The Citrakarmasastra Ascribed to Manjusri (Volume II), , E.W. Marasinghe, , E.W. Marasinghe, Sri Satguru Publications, 8170302528

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The Citrakarmasastra Ascribed to Manjusri (Volume II)

E.W. Marasinghe (Editor) E.W. Marasinghe (Translator)

Synopsis The Citrakarmasastra covers the second half of the ancient Sanskrit silpa text Vastuvidyasastra devoted to Mahayanic monastic architecture and the art of image-modeling. The first half of the text dealing with monastic architecture was published with an introduction and an Englishtranslation in 1989 by Sri Satguru Publications as No. 67 of their Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series. The present volume presents a very methodical treatment of the subjects of Buddhist iconometry, iconography and modelling clay images for the image-house of a Buddhist monastery. In its fifteen chapters the work discusses all aspects of image-modelling from the selection of trees for the preparation f the wooden image-core to the painting of the eyes, finishing touch given to a newly made image. An image is viewed as a close limitation of the human body. It is, therefore, endowed with all essential components of the human body such as the skeleton, nerves, arteries and veins, flesh, skin and complexion in the form of the image â€“ core, astabandha glue, clay, limestone paste and pigments. All these are dealt with in successive chapters in fair detail. Particularly interesting are the sections on the arrangement of statues inside the image-house, construction of the image-core, Buddhist iconography and the rituals connected with the eye-opening ceremony. The Citrakumasastra thus happens to be the only comprehensive work so far discovered, which deals with the ancient art of modeling of clay images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and together with its companion volume on monastic architecture, claims to be the most important treatise on the ancient Buddhist art of the Mahayana School.

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About the authors

E.W. Marasinghe

Dr. E.W. Marasinghe holds a First Class Honours degree in Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta. Presently he is Senior Assistant Librarian of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. The present work embodies the results of four years of research conducted by the author at the University of Calcutta for his doctoral thesis, as a Research Fellow under the Commonwealth Scholarships/Fellowships Programme. Besides Sanskrit theatre, hsi main fields of interest are Indian classical music and silpasastras. His next major research constitutes the editing and translating into english of a unique Sanskrit silpa text discovered some years ago in central Sri Lanka. This work entitled Vastuvidyasastra and ascribed to Bodhisattva Manjusri exclusively deals with mahayana monastic architecture of ancient Sri Lanka and is due to be released shorlty in Bibliotheca Indo Buddhica Series.