SAARC nations need shared database on heritage

New Delhi, Sep 27: SAARC nations should own a shared database on the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of South Asia so as to locate the region’s cultural components, pool them onto a platform and facilitate their exchange between people and transmission down generations, a seminar noted today.

Community participation is one key to such an initiative, but it would require an atmosphere where the youth is encouraged to carry on hereditary knowledge and skills, speakers at the workshop in the capital on ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Context of SAARC’ pointed out.

Opening Procesion_SAARC Cultural Festival
on Traditional Dances of South Asia

Organised by Colombo-based SAARC Cultural Centre (SCC) in collaboration with Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) here as part of an ongoing SAARC Cultural Festival on Traditional Dances of South Asia which began Friday evening, the day-long deliberations which also saw demonstration of three performing arts, the delegates also called for developing arts and crafts hubs besides heritage tourism spots across South Asia.

Art scholar Dr Sudha Gopalakrishnan, while speaking on ‘Safeguarding ICH’ at SNA’s Rabindra Bhavan complex, emphasized that heritage could not be treated as a static concept, and that its documentation thus merited constant update and linkage to the contemporary world.

“While it is a difficult process to establish normative procedures for tangible heritage, it is much more complex to take action on the intangible because of its ‘living’ and intractable nature, diversity in areas of manifestation and legal ramifications,” she said at the forenoon session that was preceded by a demonstration of eastern India’s Seraikella Chhau (Shashadhar Acharya) and followed by Sri Lankan dances besides Koodiyattam presentation (Sangeeth Chakyar) from Kerala in the afternoon.

SAARC Culture Centre Director Dr Sanjay Garg revealed that the Third Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture held earlier this week had decided to establish a SAARC Heritage Committee. The proposed body’s tasks would be to identify monuments and cultural landscapes besides document and share knowledge.

“SAARC agenda on ICH needs to be revisited,” he added, after Dr Gopalakrishnan said the eight-nation initiative needed to give a clearer definition to ICH, identify its domains and muster online inventory besides support individual artistes and organize exchange programmes that also involved experts.

SSC Director GLW Samarasinghe and SNA Secretary Helen Acharya also spoke.

At the interactive session, veteran theatre-person M K Raina cautioned that revitalization of the arts had its flip side if their updating is done without respect for the past.

Former Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Neville Kanakeratne revealed that Colombo and New Delhi signed an accord this week to initiate joint documentation of the Buddhist spot of Kalinga in Orissa.

The three-day festival began on Friday evening with the staging of traditional dances of SAARC nations. The two-hour programmes saw the presentation of Mili Atan and Karsak recitals from Afghanistan, bottle dance and Jhoom from Bangaldesh, welcome songs of Bhutan, Manjushree dance and Bhairav Kali dance of Nepal and Kandyan dance from Sri Lanka besides Chhau dances (Seraikella and Purulia), Dhol Cholam (Manipur) and Kathakali (Kerala), from India.

The festival will conclude on Sunday evening amid cultural programmes after awarding of certificates to the participating 105 artistes.

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Afghanistan - Karsak

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Bhutan - Welcome Song

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Bangladesh - Bottle Dance

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Dhol Cholam

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Kathakali

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Purulia Chhau

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Saraikela Chhau

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Nepal_Bhairav Kali 

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Sri Lanka_Ves

SAARC Culture Festival Photo Exhibition Draws Visitors to Akademi

New Delhi, Sep 26: The SAARC nations have renewed their cultural ties at a just-concluded conclave of their culture ministers, but their shared history of artistic cooperation dates back to five decades — as portrayed eminently in a grand spectacle that has opened in the national capital.

Photo Exhibition at SNA

The three-day photo exhibition which began at the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) today essays select cultural events that the national-level institution has hosted since 1958 till recently — all of them exclusively featuring the countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that now total eight: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives, besides India.

SNA Secretary Helen Acharya pointed out that the 1952-founded Akademi has played a proactive role with regard to performing arts. “This has been particularly so in South Asia and the SAARC countries,” she added.

The 169-image exhibition, which has been organised as part of a SAARC Cultural Festival on Traditional Dances of South Asia being staged at the Akademi this week, seeks to recall the contributions of India in unifying the cultural spirit of the eight-nation grouping.

“We have chosen recap moments from eleven occasions — from 1958 (when SNA held a dance seminar in Delhi) to a welcome function hosted in 2003 in honour of Chandrika Bhandaranaike Kumaratunga when she was the President of Sri Lanka,” Ms Acharya noted.

Thus in photos of varying sizes — their tone ranging from sepia to black-and-white to multi-colour — the ongoing exhibition boasts of visuals from a series of momentous events, interactive sessions, symposia, festivals and VIP visits the SNA has organised over the past half a century.

Innovatively designed in zigzag block-like formations, the show on SNA lawns has experimented with sequencing the chosen images. Also, besides the SNA-organised events, it serves a visual feast with descriptive notes on the art forms and traditional festivals in the SAARC region that has won UNESCO’s recognition as intangible cultural heritage.

As for the SNA photos, for instance, one section profiles three events the 

Akademi organised — in 1971, ’79 and ’84. Adjacent to it is a chapter that has images from just one event: a dance seminar in 1958.

Scenes from that symposium pop up contrasting moods in sepia. The seminars show scholars sitting in brooding rows and presenting papers. Next to it are vibrant stage shows of the pre-classical Yakshagana from Karnataka and the ritualistic Kandy dances of Sri Lanka presented as part of that 1958 event that shows Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister, among the delegates.

On the other hand, the adjoining section is a visual potpourri of festivals such as Bhutanese dances from the Republic Day Folk Dance Festival at Delhi’s National Stadium, dancing masks from South Asian Festival of Culture and rabab recitals at Rabindra Bhavan in ’84.

Photo Exhibition at SNA 

Further afield are images from India International Puppet Festival and The SAARC Workshop on Documentation of Musical Tradition (both in ’90), SAARC South Asian Music and Dance Festival (’98) and the 1991 images of Sri then Lankan President Kumaratunga being welcomed (flanked by late minister Arjun Singh and lyricist Bhupen Hazarika) and her taking a peek at a set of mask dance mannequins.

The images of UNESCO-recognised art forms at the show are of ancient Sanskrit theatre Koodiyattam, Vedic chanting of Kerala, Ram Lila of upcountry India, Novruz of the South and West Asian belt, Ramman religious festival of Garhwal Himalayas, Chhau dance of eastern India, Kalbelia folk songs of Rajasthan, Mudiyettu traditional theatre of Kerala and Buddhist chanting of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir, besides Sankirtana from Manipur.

Six-dance show unveils pan-Indian aesthetics at SAARC Culture Ministers Meet

New Delhi, Sep 25: In a little over half-an-hour, the visual treat encapsulated the rich variety of India’s performance arts in its entirety.

Dances, drama and melodies from the north, east, west and south of the host nation dazzled delegates at the Third Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture, as the 40-minute show highlighted the individuality and commonalities of classical, folk and martial traditions of the country.

Six traditional Indian dances come together at
Nrityarupa programme staged as part of the 3rd SAARC Cultural Ministers' Meeting,
 at The Ashok, yesterday evening (1)

Presented under the aegis of Sangeet Natak Akademi which also crafted the programme, ‘Nrityarupa’ brought out the essential charm and collaborative beauty of Bharatanatyam, Kathakali (both from the south), Kathak (north and west), Odissi and Chhau (east) and Manipuri (Northeast) before an august audience featuring ministers and diplomats among other dignitaries.

Addressing the gathering at The Ashoka hotel on Wednesday evening, India’s Minister of State for Culture Shripad Yesso Naik noted that the two-day conclave was striving to lay a time-bound roadmap that would work substantively to revitalize cultural institutions and re-inject enthusiasm among artists, writers and scholars who work in the areas of the dance, literature, museum, archives, libraries, oral narratives and modern art.

कैप्शन जोड़ें

“Towards this end, India is willing to commit its time, manpower and resources for strengthening institutions in the region so that we can preserve our rich cultural heritages and particularly preserve the hundreds of thousands of mini-narratives which are in danger of being lost forever to future generations,” he noted at the banquet speech, hours after officials of eight-nation conglomeration held talks on taking forward cultural cooperation.

‘Nrityarupa’, choreographed by frontline Kathak exponent Rajendra Gangani, wove a tapestry of celebrated Indian dances, thus demonstrating a kinetic synergy between them. As their seamless portrayal eventually led to a jubilant flourish, the spectators gave the artistes a cheerful ovation.

Light-designed by Sreekanth Nair, the package unrolled gracefully with a piece invoking Lord Shiva. The hymnal offering symbolised the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction, as the Shiva Stuti drew in artistes in pairs representing the six dances.

Subsequently, they also found individual demonstration before finally the dancers performedtogether to a uniform rhythm. That climactic tarana melody merged the streams into a pure-dance passage, symbolising the essential Indian spirit of union despite its cultural differences regionally.

The artistes were Arun Sankar, Rajamally B (Bharatanatyam), Gauri Diwakar (Kathak), Nikhil Lal (Chhau), Shagun Butani, Asha Kumari (Odissi), Chandan Devi, Meneka Devi (Manipuri) and M Amaljith (Kathakali).

Bharatanatyam recital enthrals SAARC delegates ahead of meet

New Delhi, Sep 24: The Third Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture which began here today got a slice of India’s rich culture on the eve of the two-day international meet when leaders and delegates were treated to a Bharatanatyam recital from the south of the country.

Five young artistes from Chennai’s Kalakshetra showcased the vivacity and variety of the classical dance before an audience that comprised ministers, top bureaucrats and their families from the eight member-nations of the 1985-founded South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC.

The 50-minute show, which was organised by Sangeet Natak Akademi on Tuesday evening, was strung together by frontline dancer Priyadarshini Govind who is currently the director of the 1936-established institution.

Artistes from Chennai-based Kalakshetra Repertory Company
 perform Bharatanatyam in New Delhi on Sep 23 Tuesday on the eve of the
 Third SAARC Culture Ministers Conference in the national capital.

As the dancers — three of them males — presented four celebrated items to recorded music at The Ashok hotel in the capital, the SAARC delegates from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives besides host India watched in relaxed attention. The end of the performance saw them applaud the artistes with long rounds of claps, much to the pleasure of Priyadarshini and the Kalakshetra Repertory Company artistes Hari Padman, Sibi Sudarsan, K P Rakesh, Indu Mohan and K Sharada Acharya.

Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh said before the start of the show that India was seeking to strengthen cultural ties with the rest of the SAARC nations. “We share centuries of history,” he noted, adding that the deep bond manifests in matters ranging from food, art and literature.

Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh and Joint Secretary V Srinivas on stage, flanking Kalakshetra director Priyadarshini Govind, after a Bharatanatyam show by the Chennai-based institution's repertory company's five dancers on Sep 23 Tuesday on the eve of the Third SAARC Culture Ministers Conference in the national capital.

The dance recital, according to Priyadarshini, eminently mirrored the insight and spirit of Bharatanatyam gurus, including legendary theosophist Rukmini Devi Arundale who founded Kalakshetra in 1936.

Mr Singh presented Priyadarshini and the stage artistes with shawls.

The dance programme began with the invocatory Allarippu in raga Nattai, followed by a Jatiswaram in Kalyani and set to the three-beat roopaka taal. Then came the main piece, a Keertana on Nataraja (set to Kedaragoula raga and choreographed by the couple V P Dhananjayan and Shanta). The recital concluded with a Tillana composed by 20th-century musician Papanasam Sivan in raga Hindolam.

9th National Museum Lecture by Dr. Parul Pandya Dhar

Art historian, author and classical dancer, Professor Parul Pandya Dhar, University of Delhi, delivers the 9th National Museum lecture in Delhi on 'Scattered Across Museums: Re-collecting Vietnam's Buddhist Past' on Sep 12.

Professor Parul Pandya Dhar delivers the 9th National Museum Lecture (1)

Professor Parul Pandya Dhar delivers the 9th National Museum Lecture (2)

100 Days Away, Biennale 2014 Braces Up For Bigger Success

Kochi is gearing up to host the second edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale, as the organisers of the 108-day mega art event starting on December 12 are busy with the preparations for the much-acclaimed mega art festival that is slated to conclude on March 29, 2015.

Jitish Kallat, the curator and artistic director for the biennale being organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), said the second edition would feature around 85 artists from over 28 countries.

Some of the key artists have already made site visits, and they include Franceso Clemente, Sir Anish Kapoor, Christian Waldvogel, K G Subramanyan, Sudhir Patwardhan, Ghulammohammed Sheikh and Namboodiri, among others.

Kallat said it was a “rewarding moment” for him when conversations with artist-colleagues, concretize into projects on the ground in Kochi. “The embryonic form of the project is taking shape,” he noted. “The exhibition brings together art-works that picture versions of the world referencing history, geography, astronomy, time and myth, interlacing the terrestrial with the celestial.”

The full list of artists will be announced at an exclusive event in a few weeks.

Kallat had been engaged in a year-long research trip to select the artists for the much-awaited second edition.

The organisers are prepping up the venues for the second edition as artists have already started working on site.

KBF president Bose Krishnamachari said the foundation has retained most of the venues from last time. “But we will have a few additional venues and projects in a few public spaces. And we are looking forward to an engaging project put up by Kallat,” he added.

KBF has been organising several talks and cultural programmes as a run-up to the Biennale. Riyas Komu, Director of Programmes, said the KBF has always been mindful of the larger participation of the people to engage them with contemporary art.

“To amplify it this time, we will be having several Programmes including the Student’s Biennale, Children’s Biennale, Artists’ Cinema project and various Cultural Programmes that will run parallel to the Biennale,” he added.

The first edition held in 2012 was an unprecedented national and international success.  As expectations run high this time, most of the hotels, home-stays and boarding and lodging houses in Fort Kochi and nearby areas have been completely pre-booked.

एन. डी. एम. सी. की अखिल भारतीय कला प्रदर्शनी 2014 में बिहारी कलाकार

    

Portrayal of Indian womanhood in various hues

New Delhi, April 28: Seething with anger at the Kauravas who have tried to disrobe her, Draupadi unlocks her long wavy tresses with a vow that she will tie it again only after smearing it with the blood of Dushasan, the main culprit.

The flowing hair, a two-metre-long work of threads and metal hooks and interspersed with glistening red beads symbolising blood of her tormentor, lies in a glass case at an ongoing exhibition at the National Museum.   

Barely some distance away, a curvaceous celestial beauty (10th century sandstone Apsara from Khajuraho) stands under a tree, scribbling a note of love on parchment. There are nail-marks on her back – a sort of inscription of her lover’s passionate lovemaking the night before. 

These are among the stirring images of Indian womanhood that filter into your mindscape as you make a round of “The Body in Indian Art”, a mammoth eight-gallery exhibition that depicts the single theme of the body with multiple expressions of art.

Significantly, these images tend to break the stereotypes of Indian womanhood, which has mostly oscillated between the two extremes of divinity (Sita, Ahalya) and sensuous physicality (Khajuraho, Kamasutra). India does celebrate the varied shade of aesthetics of femininity, but this exhibition is an incredible depiction of womanhood in its scale and depth.

Curated by Dr Naman Ahuja, Associate Professor of Ancient Indian Art and Architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the exhibition (titled ‘Roop-Pratiroop’ in Hindi) goes beyond the clichéd images and patterns to depict the Indian womanhood in all its shades – ugly and serene, shame and honour, valour and servility – expressed through images of making love, seeking revenge, committing Sati, and becoming an ascetic, among others.    

The female figures are not pertinent to the aesthetics of a particular era or faith or region or culture. Overall, they encompass looks ranging from serene to violent, from sensuous to divine, thus portraying concepts and emotions as vast as heroism, asceticism, adoption, fertility, eroticism and rancour, among others.

The 11-week (March 14 to June 7) show has been arranged in conformity with the idea of depicting the thesis along with the antithesis in each of the eight specially-designed galleries. The trail follows no chronological order; instead it goes by themes such as death, birth, rebirth, heroism, asceticism and rapture. 

Some of the exhibits depicting the womanhood are ‘Virasati’ (commemorating a woman warrior from 13th century AD); a textile installation (of the female genital) by new-age artist Mrinalini Mukherjee; an 18th-century wooden sculpture of a squatting woman giving birth to a baby; the Mother Goddesses from Harappa; demoness Putana suckling Krishna; Mallinatha (the Jain woman ascetic); Saptamatrika or The Seven Mothers (a 2nd or 3rd century AD terracotta work from Patna Museum); and Surasundaris (a celebration of the body).

“The body is the bedrock of the studies of art and civilisation in India. The exhibition seeks to portray the images of women as perceived by different communities and religions spanning four millennia of Indian civilization,” Dr. Ahuja says about his magnum opus, which comes to India after enthralling the audiences at Brussels as part of the famed Europalia art show. The event in the Belgian capital attracted an audience of over one million people.

There is a section of the exhibition that looks at the birth of key figures from various religions, among them Krishna, Buddha, Ram and Jesus. All these figures were born as a result of an Immaculate Conception or miraculous event – a phenomenon that makes them divine. Krishna was given up for adoption while Jain leader Mahavira was transferred – as an embryo – from the womb of his biological mother to another womb. Significantly, these age-old mythic stories have compelling resonance in modern times in the concepts of adoption, surrogacy and in-vitro fertilisation.

Dr Ahuja says there is no linear way to express femininity. While the apsara sculpture from Khajuraho celebrates the erotic power of the body, the imperfection is portrayed in the mid-20th century wooden carving of the demoness Putana, who is trying to kill the infant Krishna by smearing her breasts with poison.

There is a statue of a woman warrior from the Kakatiya period (1083-1323 AD) who is severing her head with a sharp weapon. “It is rare to find examples of women warriors being commemorated, and it could find a reflection in modern-day women suicide bombers,” observes the curator. “Women were also commemorated for their valour and fidelity. This was more commonly done for those who committed sati, which is reflected in two 13th century sati memorial stones.” 

Contemporary Indian art has also found a place in the exhibition, which weaves the subjects of birth, death and rapture into the making of a civilisation. Sheela Gowda brings back to the exhibition her 1997 work “Draupadi’s Vow”; photo artist N.Pushpamala lends a picture from her collection ‘Native Women’(2000-2004) to visually analyze women’s submission to cultural codes of India’s colonial rulers.

“This exhibition is a watershed,” says National Museum Director General Dr Venu V. “It is more than double the size of the biggest exhibition we have ever had. Nearly a quarter of the objects have never been shown before.”

इमोशन आर्ट शो , पटना

Comics artists give new hues to National Museum show on body

New Delhi, April 14: If display of historical artworks is meant to trigger novel interpretations,then a landmark exhibition at National Museum here is lending unconventional ideas to the mission. 

A comics workshop the museum held as part of ‘The Body in Indian Art’ brought in close to 20 artists, who have begun working on freewheeling thoughts that occurred to them after viewing the 300-plus objects which grace the eleven-week show ending in June.

Organised in collaboration with World Comics India, the two-day get-together of young artistes over the weekend saw their sketching imaginary stories coloured on the impression they got on seeing the exhibits that throw light primarily on the depiction of the body over a span of four millennia — across India’s religions, cultures and regions.

National Museum Director-General Dr Venu V said the idea behind the workshop was to widen the reach of the March 14-June 7 show to people from various walks and sense their varied feedback. “The exercise would add to the aesthetic dimensions of the exhibition,” he said, referring to ‘The Body in Indian Art’ curated by art historian Naman P Ahuja.

The delegates at the workshop that concluded on Sunday evening are slated to submit their artwork in a week. “We plan to come up with a booklet showcasing the comics,” added Dr Venu.

World Comics India founder Sharad Sharma, who conducted the workshop, said the exhibition has stimulated the imagination of the artists — they include painters, graphic designers and even a Scandinavian working with her country’s embassy in Delhi.

“Almost all of them have come up with exciting themes, often hilarious,” he revealed, while guiding the youngsters on executing their plots. “Quite a few are sarcastic — brimming with social, political and historical undertones.”

Dayanita Singh giving her talk at the Book Museum, National Museum, New Delhi

All the same, not all themes are in lighter vein. For instance, artist Bhanu Pratap said he was working on the mindset of old-time sculptors who invariably left their work unsigned — “something that is unimaginable today.”

Norwegian Kathrine Flaak said her focus would be on “the changing manmade image of beauty” over the years.

The workshop began on Saturday, hours after National Museum hosted a talk by renowned photographic artist Dayanita Singh, whose show titled ‘Book Museum’ has been on view (from March 10 to May 10) at the second floor.

 Participants at the comics workshop captured by the Facilitator, Sharad Sharma

In her hour-long Friday evening talk on ‘Building the Book Museum: photography, language, form’, the author recalled her experiences in the field of capturing images and writing on them.

She also explained how the book can be “a museum without walls”, capable of taking its own trajectories by making it to the houses of people across the globe.

Rare art objects, never shown before, line up for exhibition at National Museum

New   Delhi, Mar 24: With museums across the country opening their vaults for a mammoth exhibition currently underway in the national capital, an array of exquisite art objects, ranging  from the Harappan civilisation to modern times, have become available for public viewing for the first time.

A few tiny Harappan figures, a monumental Naga Deva, an 8th-century Uma-Maheshvara, an animal-headed anthropomorph and a marble tomb of a Mughal lady are among the artefacts being shown for the first time as part of ‘The Body in Indian Art’ at the National Museum.

 

The Nativity of Mary

Curated by art historian Naman P. Ahuja, the eight-gallery exhibition explores the complex understandings of the ‘Body’ in Indian art. This he does through an entire gamut of cultural artefacts such as sculptures, paintings, masks, jewellery, amulets, posters, video installations, music clips and two large textiles.

The 11-week high-voltage exhibition at the museum comes after a successful showing in Brussels as part of the art festival Europalia which concluded recently.

“Around 20-25 per cent of the 300-odd artefacts in the exhibition have never been shown  before and another 60 per cent have seldom been seen before as they were lying in museums in small towns and were too fragile to be sent to Brussels,” pointed out Dr Ahuja, an Associate Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

The curator, who has spent years exploring the storerooms (reserve collections) of numerous small regional museums, said he and his curatorial team located many objects that were not on public display. Some were even in the gardens of museums and had thus escaped any critical attention from scholars.

A significant new discovery is the boar-headed copper anthropomorph (2nd or 1st millennium BC) which was lying unnoticed in a museum storeroom. Exhibited in Brussels for the first time, it has now been properly catalogued and is on display here.

“It is a rare piece of art that existed between the Harappan civilisation and the Mauryan Empire, and takes the story of Indian gods and goddesses to an earlier date than what we had imagined… It is a huge find and an exciting object for art historians, archaeologists and linguists.”

Equally fascinating are some tiny Harrapan figures that are on display here for the first time since they were excavated in 1933. They comprise a steatite Seal (2500-1700 BC from Kalibangan, Rajasthan); a terracotta female figurine with animal horns (2500-1700 BC, Mohenjodaro); and two horned maskes (both almost identical). All these objects have been lying in the cells of ASI at Purana Quila, Delhi.

Similarly, a monumental Naga Deva — a 9th century sculpture — has been lent by the Bhopal Museum, and it has never been shown in a public exhibition before. This remarkable statue is carved from a porous stone that flakes in a manner that gives it the appearance of snakeskin.  

 

Animal headed Anthropomorph

National Museum Director-General Dr Venu V said the exhibition is the most extensive collaboration of museums and collectors across the country. “Significantly, it has brought into public domain a number of art objects that have remained largely hidden for the outside world.”

The exhibition in Delhi also features some objects which did not go to Brussels. An 8th century Uma-Maheshvara, which has been on display in the Bhopal Museum but never in a public exhibition before, is one such instance. 

Another object being shown for the first time in India is a marble tomb of a Mughal lady (Delhi region, 17th century). Kept in the ASI’s Red Fort Archaeological Museum, it is a wonderful example of Islamic art. Judging by its lavish, white marble and fine calligraphy, it must have belonged to a member of the imperial family.   

A tiny toe-suckling ‘Bal Krishna’ in bronze was found in the storeroom of Chennai Museum. It did go to Brussels but is being exhibited in India for the first time. 

Particularly special is the book Akitoosha-i-ukba (Provision for the next world). Made of copper pages with silver calligraphy, there are the 99 names of Allah inscribed in this extremely rare book. Being shown for the first time, this is from the ASI’s Museum, Red Fort. It was made during the reign of Aurangzeb.

The National Museum, the biggest lender of objects to the exhibition, has also opened its magnificent reserve collections for first-time viewing. This includes a page of the Shahnama (written by Persian poet Firdausi between 977 and 1010 AD), depicting the birth of Rustom, the legendary Persian warrior.

 

The Birth of Rustam folio from Shahnamah

It has also lent a Mughal painting of the Birth of Mary, based on an engraving by Dutch painter Cornelius Cort (around 1735). Made in the court of Mohammed Shah, it depicts the bathing of new born Mary, mother of Jesus, by a group of female attendants. 

The Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar has lent eight sculptures, collectively known as Ashta Dikpala (Gods of Eight Directions). At Brussels, only five of these sculptures, dating from the 12th century, were shown. But in the Delhi exhibition, all the eight are on display.