Lives of Indian ImagesPrinceton University Press, 2.5.1999 - 331 sivua For many centuries, Hindus have taken it for granted that the religious images they place in temples and home shrines for purposes of worship are alive. Hindu priests bring them to life through a complex ritual "establishment" that invokes the god or goddess into material support. Priests and devotees then maintain the enlivened image as a divine person through ongoing liturgical activity: they must awaken it in the morning, bathe it, dress it, feed it, entertain it, praise it, and eventually put it to bed at night. In this linked series of case studies of Hindu religious objects, Richard Davis argues that in some sense these believers are correct: through ongoing interactions with humans, religious objects are brought to life. Davis draws largely on reader-response literary theory and anthropological approaches to the study of objects in society in order to trace the biographies of Indian religious images over many centuries. He shows that Hindu priests and worshipers are not the only ones to enliven images. Bringing with them differing religious assumptions, political agendas, and economic motivations, others may animate the very same objects as icons of sovereignty, as polytheistic "idols," as "devils," as potentially lucrative commodities, as objects of sculptural art, or as symbols for a whole range of new meanings never foreseen by the images' makers or original worshipers. |
Kirjan sisältä
Tulokset 1 - 5 kokonaismäärästä 45
... audiences , and even sometimes research their history . In the process , Indian religious objects are sometimes drawn into conflicts that have repercussions far beyond themselves . I con- sider all such shifts in mode of life as parts ...
... audiences , I have found it valuable to combine Kopy- toff's biographical method with a notion of " interpretive communities , " drawn from reader - response literary theory , particularly as formulated by Stanley Fish in two volumes of ...
... audiences . True to the reader - response spirit of reciprocal encounter , we may well speak of a second kind of frame . Just as the image or object appears in its own physical setting , viewers also bring their own frames of ...
... the object presented itself to the gaze of American museum goers with the way it would have appeared in its original temple setting to the audience of devo- tees for which it was initially intended . Using this 10 INTRODUCTION.
... audiences have given them over time . The second chapter investigates the appropriation of select religious im- ages by Indian rulers during the medieval period . In medieval India , Hindu kings regularly seized valuable objects from ...
Sisältö
Living Images | 15 |
Trophies of War | 51 |
Images Overthrown | 88 |
Visnus Miraculous Returns | 113 |
Indian Images Collected | 143 |
Reconstructions of Somanatha | 186 |
Loss and Recovery of Ritual Self | 222 |
Identities and Manifestations | 261 |
Notes | 265 |
Bibliography | 293 |
Bibliographic Appendix | 317 |
319 | |