Dance Images in Temples of Mainland Southeast Asia ... - Repository

The present author has been able to visit most of the temples discussed in this study,
both in India and in Southeast Asia. This enabled him not only to get acquainted with the
intricate interrelationship of architecture and its iconographic schema, but also to make
photographic documentation, which now constitues the majority of the illustrations of this
study. Reproductions, however, are used in the case of the Sumatran ruins and the interiors
of the temples of Pagan. This is because of the diffi cult access to the ruins, or in the case of
Pagan’s temples, because the Government of Myanmar did not grant this author permission to
document them.
The “four-step” method described above will be applied in this study, but not always rigidly,
since the questions to be asked vary to a certain extent in each case that is discussed. In some
cases, for example, the prototypes of dance images as well as temple architecture are known,
in some cases not. Similarly, the existence or absence of textual sources affects the analysis
case by case and sometimes the steps of the analysis process may even overlap. However, what
is inevitable in a multidisciplinary study like this is that several contexts must be provided
for the images analysed. Thus, for each group of dance images discussed in this study a short
description of the history of the respective period will be made available. Similarly, a description
of the period’s belief system, architectural tradition, art history and, whenever possible, dance
history will be provided.
1.3 Structure of the Study
Chapter 2 will fi rst give a survey of previous research on Indian and Southeast Asian dance
images, after which the early dance images of Southeast Asia, not yet infl uenced by Indian
prototypes, will be examined. Sub-chapter 2.3 focuses on the Indian prototypes which were
received in Southeast Asia. Further it discusses their development process and establishes
their basic typology. Sub-chapter 2.4 discusses the sea and land routes of the transmission of
the Indian infl uence to Southeast Asia while the next sub-chapter investigates what is presently
known about the mechanism of this transmission process. Finally, in Sub-chapter 2.6 the
temple-related dance images of Java will be examined in order to provide an example of the
localisation process of the Indian-derived dance images in insular Southeast Asia.
In Chapter 3 the focus will turn to the regions of mainland Southeast Asia. First, recent
approaches in the region’s art history will be discussed. Then, in Chapters 3.2 and 3.3 the
basic types of temple architecture and their cosmological symbolism in Southeast Asia will be
examined briefl y. The rest of the sub-chapters are dedicated to the dance images of the early
kingdoms of mainland Southeast Asia starting from Champa, which fl ourished in the coastal
areas of present-day Vietnam. Then the focus will be on Khmer dance imagery of the regions
of present-day Cambodia and Thailand, after which the dance images of the early Pyu culture
in the regions of present-day Myanmar will be analysed. Finally, the two last sub-chapters will
discuss the Mon, Srivijaya and Sukhothai dance images found in present Thailand.
The main chapters 4, 5 and 6 are respectively dedicated to the Angkor Wat complex in
present-day Cambodia, to the temples of Pagan in Myanmar and to the Wat Phra Keo complex
annexed to the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand. First, the general outlines of the history
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