When An Emaciated Buddha Got Juxtaposed With Many-Hued Mughals

The Starving Buddha popped up in contrast to the oriental ascetic’s usual looks defined by placid looks. Within 24 hours, the same venue discussed an antithesis of sorts: miniature art, with all its colours and celebratory mood.

If the sage’s eyes are commonly seen in tranquil longish shape that reminds one of a lotus petal, a two-day cultural festival in Delhi this week sought to know more about how and why Siddhartha Gautama went on a long fast in his days of experimenting oneself ahead of achieving enlightenment. This spiritual exercise of turning oneself into a ‘living skeleton’ eventually led the one-time prince to realise that bodhi (awakening) had more to do with elevation of the mind and not deprivation of the body.

The July 25-26 Gunijan Sabha programmes by a Jaipur-based organisation had its focus on classical Indian music even as its just-concluded 25th edition in the national capital did take time off to take a relook at the country’s ancient and medieval visual arts. That was how the Ustad Imamuddin Khan Dagar Indian Music Art and Cultural Society held a session each on Indian sculptures and Mughal paintings—on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

The first talk on ‘Figurative Art—A Narrative to Indian Sculptures’ profiled the evolution of sculpting in India since time immemorial to the more recent centuries of its imperial rule. The speaker, artist Gagan Vij, majorly essayed the variedly fascinating ways of portraying the Buddha three-dimensionally, thus showing the listeners certain lesser-known visuals of the philosophical leader who lived for 80 years from 563 BC.

Thus came the image of the Starving Buddha, which is a stone sculpture of Bodhisattva fasting as part of his tough practices in a bid to explore more about oneself. It’s a masterpiece, hued from schist in 2nd Century AD, and displayed at Pakistan’s Lahore museum, which acquired it in 1894 not long after the 39-centimetre-tall artwork was excavated from Sikri in the deserts of Balochistan of undivided India.

“One major highlight of ancient Indian art is that it never resorted to copying—there were no models or muses. That also ensured that the works bore different proportions of the body, which also helped evolve stylistic differences,” pointed out Faridabad-based Vij, a self-taught sculptor whose 2016 metal sundial is displayed not far from the Yamuna in the city.

Noting that Indian sculptors traditionally relied more on philosophy than anatomy, he said the underlying principle was to attain moksha by gaining control over anger, greed and sexual desires. The 90-minute interactive lecture at India International Centre began with tracing Indian sculpting right from the Harappan-era ‘Bearded Priest’ (the famed terracotta work of a man wearing a shawl, with his eyes half closed) to the more iconic ‘Dancing Girl’—a 10.5-cm-tall bronze statuette, also from the Mohenjo-Daro period (4,500 years old).

Vij, whose works are at display also in Delhi’s Mirza Ghalib Museum and Lajpat Nagar Park, further trailed major artworks of the Vedic age (a millennium from 1500 BC, when iron gained access in sculptures as well) to the emergence of Buddhism and Jainism in two regions of the subcontinent to further introduce the various schools of art such as Mathura (1st to 3rd Century AD) and Amaravati around the same time (though slightly older) to Mauryan, Chalukya, Gupta and late medieval down to those patronised by southern dynasties such as Chera, Chola, Pandya and Kakatiya. Particularly impressive at the power-point presentation were two-picture albums of ancient temple sculptures and their modern-day adaptations as postures in classical Indian dances such as Kathak, Bharatanatyam and Odissi.

The next afternoon had a well-known Rajasthani painter in conversation about his art: Mughal miniatures. S. Shakir Ali from Jaipur spoke passionately about the bright colours used in classical Indian art, made all the more appealing with the exquisite tools its exponents employ over ages.

His deep love for the Jaipur and Kangra schools of art notwithstanding, the 61-year-old Padma awardee said Mughal paintings have been his favourite all life. “Change is essential for the progress of any art so long as its practitioners have imbibed the essential spirit of the form,” he added, recalling to visits to countries such as Iran, Turkey and Algeria to interact with artists.

Ali took a purist’s line and reiterated that an artist has to stick to three principles for professional success: clean mind, positive attitude and good company.

The Gunijan Sabha, conceived by organiser Shabana Dagar, had its latest event also featuring music sessions (flautist Ajay Prasanna, rudra veena Bahauddin Dagar and Dhrupadia Santosh Kumar, besides talks by scholars Manjula Saxena and Suneera Kasliwal), dance (lecture by Kathak danseuse Prerna Shrimali) and literary interaction (on poetry in music, by poet-essayist-critic Ashok Vajpeyi).