Across the Threshold of India: Art, Women, and Culture

An important and strikingly beautiful book about the sacred Hindu practice of threshold drawing! In the Hindu world-view, threshold is a profoundly important concept that represents a passage between one space and place and another, creating a visual bridge between the secular and the sacred. Accordingly, the literal threshold a person crosses when entering and exiting a home or business symbolizes the threshold one crosses between the physical and spiritual realms of existence. Hindus have long believed it is possible to affect a person’s well-being by using diagrams to sanctify the threshold space. The diagrams do so by trapping ill will, evil, bad luck, or negative energy within their colourful and elaborate configurations, thereby cleansing those who traverse the space and sending them on their way with renewed spirit, positive energy, and good luck and fortune. AUTHOR: Martha A. Strawn is Professor of Art Emerita at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte and a photographer based in Florida and North Carolina.
167 colour and 32 b/w photographs