@mastersthesis {9796,
	title = {The Buddha and the Shape of Belief: Indic Visual Jatakamalas},
	year = {2005},
	school = {Michigan},
	abstract = {This dissertation identifies and examines four visual Indic jatakamalas. Jatakas are the stories of the Buddha{\textquoteright}s previous births. The genre of jataka cycles is well established in Indic Buddhist literature. Jatakamalas---literally, garlands of jatakas---comprise a distinct category in this genre. Two of the visual jatakamalas considered are performative: these are a Sri Lankan festival evidenced in the record of Faxian{\textquoteright}s pilgrimage to South Asia (399--412 CE) and a pilgrimage route in Northwest India evidenced in Faxian and Xuanzang (629--645 CE). The dissertation also examines the monumental jatakamala on the coping of the Bharhut railing (circa 150--75 BCE) and in Ajanta{\textquoteright}s Cave 17, a Buddhist monastic residence or vihara (circa 470--500 CE). I argue that in all of these examples, mobile viewers cum pilgrims encounter the Bodhisattva and the Buddha after his nirvana as relic, stupa or image. The kinaesthetic, three-dimensional experience of the Bodhisattva as he performs one or more of his marvelous deeds is unique to visual jatakamalas.
Visual jatakas are argued to be "jatakas of encounter." This conclusion is based on an examination of passages from contemporaneous Buddhist texts that narrate these encounters and in which the Buddha authorizes images and other sacred relics as his living presence. In these encounters the viewer experiences a powerful religious emotion that takes him outside of himself and impels him into an act of devotion.
The dissertation is concerned with the differences between performative and monumental jataka cycles and their literary counterparts. It compares narratives of the same story, with special attention to the jatakamalas of Aryasura and the main hall of Ajanta{\textquoteright}s Cave 17. One difference between these is the critical role that architecture plays in the vihara as text. Also, the vihara{\textquoteright}s "decorative elements" are part of the visual text, though Indic art historical scholarship has viewed them separately. Identifying a religious performance or monument as a jatakamala implies that it coheres as a text and the coherence of each of the four visual jatakamalas is considered in the context of Indic modes and patterns of coherence.},
	keywords = {South/Southeast Asian Art},
	author = {Wood, Leela Aditi}
}
