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The Sacred
"This is indeed India; the land of dreams and
romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of
palaces and hovels, of famine and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and
elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a thousand nations and a
hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the
human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of
legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterday bear date with the
moldering antiquities of rest of nation - the one sole country under the sun
that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien
peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free,
the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a
glimpse, would no give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe
combined."
Mark Twain, Following the Equator, 1897.
One of India’s greatest gift to the humanity at
large is its spiritual base. The spirituality of India having a distinct and
separate voice of a religious India. Mark Twain foregrounded this aspect of
India way back in 1897. But I go back even more in time when I pick from the
Yoga Sutra of Patanjali which is almost 2000 years old. In the compact 196
observations on the nature of consciousness and liberations the Yoga Sutra
becomes increasingly relevant in contemporary times. Though brief, the Yoga
Sutra manages to cut to the heart of the human dilemma. But this is one of the
texts of Indian thought. We have in India innumerable texts which deal with the
many aspects of India’s Spiritual ethos.
From the Vedas which is the wellspring of Indian
wisdom, to the epics, like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, to the Gita, the
adoration of the bhakti poets the king of them all Jayadeva who with a
single work the Gita Govinda brought in Sringara or pleasure into
bhakti to a scale unparalled.
The spirituality of India has given the world
philosophy, gyana or knowledge rasa or flavour, the concept of
Shunya and Bindu and has transformed herself into a dizzying technological hub
today of software, engineering, medicine and information technology.
From the pan Indian tradition of Vedic India
where notions of aesthetics steps out from the precincts of vision and
saundarya or beauty to the vast expanse of woven folk and tribal traditions,
to contemporary fusions, India abounds in both.
From transcendental consciousness and perfect
bliss to the shrunken soul , from the sublime mountains the kulaparvatas
to the intoxicant globalized cities, India is a centre of lurid realities and
unrealities where there exists a peaceful balance between the many fractures.
A nation which spans moments of time. From
Alladin’s lamp and Tigers and Elephants, to mythic cultures and Cultural
dialogues , From cultural transgressions, to religion bending , from ancient
transcendental wisdom to new ageism. It is where tradition encounters modernity,
where cultures fuse into newer ones , where identities do not progress along a
simple, straight line; where the ancient and cyber- space coexist , local
traditions and newly designed spaces collide, and they allow contemporary art
production , spiritual healing and body work, folk art and handicrafts, cinema
and pop to coexist. Where progress itself is more than the sum of advancement.
Emerging as a multi-cultural, multi-traditional India, from a bowl of spiritual
ideas, Buddhism, Gandhi Vedantic thought to the largest bowl of technological
outsourcing , to consumer markets. Modern India is a nauseating wonder between
poverty and riches, characterizing herself in this inherent duality and polarity
of the spiritual and modern , India abounds in many moods and many flows.
The exhibition--- The Sacred -- will foreground
the notions of philosophy, beauty, rituals and traditions, where spirituality
becomes a way of life. It is in India bi polarity, duality multiple religions
reside with complexity and simplicity.
Dr Alka Pande
Winter 2008
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