The Multiple Manifestations of Hindu-Buddhist Gods | SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2018-07-18

"The Multiple Manifestations of Hindu-Buddhist Gods: Angkor and the Dynamics of Art History" was a Collaborative Workshop with Drs Ang Choulean, Eric Bourdonneau and Grégory Mikaelian  at the Centre of South East Asian Studies, SOAS University of London on 20 June 2018.
Find out more about this event at https://goo.gl/JhARoY

Eric Bourdonneau and Grégory Mikaelian's presentation at this workshop will be published in French in the forthcoming issue of Puruṣārtha: 

Bourdonneau, Eric & Mikaelian, Grégory, "L’histoire longue du devarāja: pañcaksetr et figuier à cinq branches dans l’ombre de la danse de Śiva", Paris, Éditions de l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Puruṣārtha, vol. 37, 2019.

Chair:
Ashley Thompson, Hiram W Woodward Chair in Southeast Asian Art, Department of the History of Art and Archaeology, SOAS

Respondents:
Conan Cheong, MA Candidate in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology, SOAS

Penny Edwards, Associate Professor, Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Vasudha Narayanan, Distinguished Professor, Department of Religion, University of Florida

Summary
How does art serve to sustain cultural dynamics over centuries? How is it caught, transformed and carried by forces more powerful than any given work? What has driven the staying power of Indic gods in Southeast Asian contexts? Through close consideration of particular works of art and image types, along with the evolving architectural, textual and ritual contexts in which these are embedded, this workshop will examine the work of art in long-term historical processes. If Angkor is our point of departure and return, it repeatedly propels us beyond its apparent temporal and spatial limits.

Ang Choulean, Professor of Religious Anthropology and Epigraphy at the Department of Archaeology, Royal University of Fine Arts, and Director of Yosothor Cultural Institute, Phnom Penh, is renowned for his profoundly insightful anthropological work uniquely grounded in – and shedding light on - Cambodian and broader regional historical, art historical and linguistic contexts. At SOAS he will present recent work on Yama, the God of Justice and the Afterlife, in a range of Cambodian cultural contexts.

Archaeologist Eric Bourdonneau (EFEO, Siem Reap) will join Historian Grégory Mikaelian (CNRS, Paris) to present collaborative work on Angkor’s enigmatic devarāja, heretofore firmly evidenced only in textual form. In proposing formal sculptural identification for the devarāja both in the Angkorian period and in its long wake, the research gauges the modalities of an exceptional example of cultural continuity.

Event sponsored by the SOAS Centre for Southeast Asian Studies with the generous support of the Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme, funded by the Alphawood Foundation.