"Few of the extant Mongolian Buddhist literary and artistic sources dating from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries have been studied. Art and Imagination sheds light on this unique tradition and on the Buddhist past of Inner Asia in general. It explores the relationships among texts, artistic images, structured imagination practices, and visual aesthetics, examining the roles of meditation and ritual in visualizing images and producing the artifacts of visual culture. Contemplative practices of imagination and visualization in ritual contexts are invariably prescriptive, whereas the depiction of Buddhist deities in works of art allows for creative freedom, and Wallace and Tsultemin investigate how the mental imagery that is invoked in contemplative and ritual practices, which requires the activation of memory and at times verbal and physical participation, are manipulated in visual art. Using the methods of religious studies and art history to analyze texts, visualization and imaginative practices, and artworks, they demonstrate that the adaptation of Tibetan Buddhism and its imagery to the Mongolian context resulted in unique textual, ritual, and artistic innovations that emerged in different social and political conditions, thus contributing to our understanding of the effects of cultural encounters through different geographical areas and historical periods"-- Provided by publisher.
This book is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary exploration of Mongolian Buddhism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, drawing on previously unexamined writings and artworks to shed new light on the intricate interrelationships that define this tradition.
In Mongolian Buddhism, texts, rituals, and images are deeply interwoven, yet they are typically studied separately. This book is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary exploration of Mongolian Buddhism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, drawing on previously unexamined writings and artworks to shed new light on the intricate interrelationships that define this tradition.
Vesna A. Wallace and Uranchimeg Tsultemin—a religious studies scholar and an art historian—combine their expertise to demonstrate how textual and visual imagery have built and maintained Mongolian Buddhist community and identity over time. They show that individual and collective acts of imagination are central to a vast range of contemplative, ritual, liturgical, and artistic practices, shaping religious and cultural experience and tradition. Wallace and Tsultemin track the transmission and development of Buddhist belief and practice through a vast range of textual and visual sources. This book also considers how Mongolian Buddhist scholars, contemplatives, and artists expressed their religious views and social concerns in response to the political events of their times. Highlighting little-known treasures of Mongolian culture and featuring extensive illustrations, Art and Imagination develops pioneering insights into Mongolian Buddhist texts, objects, and practices.
