Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author DeCaroli, Robert, author

Title Image problems : the origin and development of the Buddha's image in early South Asia / Robert DeCaroli
Published Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2015]

Copies

Description 1 online resource (x, 263 pages)
Series McLellan book
Contents Acknowledgments; 1. Problems and Preconceptions; 2. Questions of Origin; 3. Image Aversion; 4. Images and Identity; 5. Historical Shifts; 6. Image Appeal; 7. Coping Strategies; 8. Final Words; Notes; Bibliography; List of Illustrations; Index
Summary "This deft and lively study by Robert DeCaroli explores the questions of how and why the earliest verifiable images of the historical Buddha were created. In so doing, DeCaroli steps away from old questions of where and when to present the history of Buddhism's relationship with figural art as an ongoing set of negotiations within the Buddhist community and in society at large. By comparing innovations in Brahmanical, Jain, and royal artistic practice, DeCaroli examines why no image of the Buddha was made until approximately five hundred years after his death and what changed in the centuries surrounding the start of the Common Era to suddenly make those images desirable and acceptable. The textual and archaeological sources reveal that figural likenesses held special importance in South Asia and were seen as having a significant amount of agency and power. Anxiety over image use extended well beyond the Buddhists, helping to explain why images of Vedic gods, Jain teachers, and political elites also are absent from the material record of the centuries BCE. DeCaroli shows how the emergence of powerful dynasties and rulers, who benefited from novel modes of visual authority, was at the root of the changes in attitude toward figural images. However, as DeCaroli demonstrates, a strain of unease with figural art persisted, even after a tradition of images of the Buddha had become established."--Publisher's description
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Gautama Buddha -- Art
SUBJECT Gautama Buddha fast
Buddha v563-v483 gnd
Subject Buddhist art and symbolism -- South Asia
RELIGION -- Comparative Religion.
ART -- Asian.
Buddhist art and symbolism
Bildliche Darstellung
Kultbild
South Asia
Südasien
Genre/Form Art
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2021692839
ISBN 9780295805795
029580579X