3rd Biennial Conference - 2015
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/11508
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item The Portrayal of Women in Gandhara Art(Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Siddiqui, K.S.The ancient Gandhara region has a diversified history. Gandhara region had experienced a noteworthy status at all times. The region has a very strong cultural and historical background since earliest times, which reputes it with the regions of great regard. Its significance was heightened with the artistic activities which were employed to serve the Buddhist faith since first century BCE to sixth century CE, known to the world by the name of “Gandhara art”. It was intended to spread the Buddhist faith through the depiction of Buddha and his life story. Besides, men and women were portrayed with great stylistic diversity in Gandhara Art. The representation of females in Gandhara art is far sophisticated as compared to the other arts of India, which obviously reflect their high and respected position in society. They were mostly depicted with their bodies covered with elegant dresses. The status of women can be studied by reviewing how women were portrayed in art. Ordinary women as well as goddesses and few mythological beings were portrayed in Gandhara art. The paper aims to investigate the various influences that women had over the society and provide information to help the understanding of this important area of art and culture. An effort will be made to examine the status of women in ancient Gandhara solely on the evidence of the art of that region rather than on the information of the literary source.Item Gandhara stupa and Alexander E. Caddy: A contextual investigation of an archaeological campaign into Swat(Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Khan, R.Indo-Pakistani archaeology has a long history in terms of the epistemological discourse of internalism and externalism. The former may be related to methodical-theoretical developments in the discipline, while the latter to the overall socio-cultural context. Gandharan archaeology of the colonial period vividly exhibits both the features right from the beginning till 1947. The present study attempts to investigate the archaeological of Alexander Caddy to swat valley in 1896. He visited the area and surveyed, photographed and dug a number of cultural heritage sites, especially Buddhist stupa. The famous Loriyan-tangai stupa is intimately linked with his name. It is to be noted that Caddy’s mission was supported by the Bengal government in order to obtain pieces of Gandhara art for the imperial collection of Calcutta Museum. He submitted his report to the government, which was published and lost. But, recently, a copy of it was recovered from the Malakand archives which is studied by Kurt Behrendt. The present study critically analyzes the work of Caddy from externalist and internalist viewpoints in order to appreciate its imperial, legal and methodical context with a special focus on Loriyan-tangai stupa.