GS Paper: GS1-01.Indian Culture- Salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

The Kodumanal excavation in Erode Dist. of Tamil Nadu has threw light on burial rituals and the concept of afterlife in megalithic culture.

Must read:

Chapter 1 | Stone Age – Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic

About these sites

• The researchers have identified 250 cairn-circles at the village in Erode district.
• Earlier excavations revealed that the site served as a trade-cum-industrial centre from 5th century BCE to 1st century BCE.
• The rectangular chambered cists, each two metres long and six metres wide, are made of stone slabs, and the entire grave is surrounded by boulders that form a circle.
• The grave could be of a village head or the head of the community as the size of two boulders, each facing east and west, are bigger than other boulders.
• Believing that the deceased person will get a new life after death, pots and bowls filled with grains were placed outside the chambers.

What are Megaliths?

• Megaliths are the earliest surviving man-made monuments we know of—derived from the Latin mega (large) and lith (stone).
• Megaliths were constructed either as burial sites or commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials.
• The former are sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala).
• The urn or the sarcophagus containing the mortal remains was usually made of terracotta.
• Non-sepulchral megaliths include memorial sites such as menhirs. (The line separating the two is a bit blurry, since remains have been discovered underneath otherwise non-sepulchral sites, and vice versa.)
• In India, archaeologists trace the majority of the megaliths to the Iron Age (1500 BC to 500 BC), though some sites precede the Iron Age, extending up to 2000 BC.

Megaliths in India

• Megaliths are spread across the Indian subcontinent, though the bulk of them are found in peninsular India, concentrated in the states of Maharashtra (mainly in Vidarbha), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
• According to archaeologists around 2,200 megalithic sites can be found in peninsular India itself, most of them unexcavated.
• Even today, a living megalithic culture endures among some tribes such as the Gonds of central India and the Khasis of Meghalaya.

Literary sources

• Megalithic culture finds several references in ancient Tamil Sangam literature. For instance, menhirs are referred to as nadukal.
• Ancient Sangam texts lay out, in detail, a step-by-step procedure for laying a memorial stone or nadukal in honour of a fallen hero.
• Manimekalai (5th century AD), the famous Sangam epic, refers to the various kinds of burials namely cremation (cuṭuvōr), post excarnation burial (iṭuvōr), burying the deceased in a pit (toṭukuḻip paṭuvōr), rock chamber or cist burial (tāḻvāyiṉ aṭaippōr), urn burial encapped with lid (tāḻiyiṟ kavippōr).
• Even in the Sangam age (when kingship and a well-ordained society had emerged) the above modes of burials survived.

A movie named Axone — also spelt akhuni —soya bean dish of Nagaland has been recently released.

The traditional ‘Axone’ dish is very unique in itself. However, one must note that it does NOT carry any GI tag. Still, there is a possibility of it being asked in match the pair type questions.

What is Axone?

• Axone — also spelt akhuni — is a fermented soya bean of Nagaland, known for its distinctive flavour and smell.
• As much an ingredient as it is a condiment, Axone used to make pickles and chutneys, or curries of pork, fish, chicken, beef etc.
• While it is called ‘axone’ in parts of Nagaland, fermented soya bean is cooked with, eaten and known by different names in different parts of Northeast India, including Meghalaya and Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur as well in other South, Southeast and East Asian countries.
• Axone is prepared and eaten across Nagaland but is particularly popular among the Sumi (also Sema) tribe. They use it in every meal.

In the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, the Annual Kheer Bhawani Mela in Tulmulla village of Ganderbal district has been cancelled by its religious trust.

Match the pair based question can be asked from festivals as such. Recently, the following festivals were in the news: Ambubachi Mela, Thrisoor Puram, Meru Jatara, Nagoba Jatara etc.

Try this:

Q. Consider the following pairs:

Traditions                                            Communities

1. Chaliha Sahib Festival              —          Sindhis

2. Nanda Raj Jaat Yatra                —          Gonds

3. Wari-Warkari                               —          Santhals

Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched ? (CSP 2017)

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 1 and 3 only

(d) None of the above

Kheer Bhawani Mela

• The festival witnesses lakhs of Hindu pilgrims from across the country largely the Kashmiri Pandit Community, who throngs the famous Ragyna Devi Temple which is popularly known as “Mata Kheer Bhawani”.
• The festival falls on the auspicious day of “Zeshta Ashtami”.
• The term kheer refers to rice pudding that is offered in the spring to propitiate the Goddess, which became part of the name of the temple.
• The devotees have been asked to cooperate with the authorities and perform the worship of the Goddess at their homes only.
• However, the holy rituals and Aarti of the Deity will be conducted as per the tradition which will be shared with the devotees via social media.

Significance

• Kheer Bhawani Mela is one of the biggest religious functions of Kashmiri Pandit Community.
• It is believed and rather has been seen that the colour of the water in the spring around the Kheer Bhawani Temple changes its colour with the change in the circumstances of the Kashmir valley.

The rail adukku pathiram a traditional set of kitchen utensils in Tamil Nadu has become the gathered attention of all over the past few days.

The traditional ‘rail adukku pathiram’ set of utensils are very unique in itself. However, one must note that it does NOT carry any GI tag and is completely out of use. Still, there is a possibility of it being asked in match the pair type questions asking – Q) Which among the following artefacts from Tamil Nadu carries a GI Tag?

Rail adukku pathiram

• The rail adukku pathiram consists of 14 vessels of different sizes, neatly placed in a compact manner inside the largest container.
• The vessels were earlier used by families to carry groceries and cook food during train journeys.
• These vessels were used to cook food for a mini-wedding. The interesting aspect is the compact size and easy to carry.
• It has two vessels to cook vegetables, a sippal plate to boil rice, a frying pan, a sombu, a bronze pot to carry water and vessels of varying sizes to cook food.
• Many in Tamil Nadu had forgotten about the existence of these multi-layered vessels until a video surfaced online recently.

Ministry of Culture’s has organised virtual tour titled “Ramkinkar Baij | Journey through silent transformation and expressions” to commemorate his 115th Birth Anniversary.

We can expect a description based question in prelims like-

Q. “In 1925, he made his way to Kala Bhavana, the art school at Santiniketan and was under the guidance of Nandalal Bose. Encouraged by the liberating, intellectual environment of (Tagore’s) Santiniketan, his artistic skills and intellectual horizons blossomed, thus acquiring greater depth and complexity. One of the earliest modernists in Indian art, he assimilated the idioms of the European modern visual language and yet was rooted in his own Indian ethos.”

Who is the imminent personality discussed?

Who was Ramkinkar Baij?

• Ramkinkar Baij (1906-1980), one of the most seminal artists of modern India, was an iconic sculptor, painter and graphic artist.
• He was born in Bankura, West Bengal, into a family of little economic and social standing and grew by his sheer determination into one of the most distinguished early modernists of Indian art.
• In 1925, he made his way to Kala Bhavana, the art school at Santiniketan and was under the guidance of Nandalal Bose.
• Encouraged by the liberating, intellectual environment of (Tagore’s) Santiniketan, his artistic skills and intellectual horizons blossomed, thus acquiring greater depth and complexity.

His works

• One of the earliest modernists in Indian art, he assimilated the idioms of the European modern visual language and yet was rooted in his own Indian ethos.
• His themes were steeped in a deep sense of humanism and an instinctive understanding of the symbiotic relationship between man and nature.
• Both in his paintings and sculptures, he pushed the limits of experimentation and ventured into the use of new materials.
• For instance, his use of unconventional material, for the time, such as cement concrete for his monumental public sculptures set a new precedent for art practices.
• The use of cement, laterite and mortar to model the figures, and the use of a personal style in which modern western and Indian pre-classical sculptural values were brought together was equally radical.

Popular recognition

• Although his work was passed over for quite a while, gradually it began to get both national and international attention.
• He was invited to participate in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in 1950 and in the Salon de Mai in 1951.
• In the national honours began to come his way one after the other.
• In 1970, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan for his irrefutable contribution to Indian art.
• In 1976 he was made a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi.
• In 1976, he was conferred the honorary Doctoral Degree of ‘Desikottama’ by Visva Bharati, and in 1979 an honorary D. Litt by Rabindra Bharati University.