British Museum Lectures: Ancient India: Living Traditions

We are delighted to welcome Sushma Jansari to the bookshop to discuss Ancient India: Living Traditions which accompanies a major exhibition at The British Museum in May 2025.

The book explores ancient India (c. 200 BCE–600 CE) through three of its major religions - Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism – to illuminate how they reflect political power, artistic innovation and changes in peoples’ daily lives.

Ancient India was a dynamic, cosmopolitan centre of creativity. The visual traditions of its major indigenous religions were closely interrelated, reflecting political power, changes in peoples’ daily lives and artistic innovation. Exported beyond the Indian subcontinent in antiquity, these three major religions – Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism – are living traditions and their devotional works of art impact on the daily life of billions of people across the world.

This major new publication traces the development of religious imagery from around 200 BCE, when it focused on the depiction of nature spirits, to 600 CE, by which time devotional images of Jain, Buddhist and Hindu deities and teachers had taken definitive shape. The authors explore fascinating topics such as the first devotional images of the twenty-four jinas (enlightened Jain teachers); the transformation from symbolic depictions of the Buddha to those that showed him in bodily form for the first time; and the formalisation of divine representations and devotional sculpture in Hindu traditions.

This beautifully illustrated book reveals the ancient roots of the images and depictions of these world religions that many will find familiar today. Sushma Jansari is Tabor Foundation Curator of the South Asia Collections at the British Museum, and Curator of the exhibition Ancient India: living traditions.