Changing Forms and Cultural Identity

These contributions represent the most innovative trends in the contemporary study of Art and Archaeology of South Asia. Based on ongoing field research, each study identifies a single distinctive visual theme in order to illuminate the regional culture in interplay with a broader pan-Indian cultural heritage. Contemporary South Asian studies exploit a wide variety of methodological tools, which permit the exploration of more diverse questions. Philological, archaeological, art historical and anthropological evidence contextualize cultural artefacts in many media from terracotta figures to monumental architectural complexes. The artefacts date from the beginning of the historical up to the modern period and derive from across the Indic cultural zone from Central Asia and the Himalayas to the Subcontinent as far as South India and Bangladesh. Thus, one can appreciate the stunning diversity of regional, thematic, iconographic, and aesthetic expressions within the vast panorama of South Asian visual culture. Senior scholars from more than a dozen countries of Europe and Asia bring a sophisticated understanding of the broader issues against which their thematic studies must be considered. Each article is extensively illustrated, many images deriving from the scholars' own fieldwork, and each study concludes with a short but authoritative bibliography providing avenues for future research.