Journal of Media Horizons

In the Shadow of the Golden Age. Art and Identity in Asia from Gandhara to the Modern Age, J. A. B. Hegewald (ed.), Berlin, 2014, pp. 115-136

Religions, 2024

Pre‑modern Indian subcontinent provides a treasure trove of art historical data in the form of stone sculptures and reliefs to study dance. While significant steps towards understanding the literary and visual language of dance have been made, artistic production from Gandhāra (the ancient region broadly covering the northwestern part of the subcontinent) largely remains absent in scholarly discussions. Ancient Gandhāra readily lends itself to a global approach as an active participant alongside the so‑called ancient Silk Roads connecting the Mediterranean regions with China. Furthermore, as part of the Buddhist pilgrimage routes, Gandhāra also developed ties with Buddhist sites located further east and participated in the spread of Buddhism to China. Within this context, this article discusses the most common dance depicted in Gandhāran art to understand how artists represented dance in the static medium. Using this dance as an illustration, this article also argues that the iconographic conventions of the Gandhāran artistic repertoire for dance are shared outside the region, notably in Kizil, which is located alongside the northern branch of the Silk Roads.

2022

The ancient Buddhist art of Gandhāra was rediscovered from the 1830s and 1840s onwards in what would become the North-West Frontier of British India. By the end of the century an abundance of sculptures had been accumulated by European soldiers and officials, which constituted the foundations for a new field of scholarship and internationally celebrated museum collections. Both then and since, the understanding of Gandhāran art has been impeded by gaps in documentation, haphazard excavation, forgery, and smuggling of antiquities. Consequently, the study of Gandhāran archaeology often involves the evaluation and piecing together of fragmentary clues. In more subtle ways, however, the modern view of Gandhāran art has been shaped by the significance accorded to it by different observers over the past century and a half. Conceived in the imperial context of the late nineteenth century as ‘Graeco-Buddhist’ art – a hybrid of Asian religion and Mediterranean artistic form – Gandhāran art has been invested with various meanings since then, both in and beyond the academic sphere. Its puzzling links to the classical world of Greece and Rome have been explained from different perspectives, informed both by evolving perceptions of the evidence and by modern circumstances. From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Classical Art Research Centre’s Gandhāra Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandhāran art.

2023

In the early centuries AD, the small region of Gandhara (centred on what is now northern Pakistan) produced an extraordinary tradition of Buddhist art which eventually had an immense influence across Asia. Mainly produced to adorn monasteries and shrines, Gandharan sculptures celebrate the Buddha himself, the stories of his life and the many sacred characters of the Buddhist cosmos. Since this imagery was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, one of its most fascinating and puzzling aspects is the extent to which it draws on the conventions of Greek and Roman art, which originated thousands of kilometres to the west. Inspired by the Gandhara Connections project at Oxford University’s Classical Art Research Centre, this book offers an introduction to Gandharan art and the mystery of its relationship with the Graeco-Roman world of the Mediterranean. It presents an accessible explanation of the ancient and modern contexts of Gandharan art, the state of scholarship on the subject, and guidance for further, in-depth study.

bouring areas) was part of the Indian subcontinent from a geographical, linguistic and religious viewpoint. Nonetheless, along with other groups in the northwestern regions, such as the Dāradas, the Bhūṭas and others, the inhabitants of Gandhāra (Gāndhāras) were commonly listed among the tribes on the fringes of Brahmanical orthodoxy, and criticised for their despicable social and religious practices. 1 To make the situation worse in critics' eyes, Gandhāra was a peripheral land crowded with foreigners, that is, 'impure people' (mlecchas). The foreigners who populated ancient Gandhāra, side by side with its native inhabitants, were Persians, greeks, Iranian groups of Central Asian origin and other more or less obscure tribes. The social and cultural interaction among all these groups, which created the conditions for one of the most remarkable cultural blossomings in ancient South Asia, is still to be properly clarified. What we know for sure is that from the late 6th century bce onwards, the period from which we have firm historical evidence, the Gandhāran area has been almost continuously ruled by foreigners. 2

This book chapter summarises the results of my MA thesis exploring the iconography and the study of the Buddhist art of Gandhara.

isara solutions, 2019

India occupies an exalted position in the realm of art of the ancient world. If greeks excelled in the portrayal of the physical charm of the human body; the Indian were unsurpassed in transmitting the spiritual contents to their plastic forms embodying the high ideal and the common beliefs of the people. Indian art & music is deeply rooted in the religion. India is the birth place of three, of the world's great religions Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism and these faiths have inspired most of our Indian art. Art & Music is very well connected to each other. Raagmala painting & music has interconnected to each other. The pictorial representation of the ragas of Indian music are essential for formulating the imaginative impulse which is responsible for transforming the notes of music into concert a forms or images. The pictorial representation of the ragas is necessary for visualizing the aesthetic or emotive essence of the ragas. In India as well other countries painting was a pin to literature and abstraction that was achieved by the painting and by music in India, there are appropriate melodies for the various seasons, there are paintings of musical modes and there are also Bramasi or seasonal lyrical poems. With their simplicity of line skillful orgnaisations of masses by mean of deep colours. Music is essentially an abstract art, allied to painting, it helps the letter to achieve a degree of a abstraction that is normal to music, directing the human soul of being, which is behind all patterns of sounds, shapes and colours. Ragmala painting shows the whole mood of Indian Classical ragas.

2023

Gandhāran Art in its Buddhist Context is the fifth set of papers from the workshops of the Classical Art Research Centre’s Gandhāra Connections project. These selected studies revolve around perhaps the most fundamental topic of all for understanding Gandhāran art: its religious contexts and meanings within ancient Buddhism. Addressing the responses of patrons and worshippers at the monasteries and shrines of Gandhāra, these papers seek to understand more about why Gandhāran art was made and what its iconographical repertoire meant to ancient viewers. The contributions from an array of international experts consider dedicatory practices in monasteries, the representation of Buddhas, and the lessons to be learned from some of the latest excavations and survey work in the region.

110th CAA (College Art Association) Annual Conference, 2022

The female figure is a persistent theme in South Asian artistic traditions from ancient times. Early Buddhist monuments of India proliferate with large-scale sensual images of women with bared breasts and ample hips. Stone sculpture produced between the 1st and the 4th centuries CE, from the Buddhist sites of Gandhāra in modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, however, abandons the overt sensuality and voluptuous monumentality of the female form. In addition to jewelled adornments, intricately sculpted drapery becomes a significant part of female iconography. In this artistic tradition, visual representations of women come to be associated with specific settings and recurrent themes. Furthermore, depictions of elaborately attired donor women become ubiquitous while visual representation of nuns remains largely absent. Little attention has been paid to the topic of women and gender in Gandhāran scholarship. Discussions on Gandhāran visual culture either remain mired in reductive discourses on 'artistic influences' or address images as mere illustrations of Buddhist texts. Through the examination of visual and material records from the region of Swat—stone relief panels, images of donor women, and inscriptions—this paper presents a preliminary exploration of the gendered visual rhetoric in Gandhāran art and its role in the construction of social ideals and gender norms in Gandhāran society.

The Geography of Gandhāran Art: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop of the Gandhāra Connections Project, University of Oxford, 22nd-23rd March, 2018

The expression of Gandharan Art, a sacred art in the service of the hagiography of the Buddha, varies according to the regions where it developed. Many grey areas still remain, in regard to dating, defining foreign and local influences, and understanding the operating mode of ancient workshops, and of the circulation of artists and models. Indeed, we can observe so many cases of diverse artistic influences, distinctive execution, and iconographic specificities, that it becomes problematic to properly apprehend and understand the evolution, exchanges, and interactions that make Gandharan art so alive and perennial. As part of this workshop dedicated to the Geography of Gandharan Art, we are going to consider the case of the modeling school of Haḍḍa in Afghanistan, first through some eloquent examples of similarities between its artistic production, and those of other sites from the region. We will then examine cases of original and unique artistic expression, in particular the creation of three-dimensional modelled representations, becoming more and more detached from their support, and characterized by a strong Hellenistic heritage. We will also present some peculiar iconographic choices and examples of painting revealing various artistic influences. Lastly, before concluding, we will explain what the examination and analysis of the whole decoration of the monastic complex of Haḍḍa teaches us regarding the evolution of the Buddhist doctrine.