Altars (SC)

Between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the year 600, more than thirty dynasties, kingdoms, and states rose and fell on the eastern side of the Asian continent. The founders and rulers of those polities represented the spectrum of peoples in North, East, and Central Asia. Nearly all of them built palaces, altars, temples, tombs, and cities, and almost without exception, the architecture was grounded in the building tradition of China.

Begins with a brief introduction to the history of the Japanese garden and its spiritual roots. It then presents the Japanese garden as it exists today, with all its traditional qualities joined to modern architecture and viewed from a modern perspective. IN THE TRADITION OF JAPANESE TOUCH FOR YOUR GARDEN, THE PERFECT BOOK FOR CONTEMPOLATING A ZEN-STYLE GARDEN FOR HOME OR TOWNHOUSE, YARD OR BALCONY. Japanese gardens are renowned for their serene and peaceful ambiance. The New Zen Garden presents the Japanese garden as it exists today, with all its traditional

In his richly illustrated Religion and Architecture in Premodern Indonesia Gaudenz Domenig investigates the nature of Indonesian ethnic religions by focusing on land opening rituals, sacred groves, and architectural responses to the custom of presenting offerings. Since deities and spirits were supposed to taste offerings on the spot, it was a task of architecture to attract them and to guide them into houses where offerings were presented.

In recent years, India's ''sacred groves,'' small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine and anthropologists. Environmentalists disillusioned by the failures of massivestate-sponsored solutions to ecological problems have hailed them as an exemplary form of traditional community resource management.