Cave of My Ancestors: Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora [Hardcover]

Exploring family stories reveals the rich history of a seventh-century Buddhist shrine.
 
As a young girl in Bombay, Kirin Narayan was enthralled by her father’s stories about how their ancestors had made the ancient rock-cut cave temples at Ellora. Recalling those stories as an adult, she was inspired to learn more about the caves, especially the Buddhist worship hall known as the “Vishwakarma cave.” Immersing herself in family history, oral traditions, and works by archaeologists, art historians, scholars of Buddhism, Indologists, and Sanskritists, Narayan set out to answer the question of how this cave came to be venerated as the home of Vishwakarma, the god of making in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
 
Cave of My Ancestorsrepresents the perfect blend of Narayan’s skills as a researcher and writer. Her quest to trace her family’s stories took her to Ellora; through libraries, archives, and museums around the world; and across disciplinary borders. Equal parts scholarship, detective story, and memoir, Narayan’s book ably leads readers through centuries of history, offering a sensitive meditation on devotion, wonder, and all that connects us to place, family, the past, and the divine.Kirin Narayanis emerita professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She is the author of several books, includingMy Family and Other Saints,Everyday Creativity, andAlive in the Writing, all published by the University of Chicago Press.

My father always loved a far-fetched story. He was never beyond some clever plaster and vivid paint to make his version of events more astounding. As I learned to read, he showed me how playing with words could remake the world: spell backward, pun between languages, slide sideways through metaphor. In conversations and in correspondence, he thrived on provoking laughter. Yet throughout my childhood, whlÓS