First Year Seminar: Creating the Universe: Ritual and Science in Buddhist Art

3 units

Art in Buddhist cultures is frequently created to express well-known ideologies and fill specific, prescribed ritual and religious functions. This class will examine the science behind the creation of such artworks as a kind of ritual technology, which both determines their forms and makes them effective tools for the spread and practice of Buddhism. The course will focus on a few major conceptual areas behind Buddhist art and ritual, especially topics of cosmology and biology, including the Buddhist model of the cosmos, the cycles of life and death of various types of beings, and the construction of sacred space. By the end of the course, students will have developed an ability not just to see, but to interpret artworks in a specific cultural context, thereby gaining tools to understand a variety of other cultures and their artistic forms. The course will involve works of art from the past 2000 years of history in regions of South Asia including northern India, Nepal, and Tibet.