Thursday, June 5, 2025, saw the presentation of an insightful talk, “Visualising Rituals in Gandhara” by Dr. Ashwini Lakshminarayanan, which inaugurated The Gandhāra Corpora Project Lecture Series organized by GCBS’s Prof. Charles DiSimone.
In her lecture, Dr. Lakshminarayanan presented her ongoing research on Gandharan Buddhist imagery, highlighting a shift in scholarly focus from purely art historical approaches—such as examining Greco-Roman influences—to exploring the social context of these artifacts. Central to her work is the GRAVE (Gandharan Relic rituals And Veneration Explored) database, which she built using the software Tropy, which allows her to tag images and conduct statistical analysis. Her current research centers on the pedestals of statues, particularly those depicting donors. By examining kinship ties and the monastic or lay status of these figures, she revealed patterns in donor representation. Noting generic stylistic features and occasional discrepancies between inscriptions and images, she proposed that the images were likely produced in advance, with inscriptions added later by those wishing to dedicate them. The lecture concluded with a lively discussion on topics such as the relationship between pedestals and the main image, the depiction of fire offering rituals, and the broader ritual functions of pedestal scenes.
