Author: N S Ramaswami
Publisher: Abhinav Publications
Year: 1979
Language: English
Pages: 187
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0-7128-0131-6
Description
With 17 black and white plates, this book, the first of its kind in India, shows how the monuments it deals with were slowly recovered from obscurity, mainly in the nineteenth century. Excepting four or five, the Hindu and Buddhist monuments discussed in this book were unknown two centuries ago.
Many of the great monuments of Indian antiquity like Ajanta and Mamallapuram have had a chequered history. With a few exceptions they were forgotten in the middle Ages. It was with the arrival of the Europeans that they became known again. Many of them suffered at the hands of the Portuguese. But the British sought them out, wrote on them and gradually made the West realize that India had once had a great art.
This book shows how the monuments it deals with were slowly recovered from the obscurity, mainly in the nineteenth century. Where there are references to them in the periods before the Europeans, these too have been discussed. The aims to provide a full account as far as possible of what travelers and, in later times, archaeologists thought of the monuments.
Contents
Preface
ONE
Wonder of India
TWO
Early Notices
THREE
Mediaeval Visitors
FOUR
Intellectual Debate
FIVE
Step by Step
SIX
Elephanta
SEVEN
Ellora
EIGHT
Kanheri and Karle
NINE
Mamallapuram
TEN
Sarnath and Buddha Gaya
ELEVEN
Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda
TWELVE
Sanchi and Bharhut
THIRTEEN
Ajanta and Bagh
FOURTEEN
Nalanda
FIFTEEN
Konarak
SIXTEEN
Arikkamedu and Pumphur
Select Bibliography
Index