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By Syona Puliady, Steven M. Vose, Lynna Dhanani

Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings highlights Jain devotional textiles (choḍs) from the Ronald and Maxine Linde Collection. Fashioned in the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra, these works of velvet and sateen cloth, lavishly embroidered with gold and silver gilt thread, depict Jain mythology, influential spiritual teachers, sacred sites, and ritual traditions. This volume delves into the innovative material approaches taken by the creators of choḍs, the captivating religious stories they convey, and the social lives of these objects in Jain communities. They offer a mode of devotional patronage to lay people, who frequently commission them as gifts for places of worship in recognition of deceased relatives or upon completion of important rituals, such as monastic initiation or a lengthy fast.

Syona Puliady is curator of textiles of the Eastern Hemisphere at the Fowler Museum at UCLA who studies textiles of the Indian Ocean realm and how they create notions of intimacy, sensuality, and spirituality, contributing to the cultural ethos of the region. Steven M. Vose is an assistant professor in the department of history at the University of Colorado-Denver who investigates Jain communities in western India and their interactions with both political powers and other religious communities from the 10th century to the present. Lynna R. Dhanani is an assistant professor in the department of religious studies at the University of California, Davis who currently explores the confluence of polemics and poetics in the Sanskrit and old vernacular hymns of the Śvetāmbara Jain scholar-monk Hemacandra (1089–1172).

ISBN:  9780998044576, softbound $40

188 pages, 156 color and 3 black & white illustrations; 9.5″ x 10.5″

Published 2025