- Collection of Indian Bronzes • Collection Ursula Walter -
The Indology Collection at the Gutenberg Institute of World Literature and Script-Oriented Media features around 250 artifacts, including bronze figures, wood carvings, and jewelry from India, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. These also include Hindu and Buddhist deities and mythological figures.
In November 2000, the collection entered the holdings of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz as a donation from the estate of Ursula Walter (Friedrichsdorf, near Bad Homburg).
The primary value of the bronze collection lies in its educational purpose. The objects are used to deepen the teaching content and thus explain the often apparently very abstract figures of the multi-layered Hindu and Buddhist pantheon to the students in detail.
The Indology Department is home not only to the Ursula Walter Collection but also to another noteworthy one: namely, 360 unique watercolors commissioned by Dr. Hans Ruelius in 1975. They represent copies of certain personifications that were originally crafted from clay for ritual use in Sri Lanka, then used and subsequently destroyed after use. The watercolor reproductions now serve primarily as objects of research interest.
