Depictions of children in pre-modern Indian art

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Thank you, Michael,

The images in the MS you refer to are really interesting, and grist to my
mill.  The series of images is exactly what I've been dealing with in the
Wellcome MSS, but in your NGMPP example, the drawings are simpler, not in
colour, and perhaps later (19th cent?).  And yes, hooray, the images are
clearly of children, at least in several cases.

The Mann thesis is most interesting, and I was unaware of it.

Thanks indeed!

Dominik

2010/1/25 Michael Slouber <mjslouber at berkeley.edu>

> Dear Dominik,
>
> In one Grahaśānti type Newari manuscript I have a copy of (filmed as NGMPP
> reel no. E1689/4), there do seem to be some children depicted.  You can view
> a figure <here> that is very likely to be a child, while some others are
> more ambiguous.  The lower folio shows a short and chubby figure wearing the
> protective anklets that Newars still put on their children to ward off
> harmful grahas and the like.   Several of the figures in this text appear to
> be women, perhaps pregnant women who along with their unborn are especially
> vulnerable.
>
> Richard Mann's 2003 dissertation (McMaster University) "The Early Cult of
> Skanda in North India: From Demon to Divine Son" should be of interest if
> you haven't seen it already.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Michael Slouber
> UC Berkeley, Universität Hamburg
>
>
>