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Unseen Presence: The Buddha and Sanchi

 
Vidya Dehejia (Author)
Synopsis Located on top of a hill at Sanchi in Central India is an ancient Buddhist monastery with a dynamic fifteen-hundred-year history. It has an inscribed column of the Maurya Emperor Ashoka, a great stupa with magnificent sculpted toranas, and a variety of monastic adjuncts and temples, some built as late as the twelfth century. Sanchi is indeed a microcosm of the Buddhist experience in India. And animating it all is the unseen presence of the Buddha. He is first and foremost in the relic once enshrined in the stupa; devout Buddhists believed that the relics embodied the Buddha' continued presence in their midst. He is also present in the vibrant bas reliefs that tell the legend of his life. Here, he is not depicted in human form; rather his unseen presence is indicated by a set of markers - an empty seat, space sheltered by a parasol, footprints. It is only with the Gupta period that images of the Buddha added a visible component to his hitherto unseen presence. We may appreciate and comprehend the art of Sanchi on several levels. We may enjoy the verve and vigour of the carvings that depict everyday life; or we may enter more deeply into the content of the reliefs and absorb the Buddhist message of the site. Essays in this volume throw new light on varying aspects of Sanchi, its original significance, the meaning of its donative inscriptions, ways of looking at its magnificent sculpture and architecture, as well as its importance today for New Buddhists. The book is extensively illustrated with the colour photographs of K.B. Agrawala who has worked at Sanchi over the last twenty years. His delight in the appeal of Sanchi will surely communicate itself to readers of this volume.
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About the author
In the spotlight

Vidya Dehejia

Vidya Dehejia is the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University in New York, and the recipient of a Padma Bhushan conferred on her by the President of India in 2012 for achievement in Art and Education. Over the past 40 years, she has combined research with teaching and exhibition-related activities around the world. Her work has ranged from Buddhist art of the centuries BCE to the esoteric temples of North India, and from the sacred bronzes of South India to art under the British Raj. This comprehensive scope is evident from her books: The Thief who Stole my Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855–1280 to Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives of India; from The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at Work on the Indian Subcontinent to The Body Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in India’s Art; and from Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj to Devi, The Great Goddess: Female Divinity in South Asian Art. Management and curatorial experience at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC, combined with her interest and pleasure in teaching first-year undergraduates, provided her with a broad mandate to convey the excitement of her field to non-specialist audiences. India: A Story through 100 Objects is a result of this priority.

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Bibliographic information

Title Unseen Presence: The Buddha and Sanchi
Author Vidya Dehejia
Format Hardcover
Date published: 01.01.1996
Edition 1st ed.
Publisher Marg Publications
Language: English
isbn 8185026327
length xxxii+134p., Plates; Glossary; Index; 30cm.