HIMALAYAN VISUAL CULTURE

Some Bronze Masterpieces of Indo Tibetan Art Inscribed in the Name of Ordained Prince N a gar a j: A Stylistic Appraisal Present paper focuses on some Buddhist bronzes bearing single line inscription on pedestal “Lha Na ga ra dza ” in old Tibetan script. The images under discussion were discovered by the author from the frontier district Kinnaur of Himachal Pradesh, India which has been referred as different territory of mNgaris skhor gsum under the name Khun nu in old Tibetan texts. Under a documentation project, conducted from 1992 to 1996, the author registered more than 800 bronze icons, mostly unpublished, This huge corpus of the cult images includes different stylistic provenance and their development, however all grouped under a common term Indo-Tibetan art style, many of them bear the names of the donors and patrons, even some records name of the artists (Singh 1994:110). In the history of Western Tibet (mNgaris), Nagaraj (988-1026 AD...

Wonder That Was Himalayan Art This paper mainly attempts to highlight the Himalayan contribution in the aesthetic expression and artistic creativity which is so enormous but unfortunately until now it has not appropriately been surmised. Throbbing with the naivety and solemnity, Himalayan Art in its medieval epoch reached the soaring heights and prompted many art styles in Central Asia and Tibet. This paper reasonably focuses western Himalayas since it occupies liaison between South Asia and the West, which has strong bearing on the material culture and art. Most of the material evidences supporting the hypothesis have been discovered by the author during his three decades long fieldwork in the remote region. Himalayan Mountains are the icon of India’s glorious entity. High aesthetic concept of Indian society is interwoven with Himalayas. Himalayas are source of naivety; austerity and spirituality from the very outset of Indian civilisation Himalayas have commanded a signifi...

Kashmiri Painting Kashmir has always been in limelight, reason may vary from time to time. In the medieval period Kashmir controlled hegemony over a vast geographical stretch in north-western Indian peninsula. Having influence on international Silk Route, Kashmir developed into more cosmopolitan culture than any other Indian. This has clear imprint on the art of Kashmir dating from the Kushan period to thirteenth and fourteenth century. Wall paintings survived in the early Buddhist temples of Ladakh and Spiti tell the tale of this fabulous artistic culture otherwise Kashmiri painting is an obscure topic of Indian art history. Nevertheless, much has been written about the ancient Kashmiri architecture and sculpture in recent times. It is true that Kashmir yields no archaeological remains of paintings nor do we know anything regarding the painting to reorganise the chronological history of painting in Kashmir. This paucity of archaeological material, of course, poses a severe lacuna in ...