Price Re. 1/- INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE v o l u m e X X IV. No. 5 september–october, 2010 from major terracotta collections from across the The Deeper Loam world. An accompanying exhibition displayed TALK and EXHIBITION: Ancient Indian select highlights, some never published before. The Terracotta Art question and answer sessions on each day revealed Speaker: Dr. Naman Ahuja, September 16–18 the contemporary relevance of his research, and its significance in the prevalent multi-disciplinary In a series of six outstanding lectures, Dr. Ahuja approach towards scholarship. presented a scholarly overview of the major discourses on Indian terracotta. He started off KANIKA PRUTHI by mapping the known findings from the proto- historic to the Post-Mauryan period, propounding their legacy on the ‘Gupta’ idiom. The evolution of styles was highlighted in the context of the religious and cultural milieu with references from non- Indic sources as well, lending a holistic and multi- disciplinary dimension to his study. Ahuja’s next pertinent enquiry was the location of a ‘rediscovered pantheon’ in this context as he presented elaborate and complex discourses on iconography and narratives. He juxtaposed select terracotta findings with the practice of the veneration of ancient Indian Goddesses to present the ritualistic context of both the material and popular practice. He went on to present specimens that displayed talismanic imagery to further the case of decoding these terracotta findings. Steering his next lot of lectures towards the development of an Indian visual aesthetics, Ahuja presented exemplary terracotta objects to trace the origin and development of erotic iconography in the subcontinent. He went on to expound on select artifacts to highlight the nuances of performativity and mood they embodied. The series succinctly presented Ahuja’s research on Indian terracotta in a manner that could be appreciated by an academic and enjoyed by a novice alike. The rich visual material that accompanied his lectures presented a consortium of images culture diary concepts of Indo-Roman art and Indo-Greek Gandharan Art or Graeco-Buddhist art. According to Professor TALK: New Data on the Origin of the Fussman, there were two main difficulties in Gandharan Buddha Image solving the crux of the origins: the lack of a precise Speaker: Professor Gerard Fussman chronology and the lack of data on the Greek and Chair: Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan Kushan art of Bactria. Inscriptions and excavations Collaboration: IIC–Asia Project, October 18 have helped to fill these lacunae. Dr. Vatsyayan’s learned introduction to the We now know that Gandharan art is part of inscriptional and other evidence on Gandharan art Graeco-Iranian art, with many Roman influences. provided the prologue to this interesting lecture by a But that tells us nothing about the origin of the distinguished scholar. Professor Fussman began by Buddha image that appears at about the same time, throwing light on the development in this art with but with very different shapes, in Mathura and Roman trade links and referred to Mortimer Wheeler in Gandhara. New finds show that its canonical and Foucher’s work on this aspect. He then traced Gandharan shape dates to c.50 AD, pre-dating the stages of artistic development in Gandhara and Kanishka, some of them quite influenced by Greek Bactria where Greek and Roman impacts could be art, others copies of Mathuran statues. As for the visualized on local artistic traditions. Interestingly, idea to represent the Buddha in anthropomorphic the dated Buddha sculptures start appearing in the shape, Professor Fussman said, the Greeks were beginning of Kanishka’s reign. used to doing it. The anthropomorphic Buddha For more than one century, historians of art used statues are, therefore, linked to the great cultic to disagree on the origin of Gandharan art and the change that happened in the whole of Northern Buddha image. The very name ‘Gandharan’ was India around the Common Era. coined not to choose between the two contradictory B.R. MANI Sarojini Naidu, performed by Tom Alter and Mrinalini Celebrating the Earth Sarabhai. A film festival showcased Jhing Chik Jhing, FESTIVAL: Bhoomi – The Earth Festival Do Bigha Zameen, and finallyNiyamgiri: the forest speaks, Collaboration: Navdanya, October 2 a documentary that gave an account of the struggle of the Dongria Kondh against Vedanta’s intentions This festival to mark Gandhi Jayanti was inaugurated to mine their sacred mountain. by four eminent guests: Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, Mohini Giri, Indu Pillay and Mrinalini Sarabhai. On display throughout the day were two stunning Then followed a day of arts, music and films: exhibitions: while renowned artist Shakti Maira Sandeep Srivastav and his band Ibadat kicked off displayed ‘Earth Spirit’, a selection of paintings with an ‘Invocation to Mother Earth’, a selection of inspired by ‘Seed and Nature’, Navdanya exhibited songs inspired by the natural elements; Vidya Rao the huge pool of indigenous seed varieties. Navdanya enchanted the audience with a selection from the also launched a compilation of the best literature on Thumri tradition focusing on the idea of the ‘ghat’ the Earth, with a preface by Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan symbol of Mother Earth and the elements of life. and Keshav Malik and poems by Tagore, Folk musicians from Bihar sang about the life and Sarojini Naidu and more. The Festival ended plight of farmers. with Navdanya’s organic dinner, ‘Roots The audience was moved by ‘Mahatma and the and Shoots’. Poetess’, a reading of letters between Gandhiji and NAVDANYA TEAM 2 diary lectures Discounting the role of governance in the perception The Invisible Fourth Lion of the common man who believed that God runs THE FIFTH GOVERNANCE LECTURE: this country, Gandhi looked at the Ashoka emblem Hukumat-e-Hind – Reflections on the of the three lions as symbolizing the ordinary Governance of India citizen (Awaam-e-Hind), Governance and the State Speaker: Gopalkrishna Gandhi (Hukumat-e-Hind). However, hidden behind this Chair: N.N. Vohra, September 1 troika, he said was a fourth, the invisible lion (Zameer- e-Hind) that stood for the national conscience. This As he described the state of contemporary alone could redeem the other three. governance, Gandhi made ample use of sarcasm, Though he avoided suggesting remedies, yet these were irony, metaphor, symbolism, humour and Hindustani cloaked in the negation of negatives. There were veiled colloquialisms to keep his audience enthralled. His references to the need for a Lokpal to rein in political talk covered a wide range: crime, food rotting in power; the potential of the Right to Information Act open air warehouses; corruption, political deformity, that he considered to be the second independence; elections propelled by money and muscle power; rational and authentic use of ‘public purpose’ to honour killings, the insecurity of minorities, mutinies acquire land, thus causing least inconvenience to those in troubled areas, the culture of weapons, unjustified dispossessed; and the power of conscience captured police firings, black money, et al. A whole litany of in the directive principles of state policy, human anguished strokes hit the canvas of his discourse, rights, the Supreme Court, the central information as he covered the many layers of concern that lay commission, and many other commissions. behind his exposition. P.S. BAWA had called the history of Poland the history of the Poetry of Resistance twentieth century. In his own translation of Herbert’s EUNIC LITERARY LECTURES: Satyagraha – An work (Antahkaran Ka Aytan), Vajpeyi took the title Exploration of Polish Poetics from a line by another rebel-poet, Gajanan Madhav Introduction: Opalinski and Oscar Pujol Muktibodh, to underscore this aspect. Vajpeyi then Speaker: Ashok Vajpeyi spoke of the poetry of Satyagraha and referred to Collaboration: EUNIC, October 6 the work of Czelaw Milosz, who wondered what poetry was worth if it did not save people This interesting lecture series will underscore or nations. the common links between India and Europe at Among the many facets of Polish poetry outlined in a time when both are re-inventing themselves. In his introductory remarks, Opalinski mentioned the lecture was the notion of poetry as conscience. that the Solidarity movement in Poland was In the face of radical evil, poetry offered resistant influenced by Gandhi’s theories of Satyagraha meditation and (as Adam Jaworski had said), Polish and Ahimsa. poetry forged a literature that answered history’s menace in universal, not provincial, ways. In a The inaugural lecture was delivered by Ashok final tribute to the Polish poetry of resistance, Vajpeyi, Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, who Vajpeyi said that Herbert hailed Polish poetry as has translated Polish poetry into Hindi. According one that contained the fibre of soul and the gristle to him, Poland became the site of underground of conscience. resistance and conscience as it overcame Nazi and Soviet tyrannies. The writer, Brodsky, Vajpeyi said, RACHNA JOSHI 3 culture diary its wars against Islam continued even later, and Prester John the eventual search for Prester John, served as ILLUSTRATED LECTURE: Prester John of the the ideological lever for the Iberian voyages of Indies – Ancient Sources of European Ideologies discoveries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Speaker: Professor Manuel João Ramos He also highlighted the metamorphosis of the Chair: Professor Lotika Varadarajan image of Prester John, initially but wrongly Collaboration: Instituto Camoes, Portuguese viewed as a ruler of India and later of the Mongol Cultural Centre, September 22 empire, and finally identified as the monarch of Christian Ethiopia. Consequent changes occurred In the latter part of the twelfth century, a millenarian in the visual representations and depictions about letter appeared in Europe with its authorship him in Europe. The talk also examined the attributed to Prester John of India, famous in attempts of the Jesuit missionaries to convert medieval European Christian myths.