The research of the folklore genre of charms became extremely dynamic around the turn of the millennium. A number of academic disciplines allied themselves to explore manuscripts healing texts and other textual relics of verbal magic from antiquity and the middle ages. Studying this corpus has shed light on a number of previously unexplored aspects of Eurasian cultures. The authors of the twelve essays in the book; covering a wide geographical and thematic range; include representatives of European ethnology and folklore studies; contemporary and historical anthropology; as well as linguistics; the study of Classical Antiquity; mediaeval studies; Byzantine studies; Russian and Baltic studies. The essays reflect the rich textual tradition of archives; monasteries and literary sources; as well as the texts amassed in the folklore archives or those still accessible through field work in many rural areas of Europe and known from the living practice of lay specialists of magic and healers in local communities; and even of priests.
#1045836 in Books 2015-02-15Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 11.00 x 1.10 x 11.00l; 4.90 #File Name: 3777423262308 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. the best most interesting work i have seen for a long ...By susanmeyersthe best most interesting work i have seen for a long time. i am using the colors in a new house and it looks fabulous.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. the bestBy CahcapSo beautiful and inspiring. Unique; distinctive amongst other books of this sort; and top rate quality throughout4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Absolutely essential for anyone who loves artBy Robert C RossIt is very unusual to see a book reviewed by the author on ; but for this extraordinary book; bravo to Peter van Ham. He has devoted a great portion of his life to this incredible place; and the book is a valiant effort to communicate to all of us the wonders within. Read his Review; buy the book; rejoice!Sudhana's path to understanding appears as the final part of Sanskrit Ga''a-vyûha; see The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra or Manifestation of the Tathagata: Buddahood According to the Avatamsaka Sutra.Scholars debate what the title means: vyûha is something like an arrangement; a map of the universe; ga''a means;among other things; a rhinoceros; a mark or spot; a stalk; or a bubble. Perhaps "the cosmos seen as a bubble"?All of Sudhana's story appears in a sequence of painted murals in the Du-khang or Assembly Hall within the main shrine in the monastery of Tabo; in the Spiti Valley in northern India close to China. The Tabo paintings were completed in the mid-eleventh century; and have been well studied over the past 50 years or so.Peter van Ham; an authority on early Indo-Tibetan art; has produced this wonderful photographic record of the Tabo masterpiece; see the first Comment for links to some of the images on the Internet. This collection on paper; however; brings out many details that one cannot appreciate in pixel form; at least to my taste.David Shulman in the "New York Review of Books" describes the paintings: "The painted panels in Tabo vary greatly in the elegance of their designs and in their execution; some of the figures are almost primitive; others--particularly the Bodhisattva panels--of a breathtaking complexity and finesse. All of them; however; seem to reveal to our eyes not merely the concrete phenomena (persons; deities; trees; animals) that we can identify by name but something of that empty spaciousness that has generated them. Especially powerful in this respect is the palette of colors the artists have used: the strangely muted yet radiant reds and ochres; the blues or pale black that often serve as background; filling the interstices of the panels and shading off into a shimmering golden green when yellow is mixed in. There is also a lively; granular; sometimes eerie white or beige infiltrating the inner surfaces of the figures and the burgeoning landscapes through which they move. It is also important to see the major panels; such as what is left of the large-scale depiction of Sudhana's entry into Maitreya's tower; as artistic wholes; teeming with the living creatures that inhabit these visionary inscapes."(Another fine collection of images on paper can be found in Tabo: A Lamp for the Kingdom.]Find some of the images online; enjoy them; but rest assured seeing them on paper will amaze you.Robert C. RossFebruary 2015revised March 2015
