Bhuvaneshvar Literary Meet
This event in the capital of Orissa (now also known as Odisha) was considerably smaller than Calcutta or Jaipur, but delightful. Also organised by Malavika Banerjee and her great team, the two-day event in Bhuvaneshvar was fascinating and a demonstration once again of the magnet provided by newly published books. Here I met up with other friends including one I hadn’t seen for twenty-five years, Bachi Karkaria. In 1997/98, Caroline Douglas (the British Council) and I (the British Museum) brought to Delhi and then to Bombay, the huge exhibition ‘The Enduring Image’, all 300+ items drawn from the British Museum collections. On several occasions Bachi had interviewed me for The Times of India while the exhibition was in Bombay. It was great to see her again and to listen to her speak in the festival.
As in Calcutta, delegates were comfortably housed while the various sessions of the festival took place in a large tented enclosure in the grounds of the Bhuvaneshvar Club. Here I spoke in a discussion with the historian Professor Jatindra Nayak which was a great pleasure, not least as several areas of my book deal with the cultural history of Orissa.
As at previous lecturing events, I was quizzed about the vexed question of restitution. My personal view is that a great deal of time, effort, anxiety and money can be spent on this question without any progress: in my thirty-two years at the British Museum, I believe there was only one case of restitution – a bag of human ashes. My view – and again I must emphasise that this is solely a personal view – is that much more can be achieved, more friendship can be produced and greater cultural results can be delivered through collaboration, co-operative academic projects, exchanges of staff and sharing of collections. Such activities can take place immediately – rather than, uncertainly, thirty years down the line.
In Bhuvaneshvar we also renewed acquaintance with the spectacular early temples in the city – the Parashurameshvara being especially pleasing once more to see – and what a delight to be able to visit and admire a fine puja taking place while we were there. We ended the visit with an hour at the nearby Mukteshvara temple, a shrine whose image appears on the back cover of my very first book for the British Museum, Hindu Art (BM Press, 1992 and reprints). Many memories came flooding back.
Images of two of the Shiva temples in Bhuvaneshvar.
Top left: the Mukteshvara temple, late 10th century
All other images of the Parashurameshvara temple, mid-7th century. Top row (l-r): exterior showing low mandapa with corbelled roof; exterior image of Ganesha, honoured with blossoms and scarlet cloth. Bottom row (l-r): offerings from an elaborate puja; small relief panel of an elephant (exterior) and the main linga in the sanctum, dressed and garlanded for puja.
Photographs © Richard Blurton 2023