This beautiful reprint illustrates the V & A's unrivalled collection of South Asian sculpture, putting "Indian temple Sculpture" in its context as an instrument of worship intended to embody powerful religious experience. Author John Guy considers the origin, cosmological meaning and role of sculpture within the temple setting, and reveals the vivid rituals and traditions still in practice today. The book is also an absorbing introduction to the principal iconographic forms in the three traditional religions of the Indian subcontinent, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, with the principal deities presented through their myths and manifestations. John Guy is Senior Curator of South and South-East Art in the Asian Department of the V & A.0.

- A privileged visual journey through one of the most famous Indian heritage sites Situated in the northern Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, Khajuraho is renowned as much for the elegance of its architecture as for the sensuality of its sculpture. Khajuraho has become one of the unmissable sights for any traveler to India, and owes its international reputation to the lavishness of its numerous Hindu shrines. Formerly an important political and religious center, it is thought to have contained up to ninety-five temples, as the many ruins concealed under otherwise-anonymous hillocks scattered throughout the valley attest. Only twenty-five survive. The earliest mention of Khajuraho dates from the seventh century. After the collapse of the Candella kingdom, the site experienced almost four centuries of oblivion, and the once proud city-state turned into a sleepy village nestling in what had become an arid basin for several months of the year. British hunters rediscovered it quite by chance at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since then, the area has undergone several phases of restoration, as befits one of the leading sites of the world's cultural heritage. The highly unusual nature of its temple depictions has given this area a somewhat 'scandalous' reputation, unleashing, over the years, interpretations of all kinds.

Some sculptures adorning the outer walls of the temples of medieval period of India, depict bold erotic themes of sexual act or union of male and females in unusual postures. This has evoked curiosity in many lovers of art and philosophy as to why erotic sculptures were part of temple architecture. This well illustrated research work explores the intentions of such sculptural representations and derives how the highly abstract, philosophical and universal topic of taming the mind through Raja yoga and forms of tantra yoga has been translated into the very attractive figurative form and presented in temples to give information about the esoteric knowledge.

The Work Studies Basic Principles Of Ancient Indian Art And Architecture. It Deals With Hindu Thinking And Practice Of Art Including The Hindu View Of Godhead, Iconography And Iconometry And Symbols And Symbolism In Hindu Art. It Surveys Indian Art And Temple Architecture From The Ancient Times And Makes Comparative Studies Of Religious Art In India.

Through lucid visual analysis, accompanied by drawings, this book will allow readers to appreciate the concepts underlying designs that at first sight often seem bewilderingly intricate. The book will be divided into six parts that cover the history and development of the design and architecture of Indian temples.

Celestial lovers, guardian deities, gods, goddesses, semidivine and human forms bedeck the magnificient, elaborately sculpted medieval temples of northern India. This handsome catalog of an exhibition at the Asia Society in New York City explains that each temple, rich in symbolism and sacred geometry, was viewed as a microcosmic model of cosmic creation and order. Led by Desai, director of the Asia Society Galleries, and Mason of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, six scholars discuss the historical background, patterns of royal patronage, architectural placement of images and Hindu stories and hymns as keys to the cult of temple images and to the medieval worship service, "an elaborate multisensory experience." Nearly 200 color and black-and-white plates document a major architectural and sculptural legacy.