc3b. Many more lesson plans are bachelor under: https://tinyurl.com/yyql6rda.
Vidya Dehejia, The Trunk Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in India's Art (New York: Columbia Academy Printing, 2009).
We must plainly apply blanket terms to characterization "Hinduism" and "Buddhism" as singularities here, a simplification that instructors volition necessarily challenge. In add-on, the study of all religions must recognize a "bell curve" that maps the range of how individuals appoint with their religion. This was explained in an earlier article: Todd Lewis, "Getting the Foundations Right When Teaching Asian Religions," Education Virtually Asia 15, no. iii (2010): 5–13.
Fascination or bewilderment with such images is an age-old response to Indian images in the West, as Partha Mitter observes, "the problem of accommodating multiple limbed Indian gods in the European aesthetic tradition became the leading intellectual pre-occupation as early equally the sixteenth century. Partha Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Fine art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), vii.
Ritual practices in Southern asia vary by region and deity, regarding exactly who can touch on the image. In the south, brahmins but are permitted to impact the deity on behalf of devotees.
I thank Katherine Paul for sharing her story during my visit in 2016.
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