The Culture and Art of India

About the Book

Every Indian is proud of India's art and culture. He shall wax eloquent on how it has assimilated the invader, and how they lost their own identities and became Indians. But if asked what exactly brought about this metamorphosis, he is bound to struggle for an answer; for the history he has read had enlightened him about the rise and fall of many dynasties both Indian and foreign - but kept him almost dark on their artistic and cultural achievements. Thus the catalytic agent responsible for this unusual phenomenon eluded his grasp. This book The Culture and Art of India by Radhakamal Mukerjee, answers the long felt need for a work on India's art and culture in a lucid style. It brings in perfect focus that, 'the state, politics and conquest are far less significant in India than metaphysics, religion, myth and art as factors in social integration and it is these that have welded middle, East and South-East Asia for several centuries into one spiritual community'.

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION: The Spirit of Indian Civilization

1. The Culture of the Indus
2. The Culture of the Sarasvati
3. The Mahabharata: Continent, Culture and Literature
4. The First Reformation: Ajivikism, Jainism and Buddhism
5. The Secularism and Universalism of the Maurya RenaissanceM
6. Humanism in Early Buddhist Art
7. The Tolerance and Cosmopolitanism of the Sunga Renaisssance
8. The Second Reformation: the Transformation of Buddhism into a World Religion
9. The Classic Perfection and Splendour of the Gupta Renaissance
10. Life and Learning at the Buddhist Universities
11. Buddhism as the Builder of Asian Unity
12. Colonial Culture and Art: India of the Islands
13. The Golden Age of Indian Art: From Gupta Classicism and Humanism to Medieval Romanticism and Cosmism
14. The Third Reformation: the Rise of Sankara Vedanta
15. The Tantrika Synthesis and its Triumph: From Vajra to Sahaja, from Yoga to Karuna
16. The Warlike Chivalry and Glamour of the Rajput Renaissance
17. The Fourth Reformation: the Bhakti and Sufi Movements as Bridgtes between Hinduism and Islam
18. The Eclecticism and Humanism of Mughal Culture and Art
19. The Resurgence of Hinduism
20. The Liberalism and Idealism of the Indo-British Renaissance

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TIME-CHART OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION

INDEX

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES