Padma Kaimal Livres

The Kailasanatha temple complex, built in the eighth century, serves as a vibrant intersection of warrior and ascetic ideals, showcasing stone figures facing north and sunlit deities facing south. Padma Kaimal explores the creators' intentions, emphasizing how the temple's design facilitates spiritual engagement and renunciation through its architecture and sculptures. By examining the interplay of light, shadow, and space, she reveals insights into ancient Indic worldviews and the Shaiva Siddhanta practices, allowing readers to connect with the spiritual journeys of the past.

Scattered Goddesses: Travels with the Yoginis is a book about the lost home, the new homes, and the journeys in between of nineteen sculptures that now reside in at least twelve separate museums across North America, Western Europe, and South India. After piecing together what these goddesses and their former companions might have meant when they were together in tenth-century South India, Kaimal traces them into the hands of private collectors and public museums as these objects became more thoroughly separated from each other with each transaction. In the process of export and purchase, and in the hostile as well as loving receptions these sculptures received within South Asia, she fi nds that collecting and scattering were the same activity experienced from different points of view.