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Marg Magazine

A magazine of the arts

In 1946, novelist and activist Mulk Raj Anand, along with a group of 14 artists, art historians and architects, founded MARG (Modern Architectural Research Group) in an India on the threshold of Independence. Over the last 75 years, our magazine and books have been a forum for pioneering research in Indian art and are acclaimed for their standards of production and editorial content.

24/11/2025

|New issue alert|
Marg’s latest release “On Painted Ground” is out now!
Guest edited by Aurogeeta Das, the volume explores floor paintings in India - the intricate looping, labyrinthine patterns that are hand-drawn and ephemeral.
Their forms embody a myriad of meanings from the cosmological and devotional to the philosophical and ecological. Made to vanish—erased by wind, weather, footsteps, objects or animals—these drawings allow moments of divine manifestation, fleeting though they might be.
This Marg brings together eight essays on the diverse floor drawing practices of India and the ways in which they have adapted, both stylistically and symbolically, to a changing world. Drawing on a range of disciplinary approaches, including ethnography, art history and mathematics, they provide a comprehensive view of their aesthetics and cultural significance.

Get a hold of this publication on our website - link in bio!

Magazine, painting, art history, art and culture, Indian art, floor painting, art magazine, new issue, publication, floor drawing, ethnography, art

03/11/2025

30/10/2025

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and The Marg Foundation invite you to a discussion on our recent volume, The Third Side of the Coin. The conversation between Joe Cribb, Robert Bracey and Marzbeen Jila will be moderated by Naman P. Ahuja. Join us on the 13th of November at 6:30 PM. We’re excited to see you there!
No registration required. Swipe for details.
You can grab copies of the volume at the venue, along with Marg subscription forms.

To purchase Marg publications in the UK, please contact our distributor at [email protected] or visit www.abebooks.co.uk.

Art history | lecture | discussion | London | coins | numismatics | art magazine| publication | material history | culture | UK | history |

28/10/2025

We are in the UK! Marg returns to the United Kingdom through a series of lectures by our General Editor, Naman P. Ahuja (), exploring themes from our recent and forthcoming volumes.

The first of these begins tomorrow, October 29, at the McDonald Institute, opening a few weeks of conversations on questions of historicity and museology surrounding the Piprahwa relics, the importance of Phanigiri within the larger network of contemporaneous Buddhist complexes in Asia, and the history of coins—seen not merely as objects of archaeological or economic value, but as bearers of the sacred and the precious.

Swipe for details.
To purchase Marg volumes in the UK, please contact our distributor at [email protected] or visit www.abebooks.co.uk.

talk | lecture | the United Kingdom | Buddhism | Archaeology | Art Magazine | art history | history | Indian History

24/10/2025

14/10/2025

Meet the Speakers!
They will be at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture () in Kolkata on the 18th of October, Saturday for a talk on the Marg volume Video Games: Lila/Maya.
Register for the event via the link in our bio.

03/10/2025

You're on the right Marg!
Gear up for our Grand Annual Sale, with discounts you can't (and shouldn't) ignore. This time, the sale lasts a whole week, so get your carts ready and make the most of the festive season.

01/10/2025

Read more in "Indian Tattoos: Only Skin Deep?". This volume has been edited by Naman P. Ahuja. Find it on our website or through the link in our bio!

26/09/2025

Applique has been in use in Central Asia and Tibet from prehistoric times, featuring in tent decorations, domestic furnishings, alter decorations and religious dance costumes . To meet the great quantity of appliqued works required, monasteries established workshops and great lamas travelled with personal applique masters. Traditionally Tibetan applique is made of cut pieces of silk, mixed sometimes with wool, cotton, or leather, sewn onto a cloth background to produce a pattern or picture much like a painting, with embroidered and painted details. Edges are usually emphasized using cording made of silk thread wrapped around horsehair. In Tibetan tradition, the spiritual presence of a religious image is enhanced by the material out of which it is made. Precious substances are concrete analogies of spiritual value and it is for this reason that statues are encrusted with jewels, and banners sewn with golden brocades and pearls. The appliqued banners would be rolled out - on steep, bare hillsides or down specially constructed walls for religious ceremonies allowing them to be viewed in reverence by the thousands of monks and lay practitioners gathered for the teachings and blessings bestowed at such ceremonies. Such banners are in the class of great spiritual icons called Mt ' on grol, "liberation through sight", images which radiate a spiritual presence that can remind onlookers of their own inherent enlightenment.
Read more in the article “Fabric Images and their special role in Tibet” in Marg volume 48 Number 1. While this rare older volume is out of print, you can head to our website to purchase a digital copy accessible on any device!

23/09/2025

The latest Marg, The Worlds of Jain Art: 17th to 21st centuries, has been edited by Phyllis Granoff and Nandita Punj. Check it out on our website!

Images:
1. Jain shrine, Gujarat, 17th–18th century. Wood with paint; 132.08 x 114.3 x 114.3 cm. Gift of the James W. and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection in honour of Dr Pratapaditya Pal. Los Angeles County Museum of Art M.91.229a-x.
2. Jain shrine, India, 16th century. Wood, glass, polychrome paint and gold leaf; 205.1 × 181.6 × 129.5 cm. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust. Nelson Atkins Museum 32-136.
3. Jain shrine. Wood with relief, glass inlay and traces of pigments; 157.5 x 139.7 x 81.3 cm. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Carnell Bequest for Fine Arts Objects. Dayton Art Institute 1945.66
4. Neminath, the 22nd Tirthankara in a circular brass box (gattaji), Rajasthan (Bikaner or Jaipur), c. early 1800s. The delicately painted icon is embellished with small rubies, emeralds and basra pearls. Private collection
5. Domestic or portable Jain shrine with a siddhachakra diagram, western India, probably 19th century. Painting on paper in bronze. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. circ.315-1972.

19/09/2025

Water is a significant element of Hindu temples. South Indian temples, in particular, exhibit a distinctive interplay of water and architecture, as evident in their form and function—in design as well as in the rituals associated with festivals. The vasant-mandapa is a unique structure with water channels, found in a few temples of the region, mostly in Tamil Nadu. Its usage is linked to K**a, the god of love, who is also called Vasant, as it is only used during Vasantotsav or Spring Festival.

The festival conveys the story of Shiva burning K**adeva, and his agreement to allow K**a to return to his bodily form once a year. This return of K**a to his physical form is what the festival commemorates. In Tamil Nadu, six vasant-mandapas are found at different locations. All of them feature a square island surrounded by a deep trench, holding a small throne platform at its centre, and one or two square colonnades around the channel. The one at Alagar Koil is walled on all four sides, with only a small entrance. In other temples, the vasant-mandapa is entirely open, or, as is the case with Nellaiyappar Temple in Tirunelveli, placed within a garden.

At Alagar Koil, during this ten-day festival, Alagar (a form of Vishnu) and his consorts, Andal and Kalyanasundaravalli, are taken to this mandapa each evening for three hours. At this time, the trench surrounding the central island is filled with water, and the whole structure is decorated with flowers. The significance of vasant mandapa in the ritual cycle of the temple is highlighted by the fact that a large part of its ceiling and its walls are embellished with magnificent murals that depict the Ramayana. Episodes from the story of Rama—from his birth to the awakening of Kumbhakarna during the battle in Lanka—are vividly portrayed here. Some parts of these murals are badly damaged, hence it is difficult to determine whether the Ramayana was depicted in an incomplete manner or if the rest of the epic’s story was scraped off.

Read more about Temples, their architectural and cultural nuances in From 75 Years of Marg: Readings on The Temple. Link in bio!

12/09/2025

📢KOLKATA📢
and Marg invite you to a discussion on Marg's recent publication Video Games: Lila/Maya on the 18th of October at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture. Tea will be served at 5 PM and the discussion will begin at 5:30 PM.
The discussion between Souvik Mukherjee, Souvik Kar and Sujaan Mukherjee will be moderated by Adrija Mukherjee. Please register via this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScAKtUHJFxqthCI88ZHMazrNQlYHnNF6lhdVirPhNteZ2SsXw/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=102191693041219869956

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Our Story

Marg is a Mumbai-based not-for-profit publisher whose mission is to encourage an understanding of Indian art in the broadest sense of the term. It strives to light up “many dark corners” in India’s cultural landscape and to spark debate on all aspects of heritage among academics, critics and interested general readers.

Since its inception in 1946, our quarterly magazine has reflected new trends, new research and new scholarship, from both upcoming and established art historians and scholars. The magazine is aimed at a wide audience and seeks to forge a connection between art and life.

Marg’s quarterly books, published simultaneously with the magazine from 1977 to 2009, have since diverged into independent publications, each a landmark contribution.

Among other avenues we pursue, Marg has been publishing special books outside the quarterly series in a variety of formats.