UNSEEN PRESENCE THE BUDDHA AND SANCHI,MARG HARDCOVER , 1996

Located on top of a hill at Sanchi in central India is an ancient Buddhist monastery with a dynamic 1,500-year history. It has an inscribed column of the Maurya emperor Ashoka, a great stupa with magnificent sculpted toranas and a variety of monastic adjuncts and temples, some built as late as the 12th century. And animating it all is the unseen presence of the Buddha. Sanchi is indeed a microcosm of the Buddhist experience in India. Essays in this volume throw new light on varying aspects of the site, its original significance, the meaning of its donative inscriptions, ways of looking at its vibrant sculpture and architecture, as well as its importance today for new Buddhists.

Vidya Dehejia is Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Her book Discourse in Early Buddhist Art is currently in press.