New Book Information.
About the Book
Visitors to the Valley of Kathmandu and students of Nepalese art and culture have long been impressed by the distinctive and complex art and architecture. In most cases it is the creation of the original inhabitants of the valley, the Newars. Newar craftsmen worked in Tibet and in China and were much influenced by Indian traditions. This survey is confined to the Malla period (1200-1768) but with the continuing survival of this remarkable society and culture. The book is an attempt to place Newar art in its social and cultural context rather than to describe and analyse individual Newar art works.
About the Author
Anne Vergati is a historian and a social anthropologist, directeur de recherche at National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and member of Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et Sociologie Comparative. She is a specialist of an ethnic group, the Newars, speaking a Tibetan Burman language of Kathmandu Valley.Her research between 1975 and 1989 focused on the Newar language, religious anthropology, rituals and iconography of local pantheon, Hindu and Buddhist deities.One of the main characteristic of Newar civilisation is its urban character. Her research took place in the city of Bhaktapur, a former royal capital. Her publications are about the religious and social organization of the town’s territory the distribution of Hindu and Buddhists temples, the relation between centre and periphery.In different publications on the anthropology of art, she emphasized the link between society and artistic creation, between image and ritual. Since 1990 she has started a research in West Rajasthan, on Hindu royalty, on Rajput clans and their relations with local deities, on rituals of Hindu marriage.
In 2007, she has founded with Gilles Béguin the society SEECHAC, European Society for the Study of Himalayan and Central Asian Civilisation.
Alexander William Macdonald, (1923-2018) was a well-known specialist of Tibetan Studies, a rigorous philologist and a “field worker”. He went in search of local narrative, music and drama and rituals in Nepal, Sikim and Tibet. In 1979 he was among the members who founded The International Association of Tibetan Studies whose creation took place at St.John’s College (Oxford). He had a great interest for Buddhism and he contributed at the creation of the International Association of Buddhist studies. A short biography and his activities of research were published in the Introduction of Aspects of Himalayan Research, Dev Publishers, New Delhi, 2022.
A biography was published in French, Récit de vie. Du combattant de l’armée des Indes à l’ethnologie de l’Himalaya. Société d’Ethnologie, Nanterre, 2022.
He was Directeur de Recherche at CNRS and member of Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et Sociologie Comparative.
2025, Hardcover with flaps, 28cms, xvi+183pp+14 Colour & 104 black and White Plates.
INR 3995/- (for customers in India)
USD 75 (for overseas customers)
Inclusive of expedited shipping