Mireille Benisti

Mireille Benisti (1909-1993) was a French Indologist. She was trained by scholars such as Philippe Stern and Paul Mus who marked the first half of the twentieth century- the first by his systematic method of style analysis in history of art, the second by his deep insights in the history of Buddhism and in the conceptions of religious monuments such as the stupa. In the same line, she had been the leading researcher and author in the second half of twentieth century in the fields of Buddhist art of India and the expansion of Indian art in Combodia. Her contribution is basically in the domain of stylistics and extends also to iconography as well as to textual sources in Sanskrit. She had authored major books like Relations between the first Khmer Art and Indian Art; Contribution to the study of the Indian Buddhist stupa : The minor stupas of Bodh-Gaya and Ratnagiri. IGNCA has also published her book entitled Stylistics of Buddhist Art in India, in 2 vols. In 2003. She had published a number of articles, on the stupa, on decorative motifs in Buddhist and Hindu art of India and Cambodia, on iconography in both areas, etc., leaving a rich harvest of facts, a model of method and a lot of innovative ideas.