JOIN USCasting a light on ancient fervour
Wonderful objects created by Indian artists/artisans in centuries past are found in museums throughout the USA. Several museums are famous for their Indian collections, such as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Cleveland, Metropolitan Museum in NYC, Philadelphia, and many more. Each object serves as an ambassador of Indian culture and though some people think they should be returned to India, consider their part in education of Americans on aspects of India.
People become fascinated by the objects and learn about India, especially Indian religions, but also history, through the paintings and sculptures displayed. Museums create special lecture series around the collections and universities and even young students come to learn from them. That is how I initially became interested in India. Loan exhibitions of objects borrowed from India have become expensive (insurance, security, transportation, installation). Some museums arrange international loan exchanges through which the interested can become more educated. Happily, many museums now have put up their collections to websites.
Educational potential
An example of the educational potential of Indian art objects is oil lamps. In India, they are ubiquitous and are used in temple rituals and at home. When they become worn, they are traded at the metal shop for new shiny ones or they are gifted to a temple (and then what happens to them?) Old brass or bronze lamps are often melted to make new ones. And yet, those preserved in museums in India and all over the world are historic records of religious fervour expressed by talented temple craftsmen. Others are preserved in India as family heirlooms or in temples or private collections.
As far back as 1927, The Philadelphia Museum of Art was given a suspension oil lamp with a bird incorporated into its chain. Such lamps once lit a temple interior, the flame dispelling darkness and ignorance and carrying a prayer to god. The same museum has a vanchi vilakku, a kind of miniature snake boat design, carrying five thick-lighted torch wicks; it was used for processions around the temple or to the sea for ritual bathing of the temple deity.
The Honolulu Museum of Art has a wonderful 14th century double-sided suspension lamp from Kerala with mythic scenes of the cosmic dream of Vishnu; Ananthashayana on one side and Rama on the other, above the oil plate. It is a miniature masterpiece of bronze relief carving. The same museum has a great tree-lamp, vrikshavilakku, about six feet tall, crowned by Krishna playing the flute addorsed to Garuda. This is a kind of eternal lamp where cups of oil shaped like leaves are kept burning in the temple compound. Worshippers book their turn a year in advance to give the oil for the lamps to convey their prayers to god. A much smaller tree oil lamp is in the Denver Art Museum collection, inscribed with the date 1555 and a prayer for someone’s recovery from a fever.
Denver also has a changala vilakku, an elegant sweeping design believed to have descended from the influence of Greeks working in southern India. It was used to light the king’s path home after prayer. Americans never see an oil lamp at home or in a church; there never was such a tradition. Candles yes, oil lamps, no. The use of oil lamps in India is practically unknown to Americans, but there is such a rich variety of them in India, each with a particular ritual function in worship. Their design and modelling are enchanting, plus they carry interesting symbolic significance.
The kavara lamp in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is large, dignified and includes small figures of dancers, musicians and gods on its shaft and base. It is known to have come from Kerala. In the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC, there is a standing donor couple from 17th century Nayak Karnataka; these are large figures (about 34 inches tall) of temple patrons proffering a leaf-like plate in which oil wicks would burn. Aside from their sacred role, one cannot help admiring the pair as figure sculptures of international artistic quality.
The author is a research associate at the Smithsonian.