A comprehensive introduction and eight essays provide fresh material as well as new interpretations of familiar symbols and images, discussing the early Buddhist narrative art of Mathura when the devotion of the Buddhists was focused on physical emblems associated with the Buddha's life. It is also a study of the interrelationship between the Buddhist art of India and Tibet, the depiction of ornaments in the Buddhist art of the Pala period (8th-11th century) in eastern India and how portraits in Tibet interpreted elements. The book ends with a stunning portfolio of photographs of Buddhist Ladakh.
