Art and Devotion at a Buddhist Temple in the Indian Himalaya () von Melissa R. Kerin

A study of a set of sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Gyapagpa Temple in Nako, a village in India's Himachal Pradesh state.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."e;A meticulous and discerning piece of scholarship, one that is skillful in employing multiple methods-visual, linguistic and ethnographic-to create a fuller picture of a region we knew little about. . . . [A] pleasure to read."e; -Pika Ghosh, author of Making Kantha, Making Home: Women at Work in Colonial Bengal"e;Emphasizing the visual as primary evidence in the study of history, especially religious history, Kerin moves Buddhist art from the arena of museum displays, art markets, and aesthetics to the arena of dynamic interdisciplinary discourse, thus reaffirming the significance of in situ study. . . . Recommended."e; -Choice"e;A forceful study on the specificity of Gyapagpa's painting."e; -South Asia Research/DESC>Indian art;south asian art;religious art;buddhist art;Indian history;south asian history;tibetan buddhism;buddhism;religion;indian buddhists;temple art;nako;gyapagpa;social history;political history;painting style;painting traditionART019020 ART / Asian / Indian & South AsianART035000 ART / Subjects & Themes / ReligiousHIS062000 HISTORY / Asia / South / India *REL007050 RELIGION / Buddhism / Tibetan9780253010032Patterns of War-World War IILarry H. Addington

List of Illustrations
Technical Notes

Introduction
1. Nako's Socio-Political History and Artistic Heritage
2. Forgetting to Remember: Gyapagpa Temple's Shifting Identity
3. Mapping Drigung Activity in Nako and the Western Himalaya
4. Gyapagpa's Painting Style and its Antecendents
5. Origin and Meaning of a Renascent Painting Tradition
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

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.

Melissa R. Kerin is Assistant Professor of Art History at Washington and Lee University.