Despite an impressive body of distinguished scholarship on the history of esoteric Buddhism in India, it is only sketchily understood. The author assembles hundreds of works of art, analyzing them formally and stylistically, to determine the chronology of their iconographic themes. This group of art objects is comprised mainly of sculpture surviving from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries at widely scattered sites throughout eastern India, Europe and America. Collectively, the group provides a continuous historical record of the evolution of esoteric Buddhist belief and practice - a record that supplements and often challenges the conclusions of exclusively textual histories.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Robert N. Linrothe is Assistant Professor of Art History at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book on an obscure subject,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ruthless Compassion (Hardcover)
Rob Linrothe has written a superb book on the evolution of Wrathful Deities in India and Tibet. Photos taken by the author and excellent explanations show us in exquisite detail how this form of art developed over the centuries. A wonderful book for those looking to understand Esoteric Buddhism!
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Resource,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ruthless Compassion (Hardcover)
Rob Linrothe's book is a must-have for any interested student of Esoteric Buddhism. It combines the author's knowledge of the religious texts with art historical analysis and provides a wonderful survey on the development of wrathful Buddhist deities from secondary attendant figures to objects of worship in their own right.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ruthless Compassion,
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This review is from: Ruthless Compassion (Hardcover)
Linrothe isolates the wrathful deities as an especially revealing ideological marker in the development of esoteric Buddhism. He identifies three distinct phases according to subsidiary, complementary, and central importance of wrathful deities in images made for and by practitioners. In a few cases South Asian images are cross-referenced with comparable examples from the western Himalaya, Tibet, and China, and Sanskrit and Tibetan texts are joined by select Chinese translations to stage a mutually informative dialogue between text and image.
Ruthless Compassion offers a visual history of esoteric Buddhism centered on the changing representations of the wrathful deity. Its examination of a resource too long neglected by historians of religion and art alike makes Ruthless Compassion a uniquely valuable contribution to the field of Buddhist studies.
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