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The Powers of Art: Patronage and Indian Culture. Edited by BARBARA STOLER MILLER. Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1992. Pp. x + 338. 14 figures, 6 plates. Rs 250.
This volume results from a conference patronized by the Indian and US. governments and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. As a part of the 1985 "Festival of India in America," nineteen scholars and patrons of art presented papers subsequently published in this volume discussing the earlier power-broker patrons of the arts of music, poetry, painting, and architecture. Senior scholars gathered to present studies and new perceptions on the topic of patronage, but the work presented was for the most part a recap of work published elsewhere previously.1
The first of the four sections is titled "Collective and Personal Patronage in Ancient India." Historian Romila Thapar begins the volume with an overview of patronage, "Patronage and Community." Dana, gift-giving, is a meritorious act. Patronage by the diverse populace (community) is especially an aspect of the early Buddhist period, distinct from the monopoly of later Hindu kings patronizing temples. Ideas in this essay are elaborated by Vidya Dehejia, "Collective and Popular Buddhist Patronage," and Janice Willis, "Female Patronage in Indian Buddhism."
In her essay, " . . . Representations of Gupta Royalty in Coins and Literature," Barbara Stoler Miller compares representations of kings and deities on imperial coins of the Gupta dynasty and their inscriptions to values expressed in poems and dramas of the great Gupta-period poet Kalidasa. This may well figure as Barbara Miller's last published work.
Walter Spink's essay on patronage at Ajanta is an intimate vision of the patronage history of that Buddhist site. In one of the few illustrated essays, Devangana Desai clearly focuses on the Laksmaa temple...