This thesis critically examined gutkas – illuminated, pocket-sized anthologies of texts, hymns, and prayers that a Hindu would recite in a sacred place in the home, usually near an altar – produced in the Kashmir Valley during the mid-nineteenth century. Previously relegated to the periphery of scholarly discourse due to academic discriminations against “folk” culture, the goal here was to consider these objects and their paintings through the combined lenses of art history, cultural history, and religious studies in order to speak about gutkas in a deeper and more meaningful way. Here, gutkas from Utah State University, the Smithsonian Freer|Sackler Galleries, and the British Library were used as a tool to situate their makers within intricate familial webs of artistic practice, identify patterns of consumption and attitudes of ownership among a South Asian middle class, and reconstruct the objects’ function within Hindu devotional practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-5933 |
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| Creators | Cavazos, Nina |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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