Description
From the powerful god Shiva, the greatest of all yogis and the most beautiful of all beings, to the sensuous stone dancers twisting along temple walls, the body in Indian art is always richly adorned. Alankara (ornament) protects the body and makes it complete and attractive; in classical Indian culture, to be unornamented is to invite misfortune.
In The Body Adorned, Vidya Dehejia—who has dedicated her career to the study of Indian art—draws on the literature of court poets, the hymns of saints and acharyas, and verses from ancient inscriptions to illuminate premodern India’s unique treatment of the sculpted and painted form. She focuses on the coexistence of sacred and sensuous images within the common boundaries of Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu sacred spaces, brilliantly redefining Western terms like “sacred” and “secular” in relation to Indian architecture.
The volume also considers the paradox of passionate poetry, in which saints praised the sheer bodily beauty of the divine form, and non-sacred Rajput painted manuscripts, which freely inserted gods into the earthly realm of the courts. By juxtaposing visual and literary sources, Dehejia demonstrates the absolute harmony between the sacred and the profane. Her synthesis of art, literature, and cultural materials not only generates an all-inclusive picture of the period but radically revolutionizes our understanding of the cultural ethos of premodern India.
Praise for the Book:
“An important work for anyone interested in Indian art or religion… Highly recommended.”
— Choice
“The rich adornment of the human body is everywhere in Indian culture—and nowhere in Indian scholarship. Vidya Dehejia has finally addressed this deficiency with a perceptive and illuminating book sure to be of interest to students of literature no less than art history.”
— Sheldon Pollock, Columbia University
Table of Contents:
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- The Body as Leitmotif
- The Idealized Body and Ornament
- The Sensuous Within Sacred Boundaries
- To the Divine Through Beauty
- Inserting the Gods into the World of Men: Rajput Painted Manuscripts
- Afterword: The Body Revealed and Concealed: Issues of Intention and Perception
- Notes / Bibliography / Index
About the Author:
Vidya Dehejia holds the Barbara Stoler Miller Chair in Indian Art at Columbia University. She served as the chief curator, deputy director, and acting director of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. An established scholar, her extensive publications range from ancient Buddhist art to the esoteric temples of North India. Her recent books include Chola: Bronzes from South India; India Through the Lens; Devi: The Great Goddess; and Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj
The Body Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in India’s Art
By Vidya Dehejia
Book Specifications:
- Category: Art History / Religion & Spirituality
- Pages: 238 pages
- Illustrations: 74 photographs
- Dimensions: 7 x 10″ (178 x 254 mm), Hardcover (hc)
- ISBN: 978-81-89995-04-1
- Date of Publishing: 2009
- Language: English
Publisher: Mapin in association with Columbia University Press, New York
