Description
By (author) Guy John
Short /annotation:
This beautiful reprint illustrates the V&A”s unrivalled collection of South Asian sculpture, putting Indian temple sculpture in its context as an instrument of worship intended to embody powerful religious experience.
:
In this innovative book, John Guy examines Indian religious sculpture in its temple setting, exploring its origins and cosmological meaning, its function within the architectural schema and its dynamic role in facilitating worship by devotees.Illustrated with the Victoria and Albert Museum”s unrivalled collection of South Asian sculpture, it examines Indian temple sculpture as an instrument of worship, conveying powerful religious experiences, both emotive and aesthetic. It traces the early origins of sculptural imagery in India, the emergence of the pantheon of deities associated with the growth of temple building, and with the codification of image-making. The central role of the temple setting is presented through archival and contemporary photographs underscoring the role of ritual practice and the vitality of the temple festivals still enacted today. This book also provides a fascinating introduction to the principal iconographic forms in the three traditional religions of the Indian subcontinent, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, with the principal deities presented through their myths and manifestations.
Table of contents:
Preface; Map; Acknowledgements; Notes to the reader; 1. Religious Sculpture of the Indian Subcontinent – Sacred word, sacred image – The image house – Icons of devotion – Myths made manifest; 2. The Rules of the Sastric Tradition – Sculpture and the sastras – Reflected image: Efficacy in Indian temple sculpture – Raising up the image – Measuring man – The maker; Opening the eyes: the consecration rituals; 3. The Temple Setting – The temple as body – Form – Function; 4. Devotion and Temple Worship – Temple worship – Devotion and Darsana (seeing God) – Temple pujas and festivals; 5. Iconography and Emotion – Expressing emotion and aesthetic delight: Rasa in Indian sculpture – reading the signs; 6. Manifestations and Appearances – Siva linga – Siva”s manifestations – Vasedeva/Visnu – Dasavataras – The goddess – Nature Personified; Notes; Bibliography; Glossary; Index
Biographical note:
John Guy is the Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He previously served for 22 years as a Senior Curator of Indian Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Major publications include Arts of India: 1550-1900 (V&A 1990), Indian Art and Connoisseurship (1995, ed.), Vietnamese Ceramics: A Separate Tradition (1998), Woven Cargoes: Indian Textiles in the East (1998), Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India (MMA 2012). Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800 (MMA 2013), and Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia (MMA 2014).
Promotional headline:
A reissue of John Guy’s classic work on Indian Temple Sculpture which explores the principal iconographic forms on Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism
Feature:
A brilliant introduction to the principal iconographic forms of thethree traditional religions of the Indian Subcontinent
Feature:
Essential and Beautiful’ The Royal Academy Magazine
Feature:
John Guy, formerly at the V&A, is now a curator at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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