Location: New Delhi, India

Application deadline: 10 March 2012

Contact:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Details:  The Temple and the Museum: Considering the Place of Art and Religion in India is a multi-year project that studies the places and meanings of art in India. Conventional histories tell us that pre-modern works of art were made for religious purposes – for the temple, let us say – and modernity secularised these objects, reconstituted them as 'art' and transferred them to the  museum. In reality, the relationship between the 'temple' and the 'museum' is more complex than this unilinear narrative that traces a single line from premodern to modern times and from religious to secular frameworks. Thus, the museum has been analysed as the shrine to the secular cults of Art, or of the nation-state; while temples have been built in a spirit of aesthetic competitiveness and connoisseurly appraisal that we tend to think of as 'modern' attitudes towards masterpieces. If today, certain groups ask for the right to perform worship in front of precious objects in museums, others demand (and achieve) the repatriation of objects, from the museum into the temple; while other temples establish 'museums' or 'art galleries' within their compounds to display valuable or beautiful objects in their collections. And both the temple and the museum lay claim to being the prime site of heritage. 

For the duration of this project, Post-Doctoral fellowships will be awarded each year in a shifting focus area. Focus areas are: Chola temples and artefacts in the cusp between heritage and worship; the collection and organization of Jain bhandars in western India; contemporary practices of temple-making and repair and their relationship with archaeologically informed conservation architecture; and the contestations between temple authorities and state authorities over the proper use of ancient artefacts.

The focus for year two (April 2012 to March 2013) is on Agents and Agencies for Cultural Conservation in Western India with special reference to Jain Temples and Jain Bhandars.  Applications are invited from fellows with the appropriate background, training (PhD in History, Art History, Archaeology or related subjects) and linguistic skills, who would like to spend six months studying the modern and contemporary history of the building up of Jain Bhandar collections and displays; the history of modern (20^th and 21^st century) repairs to Jain temples by private and governmental agencies; and contemporary temple architecture and building projects for patrons in western India and the diaspora. Ordinarily, two fellows will be chosen to work on distinct areas of the project, though a single outstanding candidate may also be offered a fellowship for the whole year.

Fellows will combine field study, museum visits, archival work and oral history work, to follow the fate of selected objects and monuments, and to map out the cognitive, legal and other kinds of status they occupy (eg, ritual efficacy, meaning as heritage, status as antiquities, value in art markets). For example the study could examine the holdings of selected bhandars, the scholars who helped set them up, and the forms of display and scholarly access they allow, the role of great scholars within the Jain community and especially from within the monastic groups, as well as the Bhandars' intersections with more 'secular' museum holdings of similar objects. A study focussing on architecture could focus on the role of important foundations such as the Anandji-Kalyanji Pedhi and its work on conserving and maintaining Jain temples, as well as the negotiations with state archaeological authorities in the course of this work. Another fruitful theme of study would be on recent and current architectural projects of temple-building for the Jain community.

 Chosen fellows will attend a training workshop , and will workshop submit monthly progress reports to the project director. Towards the end of their term, t hey will participate in a workshop that may be organized by the project, and the fellowship will end with the submission of a long paper (approx 20,000 words) on the subject of the research, along with documentary materials.

Application: Applications consisting of a cv, two samples of writing (short essays of 3000-6000 words), and a 1000 word outline of the applicant's plan for research to be undertaken under this rubric are to be submitted to  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  by March 10, 2012 . Shortlisted applicants will be interviewed over the telephone and may be called to an interview in New Delhi, for which the partnergroup cannot bear responsibility of any TA/ DA.

Fellowship terms: the fellowship carries a monthly stipend of Rs 25,000/ - for 6 or 12 months, as well as a contingency grant of Rs 30,000 p.a. against expenses for travel and research materials.