Indian Religious History Through its Material Culture and Iconography

Catalog description

This course offers an account of the history of Indian religions through the lens of their material cultures and privileges the self-understandings of the artisans who made religious worlds out of pigment and stone over those who mostly imagined them inside of books. We focus primarily on the periods and religious sub-cultures with the richest documentation, especially the Buddhism and Jainism in the Classical period, Saiva and Sakta monastic art patronage in early medieval Gujarat, the Western Deccan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, the overlapping Muslim and Hindu worlds of Mughal, Pahari, and Rajput Court painting, and colonial North India. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.