Related Papers
Pacific World, Third Series, No. 20
Stūpa to Maṇḍala: Tracing a Buddhist Architectural Development from Kesariya to Borobudur to Tabo
2018 •
Swati Chemburkar
BUDDHIST TRADITION IN ANCIENT INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.docx
MINI T
A SHORT ANALYSIS OF BUDDHIST TRADITION IN INDIAN ARCHITECTURE
South Asian Studies 27 (2): 111-130
Monasteries, monasticism, and patronage in ancient India: Mawasa, a recently documented hilltop Buddhist complex in the Sanchi area of Madhya Pradesh
2011 •
julia shaw
Shaw, J.,2011. Monasteries, monasticism, and patronage in ancient India: Mawasa, a recently documented hilltop Buddhist complex in the Sanchi area of Madhya Pradesh, South Asian Studies 27(2);111-130. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02666030.2011.614409 ABSTRACT: This paper presents data from a recently documented hilltop Buddhist complex called Mawasa, in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh, central India, about 15 km to the east of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Sanchi. It was documented during the Sanchi Survey Project, a multi-phase exercise aimed at relating the histories of Buddhist monasticism and urbanism as represented by the sequences at Sanchi and nearby Vidisha respectively to archaeological patterns within their hinterland. The dataset at Mawasa offers a well-preserved and representative sample of many of the main architectural types found at Phase II (c. 2nd - 1st century BC) Buddhist sites in the study area. It includes a well-preserved stūpa, a carved slab with an early and unusual Brahmi donative inscription (attesting to an individual donation in the causative form), and a group of interesting platformed monasteries with well-preserved internal details. All of these provide important new insights into the nature of patronage and the history and chronology of Buddhist monasticism and monastery architecture during this early period of Buddhist propagation. Further, an enigmatic structure, the precise function of which remains unclear is located within the site. It may be a very early shrine of a hitherto unstudied form, and thus has potential relevance for the wider history of early temple architecture.
Religious Architecture: Transcending Legacy of the Himalayas
Neerja Babbar
Places make up the persona of the people who live in them. Imagery of a place imparts a sense of belonging to its habitants. The locals identify themselves with the surroundings, the structures, the landscape, the weather, the seasonal variations in the flora and fauna and the cycle of changes that they live with. Change spells growth. The changing moments are the memory makers. Memories grow from short-lived fun moments to everlasting remarkable moments of events that shape lives. Events inculcate joy, sorrow, pleasure, comedy, tragedy and such emotions into the memory consumers. Spirituality hails Moksha or detachment from the materialistic world. Civilizations come and go while defining their own era. The world changes for the betterment and the consumers tend to take it further from their memories of the past. In the race for growth, at times, they forget the ancestral values which were the reason for the success of their respective times. And as is the law of nature, life goes full circle. In the fast paced world, resources begin to get depleted and the consumers are forced to look back at the heritage for sustainable solutions. This paper is an endeavor to explore the folk traditions and solutions of the people of the NorthWest parts of India, where the most colorful and vibrant societies flourished, their attempts to live in harmony with ecosystem and their efforts to preserve nature. The research will bring forth the amalgamation of different styles of Architecture in the religious buildings of the region.
3-credit course on Himalayan Buddhist Art and Architecture offered by Sikkim Central University
3-credit course on Himalayan Buddhist Art and Architecture offered by Sikkim Central University, conducted at Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, Sikkim, India.
2018 •
Pranshu Samdarshi
This is a 3 Credit Certificate Course offered by Sikkim Central University, conducted at Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, Sikkim, India. This course is designed to give exposure the students to analyze a wide range of artistic creations of Himalayan region of India, Nepal and Tibet by illustrating the influence and integration of scholastic traditions of Buddhism. A part of the course is to study the salient features of Buddhist philosophy and its impact on Himalayan art and culture; the Buddhist ritual practices and their interconnection with visual and performing arts and, the influence of tantric mandala on the development of Buddhist architecture. The course also points to the significance of the conservation of Himalayan Buddhist heritage.
Traces of Buddhist Architecture in Gupta and post-Gupta Bengal: Evidence from Inscriptions and Literature
Qazi Mowla
Abstract: This paper discusses the development of Buddhism in Bengal during the Gupta period and their traces in architecture found during the Gupta and post-Gupta periods by considering references made in inscriptions and literature from the period To do so, religious history of the pre-Gupta, Gupta and post-Gupta periods have been reviewed in the light of the development of Buddhism in Bengal and the related regions. Most probably Bengal came in touch with Buddhism during Buddha’s lifetime (c. 563 to 483 BCE). During the time between Buddha and Asoka (ruled 269 to 232 BCE) Buddhism became firmly rooted at the heart of this region so much so that hostile attitudes of some later dynasties could not wipe it out of Bengal. Tolerant outlook of local and regional Brahmin kings during the Guptas allowed Buddhism to flourish which was further boosted in the post-Gupta period by devout followers like the emperor, Harsavardhana, Devakhadga and his son Rajabhata. They supported Buddhist practices in the Samatata area of Bengal. Further, Deva kings enormously contributed towards Buddhist monasteries. Keywords: architecture, inscriptions, literary studies, Buddhist architecture, Bengal
The Late History of Buddhist Monasticism and the Unfolding of a Multi-Religious Landscape in Central India: patterns from the Sanchi Survey Project
2021 •
julia shaw
Julia Shaw, 2021. The Late History of Buddhist Monasticism and the Unfolding of a Multi-Religious Landscape in Central India: patterns from the Sanchi Survey Project, Paper given at Conference on Monasteries in Asia: The Vihara Project. Kyoto University. 13-14 November 2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/8800082/different-perspectives-monasteries-india See summary in Vihara Project Newsletter, vol 7, March 2022 (p. 10) https://mie-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_view_main_item_detail&item_id=15064&item_no=1&page_id=13&block_id=21 ABSTRACT In this paper I outline the history and chronology of Buddhist monasteries and monasticism in Central India, based on archaeological landscape data from the Sanchi Survey Project. I will begin by discussing the distribution and morphology of monastic provisions that range from simply modified ‘natural’ rock-shelters to towering platformed monasteries, and the significance that the early appearance of courtyard-style planning has for scholarly understanding of the development of institutionalised monasticism. I will go on to present key arguments regarding associated models of governmentality (including links with water and land administration) based on the relative configuration of habitational settlements, and land and water resources in the surrounding area. The third part of the paper will focus on the later history of Buddhist monasticism and consider how the Sanchi Survey Project data relate to extant models of Buddhist decline in central and eastern India. A key argument here is that the Buddhist monastery needs to be viewed within the context of changing agrarian and economic conditions on the one hand, and changing dynamics within the broader multi-religious landscape including the proliferation of Hindu temple construction from the Gupta period onwards, on the other. I conclude by offering several suggestions for how changing perspectives on the dissolution of medieval Christian monasteries in Europe might benefit discourse on the late history of Indian Buddhism, including critiques of the traditional model of an increasingly degenerate institution whose demise was inevitable, as opposed to one whose crucial economic function and embeddedness in the local socio-economic fabric of life lent itself open to appropriation from competing forces.
RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 75/76
The Thing Itself: Images of Architecture and their Power in Early Deccan India
2021 •
Subhashini Kaligotla
How did early Buddhist communities perceive sculpted representations of the stupa – the architectural container par excellence for the relics of the faith’s founder? This essay addresses the question through a singular relief image of a stupa carved at the rock-cut monastery at Nasik in the western Deccan and dated to the first century CE. The locus of a monastic residence for monks, or vihara, sponsored by Queen Bālashri of the royal Sātavāhana family, images like this one were enlivened by the topography of the space, epigraphic programs, devotional attitudes, and their charged evocation of the canonical vessel for the Buddha’s relics. Like freestanding stupas, such images were not mere stand-ins, but were instead equated with the person of the Buddha and his powerful moral qualities.
Asian Perspectives
Ritual and Presentation in Early Buddhist Religious Architecture
2003 •
Lars Fogelin
International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture
Early Indian Buddhist Monasteries: Bhaja, Bedsa, and Karla from 200 BCE to 700 CE
2023 •
David Kulamitra Zukas
I became a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order 45 years ago. Since then, I founded a charity to fund social work in India, I co-ran the London Buddhist Centre and I co-founded the North London Buddhist Centre. I am currently the President of the North London Buddhist Centre. My academic interests are the early development of Buddhism in India and its spread out of the subcontinent. I studied the historical development of Buddhist traditions as well as the archaeology of Buddhist art and architecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies. My special interest is in the rock-cut Buddhist monasteries of Western India, since they have the best-preserved remains of early Buddhist monasticism. Of these, I chose Bhaja, Bedsa and Karla for the subject of my PhD research, because their close proximity to each other enabled me to make a detailed study of local Buddhist history from the regional physical remains. I finished this study and graduated in 2022.
