Jain sites of Tamil Nadu [DVD]
Nalini Balbir, Karine Ladrech, N. Murugesan, K. Rameshkumar, Regards sur l'Asie du Sud no. 12, Institut Français de Pondichéry, 2018.
Language: English 400 Rs (18 €). ISBN: 978-81-8470-217-0

The Jain presence in the Tamil country has passed on a rich cultural heritage. This DVD-ROM is a pioneering attempt to document all Jain sites of Tamil Nadu through a compilation of photographs, historical text and maps, readable from a computer. It presents about 400 sites with Jain vestiges: temples, cave-temples, rock shelters, loose sculptures and inscriptions ... Studied in their artistic, historic and religious dimensions, they shed light on the uniqueness of Jainism in Tamil Nadu. The living aspects of Jain religious life (worship, festivals, etc.) are also considered. This DVD includes an extensive photographic documentation, a search engine and an interactive map.

Nalini Balbir: Professor of Indology at the University of Paris-3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle since 1988, and Professor of Middle-Indian philology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes since 2000. She is a member of the Research Unit UMR 7528 (Université Paris-3 / CNRS / EPHE / INALCO), and the editor-in-Chief of the JAINpedia project (www.jainpedia.org). Her chief research interests are Jainism, Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Theravada Buddhism, and Hindi language and literature of the 20th century.

Karine Ladrech: Maître de conférences in Indian Art and Archaeology at the University of Paris-4 Sorbonne since 2008. She is a member of CREOPS and associate member of the Research Unit UMR 7528 Mondes iranien et indien (Université Paris-3 / CNRS / EPHE / INALCO). Dr. Karine Ladrech is the author of Le crâne et le glaive. Représentations de Bhairava en Inde du Sud (VIIIe-XIIIe siècles) [The Skull and the Sword. Bhairava Images in South India (8^th-13^th centuries)]. Her primary research interests are: Iconography, Indian sculpture from the 7^th to the 13^th century, fierce deities.

N. Murugesan: Former researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP), Dr. N. Murugesan was involved in the preparation of the CD Pondicherry past and present published by the IFP in 2007 and also participated in the making of the CD-ROMs Bhairava Sahasrapratimāvaliḥ (2005) and Darasuram: architecture and iconography (2007).

K. Rameshkumar: Photographer at the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP), Mr. K. Ramesh Kumar joined the institution in 1997. He has collaborated in a number of projects conducted by the different departments of the IFP. In particular, he has been involved in projects relating to the art and history of South India, being a member of the team for the CD-ROMs Bhairava Sahasrapratimāvaliḥ (2005) and Darasuram: architecture and iconography (2007) published by the IFP.