Portraiture in Early India

by Lefevre, Vincent

• ISBN13: 9789004207356
• ISBN10: 900420735X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-30
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub

Summary

In the study of Indian art prior to the Mughal period, portraiture has so far been much neglected, when its existence has not simply been denied. This book is an attempt to reassess this issue, by showing that portraits have existed in great number in early India, since probably the first artistic achievements. Through a close scrutiny of sculpted and (more rarely) painted images brought together with textual and epigraphical references, it aims at highlighting the specificities of Indian portraiture, its relationship with divine images and, consequently, at understanding the development of Indian imagery. It questions also the social and religious implications related to this issue.

Author Biography

Vincent Lefvre, Ph.d (2004) in Indian Studies, Universite Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, is curator, formerly at the Muse Guimet, Paris, and now for the Louvre Abu Dhabi project. He has published extensively on Indian art and on Sanskrit normative texts.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
List of Figures	p. xv
Plates Abbreviations	p. xxi
Introduction: Portraiture, a Problematic Issue	p. 1
Identifying Portraits	p. 23
Painted portraits	p. 23
Portraits in the round and devotional portraiture	p. 31
Life-size and free standing portraits	p. 31
Devotional portraiture	p. 35
Coins	p. 39
Double-meaning images	p. 41
Naming the image	p. 46
Viddha / Aviddha. Different Kinds of Portraits for Different Kinds of Purpose	p. 53
Some study cases	p. 53
Narasimha Ganga	p. 54
Krsnadevaraya	p. 55
Rajaraja	p. 57
Jayavarman VII	p. 58
The likeness issue: textual evidence	p. 59
Physiognomic portraits	p. 65
Portraiture and identity	p. 65
Portrait as a substitute	p. 68
The Pratimanataka or the ambiguity of likeness	p. 72
Typological portraits	p. 76
Portraiture as social and historical marker	p. 80
Portraits, Worship and Divine Images	p. 85
Portraits, commemoration and death	p. 85
Portraiture and funerary and/or dynastic temples	p. 90
The Pratimanataka	p. 90
Kusana dynastic shrines	p. 91
South Indian 'funerary' temples	p. 94
'Funerary' temples in Southeast Asia	p. 98
Divine portrait, human portrait	p. 102
Myths on the origin of images	p. 102
Divine images as portraits	p. 105
Ritual installation (pratistha) of portraits	p. 109
Portraiture and deification	p. 112
The Origin of Portraiture and the Representation of Heroes	p. 119
Portraiture in pre-and proto-historical times	p. 119
Portraiture in the Early-Historical period (Maurya-Suhga times)	p. 123
Early human figures	p. 123
Portraits or Yaksas?	p. 124
The issue: statues and the cult of Yaksas	p. 124
The debate: Yaksa or royal portrait?	p. 126
The Yaksa in ancient literature	p. 128
Back to the portrait interpretation?	p. 131
The case of Bharhut	p. 134
Portraits and the first 'divine images' at the beginning of the era (Kusana period)	p. 136
Stories on the origin of the images of Buddha and Mahavira	p. 137
The Vrsni Viras and the first representations of Krsna	p. 144
The Royal Portrait, Portrait Par Excellence?	p. 149
The king as model	p. 150
In normative treatises	p. 150
The king as visual source	p. 155
Portraiture as political instrument	p. 158
Diplomacy, propaganda and legitimization	p. 159
Historical reliefs	p. 161
Allegorical portraits	p. 164
Allegorical portraits under the Guptas	p. 164
Allegorical portraits under the Pallavas	p. 168
Portraiture and political metaphors	p. 180
Appendix: Vaikunthaperumal Temple, Kanchipuram: Iconography of the Surrounding Galleries	p. 183
Concluding Remarks	p. 189
Bibliography	p. 195
Index	p. 217
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