Sunday, April 20, 2003		'Art and Soul

North-eastern lights
B. N. Goswamy

ONE sees very little of the art of the north-eastern region of our land, at least in these parts. An occasional glimmer is all that one might catch, even in our museums: a brooding sculpture of a standing man, a warm and rich textile, a stray but intricate carving of the ‘tribal’ kind. But of texts, especially illustrated manuscripts, remarkably little comes to notice.

And yet there are reminders, from time to time, of the riches that lie, virtually hidden, in that corner. A wonderful group of paintings on hastividya– a manual on the rearing, training, and medical treatment of elephants – showed up some years ago; some leaves from a Bhagavata Purana manuscript, of truly dazzling quality, were published a long time back. Quite recently, however, I came upon two sizeable publications, both devoted to illustrated manuscripts, and both authored by Dr R.D. Choudhury in collaboration with another scholar. One of them draws attention to a group of illustrated manuscripts in the Assam State Museum, Guwahati, and the other to those in the Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti, also in the same town. Rich, saturated colours spread out and stretch in front of the eyes as one leafs through these manuscripts; a whole world of thought opens up. As I said, there are nuggets that lie hidden everywhere, and these two publications draw one’s grateful attention to some of them.

In some ways, the themes that these illustrated manuscripts dwell on are predictable. A few deal with jyotisha, smriti, sangita and like subjects, but most of them are Vaishnava in content. And this is predictable because over the whole of Assam, and contiguous areas, a most remarkable figure looms: that of the great Sankaradeva (1449-1569)- devotee, saint, poet, composer, reformer, leader of men – who established Vaishnava worship firmly in an area previously dominated by Shakta cults. It is a household name that one speaks of here, but hardly anyone refers to him without his epithets: "Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankaradeva" is how he is called, as much to distinguish him from the great Adi Shankaracharya of the South, who lived several centuries before him, as to affirm his truly elevated status. Bhakti, personal devotion to a chosen ishta or deity, was the movement that Sankaradeva was in so many ways part of – in his case, devotion centred upon Vishnu-Krishna – but he brought a very distinctive local flavour or slant to it. Shelves of books have been written upon him and his contribution to the culture of Assam, but one has just to look around oneself to see, everywhere in Assam, the imprint he left upon minds. And upon institutions, two of which he founded: satras and namghars, both monastic establishments. Always a centre of Vaishnava devotion, the satra, peculiar to those parts, is well-defined as "that supreme place adorned by gods and Vaishnavas where ardent devotees perform duties pleasing to God, and where nine-fold bhakti prevails"; further, "Vaishnavas who reside in them are naturally prone to Harinama."

Does not all this sound wonderfully familiar, especially to those of us in the Punjab?