INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE IN ART AND RELIGION

"The collection of essays covers a wide range of contemporary intercultural and interreligious issues, mainly from the Indian and Sri Lankan context where borrowing and crossing over between the different religions is not an exception but a norm in the daily life of the people, their festivals, arts and culture. This is brought out by the author starting with the interreligious art dialogue between the Jesuits and the Mogul emperor Akbar, following the Indian and Sri Lankan art history. She discovers the feminine often neglected dimension which is underplayed in art and history of religions in the Indian Christian tradition. Ambedkar and his Neo-Buddhism is rapidly growing in India among the Dalits and uses protest art as an identity marker. The figure of Ambedkar is overtaking Gandhian ideology in the public sphere, visible through the omnipresent statues in the blue suit. The unintentional inculturation happened in the Kerala churches right from the beginning.