This volume takes as its focus the process of seeing-to look closely, remaining true to the object, but also to see widely, from multiple subjective stances and diverse bodily engagements from walking to dreaming, from glancing to looking askance, and hypnotic stares, and to see beyond the visible.

Pika Ghosh teaches South Asian art at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, USA.

Pushkar Sohoni is Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, India.

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Preface by Monica Juneja

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: Reading Monuments and Seeing Texts: Michael W. Meister and the Opening of Eyes

PIKA GHOSH AND PUSHKAR SOHONI

PART I Seeing and Knowing

2 Region, Style, Idiom, and Ritual in History: Michael W. Meister on the Study of Jain Art

JOHN E. CORT

3 Conversations with Michael Meister

ROMILA THAPAR

4 Churning the Object: Michael W. Meister as Manthana

DARIELLE MASON

5 Reminiscence

GIEVE PATEL

PART II Style and Idiom: Classification and Complexity

6 Meister Purana in Modern Indian Art

AJAY SINHA

7 Squaring a Circle: Design and Construction in the Temple of Anwa

PUSHKAR SOHONI

PART III Formal Metamorphoses and Mutability of Meaning

8 Liberating Migrations: On the Trail of Jaina Temples in Medieval Central India

TAMARA I. SEARS

9 Paper Prasadas

NACHIKET CHANCHANI

PART IV Vernacular Craft and the Rhetoric of Re- Making

10 On Jaidev Baghel's Practice: Casting Aside the Art / Craft Divide

KATHERINE HACKER

11 Chamba and the 'Painterly' Vision

MANDAVI MEHTA

PART V Image Iconopraxis and Iconoplasty

12 Nonhuman Animals on Unlabelled Sculptures of the Bharhut Stupa Railing

CHANDREYI BASU

13 Stitching Spectacles: A Visual Culture of Bodily Prowess and Muscular Nationalism in Colonial Bengal

PIKA GHOSH

Michael W. Meister's Publications

Chakshudana (Opening the Eyes)

Index