Books in the Archaeology and Religion in South Asia series

Patterns of ritual power, presence, and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the societal and political power structures in which they are enacted.

This book explains how the early historic archaeological record of Punjab was put to use in the process of identity formation in the colonial and postcolonial periods. It focuses on the archaeological material with an eye towards how it was shaped by ancient identities.

This book draws on research by archaeologists, numismatists and historians on the social and cultural construction of landscapes in India. It deals with the perception, use and representation of the landscape as an essential dimension of life in the early medieval period.

This book explores the ways in which past cultures have been used to shape colonial and postcolonial cultural identities. It provides a theoretical framework to understand these processes, and offers illustrative case studies in which the agency of ancient peoples, rather than the desires of antiquarians and archaeologists, is brought to the fore.

This volume focuses on the religious shrine in western India as an institution of cultural integration in the period spanning 200 BCE to 800 CE. It presents an analysis of religious architecture at multiple levels, both temporal and spatial, and distinguishes it as a ritual instrument that integrates individuals and communities into a cultural fabric. The work shows how these structures emphasise on communication with a host of audiences such as the lay worshipper, the ritual specialist, the royalty and the elite as well as the artisan and the sculptor. It also examines religious imagery, inscriptions, traditional lore and Sanskrit literature. The book will be of special interest to researchers and scholars of ancient Indian history, Hinduism, religious studies, architecture and South Asian studies.

This book re-examines the archaeological material excavated in the region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and traces the link between archaeological work, histories of museum collections and related interpretations by art historians. The essays in the volume underscore the diverse cultural traditions of Gandhara as well as interrogate the grand narrative of Hellenism of which Gandhara has been a part. The book explores the making of collections of what came to be described as Gandhara art and reviews the Buddhist artistic tradition through notions of mobility and dynamic networks of transmission.

This volume breaks new ground by conceptualizing landscape as a dynamic cultural complex in which the natural world and human practice are inextricably linked and are constantly interacting. The work will be especially useful to scholars and researchers of archaeology, social history, art history and anthropology.