After productively challenging scholars of Himalayan art to reconsider their premises on the antiquity of Nepalese metal craft Mary Slusser has begun to re-write the history of a tradition of carved woodwork that has long ornamented the Kathmandu valley. In the sumptuously produced monograph under review she draws on her intimate knowledge of the valley's neighborhoods to present a meticulous documentation and an instructive analysis of an unevenly known and imperfectly protected corpus of early woodwork set into more recently built structures. The antiquity of this startling corpus, pushes a distinctive tradition of wooden architecture in the valley back by over five centuries and upstages even the most daring suspicions of other astute scholars. It also offers new resources for all those interested in recovering the early medieval history of India and Nepal.
In the sophisticated ‘Newari style’ Hindu and Buddhist temples and monasteries that crowd the valley today -...
