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| Carvings on the wall of the Amaravati stupa ©FG |
Sure, critics would gripe saying that the British squandered all the valuables from their colonies and shamelessly exhibit their spoils under a roof calling them monumental gifts of mankind! We all know many of them were substantial gifts but obtained through suspicious and sometimes clandestine ways. A case in point is glaring on the headpiece of the monarch for all to see.
For their credit, the Westerners did discover things that their subjects had long lost, abandoned or had no clue. India, with all its wisdom, propagated through the ages of intellectual discourses, had all but forgotten about a soul called Siddharta Gautama and all his not-so-humble beginnings. They had to wait for the white men archaeologists to cut through the overgrowths and undergrowths of Nepal to show the natives where the teachings of Buddhism actually started. Kapilavastu and Lumbini were lost from the memories of Indians till someone came to show them.
The special exhibition which took place during my visit there was the display of slabs from the 2nd - 3rd century BCE Amaravati stupa in Andhra Pradesh, Southern India. Buddhism was supposed to have prospered here and was imported to other regions of Asia. But did the local populace no any better? Imagine such a vital landmark forgotten in the annals of time. The local municipality was alerted when a local zamindar was seen building his exotic abode sourcing his building materials and stone pillars from an ancient ruin.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/207_Amaravati.pdf
Colonel Colin Mackenzie, a military engineer who was given the task to investigate the monument in the 19th century, managed to source part of the building and took the liberty to send it back home to London for scrutiny and display.
In this exhibition, the curator tries to recreate the layout of the stupa complete with its splendour through diagrams, computer imaging and the physical feel of the walls.
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| Seen at one the pillars @ Amaravati stupa ©FG |
British Museum, London. ©FG
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Sandstone depicting Matsya, the fish, the first incarnation of Vishnu. Matsya is supposed to have warned Manu, the first man of impending floods. It advised a boat to be built. The theory of evolution and Noah's Ark fused into one? Matsya is seen supporting the Vedas and mankind from floods. ©FG
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| The Union - Man-Woman, Positive-Negative, Ying-Yang, Matter-Anti-Matter? ©FG |
All of the places, the sculpture of Karthikeyan, complete with his peacock seen in Western China. ©FG
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| White Man's 19th-century understanding of Hinduism. ©FG |
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| No mere dance but of symbolisms, geometry and mysticism. ©FG |
A time when people were more tolerant, were they? ©FG
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| Konarak representation of Surya, the prime mover of the Universe. Odisha ©FG |
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| R-L: Jagannatha, Subhadra, Balabhadra. (Puri Gods) Odisha ©FG. |
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The 2,200-year-old Rosetta Stone- a royal decree written in three scripts; hieroglyphics, Demotics and Ancient Greek. Found in Egypt. Monumental in deciphering hieroglyphics.
Now Egypt wants it back! ©FG
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| We know who did what in the 1930s around Persia; who was digging around for black gold? And tear up the country like a pack of wolves fighting over their kill! And what they must have found? Loot from the Nebuchadnezzar's hanging garden? Even the word 'loot' is a word plundered from the Indian language! ©FG |
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