More than 50 panels of 17th-century ceiling paintings at a Tamil Nadu temple that were in the danger of being lost for ever have been restored by an INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) team. Experts have described these paintings as masterpieces of Indian art.
The paintings in Devasiraya mandapam of the Tyagarajaswami temple at Tiruvarur, about 40km east of Thanjavur, tell the story of how the image of Lord Tyagarajaswami was brought to Tiruvarur by a monkey-faced Chola king, Muchukunda. Because of decades of neglect and damage from water leakage, smoke, fungus, insects, dust, bird nesting, and other factors, nearly half of the panels had been severely damaged, and the other half were in acute danger of similar deterioration.
Following the sustained efforts of Ranvir Shah, founder trustee of Prakriti Foundation, an INTACH team led by KP Madhu Rani was allowed to clean and preserve the paintings, to waterproof the roof of the mandapam, and thus to save these priceless works for future generations.
Prakriti Foundation in Chennai has now published a comprehensive photographic and scholarly documentation of the Tiruvarur paintings, with the exquisite photographs of VK Rajamani, the doyen of art photographers in south India, and a scholarly introduction and annotation by Professor David Shulman of the Hebrew University,Jerusalem. The book, "The Mucukunda Murals in the Tyagarajasvami Temple, Tiruvarur", by VK Rajamani and David Shulman, makes the paintings accessible to art lovers throughout the world. It is being released in the Devasiraya mandapam on January 26. The book includes a detailed description by Madhu Rani of the entire process of conservation, an essay that may be a model for all similar work on surviving medieval murals.
The release will open the mandapam to all visitors. Lectures by Professors Davesh Sonaji, Rajeswari Ghosh, Saskia Kersenboom, and David Shulman, among others, will illuminate the meaning of the Tyagaraja story and provide context to the paintings on the newly conserved ceiling directly above the audience.
The work is, however, not complete. Although 90% of the professional stabilizing of the mandapam and its ceiling has been accomplished by the INTACH team, side-waterproofing and other final touches are yet to be given. There is hope that a model of shared private-public engagement will assure the future of these paintings and completion of the work.
Experts are worried at recent speculation that plans are afoot to retouch or repaint these great paintings, thereby ruining them for ever, as has, in fact, happened at many Tamil temple sites. Experts say such retouching would be an unmitigated catastrophe now that the INTACH team has completed its scientific cleaning and conservation. The difference between retouching or repainting and careful conservation is vital: the former destroys; the latter keeps such works alive as close as we can get to their original forms. This difference has not yet been sufficiently internalized by the bodies responsible at many temples and surviving palaces, they point out.
Read more: INTACH team restores 17th-century ceiling paintings at Tamil Nadu temple - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/INTACH-team-restores-17th-century-ceiling-paintings-at-Tamil-Nadu-temple/articleshow/7355499.cms#ixzz1BzhxB4tw
Monday, January 24, 2011
15th century inscription discovered
Udupi:An important inscription of 15th century belonging to the Sangama dynasty of Vijayanagara Empire has been discovered at Rattadi, a small village in Kundapura taluk.
A press release issued by T Murugeshi, professor in ancient history and archaeology at MSRS College (Shirva) informed that the stone record is preserved in Bhandarkars Arts and Science College, Kundapura.
The top of the inscription is designed in a horse-shoe shape and has a standing Nandi, Linga with 'prabhavali', a lamp, a man seated in saluting posture, sun and moon from left to right respectively in bas relief. The inscription is in Kannada and dates back to the Saka era. The inscription has great significance in the study of Vijayanagara Empire and the Tuluva history of the period. The record mentions Sangama Emperor Devaraya I with his royal titles like 'Raajaadhiraaja Parameshwara', 'Bhasege Tappada Raayara Ganda', 'Proudha Devaraya Odeyaru.'
When Devaraya II was ruling Vijayanagara as an emperor, his officer Bhachanna Odeya appears to have defeated and subdued some ruler of Kabsanaala Durga.
The inscription begins with an invocation to Lord Ganesh, Lord Shiva and Bringinatha.
It mentions the date of Saka year 1330, sarvadhari samvatsara, sravana bahula, 12, Sunday.
This corresponds to 1408 AD. The study of the full text of this epigraph may reveal some more valuable facts of history, which is under detailed study, the release stated.
14th century idols found in Banaskantha village - The Times of India
PALANPUR: Seven idols which might be long to 14th century were recovered on Saturday from a field in Rah village, about 24 km from Tharad, in Banaskantha district. The discovery was made when farmer Akji Vaghela was ploughing the field. Nine conches and seven idols, of which five are made of 'panch dhaatu' (five metals) and two made of black stones, were recovered from the site.
Police sub-inspector G R Patel who had reached site after getting the information said, "The black stone idols are damaged and the metal idols are covered in a thick layer of rust."
"The idols are yet to be identified, but probably belong to ancient times," said Ravi Shankar, sub-divisional magistrate of Tharad on Sunday. At present, we have kept the idols at the police station, he added.
Tharad is located on the international border with Pakistan and was once known as 'Jain-nagar' because of the number of Jains staying here. Local Jains feel that the idols might belong to Jain tirthankars.
Read more: 14th century idols found in Banaskantha village - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/14th-century-idols-found-in-Banaskantha-village/articleshow/7348964.cms#ixzz1Bzf4nCnE
Police sub-inspector G R Patel who had reached site after getting the information said, "The black stone idols are damaged and the metal idols are covered in a thick layer of rust."
"The idols are yet to be identified, but probably belong to ancient times," said Ravi Shankar, sub-divisional magistrate of Tharad on Sunday. At present, we have kept the idols at the police station, he added.
Tharad is located on the international border with Pakistan and was once known as 'Jain-nagar' because of the number of Jains staying here. Local Jains feel that the idols might belong to Jain tirthankars.
Read more: 14th century idols found in Banaskantha village - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/14th-century-idols-found-in-Banaskantha-village/articleshow/7348964.cms#ixzz1Bzf4nCnE
Mongols, Vikings and Romans Connected to Climate : Discovery News
Genghis Khan may have found the most brutal solution to global warming.
The Mongols conquered one of the largest empires ever starting in the 13th century AD. In doing so they also slaughtered the populations of many entire cities, and even whole civilizations, like the Khwarzm in what is now Kazakhstan.
Without people to farm the land, much of it reverted to forests. Those forests inhaled large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a paper published in the journal The Holocene. Those forests may have stockpiled 700 million tons of carbon dioxide, as much as the world's current use of gasoline produces in a year.
Lead author, Julia Pongratz, and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany analyzed historical records of land use and compared those with a global climate/ carbon cycle model to track how land use and historical events altered carbon dioxide levels.
The longer the duration of the human catastrophe, the more carbon was absorbed by new forests, Pongrantz found. The depopulation of the Americas after invasion by the Spanish, English and other European powers had a similar atmospheric impact to the Mongol conquests. But other shorter-term mass deaths didn't slow agriculture down enough to affect the atmosphere.
"We found that during the short events such as the Black Death and the Ming Dynasty collapse, the forest re-growth wasn't enough to overcome the emissions from decaying material in the soil," says Pongratz. "But during the longer-lasting ones like the Mongol invasion and the conquest of the Americas there was enough time for the forests to re-grow and absorb significant amounts of carbon."
"Today about a quarter of the net primary production on the Earth's land surface is used by humans in some way, mostly through agriculture," Pograntz said. "So there is a large potential for our land-use choices to alter the global carbon cycle.”
“In the past we have had a substantial impact on global climate and the carbon cycle, but it was all unintentional,” Pograntz said. “Based on the knowledge we have gained from the past, we are now in a position to make land-use decisions that will diminish our impact on climate and the carbon cycle. We cannot ignore the knowledge we have gained."
The current rate and scale of climate change are unprecedented in human history, and another study point out that if humanity does not heed the fate of the Greenland Vikings and the Roman Empire, civilization may be doomed to repeat the chaos of collapse.
Rome rose and prospered during a stable, warm, moist period in climate history, but collapsed during colder, drier, more variable times, according to research by a team of researchers led by Ulf Buntgen of the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape, which Emily Sohn of Discovery News wrote about recently.
An increase in climate variability from 250 AD to 600 AD, coincided with the spread of the Huns and migrations of Germanic tribes, the researchers said in a recent issue of Science. They studied preserved tree rings from that time to determine climate, a science called dendrochronology. During that period, trees had smaller rings, meaning less yearly growth and harsher conditions.
A warm period also coincided with the re-development of organized civilization in Europe, but another cold period in the 14th century may have aided in the spread of the bubonic plague, which thrives in cooler conditions. At the same time, Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Cold weather may have made agriculture and rearing livestock impossible on that giant, ice-covered island.
But wait, isn't the problem now that the climate is getting warmer? Shouldn't Europe be happy that the climate is getting balmier? The problem is that warmer average temperatures don't mean warmer temperatures everywhere.
Europe's pleasant climate is caused by an ocean current that brings warm water from the tropics north. But as the waters in the Arctic get warmer, the temperature difference that drives that current is breaking down. Other research has shown a significant decrease just since the 1970's in the strength of one of the currents involved.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said the Spanish-American writer George Santayana. These two studies show that the rise and fall of human civilizations are often linked to the climate, and that human activities can affect the climate.
Russia-InfoCentre :: Archeologists Find Traces of Unknown Civilization near Kislovodsk
Kislovodsk archaeological expedition headed by Dmitry Korobov has found about two hundred ancient settlements following a uniform architectural concept on the Kabardian Ridge, in the foothills of Elbrus.
It is possible to say about discovery of an unknown civilization that once existed. And yet the researchers are at a loss regarding material samples of what culture they have unearthed.
It is interesting to note that a direct view of Elbrus opened from every ancient settlement. It could hardly be accidental. It seems that the people, who had come here, had purposefully chosen the place to see the mountain. By approximate calculations of historians, about 25 thousand persons could have lived in all the 160 settlements at the same time.
The mysterious people mysteriously disappeared. After the 9th century B.C. they left their houses in the foothills of Elbrus and went away. Scientists hope to solve at least a part of the riddles of the ancient inhabitants of the ridge. There is, for example, an assumption that dwellers of Arkaim - a big settlement that prospered behind Urals in the 3rd-2nd millennia BC - could have reached that land.
It is possible to say about discovery of an unknown civilization that once existed. And yet the researchers are at a loss regarding material samples of what culture they have unearthed.
It is interesting to note that a direct view of Elbrus opened from every ancient settlement. It could hardly be accidental. It seems that the people, who had come here, had purposefully chosen the place to see the mountain. By approximate calculations of historians, about 25 thousand persons could have lived in all the 160 settlements at the same time.
The mysterious people mysteriously disappeared. After the 9th century B.C. they left their houses in the foothills of Elbrus and went away. Scientists hope to solve at least a part of the riddles of the ancient inhabitants of the ridge. There is, for example, an assumption that dwellers of Arkaim - a big settlement that prospered behind Urals in the 3rd-2nd millennia BC - could have reached that land.
The Hindu : Ancient, historical Yogyakarta and modern, pulsating Jakarta reflect the country's multi-cultural ethos
Ancient, historical Yogyakarta and modern, pulsating Jakarta reflect the country's multi-cultural ethos
The bus from Yogyakarta rumbles to a stop in the midst of lava fields looped by a tent city of souvenir shops. The UNESCO-restored 9th Century Mahayana Buddhist Temple of Borobudur is a long walk, past well-laid out gardens, hedged in by morning glory. Finally, Borobudur comes into sight — a pageantry of umbrellas and sarongs marches past in the noon-day sun.
The restoration of Borobudur, ranked an equal of the Parthenon by Arnold Toynbee, was a meeting ground for ancient heritage and modern technology. Built by the Buddhist Sailendras over 80 years, the temple lay abandoned and forgotten for nearly eight centuries, shaken by quakes and lashed by torrential rains. In a 19th Century expedition that almost rivalled the search for the Holy Grail, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, then British Lieutenant-Governor of Java, heard of the ruins overrun by the jungle, and ordered it to be cleared of the undergrowth. The Dutch took over later.
Worth the climb
Getting to the top (105 ft) of the temple is like a hike from hell, but worth the effort. The andesite and basalt volcanic stones that make up the pyramid are at varying heights, and bas-reliefs (2,672) depicting the lives of the Buddha are strung like a rosary around the six square terraces. I jostle past tourists, worshippers, school children and heritage enthusiasts to journey through this Buddhist vision of the universe in stone. The birth of the Buddha, his enlightenment, elephants, dancing apsaras — scenes from the ordinary world swirl up to nirvana.
Seventy-two Buddhas in various asanas sit facing outwards in the top three circular terraces. Enclosed in perforated bell-shaped stupas, they surround a large central stupa encasing nothing. The view from the top is splendid — the valley glows green with paddy and bamboo copses, and in the distance beyond the overhanging clouds are the outlines of the active Merbabu and Merapi volcanoes.
I drive three km East to Candi Mendut, another Buddhist temple of the same period. Inside sit three magnificent statues — the Buddha flanked by Boddhisattvas.
Lunch is at a restaurant in the midst of rain-inundated fields. The wait for traditional Javanese fare is interrupted by a wayang kulit performance — flickering shadow puppets symbolising good and evil, dance to the music of the gamelan.
I arrive at Yogyakarta, 30-odd km away, and race past its rich culture-filled streets at sunset. The city was the capital during the revolution from 1945-49, but its history dates back to the 17th Century when it was ruled by the Sultan, and rose in revolt against the Dutch. As recognition of this bravery, the province enjoys the special status of a monarchy.
Old meets new
I fly into the Indonesian capital of Jakarta late on a weekend night with the city blazing with lights and people, and eons away from falling asleep. The following morning, I drive through streets tangled with traffic and lined with stores to the downtown harbour district which, Fatahillah, a Sumataran warrior, named Jayakarta after his victory over the Portuguese.
In 1619, the Dutch (under Jan Pieterszoon Coen) defeated the British and renamed the city Batavia. Over three centuries, from a well-entrenched fort they administered their far-flung colonial empire, mastering the spice trade. The Japanese named the city Djakarta during World War II. I walk around Fatahillah Square past The Museum of Fine Arts, a neo-classic building, and the Stadhuis, the City Hall built in 1710, now the Jakarta Museum. The quiet square belies its violent history — many Chinese were slaughtered here in 1740, forcing them to flee across the fort walls to Glodok where they continue to live in numbers. Across the Grand Canal lie Dutch-style houses reminiscent of Amsterdam.
From the past
A little ahead around Merdeka Square lies the Sekretariat, the porticoed white Presidential Palace, the National Monument with its gigantic flame, the West Irian Liberation monument, and an exquisitely-carved Arjuna Wijaya chariot statute with horses leaping and foaming at the mouth. The glacial Istiqlal mosque is a massive marble and glass structure, and lies across the road from The Church of Our Lady of Assumption, an ornate Roman Catholic neo-Gothic cathedral. It has an altar dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, who introduced Christianity to the Indies.
Like the saint, I have to journey to India, but not before I race through congested Jalan Surabaya shopping for barnacled porcelain dishes ferreted from sunken ships, Javanese puppets, batik fans, a mask and wood carvings.
A quarter of a globe away and couple of months since my travel to the Indies, I still glimpse shades of life from the archipelago — a carved Garuda from Bali threatening to leap off my bookshelf, a Sumatran mask scowling from the wall, a beatific Buddha smiling mysteriously and the aroma of cinnamon coffee wafting up on a winter morning…
The bus from Yogyakarta rumbles to a stop in the midst of lava fields looped by a tent city of souvenir shops. The UNESCO-restored 9th Century Mahayana Buddhist Temple of Borobudur is a long walk, past well-laid out gardens, hedged in by morning glory. Finally, Borobudur comes into sight — a pageantry of umbrellas and sarongs marches past in the noon-day sun.
The restoration of Borobudur, ranked an equal of the Parthenon by Arnold Toynbee, was a meeting ground for ancient heritage and modern technology. Built by the Buddhist Sailendras over 80 years, the temple lay abandoned and forgotten for nearly eight centuries, shaken by quakes and lashed by torrential rains. In a 19th Century expedition that almost rivalled the search for the Holy Grail, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, then British Lieutenant-Governor of Java, heard of the ruins overrun by the jungle, and ordered it to be cleared of the undergrowth. The Dutch took over later.
Worth the climb
Getting to the top (105 ft) of the temple is like a hike from hell, but worth the effort. The andesite and basalt volcanic stones that make up the pyramid are at varying heights, and bas-reliefs (2,672) depicting the lives of the Buddha are strung like a rosary around the six square terraces. I jostle past tourists, worshippers, school children and heritage enthusiasts to journey through this Buddhist vision of the universe in stone. The birth of the Buddha, his enlightenment, elephants, dancing apsaras — scenes from the ordinary world swirl up to nirvana.
Seventy-two Buddhas in various asanas sit facing outwards in the top three circular terraces. Enclosed in perforated bell-shaped stupas, they surround a large central stupa encasing nothing. The view from the top is splendid — the valley glows green with paddy and bamboo copses, and in the distance beyond the overhanging clouds are the outlines of the active Merbabu and Merapi volcanoes.
I drive three km East to Candi Mendut, another Buddhist temple of the same period. Inside sit three magnificent statues — the Buddha flanked by Boddhisattvas.
Lunch is at a restaurant in the midst of rain-inundated fields. The wait for traditional Javanese fare is interrupted by a wayang kulit performance — flickering shadow puppets symbolising good and evil, dance to the music of the gamelan.
I arrive at Yogyakarta, 30-odd km away, and race past its rich culture-filled streets at sunset. The city was the capital during the revolution from 1945-49, but its history dates back to the 17th Century when it was ruled by the Sultan, and rose in revolt against the Dutch. As recognition of this bravery, the province enjoys the special status of a monarchy.
Old meets new
I fly into the Indonesian capital of Jakarta late on a weekend night with the city blazing with lights and people, and eons away from falling asleep. The following morning, I drive through streets tangled with traffic and lined with stores to the downtown harbour district which, Fatahillah, a Sumataran warrior, named Jayakarta after his victory over the Portuguese.
In 1619, the Dutch (under Jan Pieterszoon Coen) defeated the British and renamed the city Batavia. Over three centuries, from a well-entrenched fort they administered their far-flung colonial empire, mastering the spice trade. The Japanese named the city Djakarta during World War II. I walk around Fatahillah Square past The Museum of Fine Arts, a neo-classic building, and the Stadhuis, the City Hall built in 1710, now the Jakarta Museum. The quiet square belies its violent history — many Chinese were slaughtered here in 1740, forcing them to flee across the fort walls to Glodok where they continue to live in numbers. Across the Grand Canal lie Dutch-style houses reminiscent of Amsterdam.
From the past
A little ahead around Merdeka Square lies the Sekretariat, the porticoed white Presidential Palace, the National Monument with its gigantic flame, the West Irian Liberation monument, and an exquisitely-carved Arjuna Wijaya chariot statute with horses leaping and foaming at the mouth. The glacial Istiqlal mosque is a massive marble and glass structure, and lies across the road from The Church of Our Lady of Assumption, an ornate Roman Catholic neo-Gothic cathedral. It has an altar dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, who introduced Christianity to the Indies.
Like the saint, I have to journey to India, but not before I race through congested Jalan Surabaya shopping for barnacled porcelain dishes ferreted from sunken ships, Javanese puppets, batik fans, a mask and wood carvings.
A quarter of a globe away and couple of months since my travel to the Indies, I still glimpse shades of life from the archipelago — a carved Garuda from Bali threatening to leap off my bookshelf, a Sumatran mask scowling from the wall, a beatific Buddha smiling mysteriously and the aroma of cinnamon coffee wafting up on a winter morning…
Plea for UNESCO to save Indonesian temples
UNESCO has been asked to urgently help save ancient Hindu temples, which are reportedly threatened by volcanic ash flows from Mount Merapi on an Indonesian island.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, said in a press statement in Nevada (USA) that, "these ancient temples are world archaeological treasures and it is our moral duty to preserve these for the coming generations."
The Prambanan temple complex was built in the 9th century AD and includes temples dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva with reliefs depicting episodes from the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic. And, as if lifted from the pages of such a legend of destruction and rebirth, fears have arisen that powerful flowing volcanic mud produced by Mount Merapi - the volcano erupted in October and November - could now destroy the historic structures.
Dewi S. Sayudi, an official with the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center, said that there is a serious threat to Prambanan because the nearby rivers carrying large amounts of volcanic debris, called lahar. (The Jakarta Post reports), "The lahar that we have seen so far is just the tip. The flows carry only a small portion of the thick layers of volcanic debris from the slopes of Merapi."
Lahars act like concrete, flowing when carried by water but becoming solid when deposited on land.
The eruptions in October and November, Merapi's most powerful in a century, were estimated to have spewed more than 150 million cubic metres of volcanic debris consisting of large rocks, stones, sand and ash.
Hours of heavy rain over the peak of the world's most active volcano turned the thick layers of heated volcanic debris into powerful mud-flows that sped their way down the slope, sweeping away all in their path.
A thick deposit of volcanic debris extending 15 kilometres along the banks of the Gendol River has raised the water level dramatically. This has resulted in a vast wall of volcanic debris 1.5 kilometres in width and more than 10 kilometres long flowing to the Opak River.
Despite the threat, no preparations have been made so far by Prambanan Temple officials, who continue to monitor the flow of the Opak River as rainfall increases as Indonesia heads into the peak of the wet season.
The head of the Serayu-Opak River Region Agency, Bambang Hargono, said all the dams set up to stop volcanic debris were at full capacity. (ANI)
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, said in a press statement in Nevada (USA) that, "these ancient temples are world archaeological treasures and it is our moral duty to preserve these for the coming generations."
The Prambanan temple complex was built in the 9th century AD and includes temples dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva with reliefs depicting episodes from the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic. And, as if lifted from the pages of such a legend of destruction and rebirth, fears have arisen that powerful flowing volcanic mud produced by Mount Merapi - the volcano erupted in October and November - could now destroy the historic structures.
Dewi S. Sayudi, an official with the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center, said that there is a serious threat to Prambanan because the nearby rivers carrying large amounts of volcanic debris, called lahar. (The Jakarta Post reports), "The lahar that we have seen so far is just the tip. The flows carry only a small portion of the thick layers of volcanic debris from the slopes of Merapi."
Lahars act like concrete, flowing when carried by water but becoming solid when deposited on land.
The eruptions in October and November, Merapi's most powerful in a century, were estimated to have spewed more than 150 million cubic metres of volcanic debris consisting of large rocks, stones, sand and ash.
Hours of heavy rain over the peak of the world's most active volcano turned the thick layers of heated volcanic debris into powerful mud-flows that sped their way down the slope, sweeping away all in their path.
A thick deposit of volcanic debris extending 15 kilometres along the banks of the Gendol River has raised the water level dramatically. This has resulted in a vast wall of volcanic debris 1.5 kilometres in width and more than 10 kilometres long flowing to the Opak River.
Despite the threat, no preparations have been made so far by Prambanan Temple officials, who continue to monitor the flow of the Opak River as rainfall increases as Indonesia heads into the peak of the wet season.
The head of the Serayu-Opak River Region Agency, Bambang Hargono, said all the dams set up to stop volcanic debris were at full capacity. (ANI)
The Hindu : Arts / History & Culture : A bas-relief gone dry at Mamallapuram
On December 6 and 7, 2010, Mamallapuram, 50 km from Chennai, famed for its Pallava period rock-cut sculptures, recorded 20 cm of rain. It was the kind of rainfall that could have brought to life one of the famous bas-relief panels there, adjacent to the popular Arjuna's Penance bas-relief: Krishna lifting Govardhana hill to protect the cowherds, their wives, children, cows and bulls from a deluge caused by the wrath of Indra.
The pounding rain would have created a dramatic cascade down the rock and all around the bas-relief of Krishna and the community of cowherds just as the Pallava sculptors of the 7th century C.E. intended, says S. Balusami, Associate Professor of Tamil at the Madras Christian College, Tambaram.
The Pallava sculptors had conjured up the Mamallapuram rock as Govardhana hill and created a splendid row of sculptures depicting the life of cowherds and a majestic Krishna nonchalantly lifting the hill with his left hand.
Art historian C. Sivaramamurti, in his short book, Mahabalipuram, first published by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1952, asserts that: “This representation of the Govardhana scene is probably the best in India, even the one at Ellora coming nowhere near this.”
But, Dr. Balusami says, the Vijayanagara rulers of the 14th/15th century C.E. built a pillared mantapa in front of this bas-relief, killing forever the cascade effect. In fact, with the pillared mantapa in front, the sculptures are no longer an open-air bas-relief, which is now merely called the Krishna Mantapa. In a sense it amounts to vandalism. Says Sivaramamurti: “Vandalism has not caused much damage, except for the later Vaishnavite mark incised on the forehead of the couchant bull and the erection of the modern pillared hall which destroys the view of the original façade.”
Dr. Balusami, a scholar on Mamallapuram sculptures, has found tell-tale evidence of 26 furrows cut on the rock above the line of bas-relief sculptures to channel the rain water and create a picture of verisimilitude.
Pallava artisans had also excavated terraced steps and narrow channels on the sloping rock above for water to gush down the “Govardhanagiri.” But the Vijayanagara chieftains cut a trench high up on rock and raised a one-foot high wall to drain the water on either side of the bas-relief.
In defence of his argument, Dr. Balusamy points out that the central cleft in the adjacent sculptures of Arjuna's Penance represents the Ganga coursing down the Himalayas. He quotes from A.H. Longhurst's Pallava Architecture, part II, Intermediate or Mamalla Period, published by the ASI, to support his argument. Mr. Longhurst says: “If the visitor will take the trouble of climbing to the top of the rock…he will find a number of rock-cut channels or footings immediately above the cleft [in Arjuna's Penance], showing that a brick or masonry cistern was once built on this spot… It would appear that on certain festival occasions, this cistern was filled and the water allowed to flow down the cleft in the form of a cascade into the tank below, simulating the descent of a mountain torrent… There can be little doubt that the whole scene is a symbolical representation of the Ganges flowing down the Himalayas.”
“DYNAMIC, LIFE-LIKE”
Dr. Balusami has proposed that the central theme of the “dynamic, life-like” sculptures in the bas-relief of Krishna lifting Govardhanagiri is “safety” or “protection.” Everybody is feeling safe because Krishna has protected them from the deluge. A cowherd has a child on his shoulders and his wife holds the hand of another child while she carries on her head pots of milk and curd; a royal lady is looking up in amazement at Krishna holding aloft the hill; tall Balarama has his hand around an elderly cowherd, in a gesture of protection; a cowherd plays the flute and cows sway their heads to the tune; his wife is feeding their infant; another cowherd is milking a cow, which is licking her calf; nearby a bull and a cow are walking close to each other; a woman is carrying pots in a rope-sling; and a young couple, hands held together, is dancing with gay abandon. Everywhere there is relief that the danger has passed.
All these events, Dr. Balusami proposes, have a remarkable similarity to the descriptions in the poems of Mullai Thinai in Tamil Sangam literature, datable between third century B.C.E. and third century C.E.
The Hindu : Life & Style / Kids : Connecting with the Romans
Coins help archaeologists and historians discover the history, culture, economy and religious importance of a bygone era.
The Government Museum of Chennai, the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, New Delhi and the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chennai, have organised an exhibition on Roman Coins and other Roman antiquities found in South India.
The tale of trade between India and the Roman empire highlights the mood of the exhibition. The journey was arduous and filled with many adventures. But for the traders, it was a journey that brought them riches and they risked their lives to get it. Just before and after the Christian era, Romans began to trade with India. They watched out for the trade winds of the monsoons and landed in the west coast of India. They travelled through the jungles of the Western Ghats and then by crossing the Palghat pass reached the region of Coimbatore. Here they bought the varied spices and precious gems. But gradually they learned to sail round the Southern tip of India and reach the ports of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on the East coast.
While the relationship between the two countries began with trade, there were more connections to come — diplomatic ties, exchange of art and culture, so much so that many aspects of Roman politics, society and culture mingled with Indian traditions and beliefs.
The exhibition hall displayed the different coins that were found in many parts of Tamil Nadu. Imitations of the Roman coins were found too in many sites in India, and these were produced in India. It is believed that when there was a shortage of genuine coins from the West, the imitations wee produced here.
Displayed also were precious stones, the terracotta in Arikamedu, beads, fragments of figurines and armlets of Cornelian. Roman coins were also used as jewellery. they were hung round the neck and looked similar to the “Kasu malai” of Tamil Nadu. These special coins were found in Gumada in Andhra Pradesh and in Sooriyapattu in Tamil Nadu.
The importance of Arikamedu as the main trade site, was highlighted in the exhibition. While there were other sites in South India like Pattanam in Kerala and Karur and Alagankulam in Tamil Nadu, it is Arikamedu in Pondicherry, that is properly identified and documented. This 34-acre ancient Roman trade centre was declared a protected site in the 1940s and in 2003 was owned by the ASI 9Archeological survey of India.) Mortimer Wheeler's excavation in 1945 inspired other excavations in India. and the methods and principals of Stratigraphy-based (the study of rock layers and the layering process (stratification); the layering of deposits, with newer remains overlaying older ones, forming a chronology of the site.During excavation, archaeologists are not just concerned with what is at the bottom of their unit. They are also keenly interested in their sidewalls, where they can get a profile view of the stratigraphy in the archaeological deposit.)
That were used in Arikamedu are still in use today.
The largest amount of Mediterranean amphora (long conical jars with handles on both sides) jars has been found in Arikamedu. These came to India filled with — wine, olive oil, fish sauce and apples. The goods that the Romans came for were — gems, silk, cotton, ivory, spices, sandalwood and peacocks.
There were shards of pottery, carefully housed in the glass displays. These fragments of pottery bore inscriptions in Tamil language and in Tamil Brahmi script, of the 2nd century B.C. – 3rd century A.D. They also had pieces of pottery that had Prakrit, old Sinhalese and Lain.
Another interesting aspect of the exhibition was the focus on ancient Tamil epic poems and Greaco Roman literary works that threw light on the trade between the countries.
For example in the Tamil Sangam (composed at the Sangam or the “confluence of Tamil scholars” in Madurai, capital of the Tamil Pandiya kingdom) poems, especially the “Ahananuru” and the “Purananuru” there are references to the rising and successful trade. These foreign traders were known as “Yavanas.”
A verse in the “Ahananuru” describes the Malabar port of Muziris, where the Yavanas paid gold for pepper.
‘When the town where the good ships,
Masterpieces of the Yavanas,
Stirring the white foam of the Periyar, river of the Cheras,
Sail in with gold and sail off with pepper
When this Muziris overflowing with posperity
Was besieged with the din of war…”
There is information how the Yavanas were in great demand in Tamil Nadu for the technical abilities and were employed as builders, carpenters and blacksmiths. Tamil kings made them build war weapons like “siege engines.” As they were strong, they made excellent gatekeepers and bodyguards.
The poems describe the Yavana lamps that had steady flames and burned without flickering. They were described to be in shapes of a swan and very similar to the “Pavai Villaku” of Tamil Nadu.
In Greaco Roman literature of Pliny, Ptolemy and otheres, detailed and accurate accounts are given of the trade ties between the Roman Empire and India.
The Curator, Numismatics Section of the Museum, says this exhibition is a boon to students as it brings alive their lessons. It documents the commercial and the cultural ties and the ancient maritime heritage and monopoly of trade.
The Government Museum of Chennai, the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, New Delhi and the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chennai, have organised an exhibition on Roman Coins and other Roman antiquities found in South India.
The tale of trade between India and the Roman empire highlights the mood of the exhibition. The journey was arduous and filled with many adventures. But for the traders, it was a journey that brought them riches and they risked their lives to get it. Just before and after the Christian era, Romans began to trade with India. They watched out for the trade winds of the monsoons and landed in the west coast of India. They travelled through the jungles of the Western Ghats and then by crossing the Palghat pass reached the region of Coimbatore. Here they bought the varied spices and precious gems. But gradually they learned to sail round the Southern tip of India and reach the ports of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on the East coast.
While the relationship between the two countries began with trade, there were more connections to come — diplomatic ties, exchange of art and culture, so much so that many aspects of Roman politics, society and culture mingled with Indian traditions and beliefs.
The exhibition hall displayed the different coins that were found in many parts of Tamil Nadu. Imitations of the Roman coins were found too in many sites in India, and these were produced in India. It is believed that when there was a shortage of genuine coins from the West, the imitations wee produced here.
Displayed also were precious stones, the terracotta in Arikamedu, beads, fragments of figurines and armlets of Cornelian. Roman coins were also used as jewellery. they were hung round the neck and looked similar to the “Kasu malai” of Tamil Nadu. These special coins were found in Gumada in Andhra Pradesh and in Sooriyapattu in Tamil Nadu.
The importance of Arikamedu as the main trade site, was highlighted in the exhibition. While there were other sites in South India like Pattanam in Kerala and Karur and Alagankulam in Tamil Nadu, it is Arikamedu in Pondicherry, that is properly identified and documented. This 34-acre ancient Roman trade centre was declared a protected site in the 1940s and in 2003 was owned by the ASI 9Archeological survey of India.) Mortimer Wheeler's excavation in 1945 inspired other excavations in India. and the methods and principals of Stratigraphy-based (the study of rock layers and the layering process (stratification); the layering of deposits, with newer remains overlaying older ones, forming a chronology of the site.During excavation, archaeologists are not just concerned with what is at the bottom of their unit. They are also keenly interested in their sidewalls, where they can get a profile view of the stratigraphy in the archaeological deposit.)
That were used in Arikamedu are still in use today.
The largest amount of Mediterranean amphora (long conical jars with handles on both sides) jars has been found in Arikamedu. These came to India filled with — wine, olive oil, fish sauce and apples. The goods that the Romans came for were — gems, silk, cotton, ivory, spices, sandalwood and peacocks.
There were shards of pottery, carefully housed in the glass displays. These fragments of pottery bore inscriptions in Tamil language and in Tamil Brahmi script, of the 2nd century B.C. – 3rd century A.D. They also had pieces of pottery that had Prakrit, old Sinhalese and Lain.
Another interesting aspect of the exhibition was the focus on ancient Tamil epic poems and Greaco Roman literary works that threw light on the trade between the countries.
For example in the Tamil Sangam (composed at the Sangam or the “confluence of Tamil scholars” in Madurai, capital of the Tamil Pandiya kingdom) poems, especially the “Ahananuru” and the “Purananuru” there are references to the rising and successful trade. These foreign traders were known as “Yavanas.”
A verse in the “Ahananuru” describes the Malabar port of Muziris, where the Yavanas paid gold for pepper.
‘When the town where the good ships,
Masterpieces of the Yavanas,
Stirring the white foam of the Periyar, river of the Cheras,
Sail in with gold and sail off with pepper
When this Muziris overflowing with posperity
Was besieged with the din of war…”
There is information how the Yavanas were in great demand in Tamil Nadu for the technical abilities and were employed as builders, carpenters and blacksmiths. Tamil kings made them build war weapons like “siege engines.” As they were strong, they made excellent gatekeepers and bodyguards.
The poems describe the Yavana lamps that had steady flames and burned without flickering. They were described to be in shapes of a swan and very similar to the “Pavai Villaku” of Tamil Nadu.
In Greaco Roman literature of Pliny, Ptolemy and otheres, detailed and accurate accounts are given of the trade ties between the Roman Empire and India.
The Curator, Numismatics Section of the Museum, says this exhibition is a boon to students as it brings alive their lessons. It documents the commercial and the cultural ties and the ancient maritime heritage and monopoly of trade.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Indonesians Appeal to UNESCO to Save Fabled Temples From Volcano - ARTINFO.com
YOGYAKARTA—The Prambanan temple complex was built in the 9th century and includes temples dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva with reliefs depicting episodes from the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic. And, as if lifted from the pages of such a legend of destruction and rebirth, fears have arisen that powerful flowing volcanic mud produced by Mount Merapi, the volcano that erupted in October and November, could now destroy the historic structures.
Dewi S. Sayudi, an official with the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center, said that there is a serious threat to Prambanan because the nearby Opak and Gendol Rivers are carrying large amounts of volcanic debris, called lahar, the Jakarta Post reports. "The lahar that we have seen so far is just the tip. The flows carry only a small portion of the thick layers of volcanic debris from the slopes of Merapi," he stated.
Lahars act like concrete, flowing when carried by water but becoming solid when deposited on land. Mount Merapi's recent eruptions were the most powerful in a century and are estimated to have spewed over five billion cubic feet of volcanic debris. Now, as Indonesia heads into the rainy season, rain has caused this debris to flow from the volcano's peak, creating a wall of lahar in the Opak River that measures a little less than a mile wide and over six miles long.
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Prambanan temple officials are continuing to monitor the flow of the Opak River but no special precautions have been taken. Bambang Hargono, head of the Serayu-Opak River Region Agency, told the Jakarta Post that all the dams set up to stop volcanic debris were at full capacity, and that his agency plans "to dredge the river to normalize the stream and reduce the risk of lahar next year." But Rajan Zed Prambanan, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, is alarmed by the danger and issued a statement asking UNESCO — which has designated Prambanan as a World Heritage Site — to intervene to save this "world archaeological treasure."
Debris from Mount Merapi is only the latest potential danger in a centuries-long series of catastrophes to befall Prambanan, which is located on the border of Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces. Historians believe that the temple complex was built around 850 by the Hindu Sanjaya dynasty to mark its return to power after replacing the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty. When the court left the region — possibly due to the eruption of Mount Merapi — the site was abandoned. The temples were damaged in the 16th century after an earthquake, and in the 19th century stones from the structures were frequently looted. The most significant temples were reconstructed in the 20th century, with the work finished only in the 1990s. The Java earthquake of May 2006 damaged the site, and many of the temples are still off-limits for safety reasons.
With the tall, pointed spires that are characteristic of Hindu sacred architecture, Prambanan's tallest structure is the temple to Shiva the Destroyer, which measures 154 feet high. Traditional Javanese dance has been performed at the site during every full moon since the 1960s and helped to make Prambanan a favorite archaeological and cultural destination.
Dewi S. Sayudi, an official with the Volcanic Technology Development and Research Center, said that there is a serious threat to Prambanan because the nearby Opak and Gendol Rivers are carrying large amounts of volcanic debris, called lahar, the Jakarta Post reports. "The lahar that we have seen so far is just the tip. The flows carry only a small portion of the thick layers of volcanic debris from the slopes of Merapi," he stated.
Lahars act like concrete, flowing when carried by water but becoming solid when deposited on land. Mount Merapi's recent eruptions were the most powerful in a century and are estimated to have spewed over five billion cubic feet of volcanic debris. Now, as Indonesia heads into the rainy season, rain has caused this debris to flow from the volcano's peak, creating a wall of lahar in the Opak River that measures a little less than a mile wide and over six miles long.
Like what you see? Sign up for ARTINFO’s daily newsletter to get the latest on the market, emerging artists, auctions, galleries, museums, and more.
Prambanan temple officials are continuing to monitor the flow of the Opak River but no special precautions have been taken. Bambang Hargono, head of the Serayu-Opak River Region Agency, told the Jakarta Post that all the dams set up to stop volcanic debris were at full capacity, and that his agency plans "to dredge the river to normalize the stream and reduce the risk of lahar next year." But Rajan Zed Prambanan, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, is alarmed by the danger and issued a statement asking UNESCO — which has designated Prambanan as a World Heritage Site — to intervene to save this "world archaeological treasure."
Debris from Mount Merapi is only the latest potential danger in a centuries-long series of catastrophes to befall Prambanan, which is located on the border of Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces. Historians believe that the temple complex was built around 850 by the Hindu Sanjaya dynasty to mark its return to power after replacing the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty. When the court left the region — possibly due to the eruption of Mount Merapi — the site was abandoned. The temples were damaged in the 16th century after an earthquake, and in the 19th century stones from the structures were frequently looted. The most significant temples were reconstructed in the 20th century, with the work finished only in the 1990s. The Java earthquake of May 2006 damaged the site, and many of the temples are still off-limits for safety reasons.
With the tall, pointed spires that are characteristic of Hindu sacred architecture, Prambanan's tallest structure is the temple to Shiva the Destroyer, which measures 154 feet high. Traditional Javanese dance has been performed at the site during every full moon since the 1960s and helped to make Prambanan a favorite archaeological and cultural destination.
Art Stage Singapore Didn't Disappoint -- Scene Asia - Scene Asia - WSJ
Art Stage Singapore, the city-state’s first high-profile contemporary art fair, promised a splash and didn’t disappoint. The event, which closed this week, drew 32,000 visitors, placing it squarely alongside ART HK as one of the region’s pre-eminent contemporary art events. (The Hong Kong fair had more than 40,000 visitors last year.)
The quality of the art was ambitious — with 121 participating galleries from 26 countries — as were some of the sales. Takashi Murakami sold his “Snow Moon Flower” triptych for US$2.2 million. David LaChapelle, who was by all rights the show’s headliner, gave a Saturday afternoon lecture on commercialism in the art world to a sold-out audience. He cashed in on the weekend, selling all his work.
Lorenzo Rudolf, the fair’s director, likened his experience last week in Singapore to his early days at Switzerland’s Art Basel, which is now one of the world’s most prominent contemporary art fairs. No doubt Mr. Rudolf’s long-standing presence in the art world helped draw the A-list of Western and Asian collectors and artists to Singapore.
His continued presence will likely be critical in Art Stage Singapore’s attempts to grow its reputation in the years to come. But given the fair is backed by four prominent Singaporean government agencies, including the Singapore Tourism Board and the Economic Development Board — deeming it the “flagship” effort to turn the city-state into a contemporary-arts hub — it’s likely that Mr. Rudolf has been offered strong incentives to stick around.
As a wrap-up, here’s what some of the collectors and artists said about Art Stage Singapore:
Pascal de Sarthe, gallerist, who says Mr. Rudolf’s role was the key factor in his decision to participate: “I’m extremely pleased with the outcome of Art Stage Singapore and am glad to announce that we have sold all of LaChapelle’s works. The fair also provided us with a platform to meet many collectors from the continent and this has served us well, especially prior to the opening of our gallery [in Singapore].”
Sylvain Levy, French collector: “I am completely surprised at how interesting and refreshing the fair was… I found the works of the Indonesian artists especially intriguing.”
Shen Shaomin, Chinese artist: “Collectors’ Stage, one of Art Stage Singapore’s fringe events, was also a great success, with many people attending its opening…. Some of my works are also currently under negotiation between potential buyers and my gallery.”
Tomio Koyama, gallerist: “The context of an Asian, instead of Western, aesthetic point of view, is what makes Art Stage Singapore appeal to the entire art market.”
David LaChapelle, artist, in a statement about the fair: “It did not intimidate like some art fairs can. It reminded me of the early days of the Sundance Film Festival when there was such optimism.”
Don Rubell, American collector: “The fair was extremely well organised — the gallery booths were large, providing ample space to display larger works.”
The quality of the art was ambitious — with 121 participating galleries from 26 countries — as were some of the sales. Takashi Murakami sold his “Snow Moon Flower” triptych for US$2.2 million. David LaChapelle, who was by all rights the show’s headliner, gave a Saturday afternoon lecture on commercialism in the art world to a sold-out audience. He cashed in on the weekend, selling all his work.
Lorenzo Rudolf, the fair’s director, likened his experience last week in Singapore to his early days at Switzerland’s Art Basel, which is now one of the world’s most prominent contemporary art fairs. No doubt Mr. Rudolf’s long-standing presence in the art world helped draw the A-list of Western and Asian collectors and artists to Singapore.
His continued presence will likely be critical in Art Stage Singapore’s attempts to grow its reputation in the years to come. But given the fair is backed by four prominent Singaporean government agencies, including the Singapore Tourism Board and the Economic Development Board — deeming it the “flagship” effort to turn the city-state into a contemporary-arts hub — it’s likely that Mr. Rudolf has been offered strong incentives to stick around.
As a wrap-up, here’s what some of the collectors and artists said about Art Stage Singapore:
Pascal de Sarthe, gallerist, who says Mr. Rudolf’s role was the key factor in his decision to participate: “I’m extremely pleased with the outcome of Art Stage Singapore and am glad to announce that we have sold all of LaChapelle’s works. The fair also provided us with a platform to meet many collectors from the continent and this has served us well, especially prior to the opening of our gallery [in Singapore].”
Sylvain Levy, French collector: “I am completely surprised at how interesting and refreshing the fair was… I found the works of the Indonesian artists especially intriguing.”
Shen Shaomin, Chinese artist: “Collectors’ Stage, one of Art Stage Singapore’s fringe events, was also a great success, with many people attending its opening…. Some of my works are also currently under negotiation between potential buyers and my gallery.”
Tomio Koyama, gallerist: “The context of an Asian, instead of Western, aesthetic point of view, is what makes Art Stage Singapore appeal to the entire art market.”
David LaChapelle, artist, in a statement about the fair: “It did not intimidate like some art fairs can. It reminded me of the early days of the Sundance Film Festival when there was such optimism.”
Don Rubell, American collector: “The fair was extremely well organised — the gallery booths were large, providing ample space to display larger works.”
MYREPUBLICA.com - News in Nepal: Fast, Full & Factual
KATHMANDU, Jan 20: E-Arts Nepal, an Internet website, founded by Susan Shrestha and the Kasthamandap Artists’ Group was formally launched in Kathmandu on Sunday, January 16.
On eartsnepal.com, artists, art lovers and collectors can now browse and look at works by Nepali artists online, and if they wish, can purchase works through the website.
“We’ve been working on this for the past two months and currently have works by 50 artists online,” shared Erina Tamrakar, a member of Kasthamandap, at the opening. Along with their works on sale, one can also view the bios of these artists, and artworks can be searched in categories of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints.
The website works similar to other ecommerce sites such as eBay and Amazon. A potential buyer can simply select and add artworks to his or her shopping cart and proceed to payment. More details are available under their Buying Guide section of the website.
“The artworks currently are with the artists themselves and we’ll collect them upon the sale of the works and deliver them to the buyers,” informed Tamrakar, a painter herself. Based on the local rates of most galleries, 30% commission of each work sold will go to E-Arts Nepal and the rest to the artist. Artworks are priced in US Dollars; therefore, the target audience of the website is an international one.
Even so, it does not mean that Nepali buyers are not welcome to make purchases. Perhaps, the prices of works in Nepali Rupees would make it locally friendly.
E-Arts Nepal also has sections on Artist of the Month, Collection of the Month, and New Arrivals. Apart from the website being a platform for Nepali artists to showcase and sell their works, and without having to rent a gallery to do so, E-Arts Nepal also holds other useful information pertaining to arts in Nepal, such as museum lists, college lists and conservation guide.
No doubt there are several rooms for improvement as E-Arts Nepal is still in its initial phase. Nonetheless, the website looks promising, especially given the much needed building up of a Nepali art market.
On eartsnepal.com, artists, art lovers and collectors can now browse and look at works by Nepali artists online, and if they wish, can purchase works through the website.
“We’ve been working on this for the past two months and currently have works by 50 artists online,” shared Erina Tamrakar, a member of Kasthamandap, at the opening. Along with their works on sale, one can also view the bios of these artists, and artworks can be searched in categories of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints.
The website works similar to other ecommerce sites such as eBay and Amazon. A potential buyer can simply select and add artworks to his or her shopping cart and proceed to payment. More details are available under their Buying Guide section of the website.
“The artworks currently are with the artists themselves and we’ll collect them upon the sale of the works and deliver them to the buyers,” informed Tamrakar, a painter herself. Based on the local rates of most galleries, 30% commission of each work sold will go to E-Arts Nepal and the rest to the artist. Artworks are priced in US Dollars; therefore, the target audience of the website is an international one.
Even so, it does not mean that Nepali buyers are not welcome to make purchases. Perhaps, the prices of works in Nepali Rupees would make it locally friendly.
E-Arts Nepal also has sections on Artist of the Month, Collection of the Month, and New Arrivals. Apart from the website being a platform for Nepali artists to showcase and sell their works, and without having to rent a gallery to do so, E-Arts Nepal also holds other useful information pertaining to arts in Nepal, such as museum lists, college lists and conservation guide.
No doubt there are several rooms for improvement as E-Arts Nepal is still in its initial phase. Nonetheless, the website looks promising, especially given the much needed building up of a Nepali art market.
The Himalayan Times : Nepali art goes online - Detail News : Nepal News Portal
HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE
KATHMANDU: On January 16, Nepali art world forayed into a new world with the launch of E-Arts Nepal online art gallery. The website eartsnepal.com was launched by Chancellor of Nepal Fine Arts Academy Kiran Manandhar at Moksh.
“E-Arts Nepal promotes paintings and sculptures through online gallery to preserve and honour artworks of Nepali artists. The extensive collection shows their hard work,” shared Susan Shrestha, who founded E-Arts Nepal in September 2010 along with Kasthamandap Artist Group.
“We are the first online gallery in Nepal. It promotes our Nepali art,” said Asha Dongol from Kasthamandap Art Group. While Shrestha informed, “We are sharing the works of Nepali artists through technology.”
The online gallery has paintings, sculptures and prints from more than 50 Nepali artists. The collection includes artworks of both the established and young artists. The website also includes news, commentaries and critiques on art exhibitions and art related events. The website also has the featured artist’s biography and profile of his/her art work under the Artist of the month column. There are columns like collection of the month and new arrivals. These artwork featured in the website are available for sale and will be delivered anywhere in the world.
“Art gives an insight about culture of a country. It is an artist’s expression which s/he communicates through art pieces. It also gives peace to the mind,” said Norwegian Ambassador Thor Gislesen.
“The whole idea is good. It will be easy for people abroad to view the artwork and also those who don’t want to run around looking for galleries. Every artist is happy with this effort,” shared artist Saurganga Darshandhari.
KATHMANDU: On January 16, Nepali art world forayed into a new world with the launch of E-Arts Nepal online art gallery. The website eartsnepal.com was launched by Chancellor of Nepal Fine Arts Academy Kiran Manandhar at Moksh.
“E-Arts Nepal promotes paintings and sculptures through online gallery to preserve and honour artworks of Nepali artists. The extensive collection shows their hard work,” shared Susan Shrestha, who founded E-Arts Nepal in September 2010 along with Kasthamandap Artist Group.
“We are the first online gallery in Nepal. It promotes our Nepali art,” said Asha Dongol from Kasthamandap Art Group. While Shrestha informed, “We are sharing the works of Nepali artists through technology.”
The online gallery has paintings, sculptures and prints from more than 50 Nepali artists. The collection includes artworks of both the established and young artists. The website also includes news, commentaries and critiques on art exhibitions and art related events. The website also has the featured artist’s biography and profile of his/her art work under the Artist of the month column. There are columns like collection of the month and new arrivals. These artwork featured in the website are available for sale and will be delivered anywhere in the world.
“Art gives an insight about culture of a country. It is an artist’s expression which s/he communicates through art pieces. It also gives peace to the mind,” said Norwegian Ambassador Thor Gislesen.
“The whole idea is good. It will be easy for people abroad to view the artwork and also those who don’t want to run around looking for galleries. Every artist is happy with this effort,” shared artist Saurganga Darshandhari.
Panda diplomacy: the remix | Analysis & Opinion |
The latest chapter in the long story of panda diplomacy was written at Washington’s National Zoo, where the Chinese government agreed to lengthen the “loan” of popular panda pair Mei Xiang and Tian Tian for another five years. Actually, the loan is conditioned on whether they produce a new heir or heiress to the cuteness of panda-dom in the next two years; one or both could be exchanged for more fecund substitutes.
They have a good track record: Washington native Tai Shan, born in 2005, headed back to China last year.
This was a big enough deal for President Barack Obama to mention it at an elaborate state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao.
“Today, we’ve shown that our governments can work together, as well, for our mutual benefit,” Obama told the glittering gathering. “And that includes this bit of news: Under a new agreement, our National Zoo will continue to dazzle children and visitors with the beloved giant pandas.”
In the United States, panda diplomacy started soon after President Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. But the idea that China might be able to export, or at least loan, this cuddly symbol to further diplomatic ends may date back to the Tang Dynasty, when 7th century Chinese Empress Wu Zetian sent a pair of pandas to Japan.
For some reason, Washington has gone disproportionately gaga over pandas. In 2004, the PandaMania exhibition put fancifully painted panda sculptures around town; there’s still one near the hotel where the Chinese government set up its press operations for President Hu Jintao’s visit. Asked why people in the United States are so smitten, Chinese conservation official Zhang Shanming told reporters it just might be that, when pandas sit on their hind quarters, eating, they look like human babies.
To be honest, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang didn’t look so much like babies in that distinctive pose; they looked more like furry beanbags as the big deal was unveiled. But pandas are pandas and Washingtonians are likely to continue the love affair with them.
They have a good track record: Washington native Tai Shan, born in 2005, headed back to China last year.
This was a big enough deal for President Barack Obama to mention it at an elaborate state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao.
“Today, we’ve shown that our governments can work together, as well, for our mutual benefit,” Obama told the glittering gathering. “And that includes this bit of news: Under a new agreement, our National Zoo will continue to dazzle children and visitors with the beloved giant pandas.”
In the United States, panda diplomacy started soon after President Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. But the idea that China might be able to export, or at least loan, this cuddly symbol to further diplomatic ends may date back to the Tang Dynasty, when 7th century Chinese Empress Wu Zetian sent a pair of pandas to Japan.
For some reason, Washington has gone disproportionately gaga over pandas. In 2004, the PandaMania exhibition put fancifully painted panda sculptures around town; there’s still one near the hotel where the Chinese government set up its press operations for President Hu Jintao’s visit. Asked why people in the United States are so smitten, Chinese conservation official Zhang Shanming told reporters it just might be that, when pandas sit on their hind quarters, eating, they look like human babies.
To be honest, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang didn’t look so much like babies in that distinctive pose; they looked more like furry beanbags as the big deal was unveiled. But pandas are pandas and Washingtonians are likely to continue the love affair with them.
China to provide help for Nalanda University - The Economic Times
BIHARSHARIF: China will provide assistance required to build the Nalanda University in Bihar and develop it as an international institute of learning.
"China will extend all possible help to re-establish the historic Nalanda University of Bihar as an international institute of learning," Chinese Ambassador to India Zhag Yan told reporters here.
He said it would also have positive impact on relations between China and India.
Yan said several other Asian countries were also interested to provide support for the varsity to be set-up in Nalanda district.
The Nalanda University Bill 2010 will establish a central university on the lines of the one founded in the 5th century.
"China will extend all possible help to re-establish the historic Nalanda University of Bihar as an international institute of learning," Chinese Ambassador to India Zhag Yan told reporters here.
He said it would also have positive impact on relations between China and India.
Yan said several other Asian countries were also interested to provide support for the varsity to be set-up in Nalanda district.
The Nalanda University Bill 2010 will establish a central university on the lines of the one founded in the 5th century.
Monday, January 17, 2011
BBC News - Growing hunger for Chinese art
An 18th Century Chinese vase is bought by a Chinese buyer at a small suburban auction house in London for £43m ($66m), more than £53m after fees and commission.
The sale price is 40 times the pre-sale estimate.
In Hong Kong a local buyer pays nearly $17m dollars for a pair of 5ft-high enamel cranes - believed to be a gift from an 18th Century Chinese emperor to his son.
Another Hong Kong-based collector pays $32m for an 18th Century Chinese floral vase.
This year, the hugely inflated sums of money being paid for Chinese art and artefacts have been making headlines regularly.
But what has been pushing prices so high?
Trade insiders say the recovery from the world economic crisis brought an influx of new, wealthy bidders into the auction houses.
Zhang Lifan, a historian, is the son of Zhang Naiqi, China's first Minister of Food and one of the most respected collectors of Chinese artefacts in his time.
His father's collection was confiscated by the government during the Cultural Revolution.
Mr Zhang believes many of the bidders at the moment for Chinese artefacts in Hong Kong, London and elsewhere are investors, not collectors.
"Some are the new rich, trying to buy artefacts to show off how wealthy they are," he says.
"A few of them could be nationalists, trying to buy items overseas to bring them back to China, but they are in a minority."
Culture v capital
Some collectors are dismissive of these interlopers with deep pockets.
Ma Weidu is the host of one of China's most popular television programmes about ancient art collection.
Zhang Lifan says many of the bidders at the moment for Chinese artefacts are investors, not collectors
"Most of the highest prices are paid for second-rate items," he says. "It takes time to cultivate aesthetic judgement."
Auctions of artefacts in China only really began 15 years ago.
In the last five years they have taken off, but it is not a large market.
There are not nearly as many artefacts from China as there are from the West, partly because so many were lost or broken in the turmoil of the country's troubled past, says Mr Ma, himself a collector.
"That's why when new money comes in it feels very crowded."
He complains that the collectors used to be the intellectuals, "the elite" as he describes them.
Nowadays, it is the rich who are collecting, some of whom "can't even read the script on the paintings," he says, "but they still buy them".
It is no longer about culture but capital. "It's like a war," he says, "whoever has the the bigger gun is in a stronger position."
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
When Asian people get rich, they start to care about their history”
Qin Jie
Collector of ancient books
The big auction houses like Christie's counter that buyers can get good advice from their experts before making any purchase.
There is still a big price gap between iconic Western Art and iconic Asian pieces, and although it is closing there is still room for prices to rise further.
Jonathan Stone, the Hong Kong-based Asia Managing Director of Christie's, says the proportion of buyers there for Asian art this season from mainland China rose from 40% in 2009 to 51% this year.
But the whole market's value increased significantly, so the value of the sales by customers from the mainland was 250% higher than the year before.
"I think there is a genuine passion and enthusiasm in China for buying back their own culture, which has been dispersed through the world for hundreds of years," he says.
"But it's not just Chinese people, people in greater China or people of Chinese heritage. At the very top level there is very great enthusiasm indeed in the West for great Chinese works of art as well."
Government role
It is hard to be certain about the extent of the Chinese government's involvement in the repatriation of works of Chinese art.
China set up a "Precious Relics Rescue Fund" nine years ago, but the sums available to it "are so small it can hardly do anything really", says Qin Jie, an official from the China Collectors' Association.
Some suspect that the government does have a hand in some of the recovery of precious pieces, but it is more covert.
One of the mainland's fastest growing auction houses is Beijing Poly Auction Company, established five years ago.
China tried but failed to stop the sale of two bronze statues from the Summer Palace at auction in Paris
Its parent company is the Poly Group, a state-owned enterprise (SOE) founded with the approval of the Central Military Committee and supervised by the People's Liberation Army until it became an SOE.
The Poly Group has salvaged four "national treasures" since 2000, the auction house says on its website - the heads of a cow, a pig, a tiger and a monkey which were lost from the Summer Palace in Beijing at the height of the second Opium War in 1860.
They come from a bronze water clock which showed the 12 figures of the Chinese zodiac.
But according to Zhang Lifan: "In fact what the government wants to do is not buy artefacts back, but demand that they are returned."
Qin Jie, a collector of ancient books, has a few favourites he would like to see back on Chinese soil.
"One item I'd like to see returned is one of China's first copies of the Buddhist book The Diamond Sutra," he says.
It sits in the British Museum in London.
Most of those artefacts that do find their way back into China go into private collections, not museums, but that is not to say of course that they might not be lent or donated to public institutions in the years ahead.
"When Asian people get rich, they start to care about their history," says Qin Jie.
"They want to enrich their lives with historical art."
He believes 30,000 artefacts will have come back to China in the last 12 months, a third more than were coming back five years ago.
No matter what role the government is playing behind the scenes - whether overt or covert, or even none at all, Mr Stone of Christie's says one thing is certain, the return of so much lost ancient art "won't displease them".
18th Century Mughal emerald seal to be auctioned | Alternative Investments | CPI Financial
An important inscribed Mughal emerald personal seal set in a diamond encrusted gold bangle and bearing the name of Major Alexander Hannay, an East India Company officer, will be sold on April 5th in Bonhams sale of Indian and Islamic art.
Estimated to sell for £30,000 to £50,000, the rectangular 18th century emerald is table-cut and was mounted in an enamelled gold bangle in the early 19th century. The three-line Persian inscription on the face of the emerald is in nasta’liq script and reads: "Amin al-Mulk Ashraf al-Dawla Alexander Hannay Bahadur Arsalan Jang AH 1185/ AD 1774-5".
Major Alexander Hannay was in the service of the East India Company under William Hastings at the time when the company had transferred its trading role into a more military administrative one. In 1778, Hannay left Hastings’ service and entered that of the Nawab of Oudh. He managed the district of Gorakhpur, when during this period there were a number of disturbances as a result of his suspected oppression and misconduct.
The Nawab dismissed him in 1781 and would not hear of his return. Hannay also took part in the war against the Rohillas in 1774 and was afterwards examined with reference to alleged cruelties practiced towards these people.
The bangle has passed down through the family to the present owner.
Alice Bailey, Head of Indian and Islamic Art at Bonhams, comments: “This is a particularly fine example of an inscribed Mughal gem whose history and known provenance adds to its interest. The glorious Victorian setting is in particularly appropriate and sympathetic to the long-standing Mughal tradition of combining gems and enamelling.”
The rulers of Mughal India often ordered their names and titles to be inscribed on rubies, emeralds and diamonds, a practice which originated in Iran under the Timurids (1370-1507). Some of these gems ended up in the collection of the Mughal emperors who continued the tradition. In some cases, as the gems were passed down further names were added below those of the previous owners. Many were repolished, recut and re-set as they were handed down. The inscriptions were executed using the traditional cutting wheel or diamond-tipped stylus.
Engraved seals were widely used amongst foreigners and noblemen alike in India. There are numerous examples of emerald seals inscribed with the names of members of the British administration such as a seal in the Khalili Collection with an inscription to the First Secretary of the East India Company Colonel Paris Bradshaw dated 1222AH/1807-8AD. The practice of using inscribed seals continued into the late 19th century and well beyond court circles.
The inscription on the present emerald on sale on April 5th may possibly be the work of Muhammad Salah Khan, a known seal-engraver working in Faizabad who engraved emeralds for other East India Company officers during the latter part of the 18th century.
China: A history still being unearthed - Telegraph
How do you rate a smile? This was the question facing us after attending an evening of music, dance and dinner at the Shaanxi Grand Opera House in Xian, China. This nightly do is strictly for tourists – every table is occupied by foreigners – but the entertainment is brilliant for all that.
In one musical tableau three women brought to life a famous mural of the Tang Dynasty called "Watching Bird" and "Catching Cicada", starting and ending as silhouettes that looked like paper cut-outs. It was captivating, haunting. At the end of the evening, as the empty bottles of Tsingtao beer and plates of half-eaten dumplings were being cleared away, the waitress presented us with a "Guest Comment Form" to fill in, then looked away anxiously.
Was the smile of the waitress Excellent, Good, merely Fair or downright Poor? It was Excellent of course, but it did leave me wondering how much fear there was behind it. This episode was an insight into just how well-oiled the tourist machine is in the home city of the Terracotta Warriors.
This was my second visit to Xian and this time the purpose was not just to see the clay army of the tyrannical Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China (and, come to think of it, just the sort of man to think up the idea of rating a smile). Xian was also to be the jumping-off point for a tour of China's Yellow River region, referred to in tourist literature as "the cradle of Chinese civilisation".
RELATED ARTICLES
Wuzhen West: Sanitized village is China's Venice 17 Jan 2011
More China travel 10 Sep 2010
Chengdu: welcome to panda country 28 Aug 2010
The Opposite House, Beijing 02 Aug 2010
Pingyao: holding out in the rush to the future 23 Oct 2010
China's great leap forward 10 Sep 2010
In the contiguous provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan, through which China's second-longest river flows south then abruptly east, man made the first written records of his existence – on animal bones – and established China's earliest political and artistic cultures. Until power shifted north and east from the 10th century, the region remained the hub of a succession of dynasties, the one called Tang being generally considered the high point of Chinese civilisation.
These days the Yellow River plateau has swapped imperial robes for a boiler suit. Its coal mines and power stations feed the monster that is industrial China. But its past lives on in a succession of outstanding historic and archaeological sites that deserve to be rated world-class.
That they are not better known is partly because they are located in the heart of a vast country that only relatively recently, after nearly 4,000 years of civilisation, has been made accessible to foreigners (a region, moreover, that makes few concessions to Western tourists); and partly thanks to the Terracotta Army effect.
So far as foreign visitors are concerned, these endlessly celebrated and reproduced figures have eclipsed almost every other notable site in China (bar the Forbidden City and the Great Wall), just as Machu Picchu dominates the rich and varied archaeology of Peru. This is both a shame and a marvellous excuse for the reasonably adventurous tourist to go exploring.
Yes, yes, we did the Terracotta Warriors – and were glad to get it over with. Since I was last there, in 1998, the car park has been relocated half a mile from the actual museum so that visitors must run a gauntlet of souvenir shops to get there, battling not just through hawkers and fellow tourists but through the wall of heat that is reflected off the vast acreages of new paving stone.
After a long gap, excavations were resumed last year and 100 more figures have been unearthed and put back together. But for me, the impressiveness of the Warriors lies not merely in the sight of them, lined up in their earthen parade grounds, but in the knowledge that they represent only a tiny fraction of what still awaits discovery.
If you imagine Xian sitting at the centre of a necropolis the size of a football pitch, the pits containing the Terracotta Army occupy an area less than the size of the penalty spot. Driving from the airport towards the city, you see the telltale burial mounds pimpling the fields.
The actual tomb of Emperor Qin, remember, still awaits excavation, though fabulous stories of what it may contain, including rivers of mercury and elaborate booby traps – are legion. But other tombs have been opened up, notably that of Emperor Jing Di, who ruled China from 157 to 141BC, less than a century after Qin Shi Huang (and was, by all accounts, as enlightened as Qin was monstrous).
Jing's tomb was discovered during the building of the airport road in the early Nineties, and a museum opened on the site in 2005. It provides a poignant counterpoint to the commercial hoopla of Terracotta-Land.
Undisturbed by camera-clicking hordes, we walked along glass floors above 10 excavated burial pits containing miniature clay figures of men, women, eunuchs, pigs and chickens. The armless human figures once had wooden arms and real clothes. There were lacquer boxes and collapsed chariots, and a sense of intimacy, as if these artefacts were family heirlooms.
In this part of China, farmers and construction workers are only ever a spade's depth away from such treasures. And the vicinity of Xian is not the half of it. From Xian railway station we took a bullet train 200 miles east, and into the next phase of China's ancient history.
Our destination was Luoyang in Henan Province, which both preceded and succeeded Xian as the centre of the Chinese universe. Nowadays it is better known as the Tractor Capital of China, but it does have, up its grimy sleeve, one of the most breathtakingly audacious of China's historical sites.
A short distance to the south of the city, on the west bank of the Yi river, a stretch of limestone cliffs and hills more than half a mile long has been carved into innumerable caves and niches featuring more than 100,000 figures of the Buddha and his disciples. Known as the Longmen Grottoes, the carvings date from AD 493 to the ninth century and vary in height from an inch to nearly 60ft.
Neither foreign looters, who took some of them home to Japan and the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, nor Red Guard thugs, who knocked bits off in the Cultural Revolution, nor the clicks of a billion cameras have disturbed the self-possession of this amazing cast, the greatest of which rival Abu Simbel, in Egypt, in size and majesty.
Many of the rulers and patrons who supported the creators of the Longmen Grottoes now lie in the landscape surrounding Luoyang. Every year, as roads are built and suburbs expanded, new tombs are discovered – or rediscovered, for most were robbed many centuries ago.
The tombs lie beneath burial mounds that look like the Neolithic tumuli of Wiltshire. If, like me, you have ever itched to walk into the centre of Silbury Hill, at Avebury, you owe yourself a visit to the Luoyang Museum of Ancient Tombs.
It's a maddening place in one sense. Twenty-eight tombs dating from the Han Dynasty to the Song – AD 200 to early 13th century – have been moved here stone by stone and "reconstructed", though you are never quite sure whether you are looking at the real thing or a copy.
But there is no such doubt about the centrepiece of the museum: the excavated burial mound of an emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the rulers who first inspired the Longmen Grottoes. This is the real thing – as conical as a peasant's hat, as dark and mysterious as fear itself.
An earthen ramp slopes deep beneath the cone to a beehive-shaped chamber of blackened brick containing a stone platform and vast stone coffin. Standing there alone in the cool of the hill, my thoughts ran beyond Wiltshire to the daddy of them all, Cheops' chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza.
From Luoyang we were driven north into Shanxi Province, following an approximate timeline of Chinese history. Our guide for this part of the journey, Peter Lou, was proud of the treasures that lurk beneath the industrial patina of his home patch.
"Shanxi Province is like a pearl buried in the sand," he said. "You just see a small part of it, but then you uncover it and see how big it is."
The analogy is a good one. Pearls there are – wooden towers and pagodas, Buddhist and Daoist temples, more vast and astounding Buddhas at Longmen's sister site, Yungang Caves – often bizarrely juxtaposed with heavy industry.
Guangsheng Temple, for example, containing the 150ft-high Flying Rainbow Pagoda – built of coloured, glazed tiles during the Ming Dynasty – sits above a smoggy landscape of factories and construction sites like a butterfly poised on the edge of a tar barrel.
Indeed, as well as a history lesson, our journey was a lesson in the irreconcilable paradoxes of modern China. In our V W Santana, with the air conditioning thrumming against the heat and grime outside, we were driven along country roads lined with melon sellers, overtaking donkeys-and-carts and homemade tractors that looked like Edwardian invalid carriages, and being overtaken in turn by thundering coal trucks.
The country roads turned into toll expressways lined with mile upon mile of high-maintenance topiary. Here the hilariously transliterated road signs – "Easy Hair of Front Trouble" was my favourite – added to the sense of unreality that tinged the whole trip. And then we would drop off the expressway and turn a corner into this or that Dynasty. Or, in the case of my favourite site of all, we would find ourselves floating in air.
Suspended from a sheer cliff face some 150ft above the base of a valley, the so-called Hanging Temple – Xuankong Si in Chinese – could be the flotsam from an Ice Age shipwreck. The first structure was built here in about AD 500, on timbers cantilevered into the rock face, and it has been periodically patched and shored up ever since.
When it functioned as a monastery it was a particularly mellow place because monks of China's three ancient religions – Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism – lived and worshipped alongside each other. The last monks moved out in the Forties but, as I clambered along the temple's galleon-like companionways, I fancied their good karma still suffused the wood and tiles and multicoloured religious art.
The site, in the foothills of the sacred Heng Mountain, was well chosen. The sloping cliff face above provides a protective overhang, the sun's rays do not shine directly on it and it was sufficiently elevated from the world for the sounds of earthly life – dogs barking, people laughing – scarcely to reach it.
This is no longer the case as its peace is now shattered daily, and its equilibrium tested, by swarming, babbling tourists who pour over it like rivers of mercury. But they – we – are the least of its worries. For not 300 yards away is a dam.
As I gazed up at the towering concrete wall of the dam the sound of a piledriver smashing into rock reverberated around the valley. It is hard to imagine an engineering project more likely to destabilise the fragile structure that clings like a swallow's nest to the rock face alongside it.
In this moment I realised that virtually every precious thing we had seen in this "cradle of Chinese civilisation" is under threat, either from development or from the pollution that attends it. Turning my back on the dam I gazed into a tiny pavilion where a golden Buddha gazed back with a smile that cannot be rated.
Nigel Richardson's journey was arranged by China specialist CTS Horizons (020 7836 9911; www.ctshorizons.com).
A 16-day tour of the Yellow River region, starting in Beijing and ending in Xian, costs from £1,995 per person (sharing), including international flights, all transfers, provision of a car, driver and guides, breakfasts, and sightseeing.
In one musical tableau three women brought to life a famous mural of the Tang Dynasty called "Watching Bird" and "Catching Cicada", starting and ending as silhouettes that looked like paper cut-outs. It was captivating, haunting. At the end of the evening, as the empty bottles of Tsingtao beer and plates of half-eaten dumplings were being cleared away, the waitress presented us with a "Guest Comment Form" to fill in, then looked away anxiously.
Was the smile of the waitress Excellent, Good, merely Fair or downright Poor? It was Excellent of course, but it did leave me wondering how much fear there was behind it. This episode was an insight into just how well-oiled the tourist machine is in the home city of the Terracotta Warriors.
This was my second visit to Xian and this time the purpose was not just to see the clay army of the tyrannical Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China (and, come to think of it, just the sort of man to think up the idea of rating a smile). Xian was also to be the jumping-off point for a tour of China's Yellow River region, referred to in tourist literature as "the cradle of Chinese civilisation".
RELATED ARTICLES
Wuzhen West: Sanitized village is China's Venice 17 Jan 2011
More China travel 10 Sep 2010
Chengdu: welcome to panda country 28 Aug 2010
The Opposite House, Beijing 02 Aug 2010
Pingyao: holding out in the rush to the future 23 Oct 2010
China's great leap forward 10 Sep 2010
In the contiguous provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan, through which China's second-longest river flows south then abruptly east, man made the first written records of his existence – on animal bones – and established China's earliest political and artistic cultures. Until power shifted north and east from the 10th century, the region remained the hub of a succession of dynasties, the one called Tang being generally considered the high point of Chinese civilisation.
These days the Yellow River plateau has swapped imperial robes for a boiler suit. Its coal mines and power stations feed the monster that is industrial China. But its past lives on in a succession of outstanding historic and archaeological sites that deserve to be rated world-class.
That they are not better known is partly because they are located in the heart of a vast country that only relatively recently, after nearly 4,000 years of civilisation, has been made accessible to foreigners (a region, moreover, that makes few concessions to Western tourists); and partly thanks to the Terracotta Army effect.
So far as foreign visitors are concerned, these endlessly celebrated and reproduced figures have eclipsed almost every other notable site in China (bar the Forbidden City and the Great Wall), just as Machu Picchu dominates the rich and varied archaeology of Peru. This is both a shame and a marvellous excuse for the reasonably adventurous tourist to go exploring.
Yes, yes, we did the Terracotta Warriors – and were glad to get it over with. Since I was last there, in 1998, the car park has been relocated half a mile from the actual museum so that visitors must run a gauntlet of souvenir shops to get there, battling not just through hawkers and fellow tourists but through the wall of heat that is reflected off the vast acreages of new paving stone.
After a long gap, excavations were resumed last year and 100 more figures have been unearthed and put back together. But for me, the impressiveness of the Warriors lies not merely in the sight of them, lined up in their earthen parade grounds, but in the knowledge that they represent only a tiny fraction of what still awaits discovery.
If you imagine Xian sitting at the centre of a necropolis the size of a football pitch, the pits containing the Terracotta Army occupy an area less than the size of the penalty spot. Driving from the airport towards the city, you see the telltale burial mounds pimpling the fields.
The actual tomb of Emperor Qin, remember, still awaits excavation, though fabulous stories of what it may contain, including rivers of mercury and elaborate booby traps – are legion. But other tombs have been opened up, notably that of Emperor Jing Di, who ruled China from 157 to 141BC, less than a century after Qin Shi Huang (and was, by all accounts, as enlightened as Qin was monstrous).
Jing's tomb was discovered during the building of the airport road in the early Nineties, and a museum opened on the site in 2005. It provides a poignant counterpoint to the commercial hoopla of Terracotta-Land.
Undisturbed by camera-clicking hordes, we walked along glass floors above 10 excavated burial pits containing miniature clay figures of men, women, eunuchs, pigs and chickens. The armless human figures once had wooden arms and real clothes. There were lacquer boxes and collapsed chariots, and a sense of intimacy, as if these artefacts were family heirlooms.
In this part of China, farmers and construction workers are only ever a spade's depth away from such treasures. And the vicinity of Xian is not the half of it. From Xian railway station we took a bullet train 200 miles east, and into the next phase of China's ancient history.
Our destination was Luoyang in Henan Province, which both preceded and succeeded Xian as the centre of the Chinese universe. Nowadays it is better known as the Tractor Capital of China, but it does have, up its grimy sleeve, one of the most breathtakingly audacious of China's historical sites.
A short distance to the south of the city, on the west bank of the Yi river, a stretch of limestone cliffs and hills more than half a mile long has been carved into innumerable caves and niches featuring more than 100,000 figures of the Buddha and his disciples. Known as the Longmen Grottoes, the carvings date from AD 493 to the ninth century and vary in height from an inch to nearly 60ft.
Neither foreign looters, who took some of them home to Japan and the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, nor Red Guard thugs, who knocked bits off in the Cultural Revolution, nor the clicks of a billion cameras have disturbed the self-possession of this amazing cast, the greatest of which rival Abu Simbel, in Egypt, in size and majesty.
Many of the rulers and patrons who supported the creators of the Longmen Grottoes now lie in the landscape surrounding Luoyang. Every year, as roads are built and suburbs expanded, new tombs are discovered – or rediscovered, for most were robbed many centuries ago.
The tombs lie beneath burial mounds that look like the Neolithic tumuli of Wiltshire. If, like me, you have ever itched to walk into the centre of Silbury Hill, at Avebury, you owe yourself a visit to the Luoyang Museum of Ancient Tombs.
It's a maddening place in one sense. Twenty-eight tombs dating from the Han Dynasty to the Song – AD 200 to early 13th century – have been moved here stone by stone and "reconstructed", though you are never quite sure whether you are looking at the real thing or a copy.
But there is no such doubt about the centrepiece of the museum: the excavated burial mound of an emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the rulers who first inspired the Longmen Grottoes. This is the real thing – as conical as a peasant's hat, as dark and mysterious as fear itself.
An earthen ramp slopes deep beneath the cone to a beehive-shaped chamber of blackened brick containing a stone platform and vast stone coffin. Standing there alone in the cool of the hill, my thoughts ran beyond Wiltshire to the daddy of them all, Cheops' chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza.
From Luoyang we were driven north into Shanxi Province, following an approximate timeline of Chinese history. Our guide for this part of the journey, Peter Lou, was proud of the treasures that lurk beneath the industrial patina of his home patch.
"Shanxi Province is like a pearl buried in the sand," he said. "You just see a small part of it, but then you uncover it and see how big it is."
The analogy is a good one. Pearls there are – wooden towers and pagodas, Buddhist and Daoist temples, more vast and astounding Buddhas at Longmen's sister site, Yungang Caves – often bizarrely juxtaposed with heavy industry.
Guangsheng Temple, for example, containing the 150ft-high Flying Rainbow Pagoda – built of coloured, glazed tiles during the Ming Dynasty – sits above a smoggy landscape of factories and construction sites like a butterfly poised on the edge of a tar barrel.
Indeed, as well as a history lesson, our journey was a lesson in the irreconcilable paradoxes of modern China. In our V W Santana, with the air conditioning thrumming against the heat and grime outside, we were driven along country roads lined with melon sellers, overtaking donkeys-and-carts and homemade tractors that looked like Edwardian invalid carriages, and being overtaken in turn by thundering coal trucks.
The country roads turned into toll expressways lined with mile upon mile of high-maintenance topiary. Here the hilariously transliterated road signs – "Easy Hair of Front Trouble" was my favourite – added to the sense of unreality that tinged the whole trip. And then we would drop off the expressway and turn a corner into this or that Dynasty. Or, in the case of my favourite site of all, we would find ourselves floating in air.
Suspended from a sheer cliff face some 150ft above the base of a valley, the so-called Hanging Temple – Xuankong Si in Chinese – could be the flotsam from an Ice Age shipwreck. The first structure was built here in about AD 500, on timbers cantilevered into the rock face, and it has been periodically patched and shored up ever since.
When it functioned as a monastery it was a particularly mellow place because monks of China's three ancient religions – Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism – lived and worshipped alongside each other. The last monks moved out in the Forties but, as I clambered along the temple's galleon-like companionways, I fancied their good karma still suffused the wood and tiles and multicoloured religious art.
The site, in the foothills of the sacred Heng Mountain, was well chosen. The sloping cliff face above provides a protective overhang, the sun's rays do not shine directly on it and it was sufficiently elevated from the world for the sounds of earthly life – dogs barking, people laughing – scarcely to reach it.
This is no longer the case as its peace is now shattered daily, and its equilibrium tested, by swarming, babbling tourists who pour over it like rivers of mercury. But they – we – are the least of its worries. For not 300 yards away is a dam.
As I gazed up at the towering concrete wall of the dam the sound of a piledriver smashing into rock reverberated around the valley. It is hard to imagine an engineering project more likely to destabilise the fragile structure that clings like a swallow's nest to the rock face alongside it.
In this moment I realised that virtually every precious thing we had seen in this "cradle of Chinese civilisation" is under threat, either from development or from the pollution that attends it. Turning my back on the dam I gazed into a tiny pavilion where a golden Buddha gazed back with a smile that cannot be rated.
Nigel Richardson's journey was arranged by China specialist CTS Horizons (020 7836 9911; www.ctshorizons.com).
A 16-day tour of the Yellow River region, starting in Beijing and ending in Xian, costs from £1,995 per person (sharing), including international flights, all transfers, provision of a car, driver and guides, breakfasts, and sightseeing.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Book review: In the footsteps of Megasthenes - Lifestyle - DNA
Book: India: A Portrait
Author: Patrick French
Allen Lane/Penguin
436 pages
Rs699
Call it the Megasthenes and Alberuni syndrome. Megasthenes was the ambassador of Seleucus Nikator at the court of Chandragupta Maurya in the 4th century BCE; Alberuni was a visiting polymath in the court of Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century AD. Both were tempted to write about the India they saw, about what they thought of the country and its people.
Unlike the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India such as Fa-Hien and Xuangjang or the French traveller Francois Bernier in 17th century Mughal India, Megasthenes and Alberuni wrote first person accounts informed by scholarship. Patrick French follows them in his own way, avoiding both journalistic jousts of the Thomas Friedman or Edward Luce kind, as also scholarly incursions like that of Paul Brass or Judith Brown.
French’s earlier book, Liberty Or Death, written in 1997, was on the freedom movement and Partition. This one combines conventional historical narrative with the trained eye and anecdotal tale-telling of a traveller.
This should leave his book hanging in mid-air, with the scholar dissatisfied with the popular icing and the general reader intimidated by the data-laden part of the story. But French takes the risk to make the book accessible to a large number of people. Probably he will succeed because the scholarly detail gives the book a longer shelf-life, though the anecdotes — in the form of interviews with and pen-portraits of individuals from various parts of the country and from different social strata — are likely to pale after the first read.
The popular stuff is also on predictable lines: Venkatesh, a scheduled caste stoneworker; Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy; Mukhtar Ansari, a don-politician from Uttar Pardesh. It is an interesting portrait gallery that French has put together, and he is aware that they do not fully add up to the portrait of India that he is aiming for in the book.
He also covers the murky Aarushi Talwar murder case, and tries to get a handle on India’s infamous corruption by revisiting the Tehelka exposé of dubious defense deals. French is so hungry to cover all the interesting, important things happening that he piles too many topics one on top of another. He would perhaps say that this is exactly what he wants to do.
The reader then has to pick and choose what interests him. The best sections are chapter 5 (‘The Visions of John Maynard Keynes’) and chapter 6 (‘A Dismal Prospect’), where he looks at India’s economic transition from the socialist era to the market one. Unlike most journalists from the West, he does not make the sweeping generalisation about the dark days of socialism in India and the new dawn of economic liberalisation. The scholar in him holds him back, as it were, and his concern is to get the full picture as clearly as possible.
In the last chapter, ‘Only In India’, there is a small paragraph where French takes the liberty of making a full judgment on attitudes towards Indian history and Hinduism. Citing Wendy Doniger’s views on the water tank in Mohenjo-Daro, he writes, “They are an example of a scholarly tendency to write about India, and particularly about Hinduism, in a way that would not be tried when writing about Christianity or Islam. Indeed the blanket title of Doniger’s book, The Hindus, is hard to imagine transposed to The Christians or The Muslims.” He avoids the Doniger approach in this book.
Author: Patrick French
Allen Lane/Penguin
436 pages
Rs699
Call it the Megasthenes and Alberuni syndrome. Megasthenes was the ambassador of Seleucus Nikator at the court of Chandragupta Maurya in the 4th century BCE; Alberuni was a visiting polymath in the court of Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century AD. Both were tempted to write about the India they saw, about what they thought of the country and its people.
Unlike the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India such as Fa-Hien and Xuangjang or the French traveller Francois Bernier in 17th century Mughal India, Megasthenes and Alberuni wrote first person accounts informed by scholarship. Patrick French follows them in his own way, avoiding both journalistic jousts of the Thomas Friedman or Edward Luce kind, as also scholarly incursions like that of Paul Brass or Judith Brown.
French’s earlier book, Liberty Or Death, written in 1997, was on the freedom movement and Partition. This one combines conventional historical narrative with the trained eye and anecdotal tale-telling of a traveller.
This should leave his book hanging in mid-air, with the scholar dissatisfied with the popular icing and the general reader intimidated by the data-laden part of the story. But French takes the risk to make the book accessible to a large number of people. Probably he will succeed because the scholarly detail gives the book a longer shelf-life, though the anecdotes — in the form of interviews with and pen-portraits of individuals from various parts of the country and from different social strata — are likely to pale after the first read.
The popular stuff is also on predictable lines: Venkatesh, a scheduled caste stoneworker; Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy; Mukhtar Ansari, a don-politician from Uttar Pardesh. It is an interesting portrait gallery that French has put together, and he is aware that they do not fully add up to the portrait of India that he is aiming for in the book.
He also covers the murky Aarushi Talwar murder case, and tries to get a handle on India’s infamous corruption by revisiting the Tehelka exposé of dubious defense deals. French is so hungry to cover all the interesting, important things happening that he piles too many topics one on top of another. He would perhaps say that this is exactly what he wants to do.
The reader then has to pick and choose what interests him. The best sections are chapter 5 (‘The Visions of John Maynard Keynes’) and chapter 6 (‘A Dismal Prospect’), where he looks at India’s economic transition from the socialist era to the market one. Unlike most journalists from the West, he does not make the sweeping generalisation about the dark days of socialism in India and the new dawn of economic liberalisation. The scholar in him holds him back, as it were, and his concern is to get the full picture as clearly as possible.
In the last chapter, ‘Only In India’, there is a small paragraph where French takes the liberty of making a full judgment on attitudes towards Indian history and Hinduism. Citing Wendy Doniger’s views on the water tank in Mohenjo-Daro, he writes, “They are an example of a scholarly tendency to write about India, and particularly about Hinduism, in a way that would not be tried when writing about Christianity or Islam. Indeed the blanket title of Doniger’s book, The Hindus, is hard to imagine transposed to The Christians or The Muslims.” He avoids the Doniger approach in this book.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Devotees flock to witness annual spectacle - The Times of India
BANGALORE: It was the moment devotees waited for one long year. The Sun God bathed the Shivalingam before fading on the auspicious day of Makara Sankranti, which marks the beginning of six-month long Uttarayana, according to Hindu calendar.
On Saturday, thousands of devotees thronged the centuries-old Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple at Guttahalli to witness this annual spectacle.
As the clock struck 5pm, chief priest Somasundara Dixit chanted slokas and explained the importance of the event when the Sun rays slowly made their way into the temple. At 5.25pm, after touching the Nandi idol's horns, the rays bathed the Shivalingam even as the devotees chanted "Shambo Mahadeva", praising Lord Shiva, the God of destruction.
At about 5.35pm, the rays slowly made their way out and the devotees moved into serpentine queues to enter the temple and have darshan of the deity.
"See there. The Sun rays are touching the swamy," Shivanna, an elderly person from Srinagar cajoled his three-year-old grandson Ajay, who was watching the giant screen installed in the temple with folded hands. "I have been a regular visitor here for a decade," he recalled.
P R Ramesh, former city mayor, was also one among the devotees. "I have come with family members to seek blessings," he replied even as he was greeted by well-wishers.
"We have been witnessing this event for the past three years. It has considerably changed," said another devotee Rajesh as he accompanied his friend Armugam to join the queue to have a darshan of the Shivalingam after the event. Many young couples with children and newly married couples thronged the temple to take blessings of the Lord.
DIGITAL DARSHAN
"We expected 7 to 8 thousand people for this event. For the past four years, we have been using television facility to help all the devotees have a glimpse of the event. This time we arranged two large screens and eight LCD TVs for the benefit of the general public. Because of this facility, the number of people visiting the temple has increased considerably," N Venkoba Rao Sindhey, secretary of the Shree Gavi Gangadhareshwara Swamy Pallakki Utsava Samithi, told STOI.
The organizers also distributed `yellu-bella' (sesame and jaggery) among the devotees who attended the event.
UNIQUE STRUCTURE
Sri Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple was built in such a way that on Makara Sankranti, the Sun's rays penetrate through Nandi's horns, while lighting up the Shivalingam. The unique phenomenon can be witnessed only for a particular period between 5pm and 6pm on this day. The ancient temple was cut out of monolithic rock, believed to be in the 9th century. The main deity is Shivalingam along with a Nandi idol. The temple also houses a rare idol of Agni, the lord of fire.
On Saturday, thousands of devotees thronged the centuries-old Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple at Guttahalli to witness this annual spectacle.
As the clock struck 5pm, chief priest Somasundara Dixit chanted slokas and explained the importance of the event when the Sun rays slowly made their way into the temple. At 5.25pm, after touching the Nandi idol's horns, the rays bathed the Shivalingam even as the devotees chanted "Shambo Mahadeva", praising Lord Shiva, the God of destruction.
At about 5.35pm, the rays slowly made their way out and the devotees moved into serpentine queues to enter the temple and have darshan of the deity.
"See there. The Sun rays are touching the swamy," Shivanna, an elderly person from Srinagar cajoled his three-year-old grandson Ajay, who was watching the giant screen installed in the temple with folded hands. "I have been a regular visitor here for a decade," he recalled.
P R Ramesh, former city mayor, was also one among the devotees. "I have come with family members to seek blessings," he replied even as he was greeted by well-wishers.
"We have been witnessing this event for the past three years. It has considerably changed," said another devotee Rajesh as he accompanied his friend Armugam to join the queue to have a darshan of the Shivalingam after the event. Many young couples with children and newly married couples thronged the temple to take blessings of the Lord.
DIGITAL DARSHAN
"We expected 7 to 8 thousand people for this event. For the past four years, we have been using television facility to help all the devotees have a glimpse of the event. This time we arranged two large screens and eight LCD TVs for the benefit of the general public. Because of this facility, the number of people visiting the temple has increased considerably," N Venkoba Rao Sindhey, secretary of the Shree Gavi Gangadhareshwara Swamy Pallakki Utsava Samithi, told STOI.
The organizers also distributed `yellu-bella' (sesame and jaggery) among the devotees who attended the event.
UNIQUE STRUCTURE
Sri Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple was built in such a way that on Makara Sankranti, the Sun's rays penetrate through Nandi's horns, while lighting up the Shivalingam. The unique phenomenon can be witnessed only for a particular period between 5pm and 6pm on this day. The ancient temple was cut out of monolithic rock, believed to be in the 9th century. The main deity is Shivalingam along with a Nandi idol. The temple also houses a rare idol of Agni, the lord of fire.
Tunisians Overthrow 23 years of dictatorship : Veterans Today
When you go through the different pages of the history of Tunisia you’ll simply find yourself going through a process of successive takeover of the country by multiple rules that started with the Phoenicians in 814 BC passing through the Romans then the Byzantines in the 6th century, and Arabs in the 8th century. Under the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia was known as “Regency of Tunis”. It passed under French protectorate in 1881.
8kg of coins dating from the 8th to the 12th century
VINH PHUC — A local man recently found a pot containing 8kg of coins dating from the 8th to the 12th century while building a house in Van Hoi Commune in the northern province of Vinh Phuc's Tam Duong District, according to experts from the provincial museum asked to identify the discovery.
Each coin was 2.4cm in diameter, had a square central hole and Chinese characters on each side.
Each coin was 2.4cm in diameter, had a square central hole and Chinese characters on each side.
The Hindu : Arts / History & Culture : A bas-relief gone dry at Mamallapuram
The Hindu : Arts / History & Culture : A bas-relief gone dry at MamallapuramOn December 6 and 7, 2010, Mamallapuram, 50 km from Chennai, famed for its Pallava period rock-cut sculptures, recorded 20 cm of rain. It was the kind of rainfall that could have brought to life one of the famous bas-relief panels there, adjacent to the popular Arjuna's Penance bas-relief: Krishna lifting Govardhana hill to protect the cowherds, their wives, children, cows and bulls from a deluge caused by the wrath of Indra.
The pounding rain would have created a dramatic cascade down the rock and all around the bas-relief of Krishna and the community of cowherds just as the Pallava sculptors of the 7th century C.E. intended, says S. Balusami, Associate Professor of Tamil at the Madras Christian College, Tambaram.
The Pallava sculptors had conjured up the Mamallapuram rock as Govardhana hill and created a splendid row of sculptures depicting the life of cowherds and a majestic Krishna nonchalantly lifting the hill with his left hand.
Art historian C. Sivaramamurti, in his short book, Mahabalipuram, first published by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1952, asserts that: “This representation of the Govardhana scene is probably the best in India, even the one at Ellora coming nowhere near this.”
But, Dr. Balusami says, the Vijayanagara rulers of the 14th/15th century C.E. built a pillared mantapa in front of this bas-relief, killing forever the cascade effect. In fact, with the pillared mantapa in front, the sculptures are no longer an open-air bas-relief, which is now merely called the Krishna Mantapa. In a sense it amounts to vandalism. Says Sivaramamurti: “Vandalism has not caused much damage, except for the later Vaishnavite mark incised on the forehead of the couchant bull and the erection of the modern pillared hall which destroys the view of the original façade.”
Dr. Balusami, a scholar on Mamallapuram sculptures, has found tell-tale evidence of 26 furrows cut on the rock above the line of bas-relief sculptures to channel the rain water and create a picture of verisimilitude.
Pallava artisans had also excavated terraced steps and narrow channels on the sloping rock above for water to gush down the “Govardhanagiri.” But the Vijayanagara chieftains cut a trench high up on rock and raised a one-foot high wall to drain the water on either side of the bas-relief.
In defence of his argument, Dr. Balusamy points out that the central cleft in the adjacent sculptures of Arjuna's Penance represents the Ganga coursing down the Himalayas. He quotes from A.H. Longhurst's Pallava Architecture, part II, Intermediate or Mamalla Period, published by the ASI, to support his argument. Mr. Longhurst says: “If the visitor will take the trouble of climbing to the top of the rock…he will find a number of rock-cut channels or footings immediately above the cleft [in Arjuna's Penance], showing that a brick or masonry cistern was once built on this spot… It would appear that on certain festival occasions, this cistern was filled and the water allowed to flow down the cleft in the form of a cascade into the tank below, simulating the descent of a mountain torrent… There can be little doubt that the whole scene is a symbolical representation of the Ganges flowing down the Himalayas.”
“DYNAMIC, LIFE-LIKE”
Dr. Balusami has proposed that the central theme of the “dynamic, life-like” sculptures in the bas-relief of Krishna lifting Govardhanagiri is “safety” or “protection.” Everybody is feeling safe because Krishna has protected them from the deluge. A cowherd has a child on his shoulders and his wife holds the hand of another child while she carries on her head pots of milk and curd; a royal lady is looking up in amazement at Krishna holding aloft the hill; tall Balarama has his hand around an elderly cowherd, in a gesture of protection; a cowherd plays the flute and cows sway their heads to the tune; his wife is feeding their infant; another cowherd is milking a cow, which is licking her calf; nearby a bull and a cow are walking close to each other; a woman is carrying pots in a rope-sling; and a young couple, hands held together, is dancing with gay abandon. Everywhere there is relief that the danger has passed.
All these events, Dr. Balusami proposes, have a remarkable similarity to the descriptions in the poems of Mullai Thinai in Tamil Sangam literature, datable between third century B.C.E. and third century C.E.
The pounding rain would have created a dramatic cascade down the rock and all around the bas-relief of Krishna and the community of cowherds just as the Pallava sculptors of the 7th century C.E. intended, says S. Balusami, Associate Professor of Tamil at the Madras Christian College, Tambaram.
The Pallava sculptors had conjured up the Mamallapuram rock as Govardhana hill and created a splendid row of sculptures depicting the life of cowherds and a majestic Krishna nonchalantly lifting the hill with his left hand.
Art historian C. Sivaramamurti, in his short book, Mahabalipuram, first published by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1952, asserts that: “This representation of the Govardhana scene is probably the best in India, even the one at Ellora coming nowhere near this.”
But, Dr. Balusami says, the Vijayanagara rulers of the 14th/15th century C.E. built a pillared mantapa in front of this bas-relief, killing forever the cascade effect. In fact, with the pillared mantapa in front, the sculptures are no longer an open-air bas-relief, which is now merely called the Krishna Mantapa. In a sense it amounts to vandalism. Says Sivaramamurti: “Vandalism has not caused much damage, except for the later Vaishnavite mark incised on the forehead of the couchant bull and the erection of the modern pillared hall which destroys the view of the original façade.”
Dr. Balusami, a scholar on Mamallapuram sculptures, has found tell-tale evidence of 26 furrows cut on the rock above the line of bas-relief sculptures to channel the rain water and create a picture of verisimilitude.
Pallava artisans had also excavated terraced steps and narrow channels on the sloping rock above for water to gush down the “Govardhanagiri.” But the Vijayanagara chieftains cut a trench high up on rock and raised a one-foot high wall to drain the water on either side of the bas-relief.
In defence of his argument, Dr. Balusamy points out that the central cleft in the adjacent sculptures of Arjuna's Penance represents the Ganga coursing down the Himalayas. He quotes from A.H. Longhurst's Pallava Architecture, part II, Intermediate or Mamalla Period, published by the ASI, to support his argument. Mr. Longhurst says: “If the visitor will take the trouble of climbing to the top of the rock…he will find a number of rock-cut channels or footings immediately above the cleft [in Arjuna's Penance], showing that a brick or masonry cistern was once built on this spot… It would appear that on certain festival occasions, this cistern was filled and the water allowed to flow down the cleft in the form of a cascade into the tank below, simulating the descent of a mountain torrent… There can be little doubt that the whole scene is a symbolical representation of the Ganges flowing down the Himalayas.”
“DYNAMIC, LIFE-LIKE”
Dr. Balusami has proposed that the central theme of the “dynamic, life-like” sculptures in the bas-relief of Krishna lifting Govardhanagiri is “safety” or “protection.” Everybody is feeling safe because Krishna has protected them from the deluge. A cowherd has a child on his shoulders and his wife holds the hand of another child while she carries on her head pots of milk and curd; a royal lady is looking up in amazement at Krishna holding aloft the hill; tall Balarama has his hand around an elderly cowherd, in a gesture of protection; a cowherd plays the flute and cows sway their heads to the tune; his wife is feeding their infant; another cowherd is milking a cow, which is licking her calf; nearby a bull and a cow are walking close to each other; a woman is carrying pots in a rope-sling; and a young couple, hands held together, is dancing with gay abandon. Everywhere there is relief that the danger has passed.
All these events, Dr. Balusami proposes, have a remarkable similarity to the descriptions in the poems of Mullai Thinai in Tamil Sangam literature, datable between third century B.C.E. and third century C.E.
Confucius Back in China - New America Media
BEIJING--Confucius has returned, at least to Tiananmen Square. According to the World Journal, a statue of the 5th century BC sage philosopher has just been erected there. The article notes the statue reflects the government's determination to see China's cultural legacy returned to its former glory.
Once vilified by Mao Zedong as the wellspring of China's past and future ills, in recent years there has been, alongside China's dramatic economic rise, a resurgent interest in Confucian thought and teaching, including his "Analects," a collection of sayings attributed to the itinerant scholar.
Confucian Institutes have been opened in countries around the world, with Beijing's backing, while traditional Confucian festivals and rituals, long moribund within China, have experienced something of a renaissance. A film version depicting the life of Confucius and starring internationally renown actor Chow Yun-fat is also enjoying ardent support from authorities in Beijing.
Standing some 30 feet tall, the bronze statue was completed on January 12th, and sits just in front of the National Museum, its eyes fixed on the distant horizon and on the portrait of Mao Zedong, which hangs atop the entrance to the Forbidden City, the two poised in an unlikely relationship as paragons of the party's ideological and cultural foundations, providing some serious food for thought.
Once vilified by Mao Zedong as the wellspring of China's past and future ills, in recent years there has been, alongside China's dramatic economic rise, a resurgent interest in Confucian thought and teaching, including his "Analects," a collection of sayings attributed to the itinerant scholar.
Confucian Institutes have been opened in countries around the world, with Beijing's backing, while traditional Confucian festivals and rituals, long moribund within China, have experienced something of a renaissance. A film version depicting the life of Confucius and starring internationally renown actor Chow Yun-fat is also enjoying ardent support from authorities in Beijing.
Standing some 30 feet tall, the bronze statue was completed on January 12th, and sits just in front of the National Museum, its eyes fixed on the distant horizon and on the portrait of Mao Zedong, which hangs atop the entrance to the Forbidden City, the two poised in an unlikely relationship as paragons of the party's ideological and cultural foundations, providing some serious food for thought.
Japan Airlines and AA announce joint business benefits for trans-Pacific consumers - {Travel Daily News}
Japan Airlines and AA announce joint business benefits for trans-Pacific consumers - {Travel Daily News}Japan Airlines and American Airlines announced they have decided to commence their joint business from April 1, 2011, based on the expected start of revenue-sharing on applicable trans-Pacific flights. The airlines, after receiving regulatory approvals from the Japanese Government and the U.S. Department of Transportation, are using a phased approach to bring more travel choices and greater benefits to consumers as quickly as possible and to maximize the value for stakeholders.
Customers can expect to benefit from better flight schedules, expanded codesharing, more coordinated services, and greater access to a wider variety of fares. Japan Airlines will also co-locate in American's Terminal 3 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport effective March 27, when Japan Airlines' summer schedule begins. Additional consumer benefits over the coming months are expected as the cooperation level deepens between the two airlines.
In addition, to bring benefits to consumers sooner, Japan Airlines and American are announcing a jointly-formulated commemorative trans-Pacific economy-class airfare for sale in Japan from today for travel between Feb. 1 and March 31, 2011. Historically, routings involving both airlines were typically only available at much higher fare levels
Customers can expect to benefit from better flight schedules, expanded codesharing, more coordinated services, and greater access to a wider variety of fares. Japan Airlines will also co-locate in American's Terminal 3 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport effective March 27, when Japan Airlines' summer schedule begins. Additional consumer benefits over the coming months are expected as the cooperation level deepens between the two airlines.
In addition, to bring benefits to consumers sooner, Japan Airlines and American are announcing a jointly-formulated commemorative trans-Pacific economy-class airfare for sale in Japan from today for travel between Feb. 1 and March 31, 2011. Historically, routings involving both airlines were typically only available at much higher fare levels
Monday, December 20, 2010
Cambodia flexes manufacturing muscle | beyondbrics: News and views on emerging markets | FT.com
Cambodia flexes manufacturing muscle | beyondbrics: News and views on emerging markets | FT.comIf Cambodia is known for investment at all, it is known for low-cost, low-margin industries such as textiles, but there are signs that the country could be starting its own journey up the value chain.
Minebea, the Japanese precision component manufacturer, has just announced that it is to build a Y5bn component factory near Phnom Penh, in a move to build up its Southeast Asian production network.
Under the new arrangement, the Cambodian facility - which will manufacture small and mid-sized motots for home electronics - will receive parts from Minebea’s plant in Thailand, Dow Jones reports.
The Japanese company has announced that production will start in April 2011 and that it will begin by leasing facilities within Phnom Penh’s Special Economic Zone. At a later date the company will build a new plant where production will start at the end of 2012 with 5,000 workers.
For investors, Cambodia offers a number of attractions: it is stable (even if its democratic credentials are somewhat tarnished), labour is cheap, and its largely dollarized economy makes it particularly attractive for Japanese investors, who have watched with dismay as the yen has appreciated more than 9 per cent against the dollar year to date.
But it lacks infrastructure and high quality human resources, and its buccaneering business environment has put off all but the hardiest investors.
Regional players, however, are showing increasing interest. China is the biggest investor, but Vietnamese and Korean companies are also coming in, particularly in primary industries such as rubber, mining and power generation.
Minebea, the Japanese precision component manufacturer, has just announced that it is to build a Y5bn component factory near Phnom Penh, in a move to build up its Southeast Asian production network.
Under the new arrangement, the Cambodian facility - which will manufacture small and mid-sized motots for home electronics - will receive parts from Minebea’s plant in Thailand, Dow Jones reports.
The Japanese company has announced that production will start in April 2011 and that it will begin by leasing facilities within Phnom Penh’s Special Economic Zone. At a later date the company will build a new plant where production will start at the end of 2012 with 5,000 workers.
For investors, Cambodia offers a number of attractions: it is stable (even if its democratic credentials are somewhat tarnished), labour is cheap, and its largely dollarized economy makes it particularly attractive for Japanese investors, who have watched with dismay as the yen has appreciated more than 9 per cent against the dollar year to date.
But it lacks infrastructure and high quality human resources, and its buccaneering business environment has put off all but the hardiest investors.
Regional players, however, are showing increasing interest. China is the biggest investor, but Vietnamese and Korean companies are also coming in, particularly in primary industries such as rubber, mining and power generation.
Myanmar Revisited
Myanmar RevisitedLike many baby boomer travellers I'm fascinated by politically and socially backward countries and cultures. Age-old agrarian societies, seemingly untouched by industrialization, afford me a rare glimpse of how my forefathers would have lived off the land 100 years ago. So, when I heard that Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi was released Nov. 13 from more than 20 years of house arrest in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), I immediately pictured revisiting the beautiful country where time seems to have stood still.
The Burmese still farm with oxen and plows, spin lotus filaments into religious vestments, weave fabric on hand-looms, drive carts and bikes more often than cars, and row longboats with their bare feet.
"Giraffe" women continue to stretch their necks with golden hoops and everyone uses chalky bark paste from Thanakha trees in place of sunscreen, beauty products and acne creams.
Men wear traditional longhi skirts even with a jacket and tie -- and not as a fashion faux pas like David Beckham.
I visited Yangon (the former capital Rangoon) as well as Inle Lake with my family as part of a round-the-world cruise with the floating university, Semester At Sea about four years ago. At the time, Aung San Suu Kyi, known by democratic Burmese as "The Lady" had urged tourists to keep away while she and other political opponents of the repressive regime were still incarcerated.
However, our ship was docking there so we had little alternative than to break the tourism taboo. After much debate, we decided to position ourselves as citizen diplomats, reporting back home about the realities of everyday life in Myanmar.
Now the tourism boycott of Burma is over, I am hoping that more foreign currency will trickle down to some of the poorest people in the world with the worst health-care system (ranked bottom of the World Health Organization chart) and few opportunities for entrepreneurial or academic advancement.
Despite its societal shortcomings, the country is replete with history, remarkable religious icons, unspoiled people and scenery, and South Africastyle wildlife. Currently tourism grosses around $200 million US annually, a pittance compared to Myanmar's biggest money-spinner, natural gas which nets the regime more than $2 billion US per year.
Since her release, Aung San Suu Kyi has relaxed her opposition to tourism, supporting private companies while warning against government-run group tours contrived to show only the best of Burma.
In an interview with Der Speigel in November she said "it is essential that people see what is actually happening in this country."
Things are gradually changing, too, in the world's attitude to travel in Myanmar. Visitation was already on the upturn by 37 per cent in 2010 over 2009 -- if you believe the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism statistics.
The Myanmar Times reported in October that several new hotel projects in would be completed in 2011. Earlier this year, Myanmar launched a co-operative marketing partnership with neighbouring Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos in a publicity campaign entitled "Four Countries: One Destination" to encourage cross-border tours.
Cox and Kings, one of the world's oldest travel companies established in 1758, reintroduced the Golden Land of Burma to travel itineraries after Aung San Suu Kyi's release, with 98 people booking on the first tour.
The country has a long way to go in the tourism polls -- in 2009 only 227,400 visitors braved the warnings and sanctions. This is partly due to the lack of comfortable infrastructure. Internal airlines are very basic -- it's always a worry when the flight attendant disembarks after making sure everyone is strapped in for takeoff. But they whisk the time-pressed tourist to Inle Lake, where life slows to the pace of longboats gliding over the oasis of water lilies and ingenious floating gardens -- albeit surrounded by mist caused by the slash-and-burn farming.
Roughly 300,000 people are employed in the tourism industry.
Certainly on my trip to Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and Inle Lake, I saw many locals benefiting directly from tourism. My tour guide told me stories about his lavish wedding and relatively secure lifestyle, all facilitated by his job. The evening entertainer at Inle Lake's Golden Island Cottages was able to cash in on westerners' voyeurism by inviting groups to his humble home for green tea and tofu. These were surprisingly tasty, deep-fried snacks served in the communal living space which housed a primitive range created from earthenware pots over an open fire, a few hardbacked chairs, beds on the floor made from motley covers on the floor, all enclosed from the searing heat by windowless wooden walls. This was an uncommon sneak peek inside one of the traditional stilted homes shared by three or four generations plus livestock who all use the lake for bath, laundry, fishing and sewer. Not a lot of water sports here for tourists wary of water-borne diseases.
Religious tourism is big business for Burma's Buddhist monks who otherwise rely on locals' largesse for their livelihood. Juxtaposed to both the hovels of rural villages and tenements of inner city streets, their temples stand out like diamond-clad debutantes in Dickensian slums. Over the centuries, karma-seeking supplicants have financed religious adornments, the most impressive being Shwedagon in Yangon with its 100-metre gold, diamond and ruby encrusted spire.
Rural temples, although somewhat less endowed, attract both locals and tourists with their religious icons and fancy fixtures. One, Nga Phe Kyaung Monastery at Inle Lake, has got itself onto YouTube. The monks teach their cats to jump through hoops in a novel circus act to attract visitors and donations. I had a go and was the only one in our group to entice the cat to jump. I copied the monk's authoritative way of setting the cat down in front of the hoop, rubbed it under the chin against the pile of its fur as instructed and, after two attempts, it humoured me by soaring through the foot-wide metal ring.
As a self-appointed citizen diplomat, I hope I've honoured my commitment to spread the word about Myanmar through travel articles and book chapters. Only problem is now, as a journalist, I probably wouldn't get a visa to go again.
If You Go
-Check voyage.gc.ca and click on Burma (Myanmar) for the latest safety guidelines.
-Canadians need passports and visas to visit for tourism or business. However the visa on arrival program is currently suspended so potential visitors need to contact the nearest Embassy of the Union of Myanmar before travelling.
-Avoid border areas with Thailand, China and Laos where there are official travel warnings about uprisings and landmines.
-Register your visit with an embassy. As Canada does not have consular offices in Myanmar, Canadians must contact the Australian Embassy.
-The Canadian Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand is responsible for Myanmar: www.thailand.gc.ca
-Health risks include malaria, dengue fever and hepatitis A and B. Check the Public Health Agency of Canada for updates.
-Be aware that baggage may be searched upon arrival and it is illegal to enter/exit Burma with religious materials.
-Take cash in U.S. dollars or euros as there are no ATMs or credit card facilities. Foreign currency over $2,000 US must be declared upon arrival, failure to do so could result in imprisonment.
-Check the law -cultural and archeological artifacts and gems cannot be taken out of the country; homosexual activity is illegal; politically sensitive photography is prohibited.
The Burmese still farm with oxen and plows, spin lotus filaments into religious vestments, weave fabric on hand-looms, drive carts and bikes more often than cars, and row longboats with their bare feet.
"Giraffe" women continue to stretch their necks with golden hoops and everyone uses chalky bark paste from Thanakha trees in place of sunscreen, beauty products and acne creams.
Men wear traditional longhi skirts even with a jacket and tie -- and not as a fashion faux pas like David Beckham.
I visited Yangon (the former capital Rangoon) as well as Inle Lake with my family as part of a round-the-world cruise with the floating university, Semester At Sea about four years ago. At the time, Aung San Suu Kyi, known by democratic Burmese as "The Lady" had urged tourists to keep away while she and other political opponents of the repressive regime were still incarcerated.
However, our ship was docking there so we had little alternative than to break the tourism taboo. After much debate, we decided to position ourselves as citizen diplomats, reporting back home about the realities of everyday life in Myanmar.
Now the tourism boycott of Burma is over, I am hoping that more foreign currency will trickle down to some of the poorest people in the world with the worst health-care system (ranked bottom of the World Health Organization chart) and few opportunities for entrepreneurial or academic advancement.
Despite its societal shortcomings, the country is replete with history, remarkable religious icons, unspoiled people and scenery, and South Africastyle wildlife. Currently tourism grosses around $200 million US annually, a pittance compared to Myanmar's biggest money-spinner, natural gas which nets the regime more than $2 billion US per year.
Since her release, Aung San Suu Kyi has relaxed her opposition to tourism, supporting private companies while warning against government-run group tours contrived to show only the best of Burma.
In an interview with Der Speigel in November she said "it is essential that people see what is actually happening in this country."
Things are gradually changing, too, in the world's attitude to travel in Myanmar. Visitation was already on the upturn by 37 per cent in 2010 over 2009 -- if you believe the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism statistics.
The Myanmar Times reported in October that several new hotel projects in would be completed in 2011. Earlier this year, Myanmar launched a co-operative marketing partnership with neighbouring Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos in a publicity campaign entitled "Four Countries: One Destination" to encourage cross-border tours.
Cox and Kings, one of the world's oldest travel companies established in 1758, reintroduced the Golden Land of Burma to travel itineraries after Aung San Suu Kyi's release, with 98 people booking on the first tour.
The country has a long way to go in the tourism polls -- in 2009 only 227,400 visitors braved the warnings and sanctions. This is partly due to the lack of comfortable infrastructure. Internal airlines are very basic -- it's always a worry when the flight attendant disembarks after making sure everyone is strapped in for takeoff. But they whisk the time-pressed tourist to Inle Lake, where life slows to the pace of longboats gliding over the oasis of water lilies and ingenious floating gardens -- albeit surrounded by mist caused by the slash-and-burn farming.
Roughly 300,000 people are employed in the tourism industry.
Certainly on my trip to Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and Inle Lake, I saw many locals benefiting directly from tourism. My tour guide told me stories about his lavish wedding and relatively secure lifestyle, all facilitated by his job. The evening entertainer at Inle Lake's Golden Island Cottages was able to cash in on westerners' voyeurism by inviting groups to his humble home for green tea and tofu. These were surprisingly tasty, deep-fried snacks served in the communal living space which housed a primitive range created from earthenware pots over an open fire, a few hardbacked chairs, beds on the floor made from motley covers on the floor, all enclosed from the searing heat by windowless wooden walls. This was an uncommon sneak peek inside one of the traditional stilted homes shared by three or four generations plus livestock who all use the lake for bath, laundry, fishing and sewer. Not a lot of water sports here for tourists wary of water-borne diseases.
Religious tourism is big business for Burma's Buddhist monks who otherwise rely on locals' largesse for their livelihood. Juxtaposed to both the hovels of rural villages and tenements of inner city streets, their temples stand out like diamond-clad debutantes in Dickensian slums. Over the centuries, karma-seeking supplicants have financed religious adornments, the most impressive being Shwedagon in Yangon with its 100-metre gold, diamond and ruby encrusted spire.
Rural temples, although somewhat less endowed, attract both locals and tourists with their religious icons and fancy fixtures. One, Nga Phe Kyaung Monastery at Inle Lake, has got itself onto YouTube. The monks teach their cats to jump through hoops in a novel circus act to attract visitors and donations. I had a go and was the only one in our group to entice the cat to jump. I copied the monk's authoritative way of setting the cat down in front of the hoop, rubbed it under the chin against the pile of its fur as instructed and, after two attempts, it humoured me by soaring through the foot-wide metal ring.
As a self-appointed citizen diplomat, I hope I've honoured my commitment to spread the word about Myanmar through travel articles and book chapters. Only problem is now, as a journalist, I probably wouldn't get a visa to go again.
If You Go
-Check voyage.gc.ca and click on Burma (Myanmar) for the latest safety guidelines.
-Canadians need passports and visas to visit for tourism or business. However the visa on arrival program is currently suspended so potential visitors need to contact the nearest Embassy of the Union of Myanmar before travelling.
-Avoid border areas with Thailand, China and Laos where there are official travel warnings about uprisings and landmines.
-Register your visit with an embassy. As Canada does not have consular offices in Myanmar, Canadians must contact the Australian Embassy.
-The Canadian Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand is responsible for Myanmar: www.thailand.gc.ca
-Health risks include malaria, dengue fever and hepatitis A and B. Check the Public Health Agency of Canada for updates.
-Be aware that baggage may be searched upon arrival and it is illegal to enter/exit Burma with religious materials.
-Take cash in U.S. dollars or euros as there are no ATMs or credit card facilities. Foreign currency over $2,000 US must be declared upon arrival, failure to do so could result in imprisonment.
-Check the law -cultural and archeological artifacts and gems cannot be taken out of the country; homosexual activity is illegal; politically sensitive photography is prohibited.
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