Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism

Contributes to an expansion of both the history of religions and Buddhist studies fields by focusing on what is a frequently ignored aspect of religious experience: visual images. The focus is on the Buddhist visual practices surrounding the visual representation of a single, central concept, prajna, or wisdom, in medieval north India. Prajna, however, was not only an intellectual state and spiritual goal to which to aspire; rather, wisdom also becomes a quality to be visually represented and ritually responded to, and even an active presence to be venerated in much the same manner as the Buddha himself. This book explores the ways in which the production and use of artistic images involving prajna constituted a central, if not the central, component of Buddhist religious practice in medieval India.

Jacob N. Kinnard teaches at Northwestern University, Illinois.