Re -tracing lines of devotion: Religious identities and political ideologies in fifteenth -sixteenth -century western Himalayan wall painting

A set of sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of northwest India\u27s Kinnaur (Khu nu) District forms the focus of this project. More than simply representations of Buddhist devotional subject matter, these paintings in the Rgya \u27phags pa Temple are emblematic of the intricate web of polity, economy, and religion that connected the village of Nako to the neighboring political centers of Ladakh to the north and West Tibet (Mnga\u27 ris) to the east. Addressing a neglected period and body of work, the dissertation helps to reshape our understanding of this region\u27s religious and artistic landscapes in two significant ways. Firstly, I have identified hitherto undocumented artistic evidence for activity of a particular Buddhist school, the \u27Bri gung pa, in the region. Secondly, I have been able to refine the definition and extent of the transregional dynamics that influenced Western Himalayan art production and reception in both the late-medieval and present-day milieus. My study employs an interdisciplinary approach that combines traditional art historical methodologies with inscriptional translation, ethnographic documentation, and theoretical inquiry. The resulting text outlines the multilayered contexts, both diachronic and synchronic, that circumscribe these polysemic images. My analyses serve to broaden art historical discussions about the relationship of art to ideology, identity formation, and religious praxis. Moreover, this project contributes to a body of recent scholarship that is based on integrated methodological approaches, firmly grounded in context, for the study of religious images that remain in active use within their communities