书名：Ancient India: Living Traditions / 古代印度：生生不息的传统

作者：Dr Sushma Jansari

出版：The British Museum，2025

装帧：精装，312页

语种：英语

尺寸：23*25 cm

《古代印度：生生不息的传统》——大英博物馆特展官方精装图录，带您深入探索印度的历史、艺术与信仰。这本装帧精美、内容生动的著作，以全新视角解读耆那教、佛教与印度教如何作为活态传统，在两千余年间持续塑造着人们的日常生活与艺术创造。 

透过震撼人心的图像与权威叙事，本书追溯了公元前200年至公元600年间神圣艺术的演变轨迹——从早期的自然精灵崇拜，到佛陀、耆那教主（祖師）与印度教神祇形象的首度呈现。您将了解到这些宗教图像如何逐步形成今日仍常见的象征符号、神兽坐骑与繁复细节体系。

书中更揭示这些精神理念与艺术传统如何超越印度疆域，通过雕塑、寺庙建筑与图像志等载体，在中亚、东亚与东南亚地区留下深远的文化印记。

Traces the development of Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu religious imagery in Ancient India, highlighting symbolic to human forms between 100 BCE and 600 CE.

Ancient India was a dynamic, cosmopolitan centre of creativity. The visual traditions of its major indigenous religions were closely interrelated, reflecting political power, changes in peoples’ daily lives and artistic innovation. Exported beyond the Indian subcontinent in antiquity, these three major religions – Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism – are living traditions and their devotional works of art impact on the daily life of billions of people across the world.

This major new publication traces the development of religious imagery from around 100 BCE, when it focused on the depiction of nature spirits, to 600 CE, by which time devotional images of Jain, Buddhist and Hindu deities and teachers had taken definitive shape. Moving from symbolic to human form, such imagery employed attributes, divine attendants and animal vehicles that we still recognise today and are found across the global diaspora. Examples of these ancient images are found not only across South Asia, but also in Central and Southeast Asia, China and Japan – and they transformed the religious landscape of these regions too.

The authors explore fascinating topics such as the first devotional images of the twenty-four jinas (enlightened Jain teachers); the transformation from symbolic depictions of the Buddha to those that showed him in bodily form for the first time; and the formalisation of divine representations and devotional sculpture in Hindu traditions. This beautifully illustrated book reveals the ancient roots of the images and depictions of these world religions that many will find familiar today.

1. The Nature Spirits

2. Jain art

3. Buddhist art

4. Hindu art

5. Beyond India: Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia

6. Beyond India: Central and East Asia

Afterlives

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Credits

Index