Organizer: Robert L. Brown, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Discussants: Emma C. Bunker, Denver Art Museum, USA; Pattaratorn Chirapravati, California State University, Sacramento, USA; Paul A. Lavy, University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA What is meant by the term “Srivijayan art”? Art has been found in the core
area of Srivijaya, identified with Palembang in Sumatra, but most of what is
called “Srivijayan art” has been found in far-flung geographic areas beyond
the Srivijayan political sphere. We usually do not know exactly where the
art was made, who brought it, or why it was brought.
One difficulty in identification is because there is no Srivijayan style of
art. Rather than a style of its own, the sculpture we call Srivijayan
shares stylistic features with art from Sri Lanka, India, Burma, Thailand,
Cambodia, and Indonesia . The result is stylistic and geographical ambiguity.
Srivijayan art is predominantly metal images, which by nature are easily
movable and rarely supply any indication of where they were made.
Srivijayan art is mostly Buddhist images, with bodhisattvas, particularly
Avalokitesvara, the most popular. And while a Sirvijayan polity existed
from the 7th to 13th centuries, the art we call Srivijayan is predominantly
dated to the early centuries, the 7th to 9th centuries. Yet, while
Srivijayan art remains difficult to identify and discuss, the nature of
Srivijaya as a polity has been the topic of on-going scholarship with major
rethinking and innovative insights (Hermann Kulke, Pierre-Yves Manguin).
Likewise, the nature of Buddhism after the Gupta-Period (4th-6th c), and
specifically of Mahayana Buddhism, has undergone extensive revision (Gregory
Schopen, Jonathan S. Walters)
This panel attempts to judge if the scholarship of art associated with
Srivijaya can now be revised to fit with new thinking in terms of the
political, economic, and religious character of Sirvijaya.
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