The murals in Cave 31 at Kizilgaha (Kucha region) depict a previously unknown combination of Zodiac signs and associated deities, likely representing the nakṣatras (lunar mansions). This integrated astral scheme – comprising 27 figures alongside 12 Brahmin ascetics – is unique to Kucha and as it can be tentatively dated to the 8th–9th century, it possibly makes one of the earliest surviving examples of this iconography. Several features of the cave, including donor representations, are without parallel in Kucha and suggest either a distinct, possibly Mahāyāna or Tantric interpretive framework, or influences from other regions. The material is therefore particularly valuable for comparison with other Central Asian zodiac representations in order to clarify patterns of transmission and local adaptation.
Blue pigments, scarcer and more expensive than many other colours in antiquity, have played an important role in global art history. In this research, I examine how the colour blue, confirmed to be lapis lazuli, was used in the wall paintings of the Buddhist caves at Ajanta. Blue is completely absent in the paintings of the 1st century BCE. Among the paintings of the 5th century CE, it was sparingly used for small details in the centrally located caves (Caves XVI and XVII), while applied in larger amounts in the peripheral caves of Ajanta (Caves I, II and XXVI). In order to explain the sudden appearance of lapis lazuli in the Ajanta paintings, historical aspects, such as trade routes and political change, are also considered in this paper.
It has long been recognised that the pedestals of Buddha and Bodhisattva statues from the ancient region of Gandhāra depict, to some extent, scenes that echo ritual practices that were normative for the region. While they have been the focus of assessments in recent years, this paper presents some of the results of an ongoing systematic analysis of 326 statue pedestals within the wider context of Gāndhārī donative inscriptions and Chinese travelogues. Dating broadly from the second century CE onwards, this paper argues that the pedestals were a new venue to visually reinforce ritual efficacy and normative practices. The paper sheds light on the conventions used on this visual frame and the actions of figures represented within them. By doing so, it demonstrates that the image corpus reflects patterns in the epigraphic corpus that lays emphasis on the individual as well as communal ritual practices of donors with both familial and non-kinship networks.
The paper focusses on the analysis of selected samples from sarga XX of the Āṅgalasāmrājya, a mahākāvya composed by A. R. Rājarājavarma in 1897. These portions are centred on a description of the first passenger train introduced in India in 1853, during the regency of Lord Dalhousie (1812–1860). These eight stanzas of the Āṅgalasāmrājya, apart from appearing to be the first testimony in Sanskrit literature to reference a train, seem to be particularly relevant on account of their natural imagery, which interacts at different levels with the poetic depiction of modernity and technology offered in the mahākāvya.
The paper is an attempt to analyse the ironical language of selected philosophical works by Nārāyaṇa Guru – the mystic and social reformer from Kerala. As a follower of the tradition of Tamil Siddhas, based on the idea of liberative grace of the Lord, Nārāyaṇa Guru applies the same conceptual patterns in his poems. In order to promote the politics of social transformation, Nārāyaṇa Guru does not hesitate to introduce a highly sophisticated ironical language, which allows him to shift the sphere of esoteric mysticism and place emphasis on the realm of “social” mysticism, while claiming firmly that the process of Self-realisation should be aimed at the whole of society.
