Narrative sculptures from the Buddhist stūpas of Andhra Pradesh are amongst the most exquisite stone carvings in ancient India. They are rich in quality and in quantity, yet are under-published. The works from Amaravati are the best known; those from Nagarjunakonda and other sites, less so. Thus, we welcome Catherine Becker's book Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past: Sculpture from the Buddhist Stūpas of Andhra Pradesh. It is a book which has multiple functions. On the one hand it analyzes the ancient sculptures in light of modern interpretations of them; on the other hand it discusses modern sculptures and architecture, which have been created by those who wish to interpret the past through them. The goal of the new monuments, as well as the ancient one, is to give Andhra the aura of having a strong Buddhist heritage, despite the fact that the Buddha never lived in that region. This is not a traditional book as can be seen in the Introduction and five chapters: 1. “Keeping the Faith: Andhra Stūpas as Sites of Transformation”; 2. “Seeing Is Believing: Visual Narration at Andhra's Stūpas”; 3. “Hyderabad's Hussain Sagar Buddha”; 4. “Marketing Enlightenment: The Development of Andhra's Buddhist Tourist Potential”; 5. “Kalachakra 2006: Amaravati Welcomes the World”. The Introduction as well as the first two chapters are concerned with the ancient tradition, mainly the second and third centuries CE. These chapters mostly concern the art of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda, whose works are treated interchangeably. This is helpful as sculptures were created by the same school of artists which seems to have travelled between the ancient sites. The last two chapters, as well as the epilogue, bring us into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book is heavily illustrated with small black-and-white photographs, most of which were taken by the author. These pictures are amongst the best published as the author seems to have overcome many of the difficult problems of lighting, especially in the Nagarjunakonda Museum. There are a sufficient number of photographs so that the reader rarely needs to consult other publications. The book is extensively documented with footnotes and an extensive bibliography. This reviewer shall emphasize the early chapters which are more relevant to her own expertise.

The Introduction provides the premise for the book in which Becker intertwines in her discussion several modern studies of the function of the religious monuments, and alternates theory of the religious function of the art with her highly descriptive discussion of the monuments in hopes of integrating the different approaches. She states (pp. 16–17) that she is not concerned with evaluative judgements or tracing a chronology of stylistic innovation in Andhra Pradesh, but argues for a “‘broad aestheticism’ by which careful attention to visual and material quality of the objects illuminates the very anthropological and phenomenological aspects of Buddhist art …” She expands upon Robert Scharf's notion of the stūpa as a frameFootnote ¹ by which the viewer can worship the relic. Throughout the text Becker analyses individual relief panels or groups of panels with related subject matter. The strength of the book is that she selects consistently important high-quality sculpture and discusses them both individually and as a group so that they are useful for further study in any context. She notes (p. 20) that paying attention to individual sculptures reveals the great skill by which the faithful adorned the stūpas with a sense of optimism which remains imbedded in the stone. Thus the worshipper is studied integrally as part of the monument. Discussed in the Introduction is the extraordinary relief of the Saundarananda (Handsome Nanda) from Nagarjunakonda – a relief with fine sculptural qualities and a poignant message which is easily understood. The sensitive retelling of the story, using Linda Covill's recent translation of the text,Footnote ² lets the worshipper never forget that Nanda, the Buddha's half-brother, must extinguish the flames of desire which engulf humanity.

Chapter 1, “Keeping the Faith,” is the most informative chapter of the book. It centers around the interpretation of numerous reliefs illustrating Andhra stūpas with five pillars placed on each of the four ayaka platforms of the stūpa. The reliefs are generally called by various descriptive names, but Becker introduces the term “meta-stūpa” which she defines as a relief on a stūpa which illustrates a stūpa. The major focus of the analysis is on the lower portion of the meta-stūpa which illustrates events taking place outside the stūpa railing and those immediately within the compound. It is inside the gate that acts of worship are intertwined with the Life of the Buddha as if the Buddha, in his past and present forms, emerges from the stūpa proper into a mid-space in order to interact with the worshipper. Outside the gate, figures are shown paying homage to the stūpa as well as vendors selling offerings. She forces us to look at the reliefs in detail thereby revealing their function, which is to act as a catalyst to encourage offerings (prasāda) to the stūpa both in return for merit and to maintain the stūpa for future generations. This process produces a great deal of optimism and encourages further donations. While this is a summary of what Becker conveys through visual analysis, she strengthens her arguments with a discussion of textual sources frequently citing Andy Rotman's Thus I Have Seen: Visualizing Faith in Early Buddhism.Footnote ³ She thus summarizes that what is illustrated in the reliefs are individuals performing prasāda or a form of intense faith with an overwhelming desire to make offerings to the stūpa in order to bring about beneficial rebirths.

Chapter 2 analyzes sculptures which appear on the body of the stūpa. In Becker's terms, they are visual narratives that are part of the prasāda producing stūpas. By discussing different sculptural versions of the same story, she concludes that they have different degrees of narrativity. One theme which she discusses in detail is the popular story of the Man in the Well, a parable on the impermanence of life in which a man is pursued by a mad elephant and escapes into a well.Footnote ⁴ In sculptural renditions, the parable is narrated by a monk, who is accompanied by a visual rendering of the story which is placed near the monk. The inside of the well into which the man escapes serves to distinguish the composition from the rest of the relief. Becker describes this as a framed or meta-narrative – a story within a story. The figures in the tale are in different scale than the outer story, thus emphasizing that they are on a different plane of existence. Aside from the monk in the outer story, three of the sculptures show an angry king who seems to be calmed by the tale being told by the monk. This acts as another level of framing or meta-narrative which, as pointed out by Becker, has its parallels in the Pāli Jātakas and Sanskrit avadānas. Effectively, Becker's comparison with literature helps us to understand the structure of the visual narrative. Her conclusion in this chapter is that a stūpa adorned with narratives provides several paths to spiritual progress.

As we arrive at the later chapters which discuss the modern artistic production in Andhra Pradesh, the tone of the book changes from complex scholarly discourse to a much more discursive tone. Chapter 3 concerns the modern creation of the Hussain Sagar Buddha, a colossal monument intended to function as an Indian parallel to New York's Statue of Liberty. Its function is intended to reflect India's shared values. The 350-ton, 17-meter-tall Buddha was placed in a small island in the middle of the man-made lake that connects the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. It was not meant to be a religious shrine for devotion but was designed to symbolize the impressive artistic achievements of Andhra Pradesh. At the base of the Buddha image are modern carved reliefs which were sculpted to reinterpret the ancient sculptures of Andhra and elsewhere. Rather than examining the ancient sculptures themselves, the artists adapted their compositions from the photographs published in Heinrich Zimmer's Art of Indian Asia, and Becker cites the sources for some of the compositions. This chapter is light reading after the complex analysis of the earlier tradition and in contrast to Becker's intense analysis of the ancient tradition.

Chapter 4 analyzes the development of Andhra's Buddhist tourist potential and discusses brochures which encourage people to visit the ancient sites. There is an implication that the visit has the potential for the visitor to enhance their spirituality. As Becker points out, many of the brochures ignore the present condition of the ancient sites which frequently consist of brick foundations, and a museum which contains sculpture, relics of the Buddha and other excavated artifacts which have never attracted Buddhist pilgrims en masse. However, in the next chapter we can see a serious change in the situation.

In Chapter 5, which discusses the Kalachakra ceremony conducted at Amaravati in 2006, Becker returns to the spirit of optimism contained in the first two chapters of the book. One hundred thousand pilgrims travelled to Amaravati on the occasion of the fourteenth Dalai Lama's performance of the Kalachakra initiation around the ruins of the ancient stūpa. As she describes the sounds and images of crowds circulating the stūpa, monks chanting, bells ringing and vendors selling their goods, we are reminded of the activities depicted on the second- and third-century meta-stūpas from Amaravati, but now the worshippers are Tibetan Buddhists who are there because the Dalai Lama has traced the first performance of the Kalachakra to Andhra Pradesh.

This book presents complex arguments which can be difficult to follow. For this reviewer the chapters on the ancient narratives are the most interesting, especially Becker's detailed descriptions of the meta-stūpas. For others interested in “narrativity” her comparisons in Chapter 2 let us see the works as framed narratives. But as we come to discussion of modern times, we greet them with a sense of loss, for since the placement of the Nagarjunakonda sculptures on the island in the middle of Nagarjunasagar the tourist interests have never been able to effectively use the site as “someplace to visit.” This book jumps from subject to subject with numerous arguments and sub-arguments, and the transition from the ancient world to the modern one is not made smoothly. Nevertheless, the book needs to be read and reread as there is something of interest for a wide audience.

In analyzing the book as a whole, it is doubtful that this reviewer would have included ancient tradition and the modern one in the same volume, as the later chapters seem to devalue the ancient tradition. We would have preferred that Becker had written more about the ancient tradition as she has so successfully done in the early chapters. For those who know little about the art of Andhra Pradesh, it would be best to start with Robert Knox's book on the art of Amaravati,Footnote ⁵ or some similar publication, in order to obtain an overview of the basic configuration of Andhra stūpas before reading Catherine Becker's book. The more advanced reader will find many new interpretations of the art of Andhra Pradesh – I certainly did.