Publication Announcement: The Jaina Heritage

Sun Mar 27 13:22:31 UTC 2011

Dear colleagues and friends,

I am pleased to announce the publication of my edited volume on Jaina
history, art & architecture and religion in Karnataka, entitled "The Jaina
Heritage: Distinction, Decline and Resilience" (2011, ISBN
978-81-87374-67-1). A brief summary and a table of contents can be found
below.

The book has been published by Samskriti in Delhi and costs INC/Rupees 750,-
plus postage. In case of advance payment, the publishers grant a 20%
discount. Please contact the publisher, Mr. Madhumoy Sengupta directly on:
madhu_moysengupta at yahoo.co.in

Alternatively, the book can be ordered via the British distributors, NCBA UK
Limited. The contact person and address are: Dr. Probuddha Ganguly, 149,
Park Avenue, Northampton NH3 2HY, UK, Tel. 0444-208824220,
probuddha at rediffmail.com. However, when ordered from the UK, the charge per
book is £60 (inclusive of postage).

With best wishes,

Julia Hegewald

Book Summary

The Jaina Heritage: Distinction, Decline and Resilience
Julia A. B. Hegewald (ed.)

Jaina studies are expanding and increasingly gaining in international
recognition. Counterbalancing an earlier bias towards research on the
Shvetambara community and on north-western India, there are a number of
recent surveys on the Digambaras in the South. These studies, however, have
generally neglected the modern State of Karnataka. This historically and
culturally significant region, in which Jainism has played a major role,
forms the focus of the present volume. Despite its emphasis on Digambara
Jainism and on Karnataka, the book includes many references to other
religious groups striving for supremacy in the region, and to neighbouring
States in the wider area of South India.

 In addition to the novel emphases in terms of religious and regional
approach, this collection of thirteen research papers revolves around the
question of what is heritage and who defines it. The scholarly contributions
combine the latest findings from the three main disciplines of history, art
and architecture, and religious studies‹with ample citations from
literature, epigraphy, archaeology and anthropology. In their entirety they
widen our understanding of the concept of heritage and approach hitherto
neglected areas of research. Particularly important are the contributions
providing fresh evidence on political history, and the rise and subsequent
relative decline of the Jaina community in the South. Equally significant
are the investigations into neglected and so-far unknown areas of
architectural history, combined with the provision of revised
interpretations of known sites. The scholarly contributions from religious
studies emphasise the distinction and resilience of the Digambara Jainas and
outline religious change over a period stretching from the early centuries
BCE to the present day.

By introducing new areas of enquiry, identifying important signifiers of
heritage, reinterpreting earlier findings, drawing on modern South Asian
studies, and combining research findings from across a number of academic
fields in an interdisciplinary manner, this collection of specialist papers
reveals new ways of seeing and understanding the splendour and complexities
of the Jaina heritage. In doing so, it opens up a number of new questions
concerning the construction and preservation of the heritages of other
groups and regions of South Asia and the wider world as well.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Prof. Dr. Willem B. Bollée

Preface

Chapter 1:  
    Introduction: The Jaina Heritage of Southern India and Karnataka
    Julia A. B. Hegewald

Part I: History

Chapter 2:
    Elements of Jaina History in Kannada Literature
    R. V. S. Sundaram

Chapter 3: 
    History of Jainism in Karnataka: Developments from the Tenth to
    Thirteenth Centuries CE
    P. N. Narasimha Murthy

Chapter 4: 
    The Construction, Destruction and Renovation of Jaina Basadis: A
    Historical Perspective
    Shantinath Dibbad

Chapter 5: 
    Jainism in the Vijayanagara Empire: The Survival of the Religion in the
    Capital and in the Coastal Region of Karnataka
    Pius Fidelis Pinto

Part II: Art and Architecture

Chapter 6: 
    The Development of Jaina Temple Architecture in Southern Karnataka: From
    the Beginning to c. 1300 CE
    M. S. Krishna Murthy

Chapter 7:  
    The Shantinatha Basadi at Jinanathapura.
    Robert J. Del Bontà

Chapter 8: 
    Sacred Symbols, Enlightened Beings and Temple Guardians: The Display of
Holy Elements on Pillars in Jaina Temple Complexes in Karnataka
    Julia A. B. Hegewald

Chapter 9: 
    A Framework for Understanding Mudabidri Temples as Public Places
    Pratyush Shankar

Chapter 10: 
    Jaina Monuments in and around Hampi: An Art-historical Appraisal
    K. M. Suresh

Chapter 11: 
    The Stone-built Jaina Temples of Mudabidri: A Comparative View with the
Jaina Temples of Gujarat and the Wooden Temple Architecture of Kerala
    Miki Desai

Part III: Religion

Chapter 12: 
    Jaina Women, Ritual Death and the Deccan
    Aloka Parasher-Sen

Chapter 13: 
    Jaina Goddesses and their Worship in Karnataka
    Vatsala Iyengar

Chapter 14: 
    The Revival of the Digambara Muni Tradition in Karnataka during the
    Twentieth Century
    Sabine Scholz

Glossary

List of Figures

List of Plates

List of Contributors

Index

-- 
Prof. Dr. Julia A. B. Hegewald
Professor of Oriental Art History
Head of Department
Universität Bonn
Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften (IOA)
Abteilung für Asiatische und Islamische Kunstgeschichte
Adenauerallee 10
D  53113 Bonn
Germany

Email: julia.hegewald at uni-bonn.de
www.aik.uni-bonn.de
Tel. 0049-228-73 7213
Fax. 0049-228-73 4042