Living Traditions in Indian Art

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L IVIN G T R A D IT IONS IN INDIAN ART

MUSEUM OF SACRED ART in association with

MAPIN PUBLISHING

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Published in India in 2010 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd in association with Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA), Belgium Simultaneously published in the United States of America by Grantha Corporation 77 Daniele Drive, Hidden Meadows Ocean Township, NJ 07712 E: mapin@mapinpub.com

Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd 502 Paritosh, Next to Darpana Academy Usmanpura Riverside, Ahmedabad 380 013 INDIA T: +91 79 40 228 228 | F: +91 79 40 228 201 E: mapin@mapinpub.com | www.mapinpub.com

Curation: Martin Gurvich Exhibition Design: Robert Sustrick Editorial and Content Coordination: Genevieve Brewster Book Graphics Concept: Param P. Tomanec Design Support:Yehudit Ben-Dosa / MOSA Framing: Palmares Decor, Hotton Text © Authors

Museum of Sacred Art Château de Petite Somme 6940 Septon Durbuy, BELGIUM T: +32 (0) 86 323916 E: radhadesh@pamho.net | www.radhadesh.com Distributors North America: Antique Collectors’ Club T: +1 800 252 5231 • E: info@antiquecc.com www.antiquecollectorsclub.com United Kingdom and Europe: Marston Book Services Ltd T: +44 1235 465 578 • E: trade.orders@marston.co.uk Southeast Asia: Paragon Asia Co. Ltd T: +66 2877 7755 • F: 2468 9636 E: info@paragonasia.com Australia and New Zealand Peribo Pty Ltd T: +61 2 9457 0011 • E: michael.coffey@peribo.com.au Distributed in the Rest of the World by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd

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Photographs © as listed Courtesy of Martin Gurvich: pp. 7, 172–176, 178–185, 258, 259 Courtesy of Tryna Lyons: pp. 10, 22–26, 30, 32, 33 Kurma Rupa Dasa: pp. 236–241 Oleg Gajkavoj: 144, 150–153, 156, 168, 186, 187, 231, 235, 243–249, 257 Peter Gustafson: 59, 157–159, 162–167, 206, 223, 232–234, 250 On all other pages photographs by Param P. Tomanec All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

The rights of authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-81-89995-41-6 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-01-7 (Grantha) LCCN: 2010926671 Editing: Vinutha Mallya / Mapin Editorial Design: Paulomi Shah / Mapin Design Studio Cover Design: Param P. Tomanec Printed on permanent acid-free paper at Printer Trento, Italy

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To those who care about sacred art and to A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada who brought the practice of devotion to the West

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CONTENTS

PREFACE J. Bhagwati

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FOREWORD Christiane De Lauwer

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CONNECTING HUMANITY WITH THE DIVINE Martin Gurvich

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LIVING TRADITIONS IN INDIAN ART: THE DIVINE IMAGE Tryna Lyons

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THE COLLECTION

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INDIA PAINTINGS Orissa Tanjore (Tamil Nadu) Rajasthan Mysore (Karnataka) Kerala Mithila (Bihar)

36 44 52 104 136 140

SCULPTURES

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NEPAL AND TIBET

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INDONESIA Bali and Java

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THAILAND

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ART OF HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT

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BIOGRAPHIES OF ARTISTS

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GLOSSARY

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FURTHER READING

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Château de Petite Somme, Radhadesh

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PREFACE India is a vast country: a subcontinent. India is also one of the ancient civilizations of the world. The antiquity of its civilization is matched by the vastness of its geographical extent. Both of these have contributed to the rich and multiple art forms of India.

This diversity is aptly illustrated by the artworks chosen for display in the collection of the Museum of Sacred Art. We know that stories associated with Shri Krishna arise, among other sources, from the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, the Bhagavata Purana, and the Vishnu Purana.The narratives in each of these, place Lord Krishna in various perspectives: a God-child, a prankster, a model lover, a divine hero, and the Supreme Being.

The Museum exhibits works of art with these themes, from Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Rajasthan as well as from Indonesia, Nepal, Tibet, and Thailand.Though these pieces are drawn from different regions, and indeed from different countries, they have a strong commonality threading through their diversity.

The Mithila paintings from east India, the Tanjore paintings from the town of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, the pichhavais from Rajasthan, the rod puppets from Indonesia, and the many other works in the museum capture the beauty and the philosophy of Shri Krishna’s timeless message of love and karma (duty) as embodied in the Bhagavad-gita (“The Song Celestial”).

I am very happy to see that Radhadesh has established a collection at the Museum of Sacred Art to facilitate a glimpse into this sacred art influenced by Hinduism. It is hoped that visitors will come to the museum from all over Europe and from various walks of life, and see the beautiful works on display here. This will give them an opportunity to appreciate these works of religious and sacred art, and to understand the plurality and diversity which have contributed to their beauty.

Dr. J. Bhagwati Ambassador of India to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU

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Entrance gate to Château de Petite Somme, Radhadesh

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F O R E WO R D As an Indologist and museum curator, I am extremely glad that a museum dedicated to present-day spiritual art has been set up in Durbuy. This catalogue gives a lovely overview of the collection in the Museum of Sacred Art. India has a unique ancient tradition of depicting the divine, which has over the centuries produced an enormous amount of inspired art, with stylistic variations. Bulls, fertility-figurines, lingams, and yaksha (forest spirits) are early, well-known expressions of the great forces of nature. In the classical period beautiful sculptures represented aspects of the universal soul in the shape of anthropomorphic deities. In medieval times miniature paintings reflected an invisible divine presence in another way.

A rich tradition of tribal and folk art depict stories of heroes, gods, and demons. All these forms of Indian art are lively and colourful. They have been used for veneration of deities, and reflect great devotion. It is clear that Indian art has a divine abstract dimension as well as a direct human one.

India has greatly influenced my life—born to Belgian parents living in India, I grew up in Mumbai.

I was raised with an open mind and an attitude of respect and tolerance for all religions. Back in Catholic Flanders the approach was somewhat different. The form in which spirituality pervaded the air in India, I discovered, was difficult to find here. But what struck me most was the lack of knowledge about one of the world’s most ancient and richest cultures. Thus I decided to study Indian languages, art and religion, and have been teaching and promoting it in Belgium.

Although museums collect, study, and exhibit ancient art, contemporary art is mostly exhibited only in galleries. Present-day traditional art rarely gets attention outside the country of its origin.

But museums are in transition. As much as the objects, they also focus on visitors now.Visitors are not only charmed by the aesthetic value of a piece of art, but they also want to know more about the artist, and the object’s utility and relevance.

Whilst working at Antwerp’s Ethnographic Museum, I realised that specialists appreciate the high quality of the Asian collection, but the general public are more attracted to ritual and devotional art. Mythical stories like the Ocean’s Churning, Krishna and the Gopis, or Rama and Sita, while typically Hindu, are appealing to Westerners because of their wisdom and adventure.

The emotional dimension of religion—an important source for devotional artists—comes through in the themes of these stories: heroes and saints, the origin and the end of the world, good and evil.

These fables are sometimes historical, sometimes doubtful but always sublimating worldly life.

The Vaishnava paintings, Indonesian puppets, and Tibetan ritual objects in the catalogue have been used to transmit important stories down the generations. Throughout the ages, thousands of artists have been inspired by the great Indian myths, but their identity is rarely known.Today, when Indian art is travelling beyond the borders of India, museums have an important role in guarding these traditions and honouring the artists who should no longer remain anonymous. I sincerely hope that along with watching India’s economic expansion, people worldwide will also become more aware of its great traditions in art and culture.This museum and catalogue are undoubtedly valuable contributions in that view. May they inspire many others.

Christiane De Lauwer Curator (South Asia), MAS / Ethnographic Museum Antwerp

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The front view of Château de Petite Somme, Radhadesh

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CONNECTING HUMANITY WITH THE DIVINE The days when sacred images played a central role in Western art seem like a distant memory, but there are signs of a revival of interest in spiritual art among the academic community, art lovers and the general public. There are various reasons for this revival. One important element is globalisation, which has made possible a greater exposure to other cultures and their traditions. There is also the natural human desire for experiences that uplift the heart and inspire an awareness of a higher reality.

In India the genre of spiritual art has remained alive and flourishing. Moreover, Indian culture has never been fully separate from spirituality, and so Indian art is neither religious nor secular.Throughout the centuries, the subcontinent’s artists have produced a remarkable array of devotional art for education, meditation, and worship. To this day, the traditional art forms produced in India do not pursue beauty simply for its own sake, but utilize it as a means to awaken religious feeling and guide the viewer on the spiritual path.

Thus the purpose of spiritual art is to provide an intimate experience of divinity.

Rather than seeking to seduce the eye, traditional artists direct their creative impulses into beautiful pieces that express a personal experience of divinity.

While living art traditions have sometimes become commercial enterprises, making souvenirs for both tourists and pilgrims, there are still many talented and dedicated artists who, with integrity, expertise, and passion, maintain the purity of their traditions.

The development of a ‘museum of sacred art’ in Radhadesh was inspired by the many original art pieces already on display in the Château de Petite Somme.

These paintings, although expressing themes described in ancient Vaishnava texts, were painted in the style of classical realism. The idea of the museum was to create a dedicated space where visitors could experience and learn the cultural roots of Vaishnava art and its connection to the broader world of Hindu philosophy.

As the project developed, however, it became clear that there was a broader mission that could be served with the creation of the museum. Spiritual art has a special place in the life of the subcontinent, but there are also many pressures deriving

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kalachakra—wheel of time (replica from Surya temple in Konark) unknown sculptor Red Stone, 184 x 230 x 38 cm

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from the fast-paced modernisation of Indian society. A number of traditional Indian art styles are presently under threat, not only from lack of funding, but also due to the dwindling numbers of up-and-coming practitioners. Therefore, one of the museum’s purposes is to help support traditional Indian artists. By giving these artists more exposure in the West, it intends to encourage them to continue their work, and inspire them to train the next generation of artists.

The realisation of the project’s first stage has been wonderfully swift. Although I had been envisaging such a museum for several years, my colleagues and I could only start to research in 2007 and collect pieces in earnest. Since then the project has blossomed, with a substantial collection of art, and the creation of a dedicated gallery within the temple premises.

The curation of works exhibited in the museum has necessitated several trips to India. Meeting artists and finding good representative pieces have been both challenging and rewarding. This initiative has confirmed that even today there are great artists completely devoted to their spiritual tradition. Visiting their simple studios and witnessing their humility has served as a great inspiration to us in creating this project, of presenting Indian devotional art to the West.

In the museum’s collection there are many well-known, respected artists such as B.G. Sharma and Indra Sharma, Bharti Dayal, G.L.N Simha, Ramesh Sharma, Mukesh Sharma and Reva Shanker Sharma. There are also many emerging talented artists like Vrindaban Dasa and Tilkesh Sharma, and those who remain unknown, just like the traditional artists through the centuries.

The main focus of the museum is on living art forms rather than historical pieces, even though it presents quite a broad selection of devotional traditions from India. There are some old miniatures from Rajasthan, but most of the pieces are from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The collection focuses on works by Indian artists and includes devotional paintings by ISKCON artists.

A few works from Nepal, Tibet, Thailand and Indonesia are also a part of it.

The curators felt that these would be a valuable addition to the collection, as they are representative of the spiritual and cultural connection that these places have had with India in the past. From Nepal and Tibet there are some exquisite metal icons, ceremonial artifacts and sacred objects that represent Hindu and Buddhist Newari art. Two panels of leather cut-outs depicting Rama and Sita, represent Thailand in the museum.The style reflects the traditional depiction of Rama and Sita in Ramakien, Thailand’s national epic, derived from the Indian Ramayana, which remains popular as performance drama even today.

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krishna’s ten incarnations Lalita Devi Dasi and team Stained Glass, 245 x 320 cm

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The museum’s main gallery is situated in one of the annexe buildings, with many works on display in the château as well. The museum’s collection consists of paintings, sculptures, puppets, and sacred objects used in worship. Besides the permanent collection, the museum is planning to organise temporary exhibitions across Europe.

My personal inspiration in developing the museum at Radhadesh comes from the experience of growing up in an atmosphere permeated with art. My father, José Gurvich (1927–1974), who left Lithuania in 1932 to settle in Uruguay, is a renowned modern artist and a student of Joaquín Torres Garcia.This background has enabled me to see the similarities between Indian and Western artists—the desire to represent beauty and uplift the consciousness of human society.

The setting for a museum of sacred art could not be better: a thriving spiritual community in a beautiful nineteenth-century château near the historic town of Durbuy, in the Belgian Ardennes. The meeting of old and new in this historic setting creates a unique backdrop for developing a love of devotional art.

Thousands of visitors from all over Europe come every year to visit Radhadesh.

We hope to offer our visitors a glimpse of spirituality and culture, and an introduction to the rich spiritual art traditions of the Indian subcontinent.

We sincerely wish that the visit to Museum of Sacred Art will embellish the experience of every visitor in connecting with the divine nature within themselves and the world around them.

Martin Gurvich Director, Museum of Sacred Art

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Fig. 1: A roadside shrine in Kolkata

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LIVING TRADITIONS IN INDIAN ART

the divine image Tryna Lyons

A trip to India, however brief, astonishes us with the everyday presence of art and religious expression. Even an urban stroll is likely to lead us to a roadside shrine like the one seen in fig. 1. This makeshift outdoor temple on a busy Kolkata street has grown organically around a banyan tree, sacred to several deities including Shiva. Popular prints of gods and goddesses contend with sculpted icons and ordinary rough stones that are also worshipped as forms of the deities. We know this shrine is tended daily, probably by a Brahmin priest, because fresh jasmine garlands adorn the divine images and somebody must be watering the tulasi (holy basil) shrub, representing Lord Vishnu’s consort Lakshmi, in the pot on the left.

Nothing could be more natural than for a teenager passing the little outdoor temple on his way to take an exam or a clerk headed for a meeting with the boss to stop for a minute, bow his head, and ask for strength and support for the task at hand. The divine presence is a part of most people’s daily life, not something they encounter once a week in a special building set aside for the purpose.

If the student does well in his exam or the employee gets a raise, he will gratefully return and offer something to the gods—perhaps a few coins for flowers or sweets, maybe something more substantial like a structural improvement to the street-side sanctuary.

We find open-air tree shrines like the one in Kolkata all across India, in rural and small town settings, at crossroads, near springs and waterfalls. They are one reason we cannot so easily distinguish between high and popular culture, or even separate religions from each other (for these miniature temples may contain Buddhist, Jain, Christian, or even Muslim images, as well as local deities not included in the official pantheons). We conclude that presenting

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and encountering visual forms of the divine is a common occurrence in the subcontinent, without which the rhythms of ordinary life would lose their significance. This exhibition offers us a sampling of India’s regional traditions (and some from beyond its borders) with the aim of whetting the viewers’ appetite. The art enthusiast and the seeker of religious knowledge may then go on to see and experience more of South Asia’s treasures.

EASTERN INDIA THE WOMEN PAINTERS OF MITHILA

It is entirely possible that the first Indian painters were women. Many traditional housewives begin their day with a time-honoured practice— drawing an intricate rice flour design on the threshold of their homes. These ephemeral patterns are believed to welcome the goddess of good fortune to the family’s dwelling. Women in various parts of the country execute even more elaborate ritual paintings associated with weddings, births, and festivals.

Ladies in the ancient region of Mithila, now part of the northeastern state of Bihar, are renowned for their splendid murals. Most of these wall paintings are made at the time of a daughter’s marriage, when the nuptial chamber is decorated with certain motifs meant to deflect evil, and to ensure happiness and fertility for the young couple. At the same time, paper wrappers holding gifts for the bride are painted with similar motifs by the female members on the groom’s side of the family.

Painting on walls and on paper gift wrappers was primarily done by women of Mithila’s kayastha (scribal) caste. In India, artistic traditions are usually family-, clan-, or caste-based, and techniques may be jealously guarded as part of the group’s patrimony. However, women of some other castes in Mithila, having caught sight of the beguiling murals, also took up the craft of painting and thus different styles developed in the region. Then, in 1966–1967 an event occurred that changed the course of the Mithila school, bringing it into the modern world. In response to a severe drought in Bihar, the All India Handicrafts Board started a work scheme that supplied large sheets of paper to female artists and paid them for their production. Soon, local ladies were producing works on a variety of new and traditional themes. One of the first Mithila artists to gain national and even international fame was Ganga Devi (c. 1928–1991).

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Several painters from Mithila are represented in this exhibition. In Sita’s Svayamvara (p. 170) we see an unknown artist’s somewhat toned-down version of the exuberant style of her ancestors. The subject is the marriage of Rama, hero of Ramayana, India’s great epic. In order to win Sita’s hand her suitors were put to the test of stringing a huge bow. Rama, the avatara (incarnation) of Vishnu, picked up the enormous bow and, pulling it back effortlessly, attached the string. So powerful was his arm that the bow snapped and broke with the sound of a thunderclap. According to the custom of ancient times, Sita herself then chose Rama as her husband by placing a garland around his neck. She is shown with her father King Janaka behind her, raising the garland to put it over Rama’s head, as flowers rain down from heaven (the marker of a blessed event in Hindu texts). Standing behind the groom are his brother Lakshmana and the sage Vishvamitra, who is recognisable by the piled-up matted hair of a renunciant and the wooden water-pot he carries.

The subject of this painting is particularly appropriate for an artist from Mithila, the region which the epic literature identifies as Janaka’s kingdom and the birthplace of Sita. Because Hindus configure Sita as the ideal wife, her portrayal would have special resonance for a female artist. The painter has designed her composition in the manner of Mithila muralists, who start at the midpoint of the wall and work outwards. Here the centre, physically and conceptually, is the vacant white oval within the garland. Like the dot at the centre of a mandala (mystic diagram), it is a starting point and place of emptiness from which the painting erupts into a wealth of decorative detail that floods the picture plane.

Since it was the union of Rama and Sita that set in motion the extraordinary series of events told in the Ramayana, the image of a void that expands outward in teeming minutiae seems fitting. The muted colour scheme and characteristic profile faces with their wide-open eyes are typical of the kayastha strain in Mithila art.

Kaliya Damana (p. 171) is an example of a painting that is compositionally close to Mithila murals although this subject does not play a part in ritual wall paintings.

The tale is from the tenth book of Bhagavata Purana, a scripture that recounts the earthly life of Krishna, the cowherd divinity. As a child, Krishna had to overcome a series of demonic adversaries sent by a wicked king. Once, when he and his pals were grazing their cattle near the Yamuna river, the child deity climbed up into a flowering kadamba tree. He then called out to one of his friends to toss a ball to

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him; however, the ball fell into a whirlpool far below.Without hesitation, Krishna dove from a branch into the torrent. In point of fact, knowing that a poisonous many-headed serpent named Kaliya lurked there, he intended to drive the creature away. When Kaliya spouted poison from his several mouths and tried to wrap his coils around the boy, Krishna leapt upon his head and began to dance.

In the painting we see the pastoral deity, crowned with peacock feathers and playing his trademark bamboo flute as he dances upon the serpent and crushes its nine heads. Meanwhile, Kaliya’s wives beg Krishna to spare their husband.

The patterns of the huge reptile’s knotted coils contrast nicely with the floral designs on the snake-queens’ tails. The background is replete with disc-like kadamba (Nauclea cadamba) blossoms that fall from the tree and swirl about in the river’s currents. Armed with the knowledge of how a Mithila artist conceives her artwork, the viewer will now have little difficulty in spotting the wilful central head of the serpent, slightly darker in colour than the others, as the starting point and conceptual core of the design, which moves outward in knots and swirls to the highly decorated corners of the paper.

A highly coloured and self-consciously folkish version of the Mithila mode appears in the oeuvre of Bharti Dayal (b. 1961). The traditionally trained artist, now part of New Delhi’s vibrant gallery scene, has contributed a number of paintings to the eastern Indian portion of this exhibition. Dayal’s works employ certain Mithila tropes that, repeated across the painted surface, produce an attractive decorative effect with contemporary appeal (pp. 140–168).

PAINTING IN ORISSA

While we tend to think of art as something finished, ready to be placed in a museum or other display context, many cultures view festivals and performances as their highest form of artistic expression. The Hindu festival is an ephemeral cultural production repeated every year, often for centuries. The distinctive quality of this genre is the way variations inevitably occur within a longestablished structure.

The Ratha Yatra (p. 36), by a modern Orissan artist, shows one of India’s most celebrated festival, during which the deity Jagannatha is taken out in procession.

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Fig. 2: The Ratha Yatra (Chariot Journey) for Lord Jagannath at the temple in Puri, Orissa

The special occasion is a visit he, along with his sister and brother, pays to his aunt during the monsoon month of ashadha (June–July). This Ratha Yatra (Chariot Journey) is a great spiritual event of eastern India.

Jagannatha is actually a title given to Krishna meaning “Lord of the World”, for that is how devotees regard this deity of extraordinary appearance. In the painting we see the three temple images being pulled through the streets of the city of Puri in huge carts, the largest of which is 13.5 metres tall, while people dance, play drums and music, and watch from the rooftops (fig. 2 shows a similar scene in Puri, with three chariots surrounded by hundreds of devotees). The atmosphere of gaiety and religious fervour impressed and bewildered early European visitors to the subcontinent. An English traveller who witnessed the procession in 1633 was perhaps the first to claim that he saw devotees throw themselves in front of the chariot wheels. The erroneous belief that Hindus sacrificed themselves to Jagannatha gave rise to a new English word “juggernaut”, meaning a huge object or force bearing down upon and destroying everything in its path.

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the demonic army, and seven sages arrayed on the left-hand side of the painting.

The monarch’s royal horses and elephants appear in the lower corners. Rama engages the viewer using a gesture of speaking with his right hand, but otherwise these motionless personages with their inflated limbs and fixed expressions tell a story through their hieratic placement rather than by narrative means.

MYSORE PAINTING

Paintings of the Mysore school are sometimes confused with those from Tanjore.

Although both painting traditions trace their origins to the art of Vijayanagar (the great south Indian empire that flourished from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries), subtle differences in material and technique distinguish their production. Mysore artisans excel in the treatment of structural and architectural features (without the inset gems or glass fragments used by Tanjore craftsmen), and the figures in their paintings are somewhat more animated than the static personages seen at Tanjore. We may note some of these differences in K.S. Shreehari’s depiction of Rukmini and Krishna in a Chariot Driven by Gopis (p. 119).

G.L.N. Simha (b. 1938) was trained in Western art but from an early age imbibed the Mysore painting idiom of his native Karnataka state. Some of his highly personal compositions have been worked out from a study of Sanskrit dhyanas (visualisations of deities, designed to focus the mind for ritual or meditation).

Saraswati, Goddess of Learning and the Arts (p. 131) exemplifies Simha’s method of composing based upon this type of descriptive verse. The four-armed goddess holds palm-leaf manuscripts, a pen, and the veena (a musical instrument), and is shown seated upon her wild goose, symbolising the soul. The artist’s rather more imaginative interpretation of Varaha’s Rescue of the Earth Goddess Prithvi (p. 129), a story found in several compilations, presents the deeds of Vishnu’s third avatara. According to the tale, the Earth was once seized by a demon and carried far beneath the ocean.All the gods and sages prayed for her rescue, which was effected when Vishnu appeared in the form of a great boar named Varaha.

The boar dove into the waters, flung the demon to his death and restored the Earth to her rightful place. In Simha’s portrayal she is shown kneeling to thank Varaha while, below, her demonic abductor lies vanquished.

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MYSORE INLAY WORK

We have seen how some Indian artists interpreted episodes from the Ramayana, an ancient scripture narrating the tale of Vishnu’s avatara, Rama. There is another, far longer, Sanskrit epic called the Mahabharata, in which Krishna is the protagonist. India shares with many cultures a belief that, after an initial golden age, the world has been in a state of steady decline. The texts enumerate four epochs, named after four throws of the dice in games of chance. The first age might be compared to the Western double sixes, the best cast a player can achieve. Our own fallen times, however, are like the gambler’s snake eyes. The terrible internecine strife and war recounted in the Mahabharata is said to have brought this degenerate age into being; indeed, our kali-yuga began with the death of Krishna.

At the start of a battle that he knows will annihilate nearly all its combatants, the hero Arjuna begins to have second thoughts about his role in the carnage.

His charioteer is Krishna, who in a famous section of the epic, the Bhagavadgita, tries to get his friend over this crisis of will. Yet Arjuna seems impervious to all philosophical and practical arguments that Krishna proffers. In his doubt, Arjuna pleads with the divine charioteer to reveal his true form. Krishna agrees, but informs the warrior that he must first be granted divine eyes in order to see the fearsome vision.Then, with terrifying suddenness, the god manifests himself as a blazing immensity stretching to the horizons, within which all living beings appear and rush headlong to destruction. This roiling mass of mouths, eyes, and limbs, burning “like a thousand suns risen in the sky at once” is what our artist from Mysore has attempted to depict in the humble medium of wood.

Utilising an array of coloured woods and ivory—now, usually, bone or imitation ivory—the Mysore inlayer gouges out the rosewood base and fits in precisely cut pieces to create his composition.The light areas may be further ornamented by scratching a design that is then filled in with black lac (a kind of resin).

P. Gowraiah has used this painstaking technique to prepare his large-scale composition showing the Vishvarupa (cosmic form) of Krishna in the midst of a vast battlefield (p. 104). The opposing armies are arrayed on either side, waiting for Arjuna to give the signal to begin fighting. The mighty warrior, however, has sunk to his knees, his bow and quiver cast aside, awe-struck at the extraordinary vision he has been granted. Gowraiah has positioned his design

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NORTHWESTERN INDIA PAINTINGS OF RAJASTHAN

The northwestern desert state of Rajasthan is home to wonderful musical, performative and artistic traditions. Several of the painters featured in this exhibition hail from Nathadwara, a pilgrimage town in one of Rajasthan’s former princely states. Nathadwara, site of an important Krishna temple, is best known for cloth hangings known as pichhavai. These textiles were customarily positioned behind the deity icons in temples and private house shrines, although nowadays they may also be hung as artworks in secular settings.

In fig. 3 we see a rare early-twentieth century photograph of a house shrine to Krishna. It shows two large stone images of the fluting deity, richly dressed and adorned, and beneath them several other icons of stone or metal. The pichhavai behind these sculptures, fashioned in appliqué, embroidery and paint, is designed to make it look like the gods are in a temple.Two auspicious peacocks perch upon the penanted roof of the simulated structure. Cows and milkmaids approach from either side to worship Krishna in his various manifestations.

Vitthaldas Sharma (b. 1939) is a renowned pichhavai artist from Nathadwara.

Working in an idiom that favours childlike human figures and small plump bovines,Vitthaldas paints cloth hangings that celebrate the pastoral pleasures of

Fig. 3: House shrine showing stone and metal images, with an appliqué, embroidered and painted picchavai behind the icons (probably Gujarat, early-twentieth century)

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Fig. 4: Vitthaldas Sharma, Nathadwara, c. 1984

Krishna’s youth. Both his works in this exhibition, Radha and Krishna with Cows (p. 72) and The Moon of Gokula with Cows (p. 73) are related to a festival called gopashtami that commemorates Krishna’s graduation from the small herdsboy looking after the calves to a full-fledged cowherd.The festival is celebrated with great verve in Nathadwara, where cows are decorated and their horns gilded before they are invited to the temple to feast on special sweet dishes prepared for them.We see Vitthaldas painting a pichhavai for this occasion in a photograph taken about 25 years ago (fig. 4).

One of Nathadwara’s most gifted living artists is Reva Shanker Sharma (b. 1935).

Although his personal style is influenced by intensely romantic eighteenthcentury paintings from Kishangarh and the Punjab Hills, he retains certain Nathadwara traits. Two of Reva Shanker’s paintings in this exhibition, Krishna and Radha Dancing in the Moonlight (pp. 84–85) and Krishna Watches the Gopis While They Fetch Water (p. 86), show the master’s extraordinarily fine hand and characteristically inspired evocation of the lush tulasi forest where the events of Krishna’s pastoral phase were played out. Reva Shanker is most admired by other artists for his night scenes, with the play of moonlight on water and foliage, and for his ideally beautiful female figures.

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Other artists who emerged from the Nathadwara tradition but whole-heartedly embraced a pan-Indian popular idiom are the cousins Indra Sharma (1923–2006) and B.G. Sharma (1925–2008). B.G. Sharma produced highly coloured versions of sacred events like the Rasa Lila (mystic circle dance) (p. 71), in which Krishna magically multiplied himself so that each milkmaid was able to dance individually with him. The Boat Lila (pp. 66–67) is another of his interpretations of a theme known from various Rajasthani painting schools. Rendered in the saturated hues favoured by chromolithographic presses, the vessel holding Radha, Krishna, and music-making milkmaids dressed as princesses, floats upon the brilliant turquoise waters of Lake Picchola (the palace-studded reservoir in the artist’s hometown of Udaipur).

Unlike the Boat Lila, in which B.G. Sharma proposes a dreamlike image of opulence and royal pleasure, the artist’s Krishna Expounding the Bhagavad-gita in the Battlefield (p. 95) tackles a moment of deep philosophical import in a serrated space cell formed by the battle-ready divisions of two opposing armies. He presents the pre-combat moment we have discussed above, when the charioteer Krishna tries to convince Arjuna that in performing his duty as a warrior he will not be responsible for any deaths that occur. As we know, the explanation proved insufficient and Arjuna was only convinced by the cosmic vision of Krishna as all-creation and all-destruction. Although the painting does not show the Vishvarupa, the viewer understands that it will imminently appear.

Fig. 5: Selection of mineral pigments, with pavri (derived from cow urine) in the paper at the bottom, Nathadwara

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Fig. 6: Paramananda Gaur grinding indigo, Nathadwara, October 2006

THE PRACTICE OF PAINTING IN FORMER TIMES Machine-milled paper and chemical pigments began to appear in India’s painting centres about 150 years ago. However, these supplies were at first prohibitively expensive and not widely used. Once the prices went down, artists could no longer resist the convenience of ready-made materials. Despite the reality that painters working nowadays use commercial gouaches, most know how to make their own paints and sometimes employ them in touching up their compositions.Vegetal and mineral colours permit certain effects associated with historic painting styles.What is more, the natural pigments are long-lasting while chemical colours tend to be fugitive, fading or changing with the years.

A set of four paintings from a Ramayana series gives us some idea of the effect of traditional, hand-made pigments (pp. 100–101).

Artists insist that handmade paper is more durable and provides a better surface for detail work. Unfortunately, the old villages specialising in handmade paper have mostly ceased production.The alternative is a milled product, not usually of

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high quality in India. When it comes to brushes, many communities of painters still make their own. There is quite a lore involved in catching the animals (usually squirrels), trimming the tail hairs required, releasing the creatures unharmed, and constructing the brushes using a split piece of bamboo and the quill of a pigeon’s feather. A well-made brush holds just the right amount of pigment and deposits it precisely as the limner wishes on the paper.

The vivid permanent colours of former times were prepared from minerals, plants, metal oxides, and animal-based substances. In fig. 5 we see a selection of minerals used to make paints, while in the paper below are pieces of a pigment called pavri, processed from cow urine. The substances were finely ground and levigated (soaked in water to separate the constituent parts), then mixed with a gum and water to the proper consistency. The fig. 6 shows a Nathadwara artist grinding indigo pigment in a special stone mortar.

Genuine gold and silver leaf are used in formulating metallic paints. Because there is no good substitute for the pure precious metals, artists make their own gold and silver pigments. The process is complex, involving more than one set of hereditary specialists. First of all, Muslim craftsmen in Jaipur and other centres make up little books of paper-thin sheepskin, specially tanned using rare spices and perfumes to lend it extraordinary strength. A small square of pure metal is placed between each of the 160 leaves of the booklet, which is closed and placed in a heavy leather cover. The book is then pounded by hand with an iron mallet for three full days. When it is opened, each square will be seen transformed into a leaf of precious metal (fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Abdul Gaffar with a booklet used to make gold and silver leaf; the booklet’s cover appears to the right in the photograph, Jaipur 1992

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While metallic leaf is sometimes affixed directly to a painting, artists more commonly grind the gossamer gold or silver sheets to prepare solutions. These precious pigments must be burnished after application. A smooth agate stone is used to polish and bring out the shine of the gold or silver details in a miniature or pichhavai painting.Those who produce precious leaf and the paints made from it, like the various crafts specialists who fashion the paper, pigments, brushes, and other requirements of the painting profession, might be compared to living libraries. India’s many shilpa shastras (traditional crafts treatises) often suggest technical processes, but the information these compendia contain is not very practical. The best shilpa texts are found between the ears of artists like those represented in this exhibition.

ROD PUPPETS OF INDONESIA The extended chain of islands that comprises Indonesia is home to a number of distinct ethnic groups and languages. Its resilient people have absorbed and modified cultural features from two dominant neighbours, China and India.

Sanskrit inscriptions dating to the fifth or sixth centuries have been found on the archipelago, suggesting that some form of Hinduism was known there from early days. However, the Indonesians have tended to refashion imported religions, integrating them with their own indigenous beliefs. Hence, while the puppets in this collection represent heroes and heroines from the two great Hindu epics we have discussed earlier, the names and personalities of the characters differ from the South Asian perception.

Puppet theatre has a long history in Indonesia.The oldest of these performative traditions uses shadow puppets made of painted leather. The more recent wooden rod puppets, termed golek (dolls), may have been introduced to Java and Sunda early in the eighteenth century. Performances function as both auspicious rituals and popular entertainment. They are usually scheduled to coincide with special occasions such as marriages, religious festivals, or national holidays. The dramas with their musical accompaniment often last the entire night, only drawing to a close at day-break.

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A pair of figures such as Arjuna and Shikandini (Srikandi in Indonesia) illustrates the way epic characters are reinterpreted in the Indonesian context (see p. 201). In India’s Mahabharata, Shikandini is one of those gender-bending individuals sometimes encountered in Sanskrit literature. Born a woman but raised as a male warrior, she was later successful in changing her sex (when her name became the masculine Shikandin). However, the indomitable Bhishma, believing her still to be female, refused to confront her in battle.

Taking advantage of this gallant reluctance to engage in combat with a woman, the wily Arjuna hid behind Shikandin and thus managed to slay his mighty enemy.

Clearly, none of this exploration of gender ambiguity made any sense to the island storytellers.They configured an entirely new legend, in which the princess Srikandi grows up as a kind of tomboy excelling in archery. She battles Bhishma in the Mahabharata’s great war, killing him singlehandedly. Afterwards, she falls in love with the good-looking Arjuna and becomes his second wife.

Thus the Indonesian puppet couple represents an ideally handsome hero and his valiant consort. Although we may find the two figures rather difficult to tell apart, variations in facial structure, posture, dress and, particularly in the gestures made by the puppets within the drama, would immediately cue recognition in the audiences of Sunda and Java. The Indian themes of ambiguity, trickery, and revenge have been transmuted into a paradigmatic image of bravery and romantic love.

THE BIRTH OF ISKCON PAINTING When A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) arrived in New York by steamer late in 1965, he was already persuaded of his destiny to spread Gaudiya Vaishnavism to the West. However, the religious tradition he followed, well-known in India, seemed unimaginably strange and exotic to Americans.

Founded in the sixteenth century by the mystic Bengali saint Shri Chaitanya, the Gaudiya system was philosophically and psychologically complex. Prabhupada clarified the sect’s teachings for the young people who constituted the majority of his early followers, stressing the importance of vegetarianism, clean living, and chanting the names of Rama and Krishna.

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Fig. 8: Bharadraj showing a painting to A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in New York in 1973; Jahnava is seated (partially obscured) behind him

Prabhupada’s early years in New York City were fraught with hardship. And yet, remarkably, his vision does not seem to have faltered; his diary entries record consistent efforts to interest Americans in the scriptural works he had translated into English. When the first art students showed up at the religious services he sponsored, the Swami recognised the feasibility of painted icons for the many temples he hoped to establish. He was further enthralled with the idea of getting his cherished texts illustrated. He envisaged colourful and attractive volumes in which representations of each episode of the Krishna story cycle would appear next to the verses recounting it.

There were initial obstacles to realising these grand schemes. The students who came to Prabhupada’s prayer meetings were not, for most part, well-trained artists. What is more, the tales they were asked to illustrate were new to them.

Unlike young Indians, who grow up seeing the familiar legends of Rama and Krishna interpreted in storybooks, movies, popular plays and even comic books, the Americans had never seen depictions of the deities or other personages who figured in these events. How, they wondered, might one depict the ten-headed demon Ravana? Would the heads be placed on top of the other, or perhaps appear as faces on a single head? Thus the Swami found himself, from the very beginning, involved in the nitty gritty process of forming his artists even as he guided them on their spiritual paths.

One of the art students to visit Prabhupada’s makeshift temple in the East Village was Judy Koslofsky, later initiated as Jadurani. In her memoir she recalls

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Fig. 9: Shital Banerjee, Anjali (“Super Excellent”), print from an oil painting of 1914–1915

the confusion and excitement of trying to teach herself oil-painting technique while learning how the protagonists of the ancient Hindu legends should be rendered. Prabhupada, casting about for appropriate models to show her, turned to the imagery he had grown up with—the affordable popular prints that had taken India by storm in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Known as “framing pictures”, the prints were designed by well-known artists and distributed through large urban publishing houses. A favourite was Anjali by the Bengali artist Shital Banerjee (fig. 9). Prabhupada pronounced its accuracy of detail and evocation of mood “Super Excellent”, and the moniker henceforth stuck to the image.

Crucial to understanding why Prabhupada was so keen on developing an art department for his fledgling North American organisation is an appreciation of

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how Gaudiya theologians set themselves apart from those they viewed as their main rivals, the followers of the early-ninth century Shankara.The south Indian monk had argued for an attributeless Absolute, a concept that was anathema to Prabhupada and other Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Hence, in giving Jadurani and the other apprentice artists a print like “Super Excellent”, the Swami meant to stress the personal and embodied nature of God. Krishna’s divine presence is capable of charming and fascinating the beholder—and icons depicting him should have the same effect on their viewers.

Banerjee’s Krishna plays his flute while standing in the tribhangi (thrice bent) posture of a temple sculpture. He appears in a clearing in the tulasi forest where so many of his boyhood demon-slaying feats had taken place, now the setting for amorous encounters with local milkmaids.The foremost of these maidens is Radha, an important goddess in her own right. Seen here offering flowers to the blue deity’s feet, Radha stands for the individual soul in relationship with God.The artist’s message of devotional sentiment within a mystic connubium is furthered by his use of the imagery of the European Romantic movement.

Motifs like the ruined temple on the right, with its improbable flock of swans (a stand-in for the Indian goose), and the subdued treatment of the foliage, show just how deeply European aesthetic norms had penetrated colonial Bengal.

This hybrid aesthetic would be crucial in the formation of ISKCON painting.

Between 1966 and 1970, when the first book completely illustrated in colour was published (Krsna: The Supreme Personality of Godhead, volume 1) a number of aspiring artists had joined Jadurani. They included Bharadraj (the “creative genius” and designer), Muralidhar, Devahuti, Pariksit and Puskar, whose version of “Super Excellent” appears in this exhibition (p. 253). Prabhupada continued to provide them with printed prototypes by Indian painters of an earlier era. These preferred artists included Rup Kishor Kapur (1893–1978), S.M. Pandit (1916–1991), and Nathadwara artist Narottam Narayan (1896–1990), as well as the somewhat later Indra Sharma and B.G. Sharma (whom we have discussed above).

ISKCON painting went in several different directions after the early phase, which

can be said to have ended shortly before Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s demise in 1977. Northern Europeans dominated at Sweden’s Korsnäs Gärd near Stockholm, while Italian artists added their own painterly fillip to the works

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produced at Villa Vrindavan near Florence. Meanwhile, the decoration of the Palace of Gold at West Virginia’s New Vrindavan took a decidedly Rococo turn when, in 1979, the talented Muralidhar affixed his canvas paintings to the dome of its temple hall. Later on, a mid-1990’s influx of artists from the former Soviet Union engendered an entirely new style, perhaps influenced by the Russian tradition of decorative book illustration.

While we may admire the sophisticated technical accomplishment of the later artists, there is something appealing about the charm and naïveté of the early works. Produced in haste, often through an assembly-line process that enabled the painters to complete a painting in as little as six days, these paintings convey the fresh enthusiasm of the young ISKCON movement. Bharadraj’s Krishna Frees Nalakuvera and Manigriva from Bondage (fig. 10), which appeared in the first all-colour publication, Krsna: The Supreme…, captures a mood of childish impudence and, like any well-constructed narrative illustration, makes the viewer want to know the story behind the image.

One of the feats that astonished his elders occurred when the exceedingly naughty toddler Krishna was tied up to a stone mortar to keep him out of trouble.The moment his mother looked the other way the five-year-old crawled off , dragging the impossibly heavy mortar with him, and managed to uproot two large trees as he did so. By happy chance a pair of brothers, a century earlier imprisoned in those very trees for ill behaviour, were thus liberated from their

Fig. 10: Bharadraj, Krishna Frees Nalakuvera and Manigriva from Bondage, oil painting, 1969 or 1970, in Prabhupada’s quarters at the Los Angeles ISKCON temple

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bondage by the mischievous baby. Bharadraj has the two princelings offering their thanks to the infant Krishna as they emerge in a fiery cloud from the crashing trees. Meanwhile the baby, with a sly and knowing smile, tips us off that he is well aware his act of absolution was far more than a childish prank.

KEEPING TRADITIONS ALIVE We have sampled some of the traditional arts of India, and seen what happens when the impulse to visualise Hindu concepts travels beyond subcontinental borders.We have also remarked how new traditions, like Company Painting and the Tanjore school, can spring up and become vibrant over a short period of time. Hybrid forms, like the puppet theatre of Indonesia, may gain vigour from the encounter between indigenous ideas and imported beliefs. We can see this process in the still evolving art of the ISKCON movement.

What is meant by keeping traditions alive? It surely doesn’t imply that we prevent artisans from seeing new things in order to guard the purity of their practice, nor would it make sense to try and salvage moribund schools of art. Perhaps we would be better off if we considered how we might provide artists with engaged and critical patronage, encouraging them to explore the parameters of their style while furthering conditions for lively collegial competition. These have been the historical circumstances for excellence in the arts, and similar practices might be expected to benefit the living traditions we see in this exhibition.

The author with the artist Gulabchand Mistri in his studio, Nathadwara (Rajasthan) 1992

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THE COLLECTION

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ratha yatra, the festival of chariots in puri unknown artist Pigments on cloth, 70 x 114 cm

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INDIA PA I N T I N G S ORISSA

The ratha, chariots, appeared to be newly made of gold, and were as high as Mount Sumeru. The decorations included bright mirrors and hundreds and hundreds of yak whisks. On top of the chariots were neat and clean canopies and very beautiful flags. The chariots were also decorated with silken cloth and various pictures. Many brass bells, gongs and ankle bells rang.

CHAITANYA-CHARITAMRITA

the life story of krishna > unknown artist Pigments on cloth, 62 x 88 cm

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the life story of rama unknown artist Pigments on cloth, 90 x 150 cm

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the death of ravana unknown artist Pigments on board, 63 x 63 cm

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krishna’s pastimes (detail) unknown artist Watercolour on palm leaf, 152 x 47 cm

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vishnu’s ten incarnations unknown artist Pigments and gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 86 x 118 cm

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TA N J O R E ( TA M I L N A D U )

O Lord Krishna, who appears in the forms of these ten incarnations.

As Balarama, the wielder of the plow, you wore garments the colour of a fresh blue rain cloud. These garments are coloured like the beautiful dark hue of the River Yamuna, who feels great fear due to the striking of your plowshare.

DASHAVATARA-STOTRA

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seven pastimes of krishna unknown artist Pigments with gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 90 x 120 cm

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baby krishna unknown artist Pigments and gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 23 x 19 cm

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balaji krishna (detail) unknown artist Pigments and gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 120 x 90 cm

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rama’s coronation unknown artist Pigments and gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 120 x 90 cm

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vasudeva saves newborn krishna unknown artist Pigments and gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 23 x 19 cm

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child krishna unknown artist Pigments and gold leaf on cloth-covered wood, 23 x 19 cm

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“…a catalogue that compresses

the essence of the museum exhibits and communicates the spirit of popular and contemporary Indian spiritual art to the West.”

—The Hindu

ART

Living Traditions in Indian Art Museum of Sacred Art Edited by Martin Gurvich

272 pages, 240 colour illustrations 9.5 x 11.5” (241 x 292 mm), hc ISBN: 978-81-89995-41-6 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-01-7 (Grantha) ₹2500 | $65 | £45 2010 • World rights