Buddha in Gandhara


Book Description

Buddha in Gandhara is the saga of ancient Buddhist cities of Gandhara--a region that extended from north-western Pakistan to eastern and north-eastern Afghanistan. It tells stories of cities that once dotted the highroad connecting India with Central Asia and China. It traces the network of Asian trade routes that nourished these cities with goods, people and ideas. It also trains the spotlight on the magnificent art of Gandhara that still clings to the ruins of these heritage cities and also those that are showcased in the museums of Asia and Europe.--Amazon.com.




Buddhism and Gandhara


Book Description

Gandhara is a name central to Buddhist heritage and iconography. It is the ancient name of a region in present-day Pakistan, bounded on the west by the Hindu Kush mountain range and to the north by the foothills of the Himalayas. ‘Gandhara’ is also the term given to this region’s sculptural and architectural features between the first and sixth centuries CE. This book re-examines the archaeological material excavated in the region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and traces the link between archaeological work, histories of museum collections and related interpretations by art historians. The essays in the volume underscore the diverse cultural traditions of Gandhara – from a variety of sources and perspectives on language, ethnicity and material culture (including classical accounts, Chinese writings, coins and Sanskrit epics) – as well as interrogate the grand narrative of Hellenism of which Gandhara has been a part. The book explores the making of collections of what came to be described as Gandhara art and reviews the Buddhist artistic tradition through notions of mobility and dynamic networks of transmission. Wide ranging and rigorous, this volume will appeal to scholars and researchers of early South Asian history, archaeology, religion (especially Buddhist studies), art history and museums.







The Geography of Gandhāran Art


Book Description

Gandhāran art is usually regarded as a single phenomenon – a unified regional artistic tradition or 'school'. Indeed it has distinctive visual characteristics, materials, and functions, and is characterized by its extensive borrowings from the Graeco-Roman world. Yet this tradition is also highly varied. Even the superficial homogeneity of Gandhāran sculpture, which constitutes the bulk of documented artistic material from this region in the early centuries AD, belies a considerable range of styles, technical approaches, iconographic choices, and levels of artistic skill. The geographical variations in Gandhāran art have received less attention than they deserve. Many surviving Gandhāran artefacts are unprovenanced and the difficulty of tracing substantial assemblages of sculpture to particular sites has obscured the fine-grained picture of its artistic geography. Well documented modern excavations at particular sites and areas, such as the projects of the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Swat Valley, have demonstrated the value of looking at sculptures in context and considering distinctive aspects of their production, use, and reuse within a specific locality. However, insights of this kind have been harder to gain for other areas, including the Gandhāran heartland of the Peshawar basin. Even where large collections of artworks can be related to individual sites, the exercise of comparing material within and between these places is still at an early stage. The relationship between the Gandhāran artists or 'workshops', particular stone sources, and specific sites is still unclear. Addressing these and other questions, this second volume of the Gandhara Connections project at Oxford University’s Classical Art Research Centre presents the proceedings of a workshop held in March 2018. Its aim is to pick apart the regional geography of Gandhāran art, presenting new discoveries at particular sites, textual evidence, and the challenges and opportunities of exploring Gandhāra’s artistic geography.







Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara


Book Description

Discover the fascinating history of a long-hidden Buddhist culture at a historic crossroads. In the years following Alexander the Great’s conquest of the East, a series of empires rose up along the Silk Road. In what is now northern Pakistan, the civilizations in the region called Gandhara became increasingly important centers for the development of Buddhism, reaching their apex under King Kaniska of the Kusanas in the second century CE. Gandhara has long been known for its Greek-Indian synthesis in architecture and statuary, but until about twenty years ago, almost nothing was known about its literature. The insights provided by manuscripts unearthed over the last few decades show that Gandhara was indeed a vital link in the early development of Buddhism, instrumental in both the transmission of Buddhism to China and the rise of the Mahayana tradition. The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara surveys what we know about Gandhara and its Buddhism, and it also provides translations of a dozen different short texts, from similes and stories to treatises on time and reality.




Gandharan Buddhism


Book Description

The ancient region of Gandhara, with its prominent Buddhist heritage, has long fascinated scholars of art history, archaeology, and textual studies. Discoveries of inscriptions, text fragments, sites, and artworks in the last decade have added new pieces to the Gandharan puzzle, redefining how we understand the region and its cultural complexity. The essays in this volume reassess Gandharan Buddhism in light of these findings, utilizing a multidisciplinary approach that illuminates the complex historical and cultural dynamics of the region. By integrating archaeology, art history, numismatics, epigraphy, and textual sources, the contributors articulate the nature of Gandharan Buddhism and its practices, along with the significance of the relic tradition. Contributions by several giants in the field, including Shoshin Kuwayama, John Rosenfield, and the late Maurizio Taddei, set the geographical, historical, and archaeological parameters for the collection. The result is a productive interdisciplinary conversation on the enigmatic nature of Gandharan Buddhism that joins together a number of significant pieces in a complex cultural mosaic. It will appeal to a large and diverse readership, including those interested in the early Buddhist religious tradition of Asia and its art, as well as specialists in the study of South and Central Asian Buddhist art, archaeology, and texts. A Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Religion.




Buddhist Gandhara


Book Description




The Global Connections of Gandhāran Art


Book Description

Gandhāran art is often regarded as the epitome of cultural exchange in antiquity. The ancient region of Gandhāra, centred on what is now the northern tip of Pakistan, has been called the ‘crossroads of Asia’. The Buddhist art produced in and around this area in the first few centuries AD exhibits extraordinary connections with other traditions across Asia and as far as the Mediterranean. Since the nineteenth century, the Graeco-Roman associations of Gandhāran art have attracted particular attention. Classically educated soldiers and administrators of that era were astonished by the uncanny resemblance of many works of Gandhāran sculpture to Greek and Roman art made thousands of miles to the west. More than a century later we can recognize that the Gandhāran artists’ appropriation of classical iconography and styles was diverse and extensive, but the explanation of this ‘influence’ remains puzzling and elusive. The Gandhāra Connections project at the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre was initiated principally to cast new light on this old problem. This volume is the third set of proceedings of the project’s annual workshop, and the first to address directly the question of cross-cultural influence on and by Gandhāran art. The contributors wrestle with old controversies, particularly the notion that Gandhāran art is a legacy of Hellenistic Greek rule in Central Asia and the growing consensus around the important role of the Roman Empire in shaping it. But they also seek to present a more complex and expansive view of the networks in which Gandhāra was embedded. Adopting a global perspective on the subject, they examine aspects of Gandhāra’s connections both within and beyond South Asia and Central Asia, including the profound influence which Gandhāran art itself had on the development of Buddhist art in China and India.