Art History 770: Art and Problems of Trans-Himalayas

Sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of northwest India are the focus of this innovative and richly illustrated study. Initially shaped by one set of religious beliefs, the paintings have since been reinterpreted and retraced by a later Buddhist community, subsumed within its religious framework and communal memory. Melissa Kerin traces the devotional, political, and artistic histories that have influenced the paintings' production and reception over the centuries of their use. Her interdisciplinary approach combines art historical methods with inscriptional translation, ethnographic documentation, and theoretical inquiry to understand religious images in context.

Working at the intersections of cultural anthropology, human geography, and material culture, Harris explores the social and economic transformations taking place along one trade route that winds its way across China, Nepal, Tibet, and India, and challenges previous globalization theories.

In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's conquests in the late fourth century B.C., Greek garrisons and settlements were established across Central Asia, through Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) and into India. Over the next three hundred years, these settlements evolved into multiethnic, multilingual communities as much Greek as they were indigenous. To explore the lives and identities of the inhabitants of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, Rachel Mairs marshals a variety of evidence, from archaeology, to coins, to documentary and historical texts. Looking particularly at the great city of Ai Khanoum, the only extensively excavated Hellenistic period urban site in Central Asia, Mairs explores how these ancient people lived, communicated, and understood themselves.

Through the conquests of Alexander the Great, his successors and others, Greek and Macedonian culture spread deep into Asia, with colonists settling as far away as Bactria and India. In this book, Cohen provides historical narratives, detailed references, citations, and commentaries on all the Graeco-Macedonian settlements founded (or refounded) in the East. Organized geographically, Cohen pulls together discoveries and debates from dozens of widely scattered archaeological and epigraphic projects, making a distinct contribution to ongoing questions and opening new avenues of inquiry.

This broad treatment of architecture throughout the region of the Himalaya mountains is the first book of its kind. The author has based this study on many years of research in Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Assam, and the Darjeeling area of northeast India, northern Pakistan, and Himachal Pradesh in India's northwest. These areas make up an artistic and, to some degree, a cultural unit. It is unique and definable for its design qualities as well as its use of materials.

Essays and catalogue entries investigate the cultural milieu in which the works of art - objects of devotion and ritual implements - were created. All works featured in the exhibition, about seventy percent of which have never been published or publicly exhibited, are illustrated in full color. Currently held in private and public collections in North America, Europe, and Asia, these works include temple sculptures of stone, wood, and terracotta; cast bronzes with inlaid semiprecious stones, gilding, and pigment; colorful paintings on cloth, palm leaf, paper, and wood; and ritual objects in various media.

The proceedings of the Third International SEECHAC Colloquium, held in Vienna in 2013, are devoted to the topic "Interaction in the Himalayas and Central Asia." Divided into three parts - I. Transfer and Interaction in Central Asia and Tibet; II. Translation and Adoption of Art and Architecture in the Western Himalayas; III. Patterns of Transformation in Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia and Central Asia

The first encounters between the Islamic world and Tibet took place in the course of the expansion of the Abbasid Empire in the eighth century. Military and political contacts went along with an increasing interest in the other side. Cultural exchanges and the transmission of knowledge were facilitated by a trading network, with musk constituting one of the main trading goods from the Himalayas, largely through India. From the thirteenth century onwards, the spread of the Mongol Empire from the Western borders of Europe through Central Asia to China facilitated further exchanges.

Islamic Shangri-La transports readers into the heart of the Himalayas by tracing the rise of the Tibetan Muslim (Khache) community from the early 17th century to the present. Over the past four centuries, the Tibetan Muslims advised several Dalai Lamas, contributed to Tibetan music and literature, and engaged in transregional trade with many of Tibet’s neighbors. Deftly blending contemporary media accounts and interviews with archival documents, this book brings the frustrations and hopes of Tibetan Muslims, and thus of Tibet, to life. Less a history of religion than a history of the Himalayas, the book explores the eddying currents of peoples and states generally excluded from traditional histories of Asia. Its focus on the Tibetan Muslims’ multifaceted role in Tibetan society highlights Tibet’s broader inter-Asian positioning and delves into the intertwined relationship between Tibet and Nepal, Kashmir, and other Himalayan states.

Ashild Kolas and Monika Thowsen have gathered an astounding array of data to quantify Tibetan cultural activities - involving Tibetan language, literature, visual arts, museums, performing arts, festivals, and religion. Their study is based on fieldwork and interviews conducted in the ethnic Tibetan areas surrounding the Tibetan Autonomous Region - parts of the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, and Qinghai. Aware of the ambiguous nature of information collected in restricted circumstances, they make every effort to present a complete and unbiased picture of Tibetan communities living on China's western frontiers.

Recent archaeological discoveries and scientific research especially focused on western Tibet and the western Himalayas have resulted in a remarkable redefinition of the historical and cultural processes of the entire Indo-Tibetan civilization.

Studies of specific mountain areas have almost invariably been contextualized within an integrated picture of highlands in contrast to an 'other'--the lowlands. The Himalayas are no exception. It has been long contended by anthropologists that the inhabitants of the lower Himalayas-stretching from Kashmir to eastern Nepal-share common cultural and historical traditions. Studies show that several characteristics such as inter-caste relations, marriage customs, the status accorded to women, religious practices and dietary habits, distinguish pahari people from the inhabitants of the plains. This book presents a discussion on the broad aspects in which Himalayan societies are markedly different from the adjacent lowlands of South Asia. The essays illustrate the diversity within them, emphasizing that while certain customs are broadly representative of a shared Himalayan culture, there is no single underlying rationality for the entire region.

Exhibition catalogue for The Silk Route and the Diamond Path: Esoteric Buddhist Art on the Trans-Himalayan Trade Routes, the first major exhibition of Vajrayana art from the western Himalayas.

The region of the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan plateau is known for its unique and characteristic vernacular architecture and housing culture which is slowly but surely disappearing. The first part of the book analyses 21 traditional houses in the region that respond in diverse ways to the specifics of their location and local climate. The second part presents a comparative study of the construction elements - walls, roof and façades - using photographs and hand-drawn construction details. The newly produced scale drawings provide an excellent basis for comparative review. Detailed plans, atmospheric photographs and informative texts take the reader on a journey through a fascinating building culture.

The societies in the Himalayan borderlands have undergone wide-ranging transformations, as the territorial reconfiguration of modern nation-states since the mid-twentieth century and the presently increasing trans-Himalayan movements of people, goods and capital, reshape the livelihoods of communities, pulling them into global trends of modernisation and regional discourses of national belonging. This book explores the changes to native senses of place, the conception of border - simultaneously as limitations and opportunities - and what the authors call affective boundaries.

Trans-Himalayan Buddhism is not simply a cultural spectacle across spaces north and south, east and west of the Himalayas. It is also a subject of interactive behaviour among Buddhist communities who have been dispersed over the Kunlun mountains or the Kashgar markets that have been the meeting points of pilgrims, traders, merchants, envoys, military men, artists and scholar travelers. The northern reach of Buddhism is incomprehensible without reflections on shared histories and common concerns which the book tries to focus on.