Logo

Dr. Bettina Baumer is an indologist from Austria, living and working in Varanasi since 1967. At present she is Director of Research, Alice Boner Foundation, Hon. Consultant, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, and Visiting Professor in Vienna University. Her main fields of research are Silpa.sastra of Orissa and Kashmir Saivism. She has edited 3 volumes of Kalatattvakosa, A Lexicon of Fundamental Concepts of the Indian Arts (Vol. I, 1988; Vol. II, 1992; Vol. Ill, 1996), Silparatnakosa (Delhi 1994), and is the author of several books in German, and a number of research articles.

Alice Boner (1889-1981) studied painting and sculpture, and worked as a sculptor in France and Switzerland. During the thirties, she visited India and studied Indian religious and artistic traditions. In 1962 her magnificent work on Indian art entitled Principles of Composition in Hindu Sculpture was puhlished (2nd ed. Delhi 1990). Her other important works in collaboration with Pandit S.R. Sarma include : Silpaprakasa (Brill, Leiden, 1966) and New Light on the Sun Temple (with R.P. Das, Chaukhamba, Varanasi, 1972). She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich, and in 1974 she was awarded the Padmabhushan by the President of India.

Sadasiva Rath Sarma (died in 1989) was attached to the Jagannath Temple in Puri. A master of Indian traditional arts, he has been a collaborator of Dr. Alice Boner in her work on Orissan Silpasastra. He has been the recipient of Kalakosaratnakara from the Vidvatsadas of Kamakoti Pitha and was awarded Padmashri by the Government of India for his outstanding work in the field of the religious and artistic traditions of Orissa.