The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India - Softcover

Pal, Pratapaditya

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0875871720 ISBN 13: 9780875871721

Publisher: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994

Synopsis

Jainism (together with Hinduism and Buddhism) is one of the three major world religions to have emerged in India. It has been continously practised since at least the 6th century BC and currently has a following of some six million people. Over the course of two millennia the Jains have produced a diversive and vital range of art which has hitherto been little known in the West. Illustrated with examples from all ages, it provides a comprehensive introduction to the art of the Jains and an insight into the practices, principles and beliefs of the religion. In a detailed introduction Pratapaditya Pal, presents a history of Jainism and describes the different forms of art produced in each period: decorated temples and shrines; images of wood, stone and bronze; illuminated manuscripts; cloth paintings; architectural reliefs and votive tablets - all bearing their own religious significance. The volume also includes an examination of Jain ritual and philosophical thought, an account of the Jain pilgrimages, and illuminating overviews of Jain cosmological painting and manuscript illustration. It is published to accompany a travelling exhibition of Jain art which will be shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in November 1995.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Jainism, a major religion of India with six million adherents, emphasizes nonviolence, liberation from the cycle of rebirth, strict vegetarianism, modest living and acts of devotion. Despite the Jains' ideal of nonattachment to the physical world, their cosmographic paintings, sculptures, elegant temples, architectural reliefs and domestic shrines include works of imaginative splendor, as revealed in this wide-ranging catalogue of a traveling exhibition, which combines 229 illustrations, 88 in color, with eminently readable essays. Led by Pal, a senior curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the exhibit opened, a team of Indian, American, British and Canadian scholars describe Jain ritual and worship, retrace Jain pilgrimages since the fifth century and investigate parallels and differences between Jain and Hindu philosophies.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0875871720
• ISBN 13: 9780875871721
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 279