cover image The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India

The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India

Pratapaditya Pal. Thames & Hudson, $65 (279pp) ISBN 978-0-500-01650-3

Jainism, a major religion of India with six million adherents, emphasizes nonviolence, liberation from the cycle of rebirth, strict vegetarianism, modest living and acts of devotion. Despite the Jains' ideal of nonattachment to the physical world, their cosmographic paintings, sculptures, elegant temples, architectural reliefs and domestic shrines include works of imaginative splendor, as revealed in this wide-ranging catalogue of a traveling exhibition, which combines 229 illustrations, 88 in color, with eminently readable essays. Led by Pal, a senior curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the exhibit opened, a team of Indian, American, British and Canadian scholars describe Jain ritual and worship, retrace Jain pilgrimages since the fifth century and investigate parallels and differences between Jain and Hindu philosophies. (Jan.)