Subproject B04

The Human Body as Metaphor of the Divine: Anthropomorphism in South Asian Religious Traditions

The subproject gives attention to metaphors as constitutive of the emergence and development of two divergent dynamics in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism from the turn of the Common Era to about 500 CE: the manifestation in human form of the Hindu god Viṣṇu as Kṛṣṇa and Rāma as well as the deification of the figures of Siddhārtha Gautama (i.e., the Buddha) and Vardhamāna (i.e. the Jina). It places developments within Jainism at the fore of its investigation but explores concepts related to the corporeality of the divine in South Asia from a comparative perspective.

Publications

Krüger, Patrick Felix. 2022. “Imaging the Divine: The Depiction of Gods and Deified Beings in Illustrations of Kalpasūtra Manuscripts from Western India.” Art of the Orient 11: 51–78. https://doi.org/10.11588/ao.2022.1.22888.
Krüger, Patrick Felix. 2024. “Metaphors of Kingship in Ancient Jain Literature and Art." International Journal of Jaina Studies 20 (3): 1–21. https://soas-repository.worktribe.com/output/451134/metaphors-of-kingship-in-ancient-jain-literature-and-art.
Krüger, Patrick Felix. 2025a. Religions- und Kulturkontakt im Bild: Über Metaphern und Formulare in der materialen Missionsgeschichte. Metaphor Papers 15. https://doi.org/10.46586/mp.354.
Krüger, Patrick Felix. 2025b. “Locating Holiness in a Changing World: Illustrating the Jinas in an Early Nineteenth-Century Manuscript.” Marg 76 (4) (June).
Krüger, Patrick, and Knut Martin Stünkel. 2023. “Works of Art as Model Forms in the Contact of Religions: Glimpses from Japan, China and India.” Art of the Orient 12 (1): 72–109. https://doi.org/10.15804/aoto202305.
Pons, Jessie, and Patrick Felix Krüger. 2025. “The God Within: The Motif of Hanumān Tearing His Heart.” In A Multitude of Hearts: Conceptualizations of ’Heart’ Across Religious Traditions, edited by Nikita Artemov and Marion Eggert. Metaphor Papers 29. https://doi.org/10.46586/mp.438.523.
Pons, Jessie. 2022. “Would You like Some Wine? Remarks on a Revelling Scene from Zar-Dheri”. In Connecting the Art, Literature, and Religion of South and Central Asia, edited by Ines Konczak-Nagel, Satomi Hiyama, and Astrid Klein, 281–98. New Delhi: Dev Publishers & Distributors. ISBN: 9789387496769.
Pons, Jessie. 2023. “Religion, Media, and Materiality: Introduction”. Entangled Religions 11 (3). https://doi.org/10.46586/er.11.2023.11430.
Pons, Jessie. Forthcoming. “Sun Disks and Sacred Bodies: Some Reflections on the Dialectics of Light in a Relief from Matkanai, Pakistan.” Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia 38.
Pons, Jessie, and Martin Radermacher. 2025. Annotating Multimedia Metaphors: Methodological Considerations. Metaphor Papers 32. https://doi.org/10.46586/mp.449.