From approximately the third century BCE through the thirteenth century CE, the remote mountainous landscape around the glacial sources of the Ganga (Ganges) River in the Central Himalayas in northern India was transformed into a region encoded with deep meaning, one approached by millions of Hindus as a primary locus of pilgrimage.
Nachiket Chanchani's innovative study explores scores of stone edifices and steles that were erected in this landscape. Through their forms, locations, interactions with the natural environment, and sociopolitical context, these lithic ensembles evoked legendary worlds, embedded historical memories in the topography, changed the mountain range's appearance, and shifted its semiotic effect. Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains also alters our understanding of the transmission of architectural knowledge and provides new evidence of how an enduring idea of India emerged in the subcontinent.
Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/mountain-temples-and-temple-mountains
About the Author :
Nachiket Chanchani is associate professor in the Department of the History of Art and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Review :
"In this beautifully illustrated and carefully researched book, Chanchani offers an innovative breakthrough study of the religion, art, architecture, and culture of the northern Ganga River and central Himalayan area. . . . This study is as pleasurable to read as it is informative. The ideas Chanchani puts forth are provocative and will interest scholars, in various disciplines, who work on the region. Nonspecialists who are curious about the region will also appreciate this work."
"[A]n indispensable resource."
"[B]eautifully written, deeply engrossing, and insightfully interdisciplinary book."
"This delightful, well-illustrated study of Central Himalayan temple architecture and statuary marks a significant addition to the history of Uttarakhand."
"The author’s holistic approach is particularly stimulating; he does not look at temples simply as archaeological monuments inserted into an often-blurry historical context, but as symptoms of larger phenomena that he investigates, combining geographical, ecological, literary, historical, political, social, epigraphical, religious, cultural, stylistic and architectural perspectives."
"An essential text for art historians, central Himalayan scholars, or anyone interested in artifact-based research. It is carefully and incisively written, visually lush with over 100 images...and almost every chapter has a dedicated map focused on that chapter’s sites."
"Amid both environmental and health crises, Chanchani's timely work brings to light the symbolic and physical dynamics between humans and nature exemplified by the ancient worship of mountains and temples. Carefully written and researched, this book is a welcome addition to any South Asian scholar's library and would be useful reading in an advanced undergraduate or graduate class that incorporates Himalayan architecture or pilgrimage imagery."
