Tuesday, July 22, 2008
India's external ‘conquests' of dharma left art monuments in their wake
It may have been just an accident or it may be reflective of the unique character of Indian civilization. But it is a fact that India has never sent out military expeditions to conquer distant lands.
Since the time of Ashoka the Great (304 BC 232 BC), its conquests have been the conquests of dharma. What an image -- almost comic -- that the armies of the dharma presented to the people they set out to ‘conquer‘!.
Think of the Spanish conquistadores in their shining breastplates, plumed helmets, slit visors, gauntlets, rapiers, matchlock guns! Conquerors are expected to strike terror and awe in the breasts of the natives. Instead, the Buddhist monks must have seemed a ridiculous lot to the civilized Achaemenids of Persia, the neo-Hellenes of Gandhara, or the sophisticated Chinese of the Han times.
Mahatma Gandhi was not the first Indian to face the world in a loincloth. In an illuminating review of an exhibition of Chinese art in the New York Times (Nov. 2, 2007) the art critic Holland Cotter wrote: "What an outlandish sight Buddhist monks must have been when they first turned up more than a millennium ago in China, a land where only criminals - the disgraced and the dangerous - had shaved heads, wore patched-together clothes and begged for food.
"Traveling the Silk Road alone or in pairs, monks had neither homes nor families. This too must have disturbed a Confucian culture that was based on the idea that where you came from was who you were, and that the meaning of life lay in family, in placating ancestors and in producing heirs.
To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Since the time of Ashoka the Great (304 BC 232 BC), its conquests have been the conquests of dharma. What an image -- almost comic -- that the armies of the dharma presented to the people they set out to ‘conquer‘!.
Think of the Spanish conquistadores in their shining breastplates, plumed helmets, slit visors, gauntlets, rapiers, matchlock guns! Conquerors are expected to strike terror and awe in the breasts of the natives. Instead, the Buddhist monks must have seemed a ridiculous lot to the civilized Achaemenids of Persia, the neo-Hellenes of Gandhara, or the sophisticated Chinese of the Han times.
Mahatma Gandhi was not the first Indian to face the world in a loincloth. In an illuminating review of an exhibition of Chinese art in the New York Times (Nov. 2, 2007) the art critic Holland Cotter wrote: "What an outlandish sight Buddhist monks must have been when they first turned up more than a millennium ago in China, a land where only criminals - the disgraced and the dangerous - had shaved heads, wore patched-together clothes and begged for food.
"Traveling the Silk Road alone or in pairs, monks had neither homes nor families. This too must have disturbed a Confucian culture that was based on the idea that where you came from was who you were, and that the meaning of life lay in family, in placating ancestors and in producing heirs.
To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Labels: China, Chinese art, dharma, Han Times, india, Indian civilization, Mahatma Gandhi, monuments, New York Times, Persia, Silk Road, Spanish
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