From Beyond the Eastern Horizon (Essays in Honour of Professor Lokesh Chandra)

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From Beyond the Eastern Horizon is a collection of essays published in honour of Professor Lokesh Chandra, on the opportune occasion of him having witnessed a thousand full moons, which in the tradition of the East earns him the epithet Sahasra Candradarši.

Following a biographical sketch of Prof. Chandra by his niece Manjushree, the book offers a varied range of papers written by scholars who are all known for their contributions to the study of ancient Indian cultural influences abroad, particularly insular and mainland Southeast Asia. Their essays cover the fields of art history, temple architecture, Old Javanese and Sanskrit literature, religion and ancient politics. The rich texture of this felicitation volume is a fitting tribute to Professor Chandra, Director of the International Academy for Indian Culture, who has authored volumes of path-breaking research works, including the well-known series of Cultural Horizons of India. Focussing on the eastern horizon of Southeast Asia, this volume covers only a segment of Prof. Chandra's wide-ranging scholarly activities and achievements.

The eminent scholars who have contributed to this felicitation volume are Andrea Acri, Michaela Appel, Ni Wayan Pasek Aryati, Clara Brakel, Robert L. Brown, Amrit Gomperts, Endang Sri Hardiati, Thomas M. Hunter, Roy Jordaan, Subhash Kak, Cecelia Levin, Mark Long, Willem van der Molen, Kate O'Brien, Stuart O. Robson, Malini Saran, Jeffrey Sundberg, S. Supomo, A. Teeuw, Donald M. Weatherbee, Hiram Woodward, and Peter Worsley.

It is a matter of great pleasure that a felicitation volume for Prof. Lokesh Chandra is being brought out on his entering his 84th birthday which in the Hindu tradition makes him Sahasra Candradarsi, a person who has lived through a thousand full moons. During his long and academically outstanding career, Prof. Lokesh Chandra has emerged as perhaps the greatest expert on Buddhist iconography in modern times. He has written a whole series of books, beautifully illustrated, setting forth the historical and philosophical context of Buddhist painting and sculpture. He has in particular studied the cultural traditions of Indonesia which was in ancient times known as the Suvarnabhümi, the Golden Land.

It was in the year 1935 that an eight year old Lokesh Chandra walked along with his father through the galleries of the Central Museum, Lahore. He wondered and asked what in the silence of the stone statues beheld his father's attention. His father counter-questioned him, "do these images not converse with you?" When they reached home his father, Prof. Raghu Vira gave him The Buddha Story in Stone by H. Hargreaves (Calcutta 1924), a booklet of just forty-three pages which narrated the scenes on thirty-four Gandhara sculptures in the Lahore Museum. He found a challenge to see statuary, no longer from the outside but from within: une vie d'analyse pour une heure de synthèse. Thus began the transcendent journey nurtured and shared by the father and son, that permeated its essence in a timeless construct of thoughts and reflections and initiated the ardent oneness of the learner with the learned in contemplative ecstasy, emboldening the lotus mind to pursue from within the beyond. An oblique reminder of the miraculous emanation of an eight year old Padmasambhava endowed with all knowledge, seated on a lotus, encircled by rainbow auras. when brought to the court of Indrabhūti, he made known, "My father is Wisdom. My mother is Voidness. Mine is the country of Dharma. I am sustained by clarity and perplexity.