The Golden Lands: The Buddhist Architecture of Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam

Vikram Lall

JF Publishing, 280 pages, Rs. 3,959

The first of a projected six-volume series, this book approaches Buddhist thought and ritual by considering how their interaction with myriad local traditions produced masterpieces of religious architecture in Southeast Asia. Lall, an architect and academic, recreates historical structures using 3-D models, and bolsters them with extensive illustrative photography. He attempts to locate the individual histories of sites of Buddhist worship—in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam—within a single panorama of history, religion and artistic innovation.