To scholars in the field, the need for an up-to-date overview of the art of South Asia has been apparent for decades. Although many regional and dynastic genres of Indic art are fairly well understood, the broad, overall representation of India's centuries of splendor has been lacking. The Art of Ancient India is the result of the authors' aim to provide such a synthesis. Noted expert Sherman E. Lee has commented: "Not since Coomaraswamy's History of Indian and Indonesian Art (1927) has there been a survey of such completeness." Indeed, this work restudies and reevaluates every frontier of ancient Indic art from its prehistoric roots up to the period of Muslim rule, from the Himalayan north to the tropical south, and from the earliest extant writings through the most modern scholarship on the subject. This dynamic survey—generously complemented with 775 illustrations, including 48 in full color and numerous architectural ground plans, and detailed maps and fine drawings, and further enhanced by its guide to Sanskrit, copious notes, extensive bibliography, and glossary of South Asian art terms—is the most comprehensive and most fully illustrated study of South Asian art available. The works and monuments included in this volume have been selected not only for their artistic merit but also in order to both provide general coverage and include transitional works that furnish the key to an all-encompassing view of the art. An outstanding portrayal of ancient India's highest intellectual and technical achievements, this volume is written for many audiences: scholars, for whom it provides an up-to-date background against which to examine their own areas of study; teachers and students of college level, for whom it supplies a complete summary of and a resource for their own deeper investigations into Indic art; and curious readers, for whom it gives a broad-based introduction to this fascinating area of world art. An immensely important contribution to the scholarship on South Asian art, this fresh and enlightening survey is surely destined to become the standard reference in the field.

The Art Of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain

Arts & Photography

John C. Huntington

Susan L. Huntington

History & Criticism

Weatherhill

Leaves From the Bodhi tree: The Art of Pala India (8th-12th Centuries) and Is International Legacy

The Dayton Art Institute

Attention to Himalayan Buddhist art has come to the forefront of art historical scholarship in recent years, especially in the areas of connoisseurship and attribution. Several major exhibitions have highlighted the artistic achievements of the Himalayan cultures, yet very few have focused primarily on the reasons for the creation of the art and its original intent. The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art attempts to fill this lacuna in the scholarship by showing that the function of Himalayan Buddhist art is to interpret and give physical form to specific Buddhist practices. 
The exhibition catalogue for The Circle of Bliss points the way to an entirely new direction for the study of the visual representations of the Chakrasamvara Tantra and other key Buddhist Tantras. The texts of the Chakrasamvara Tantra offer profound meditational techniques to practitioners to enable them to experience the increased awareness necessary for reaching the ultimate state of human perfection, or Enlightenment. Here, for the first time in Himalayan art historical scholarship, the works of art are presented in their socio-religious context, with details about how their symbolic visual language expresses the attainment of that path. The study focuses on the esoteric meditations related to Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi, which are regarded as among the principal meditational practices throughout the Himalayan Buddhist world. Long believed to be taught only to initiated disciples, the details of these meditations have gradually come into the light of modern scholarship over the last sixty years. With this increased public awareness, the authors have been allowed a unique opportunity to explain these esoteric processes without breaking any of the still-secret traditions. The book’s thematic emphasis provides a clear, well-articulated overview of the Himalayan Buddhist meditational process from its inception through its completion stages. 
The study delineates the geo-cultural development across Asia of the diverse esoteric religious practices of Himalayan Buddhism, especially the seminal contribution of the Newar Buddhist community of Nepal in the transmission and reinterpretation of the esoteric Tantric Buddhist teachings. The practices of the Newar community, in particular the Chakrasamvara teachings, are revealed as a major force in the development of Buddhism. 
Featuring approximately 160 of the aesthetically finest and most powerful masterpieces of Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian art produced over the past thirteen centuries, the catalogue includes many works published for the first time. It highlights the extraordinary artistic accomplishments of esoteric Buddhism and at the same time leads the reader to understand the intrinsic function of these exquisite works. In this in-depth contextualization of the art works, the complex world of Himalayan Buddhist art has been explicated beyond aesthetic appreciation to a germane understanding of its innermost meaning and its service in the pursuit of Enlightenment.

The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art

Dina Bangdel

Religious

Serindia Pubns

To scholars in the field, the need for an up-to-date overview of the art of South Asia has been apparent for decades. Although many regional and dynastic genres of Indic art are fairly well understood, the broad, overall representation of India s centuries of splendor has been lacking. The Art of Ancient India is the result of the author s aim to provide such a synthesis. Noted expert Sherman E. Lee has commented: Not since Coomaraswamy s History of Indian and Indonesian Art (1927) has there been a survey of such completeness. Indeed, this work restudies and reevaluates every frontier of ancient Indic art from its prehistoric roots up to the period of Muslim rule, from the Himalayan north to the tropical south, and from the earliest extant writing through the most modern scholarship on the subject. This dynamic survey-generously complemented with 775 illustrations, including 48 in full color and numerous architectural ground plans, and detailed maps and fine drawings, and further enhanced by its guide to Sanskrit, copious notes, extensive bibliography, and glossary of South Asian art terms-is the most comprehensive and most fully illustrated study of South Asian art available. The works and monuments included in this volume have been selected not only for their artistic merit but also in order to both provide general coverage and include transitional works that furnish the key to an all encompassing view of the art. An outstanding portrayal of ancient India s highest intellectual and technical achievements, this volume is written for many audiences: scholars, for whom it provides an up-to-date background against which to examine their own areas of study; teachers and students of college level, for whom it supplies a complete summary of and a resource for their own deeper investigations into Indic art; and curious readers, for whom it gives a broad-based introduction to this fascinating area of world art.

The Art Of Ancient India

Motilal Banarsidass Publishers

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Books by John C. Huntington