Bhairava and the Eight Charnel Grounds: On the History of a Monumental Painting at the Jayavāgīśvarī Temple, Kathmandu (original) (raw)
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3-credit course on Himalayan Buddhist Art and Architecture offered by Sikkim Central University, 2018
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2020
The Collection of Namgyal Monastery (Mustang, Nepal) preserves two long and narrow scrolls painted on both sides, of exquisite artistic quality. This article describes and investigates the iconographic and symbolic meaning of the paintings and the use of these objects. One of the scrolls shows the Eight Auspicious Symbols and deities that personify diverse group of offerings painted in an elegant Newari style. The other scroll features an intriguing representation of the Eight Charnel Grounds in a continuous landscape. Full of delicate and charming details, it illustrates the Mahasiddhas, Guardians, Nāgas and stupa of the respective directions. The back of both scrolls has a vajra chain at the bottom and flames represented above it. The scrolls must have been used to encircle specific mandalas. Such objects are rather rare, and it is interesting to reflect on their former use, even more so as no contemporaneous objects of that type are known. The stylistic features of the paintings ...
International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2009
In 2003, the extensive renovations being made to the Åkåç Bhairav temple in the Indra Chowk neighborhood of Kathmandu's old city drew to a close. Though the temple had been renovated several times in the twentieth century, this most recent renovation was the most thorough in nearly sixty years. 1 The ultimate goal of this renovation was not simply the replacement of worn-out building materials and the updating of the temple's infrastructure, however, but the returning of the temple to a more traditional appearance. Thus, in addition to replacing rotten and termite-eaten wooden beams and windows, decrepit bricks, and dried-out mortar, and installing electricity and a new water tank for bathing, the temple's aesthetic renovation was most clearly facilitated through the removal of the variously colored glossy ceramic tiles that were added to its façade-and to the façades of many other local temples and shrines nearly a century ago-and their replacement with more traditional red bricks. 2 Upon the completion of the renovation, the Çr⁄ Åkåç Bhairavanåth Mandir J⁄r~oddhår Samiti (Åkåç Bhairavnåth Temple Renovation Committee; hereafter TRC) issued a commemorative volume of essays-a smårikå, or "remembrance"-a sort of Festschrift for the temple, which they distributed to many of the project's donors, whose names and donations fill the final forty pages of the hundred-plus page book. The text focuses on Åkåç Bhairav, the deity who sits on the second floor of this oft-visited temple and on the functional role that both the deity and the temple play in the larger community. Throughout the book, Bhairav's praises are sung in many tongues, his rituals and festivals are recalled, the renovation of his temple is described, and his unique story is narrated.
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In this essay, I intend to describe in a concise way the History of Indian Sacred Art through ages (Dravidian and Aryan period, Buddhist period, Muslim and Mughal and Rajput period, Western and Contemporary period) in order to study the main reason that leads the Eastern culture, in particular, Buddhists and Hindus to go to their Sacred Temples to experience Darshan (from Sanscrit "see God"). In this regard, I will make some philosophical considerations, emphasizing that this is also the motive that leads Western culture, namely, Christians, Muslims and Jews to go to their Temples
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Traditional Nepali paintings are religious since they are based on Hindu and Buddhist myths. Manuscript illuminations and paubhas, the examples of religious paintings, have magical and mystical contents. Characters of myths have been portrayed and mythical stories have been narrated in visual form. There are a series of changes from traditional Nepali paintings to contemporary works. In painting, secular elements are introduced through didactic visual narratives from Hitopadesha manuscript. The moral lessons are taught through animal fables. Early paubhas are fully religious but later paubhas include portraits of the donors or the persons who asked to paint the picture at the bottom of the painting. The main part of the painting is religious but the portraits are secular. In later paubhas, the figures of the donors become larger and take equal space in the painting. Gradually, the portrait became bigger than the religious figure at the end of the Malla period. From the beginning of ...