Hindu Art and Architecture

A well-illustrated chronological guide to the development of Hindu architecture and sculpture in many diverse regions of India. Covers shrines consecrated to Hindu cults as well as works of art that portray Hindu divinities, semidivine personalities, and mythological narratives. See Cover

Monumental Occasions: Reflections on the Eventfulness of Religious Architecture - The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture

Exploration of the nature of architecture and the role of built forms in expressing and evoking religious sensibilities, particularly (though not solely) in the context of ritual. Jones explores ways of constituting analyses of sacred architecture in terms of the always-varied apprehensions of specific communities and individuals in the context of dynamic, situational, and transient performative occasions-or what he labels "ritual-architectural events." Four sections treat, respectively, the human experience of architecture, the transformative mechanisms of architecture, the academic interpretation of architecture, and, finally, prospects and rationales for the cross-cultural comparison of specific sacred architectures. See Cover

Ajanta Caves

The ancient caves of Ajanta in western India, rediscovered by British soldiers in 1819, are the only known examples of Buddhist carvings and paintings from an epoch of extraordinary vitality. The earliest of the 31 designed caves along the Waghora River date from the second century B.C., when the first Buddhists forbade representation of the Buddha himself, leaving artists free to employ a lexicon of symbolic figures. See Cover