A Tale of Two Stupas: Buddhist Artistic Heritage and the Forging of State Identities in South India
GLAS Colloquium
March 12, 2018
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Location
1050 University Hall
Address
601 S. Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60607
Calendar
Download iCal FileThis talk examines two Buddhist stupas alongside the emergence of Andhra Pradesh and Telagana, two South Indian States created in 2014 from the formerly unified Andhra Pradesh. The first stupa sits in the crumbling State Museum in Hyderabad, the new capital of Telangana. The second stupa—funded by the Telangana State Government and still under construction—reimagines the once-glorious architecture and sculpture of the largely destroyed second-century stupa at Amaravati, now within the boundaries of Andhra Pradesh. Whereas the visual culture of this region’s Buddhist past was employed in recent decades to articulate a uni ed state identity, these two stupas exemplify not only a shift in the rhetorical uses of Buddhist heritage, but also broader developments in the on-going politicization of monuments in the wake of India’s economic liberalization.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Catherine Becker, associate professor in the Department of Art History and an affiliate faculty of GLAS.
Date posted
Mar 12, 2018
Date updated
Mar 3, 2022