Sri Lakshmi in Indian Art and Thought (An Old and Rare Book)

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Dr. C. Sivaramamurti's "Sri Lakshmi in Indian Art and Thought" represents a work of multi-faceted erudition. Steeped in the traditions of Sanskrit Culture, its literature, its myths, its articulated aesthetic theories, its philosophical underpinnings, Dr. Sivaramamurti is uniquely suited to the task so necessary for our fragmented times, the task of articulating the spirit which permeates our historical past. Dre Sivaramamurti's theme in the present work is Sri Lakshmi the symbol of nurturing intelligence, of abundance and creativity. He illustrates this theme through a diverse literary sources which include the Rigveda (p. 12, 15), the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa (p.4) and Meghaduta (p.22), Shankaracharya (p. 1&2), the Puranas-to mention only a few of his sources. These literary references are held together by the iconographic details of the visual material. Setting up resonances between literary and visual material enriches our understanding of both the literary and the visual, leaving us with a sense of wholeness.

Dr. Sivaramamurti brings an extremely rich vocabulary to his subject-a vocabulary which few modern scholars can even hope to emulate. A scholar described Dr. Sivaramamurti as an ocean of learning. The deeper you delve, the more precious the treasures that emerge.

Invited by the University of Madras to deliver the Lakshman Mahadev Chitale Endowment Lectures on Indian Art and Architecture, I chose the theme Sri Lakshmi in Indian Art and Thought and delivered the lectures in January 1981. With the kind approval of the Madras University the lectures are now published as a book with suitable illustrations to elucidate this important theme. I am thankful to the University for their kind accord to my request and the publisher Shri Jayant Baxi for expediting the publication with due attention to the standard of production and pleasing get up. I am beholden to the various institutions that have readily supplied photographs for the illustrations accompanying the book like the Archaeological Survey of India, the National Museum, the Madras Government Museum, the State Museum Lucknow, the Museum of Archaeology, Mathura, the State Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh, the Indian Museum, Calcutta, the Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi, Panjab Museum, Patiala, the Departments of Archaeology of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, the Deccan College of Post Graduate Research, Pune, the American Institute of Indian Studies, Varanasi, the Cleveland Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, London, the Musee Guimet, Paris, the Colombo Museum, Sri Lanka, and the Rijks Museum voor Volkenkund, Leiden. The index was prepared with special care by Shri Gurcharan Singh Bagga to whom I offer my best thanks. Shri R. Sarangan and Shri Jivan Adalja have my best thanks for preparing the design for the jacket. For very kindly writing the Foreword to this book I cannot adequately thank Shrimati Pupul Jayakar. I am sure the theme of the Lady of Auspiciousness and Prosperity and the Eternal Mother as Source of Life will evoke the interest in readers that it deserves.

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