On stone, storms, and seismic tremors: ecologies of representation in medieval India

Tamara Sears

doi:https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-022-00232-4

On stone, storms, and seismic tremors: ecologies of representation in medieval India

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Abstract

This essay takes the site of Ellora as a point of departure for reflecting on the ways in which medieval Indian architecture provided ample means of perceiving celestial imaginaries through terrestrial experience. It makes particular reference to engagements with monsoons and earthquakes. Both of these offered different potentialities for dramatically linking the potential for auspicious progenation with portents of devastation on worldly and cosmic scales. The simultaneous framing of real landscapes in plain view of representations of heavenly realms homologised the two, enabling the majesty of the material world to stand in for the immateriality of that which could be achieved only through soteriological fulfilment.

Original language	American English
Pages (from-to)	223-243
Number of pages	21
Journal	Postmedieval
Volume	13
Issue number	1-2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-022-00232-4
State	Published - Jun 2022
Externally published	Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cultural Studies
History
Philosophy
Literature and Literary Theory

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abstract = "This essay takes the site of Ellora as a point of departure for reflecting on the ways in which medieval Indian architecture provided ample means of perceiving celestial imaginaries through terrestrial experience. It makes particular reference to engagements with monsoons and earthquakes. Both of these offered different potentialities for dramatically linking the potential for auspicious progenation with portents of devastation on worldly and cosmic scales. The simultaneous framing of real landscapes in plain view of representations of heavenly realms homologised the two, enabling the majesty of the material world to stand in for the immateriality of that which could be achieved only through soteriological fulfilment.",

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AB - This essay takes the site of Ellora as a point of departure for reflecting on the ways in which medieval Indian architecture provided ample means of perceiving celestial imaginaries through terrestrial experience. It makes particular reference to engagements with monsoons and earthquakes. Both of these offered different potentialities for dramatically linking the potential for auspicious progenation with portents of devastation on worldly and cosmic scales. The simultaneous framing of real landscapes in plain view of representations of heavenly realms homologised the two, enabling the majesty of the material world to stand in for the immateriality of that which could be achieved only through soteriological fulfilment.

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On stone, storms, and seismic tremors: ecologies of representation in medieval India

Abstract

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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