Tejas. Eternal Energy: 1500 Years of Indian Art (Mercatorfonds) - Hardcover

Sacred Art in India from the last half-millennium BCE well into the first millennium CE is unexpectedly dynamic. This, largely, is the theme of Tejas.
In the process of imaging the creative Energy of the universe - 'Tejas' in Sanskrit - an evolving visual language of plant, animal and human symbols emerges ,which leads to multiple definitions of the divine. This is the focus of Tejas. Eternal Energy. 1500 Years of Indian Art.
The book opens on motifs and symbols of water cosmology, the old gods and the avataras. It moves into the making of shrines and temples, their underlying symbology, and the making community. The many meanings of Tejas further reflect in the images of Jainism, Buddhism, Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and ultimately of Surya, the sun.
Tejas. Eternal Energy. 1500 Years of Indian Art reconstitutes this epic narrative, in particular through the development of sculpture in bronze, stone and terracotta from the 3rd century BCE to the 12th century CE. The book is illustrated with an extraordinary selection of nearly two hundred of the most beautiful sculptures from the collections of Indian Museums and sites of the Archaeological Survey of India.
This book is published to accompany the exhibition Tejas. Eternal Energy. 1500 Years of Indian Art in the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (31 October 2006 - 21 January 2007), curated by Ranesh Ray and Jan Van Alphen.