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Hillary Langberg (History of Art and South and Southeast Asian Studies major)
"A 'Supreme Goddess' in the Making: The Evolution of Tara in Indian Buddhist Sculpture, ca. 5-8th centuries CE"
Sponsor: Joanna Williams, History of Art
Project Description
Hillary's research will take her to the states of Maharashtra and Orissa in central India, to the ancient Buddhist sites of Kanheri, Ellora, Aurangabad, and Ratnagiri, among others, where the earliest relief sculptures of Tara remain in situ. In tracking the early evolution Tara's form, Hillary's project will examine how the goddess is increasingly incorporated into Buddhist practice in the 5th-8th centuries CE. As Tara eventually becomes the most significant female figure in Buddhism with the rise of the Vajrayana (Tantric) school, Hillary's study asks, can these works of relief sculpture - as visual texts - tell us as much as the written word about developing Vajrayana ritual technology? An examination into the origin and early evolution of Tara in Buddhist art, she hopes, will contribute to a better understanding of how and when Tantric Buddhism developed in India (and what it looked like).
Scholar's Photo
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Hillary at the Ellora caves, just seconds before asking herself: “Can we know whether or not this is Tara?" |
Scholar's Journal
6-15-09
I've been here in India for just over a week, in the western state of Maharashtra. I'm in the city of Aurangabad right now (a seven- hour train ride from Mumbai). Aurangabad is situated on the western Deccan plateau (which makes up much of central and southern India). It looks somewhat like the Southwest of the US here (lots of low mountains, red rock formations in the distance) meets tropical Hawaii (palm trees and frangipani flowers). There are also monkeys at the cave sites who mostly mind their own business unless you leave your bag unattended (I got to it in time).
Impressions: The smell of burning garbage in the morning and evening – pungent like the smell of burning leaves – women sweep it into piles by the side of the road and light it on fire. The smell of dark green wet cow dung. Cows, goats, people, and plastic bottles by the side of the roads everywhere. The call to prayer in Aurangabad every evening. In Puri, the aluminum bicycle rickshaws with “Love All” or “Love God” written in both Oriya and English on their rear sides. Puri, in beautiful, tropical Orissa, was definitely my favorite place. The countryside in the Assia Hill Region – near the Ratnagiri site – was absolutely lush, misty, green and gorgeous, even before the monsoons. The weather has been sunny and extremely HOT since I arrived. People have been mostly very friendly, kind, and helpful.
My first week here, I was able to examine art every single day - very awesome. Being in India for the first time was a life-changing experience for me: after studying its art, religions, and culture intensively for two years at Berkeley, and even prior to that on my own, this trip revealed to me what day-to-day life in India is really like. The gods are living, breathing entities - as I witnessed in the events surrounding the Jagannath car festival in Puri. And of course, nothing could prepare me for the experience of being in mid-day Mumbai traffic! Certainly, my level of comfort and privilege, as a resident of the Bay Area, is something that I cannot take for granted after witnessing the hardship of so many people living in shanties or on the street. Lastly, this firsthand understanding is invaluable in that it really did make all the difference in terms of this project: I could walk through the caves and get a sense of what the devotee's physical experience may have been like, along with the scale and three-dimensionality of these spaces.
Five sites, over four thousand photos. Traveling to India was somewhat of an experiment for me -- to test myself and discover if this was the right path of study to undertake in graduate school -- and I really feel that it is. I am so grateful to the Haas Scholars Program for making this trip and project possible for me.
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