Spirits in Transcultural Skies: Auspicious and Protective Spirits in Artefacts and Architecture Between East and West

240 Pages·2015·16.099 MB·English

by  Niels Gutschow, Katharina Weiler (eds.)

Spirits in
Transcultural Skies
Auspicious and Protective Spirits
in Artefacts and Architecture
Between East and West
Niels Gutschow · Katharina Weiler Editors
123
Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies
on Asia and Europe in a Global Context
SeriesEditors:
MadeleineHerren
ThomasMaissen
JosephMaran
AxelMichaels
BarbaraMittler
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/8753
Niels Gutschow (cid:129) Katharina Weiler
Editors
Spirits in Transcultural Skies
Auspicious and Protective Spirits in Artefacts
and Architecture Between East and West
Editors
NielsGutschow KatharinaWeiler
CulturalandReligiousHistory ClusterofExcellence“AsiaandEurope
ofSouthAsia inaGlobalContext”
SouthAsiaInstitute KarlJaspersCentre
HeidelbergUniversity forAdvancedTransculturalStudies
Heidelberg,Germany HeidelbergUniversity
Heidelberg,Germany
ISSN2191-656X ISSN2191-6578(electronic)
ISBN978-3-319-11631-0 ISBN978-3-319-11632-7(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-11632-7
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2014956659
©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2015
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Coverillustration:Thecoverillustrationisadetailfromadrawingoftheuppermostpanelofatrefoil
centralwindowintheHindumonasticinstitutionKuthumathinBhaktapur,Nepal,whichwasestablished
˙
in1749.Thedetailshowsoneoftwogarlandbearersthatflankthewindowoftheeasternwing.The
figureisarepresentativeexampleofwingedwisdom-bearersthatcanbefoundonmostspandrelsof
windowsanddoorsintheKathmanduValleyasoftheearlyeighteenthcentury.Thefigureissurrounded
by scrolled cloud motifs in the Chinese fashion and its clothing shows how new iconographic
conventionsenteredthedepictionsofwisdom-bearersatthetime.DrawingbyAxelWeller(2009)
Printedonacid-freepaper
SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com)
Contents
Introduction
TheGoddessofVictoryinGreekandRomanArt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
KaiMichaelTo¨pfer
TheIconographyofZoroastrianAngelologyinSasanianArt
andArchitecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
ShervinFarridnejad
AngelsasAgentsofTransferBetweenHebrewOrigins,Byzantium,and
WesternEurope:MarienberginSouthTyrolasaCaseStudy. . . . . . . . 43
AngelikaKonrad-Schineller
TheDragoninTransculturalSkies:ItsCelestialAspectintheMedieval
IslamicWorld. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . 71
SaraKuehn
WingedImmortalsandHeavenlyBeingsAcrosstheEastAsian
Skies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
ChariPradel
HowCelestialSpiritsBecameWingedintheArchitecture
oftheKathmanduValley,Nepal(SixthtoNineteenthCentury). . . . . . . 125
NielsGutschow
SolomonicAngelsinaMughalSky:TheWallPaintingsoftheKalaBurj
attheLahoreFortRevisitedandTheirReceptioninLaterSouthAsian
andQajarArt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
EbbaKoch
v
vi Contents
EtherealImagery:SymbolicAttributesintheArtandArchitecture
ofIndia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
RabindraJ.Vasavada
EntangledVisualities:CelestialBeingsinEarlyTwentieth
CenturyArchitectureoftheKathmanduValleyinNepal. . . . . . . . . . . 193
KatharinaWeiler
Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
KatharinaWeiler
List of Contributors
Shervin Farridnejad is a Post-Doc research associate at the Department of
Iranian Studies of the Georg-August-Universita¨t Go¨ttingen (Germany). He has
studiedancientIranianlanguages,philology,religionsandarthistoryandreceived
hisPhDinAncient/MiddleIranianandZoroastrianStudiesfromthesameDepart-
mentin2014.InhisdissertationThelanguageofimages:Astudyoniconographic
exegesisoftheanthropomorphicdivineimagesinZoroastrianism(forthcoming),he
investigates the perception, significance and representation of Zoroastrian anthro-
pomorphicdeitiesinancientIranianreligiousimageryinlightofbothmaterialand
written sources. He is mainly working on the Pre-Islamic Iranian and Zoroastrian
religion,ritual,artandiconographyaswellasonoldandmiddleIranianphilology.
InstituteforIranianStudies,UniversityofGo¨ttingen,Go¨ttingen,Germany
Niels Gutschow graduated from the Architecture Department at Darmstadt Uni-
versityin1973,withaPhDthesisontheJapaneseCastleTown.From1978to1980,
hewasheadoftheMu¨nsterAuthorityofMonumentProtectionandbetween1980
and2000wasamemberoftheGermanNationalCommitteeforConservation.He
completedacarpenterapprenticeshipinJapan(1962/63).Since1980,hisresearch
hasbeendedicatedtothewartimeandpost-WorldWarIIhistoryofurbanplanning
inGermanyandEuropeandtourbanspaceandritualsinIndiaandNepal.Hewas
consultant for UNESCO at World Heritage Sites in Nepal (1992) and Pakistan
(1995) and was a member of a German–Japanese commission of conservation
experts between 1996 and 1999. Since 2004, he has been an honorary professor
atHeidelbergUniversity,DepartmentofIndology.
Cultural and Religious History of South Asia, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg
University,Heidelberg,Germany
Ebba Koch is a professor of Asian Art at the Institute of Art History, Vienna
University, and a senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Professor
KochwasavisitingprofessoratHarvard(2008/09),Oxford(2008),SabanciUniversity
(2003),andtheAmericanUniversityinCairo(1998),andheldanAgaKhanProgram
forIslamicArchitectureFellowshipatHarvard(2002).Since2001,shehasbeenglobal
vii
viii ListofContributors
advisortotheTajMahalConservationCollaborative,andwastheAustriandelegateto
theManagementCommitteeofCOSTAction36“NetworkofComparativeEmpires”
oftheEuropeanCommission(2005–2009).HerresearchinterestsareMughalartand
architecture, the political and symbolic meaning of art, and the artistic connections
betweentheMughals,theirneighbors,andEurope.HerpublicationsincludeMughal
Architecture(1991),MughalArtandImperialIdeology(2001),andTheCompleteTaj
Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra (2006). She has coauthored with Milo
Beach and Wheeler Thackston, King of the World: The Padshahnama: An Imperial
MughalManuscriptfromtheRoyalLibrary,WindsorCastle(1997).
DepartmentofArtHistory,UniversityofVienna,Vienna,Austria
Angelika Konrad-Schineller studied art history, archaeology, and history at the
UniversitiesofHeidelberg,Germany,andSiena,Italy.ShegraduatedfromHeidelberg
UniversitywithathesisonTheHeavenlyJerusaleminMedievalMurals.Shehasbeen
an academic assistant at the Department of European Art History at Heidelberg
University and worked as a project assistant for the Historisches Museum, in
Frankfurt.HerresearchinterestsareJerusalemanditsdepictionsinartandarchitecture,
medievalfloormosaics,andCarolingianart.
DepartmentofEuropeanArtHistory,HeidelbergUniversity,Heidelberg,Germany
DekanatderPhilosophischenFakulta¨t,MannheimUniversity,Mannheim,Germany
SaraKuehn isahistorianofIslamicartandreceivedherPhDinIslamicArtand
Archaeology, Free University of Berlin. From 1998 until present she worked as
consultant(evaluationofmuseumcollectionsandcuratorialdocumentation)inthe
context of World Heritage missions as well as other consulting activities with
regularmissionstotheMiddleEast,inparticularfortheKuwaitNationalMuseum,
Da¯ral-Atha¯ral-Isla¯miyyah(Al-Saba¯hCollection),Kuwait.Withadualbackground
ofIslamicandChinese/Japanesearthistories(BAinChineseandJapaneseArtand
Archaeology, Tokyo), combined with her museum career, she specialises in the
artistic and cultural relationshipbetween the Islamic world (with the focus on the
Turco-Iranianworld)andEastAsiainpre-moderntimesandhasconductedexten-
sivefieldworkintheseregions.Herpublicationsinclude:TheDragoninMedieval
East Christian and Islamic Art (2011), and Monsters as Bearers of Life-Giving
Powers?Trans-ReligiousMigrationsofanAncientWesternAsianSymbolism(9th
to14thCenturyAD)(2014).SheiscurrentlypreparingamonographtitledFraming
RitualVisualisationinMuslimMysticism:TheCaseofSoutheasternEurope.
L’institutd’e´tudesavance´esd’Aix-Marseille(IMe´RA),Marseille,France
ChariPradel isanassociateprofessorofarthistoryintheArtDepartmentatthe
California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, where she teaches Asian art
history.ShereceivedaBAinarthistoryfromtheUniversidadNacionalMayorde
San Marcos (Lima, Peru) and an MA and PhD in Japanese art history from the
UniversityofCaliforniaatLosAngeles(UCLA).HerresearchfocusesonJapanese
Buddhistartfromthesevenththroughthirteenthcenturies,withanemphasisonthe
adoptionandadaptationofChineseandKoreanelementsinthoseworks.
ListofContributors ix
ArtDepartment,CaliforniaStatePolytechnicUniversityatPomona,Pomona,CA,
USA
KaiMichaelTo¨pfer isaresearchassistantattheInstituteforClassicalArchaeol-
ogy at Heidelberg University. He holds a doctoral degree (Dr. Phil.) from the
University of Mainz. Besides his dissertation Signa Militaria–Die ro¨mischen
Feldzeichen in der Republik und im Prinzipat (published in 2011), he has written
anumberofarticlesabouttheRomanmilitary,visuallanguageinancientart,and
Romanimageryintheeasternprovinces.
InstituteforClassicalArchaeology,HeidelbergUniversity,Heidelberg,Germany
Rabindra Jayendralal Vasavada was a senior research fellow at the Cluster of
Excellence“AsiaandEuropeinaGlobalContext,”HeidelbergUniversity.Heisan
architect-researcher based in Ahmadabad, India, a fellow of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and life member and project consultant of
theIndianNationalTrustforArtsandCulturalHeritage(INTACH)NewDelhi.He
was a member of the National Committee on Conservation Policy formed by the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to review the ASI acts and develop new
guidelines for the future. Since 1980, he has been involved in studies of Indian
temple architecture. As of 1998,hehas been a research scholar with the German
ResearchCouncil(DFG),Bonn,workingontheOrissaresearchprojectwithNiels
Gutschow.HehasbeenaconsultantonseveralmonumentstotheASIandhasbeen
involvedindocumentingprotectedsitesatBidarandPattadakal inKarnataka.He
has been studying the historic city of Ahmadabad since 1978 and is currently
responsible for preparing the World Heritage City Nomination Dossier for the
historiccityofAhmadabad,fortheWorldHeritageConventionUNESCOinParis.
ClusterofExcellence“AsiaandEuropeinaGlobalContext,”KarlJaspersCentre
forAdvancedTransculturalStudies,HeidelbergUniversity,Heidelberg,Germany
KatharinaWeilerisanarthistorianwhostudiedattheUniversitiesofHeidelberg,
Germany,andBerne,Switzerland.ForherPhDthesis,TheNeoclassicalResidences
of the Newarsin Nepal, she did extensive research in Nepal’s recentarchitectural
history, for which she was awarded a Mary S. Slusser Research Grant by the
Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust. As a postdoctoral research fellow, she
heldseminarsattheDepartmentofEuropeanArtHistoryandsupervised“Aspects
ofAuthenticityinArchitecturalHeritageConservation,”aresearchproject(2009–
2012) under the aegis of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global
Context:ShiftingAsymmetriesinCulturalFlows”atHeidelbergUniversity.Sheis
currentlycuratorialassistantatStaatlicheKunsthalleKarlsruhe.
ClusterofExcellence“AsiaandEuropeinaGlobalContext,”KarlJaspersCentre
forAdvancedTransculturalStudies,HeidelbergUniversity,Heidelberg,Germany
StaatlicheKunsthalleKarlsruhe,Karlsruhe,Germany