Sensuous Immortals

Few publications have ever been attempted that bring the arts of India and Southeast Asia together in so comprehensive a manner as does The Sensuous Immortals. It is well known that many of the artistic traditions of the South and Southeast Asian countries today known as Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam were inspired by ideas emanating from India over about two millennia of political flux. As political boundaries changed and ethnic stocks mixed, the Hindu and Buddhist religions migrated outward. The complex mythologies and countless deities of the Indian religions—the "sensuous immortals"—were adopted by the other Asian peoples and embodied in a wealth of sculpture. The Sensuous Immortals provides not only a rich visual fare of examples of a great variety of Indian sculptural traditions and shapes, it also reveals how those objects shaped the aesthetic works of other South and Southeast Asian religions and peoples between 200 BC and 1600 AD.

Highlighting stone and bronze pieces from a private collection, The Sensuous Immortals has 200 photographic illustrations, mostly full page, including 75 color plates. Written by Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, Senior Curator of Indian and Islamic Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the sound and readable text provides basic, comprehensive catalogue information, including identification, dating, and justification, for each of the 180 objects illustrated. The general reader will find useful Dr. Pal's introduction to the historical, art historical, religious/philosophical context of the objects. The book is conveniently organized for use by the scholar and collector, with illustrations facing explanatory texts.

The Sensuous Immortals grew out of a 1977-78 exhibition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, introducing to the public a vast private collection of Indian and Southeast Asian objects covering numerous areas and regions. Here is a wealth of new material, finely reproduced, with a useful text that will be of great interest to both general and specialist readers.