The Thief Who Stole My Heart. The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855-1280 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021)
INDIA a story through 100 OBJECTS (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2021)
The Unfinished: Indian Stone Carvers at Work, (Delhi: Roli Books, 2015) With Peter Rockwell on an NEH Collaborative Fellowship
The Body Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in India’s Art, (Columbia University Press, New York & Mapin Publishing, India, 2009)
Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj, (Mapin Publishing, India, 2008)
Chola. Sacred Bronzes of Southern India. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2006)
The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India, (New York: The American Federation of Arts, 2002)
India through the Lens: Photography 1840 – 1911, (Washington DC, Ahmedabad, Cologne: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Mapin Publishing, Prestel Verlag, 2000)
Devi, The Great Goddess: Female Divinity in South Asian Art, (Washington DC, Ahmedabad, Cologne: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Mapin Publishing, Prestel Verlag, 1999)
Indian Art. Art and Ideas. (London: Phaidon, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002. Japanese and Greek editions issued.)
Ed. Representing the Body: Gender Issues in Indian Art. (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997)
Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives of India. (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1997)
Ed. Unseen Presence: The Buddha and Sanchi, (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1996)
Ed. The Legend of Rama: Artistic Visions, (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1994)
Art of the Imperial Cholas. (The Polsky lectures for 1987. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)
Antal and her Path of Love: Poems of a Woman Saint from South India. (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990)
Slaves of the Lord: The Path of the Tamil Saints. (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1988)
Ed. Royal Patrons and Great Temple Art. (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1988)
“Impossible Picturesqueness.” (Edward Lear’s Indian Watercolors. 1873–1875. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)
Yogini Cult and Temples. A Tantric Tradition. (New Delhi: The National Museum, 1986)
With Pratapaditya Pal. From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India 1757–1930. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986)
Early Stone Temples of Orissa. (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1979)
Looking Again at Indian Art. (New Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 1978)
Things of Beauty. (New Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 1979. [A book on Indian art for children, to mark the International Year of the Child.])
Living and Dying: An Enquiry into the Enigma of Life after Death. (New Delhi: Vikas Publishers, 1979)
Early Buddhist Rock Temples. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1972)
Namakkal Caves. (Madras: Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology, 1968)