UC Berkeley

This dissertation is a study of the modern Buddhist art and architecture of India. It focuses on the aesthetics and architectural practices that developed as a result of the intersection of Buddhism and various nationalist movements in India over the course of the twentieth century. More than an incidental aspect of India’s development, Buddhism was central to crafting key narratives around Indian modernity and national identity. Architecture became an important index of that process, defining a longer history of Buddhism in the region and generating spaces in which to imagine and realize new social, political, and religious conceptions of India.

Chapter 1 attends to the development of modern Buddhist art and architecture within the context of an emerging Hindu nationalism in the first half of the twentieth century. It begins with Mahatma Gandhi’s entrance into a new Hindu temple complex in New Delhi, looking at how Buddhism was reimagined within a more inclusive understanding of Hindu culture as the Arya Dharma. The chapter focuses on how Buddhism was expressed as part of a Hindu revivalist aesthetic championed by the architect Sris Chandra Chatterjee. Developed as a network of institutions, pilgrimage centers, and temples across India, the public of these projects was similarly novel, working to construct an image of the subcontinent as “all-India,” and framing Buddhism as part of a modern religious commons defined by the confluence of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Chapter 2 focuses on Buddhist art and architecture constructed after India’s independence in 1947. Under the direction of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Buddhism informed several national and international policies, guiding the creation of projects that sought to position India as a global hub for international understanding and peace. Rather than one unified style, the modern Buddhist art and architecture of this period is typified by a variety of approaches. Projects include a Japanese-funded monument for world peace, a memorial to the seventh century traveler Xuanzang in Nalanda, and the work of artist-architect Upendra Maharathi. Each project embodies an understanding of Buddhism as an antidote to imperialism and an embedded aspect of Indian culture, setting the stage for later developments in modern Buddhist art and architecture as a response to social and political issues, especially caste.

Chapter 3 marks a break from earlier approaches to modern Buddhism in India. The mass conversion to Buddhism led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in 1956 resulted in a new Buddhist tradition known as Dalit Buddhism or Navayana Buddhism. The art and architecture associated with the movement developed to express its religious and social ideals, fusing historical references with modern forms that celebrated Dalit Buddhism as an escape from the Hindu caste system. By contextualizing the aesthetic trends and developments of the Dalit Buddhist movement within the social and political ambitions of Ambedkar and the Dalit Buddhist movement, it is possible to see how ancient Buddhist architectural precedents and later nationalist approaches to Buddhism were coopted to create modern spaces that celebrated the social, religious, and political emancipation of Dalits in India.