The Historiography of Reuse in South Asia

Abstract

is little wonder that the historical phenomenon of architectural and sculptural reuse has attracted the attention of scholars investigating many regions and time periods. The late Roman empire and its immediate cultural diaspora (4th5th c. ce), the Byzantine and Islamic worlds (6th-nth c. ce), and medieval Europe (12th1 4th c. ce) are among the geographies and time periods known in scholarly ambits for reuse of architectural and sculptural fragments.1 Reuse of older elements to create new buildings or other composites is an eminently pragmatic human activity, with, additionally imaginative, allusory, and less tangible implications. To modern scholars and other viewers, historical instances of the integration of older and sometimes non-local elements into new works seems to signal, at least at first sight, the physical bringing together of different cultures and eras. Where scholars and/or the public have defined religions, states, or communities as mutually antagonistic, one group's reuse of its rivals' creations whether wholesale or in part seems to promise especially rich historical insight, indicating either the ultimate triumph of one over the other, or alternatively, their ultimate resolution of differences.