Ideals of the Past

THE LONG-RUNNING exhibition Ancient Sculp­tures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome at Chhatra­pati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) is a popular draw with Mumbaikars. During a recent weekend morning visit, I found the muse­um bustling with excitement as school children eagerly queued up to catch a glimpse of rare historical treasures on display for the first time in Mumbai. In these digitally savvy times, Indian museums have been making a concerted effort to shed their fuddy-duddy image, and the sight of inquisitive young minds evincing an active interest in discovering the cultural history of the world should gladden any curator. And so it is with Joyoti Roy and Nilanjana Som, two of the five all-women curators of Ancient Sculptures who lead me on a walkthrough while monitoring volunteers, teachers and children who appear to be having a picnic at the museum. “The exhibition is for everyone, but aimed particularly at school and university students and also at univer­sity professors who are being encouraged to bring their students here and engage with the gallery as if it were an extended class­room,” Joyoti Roy explains. The show, as its title suggests, delves into the heritage of five different ancient cultures and serves as a reminder that the world has always depended on the kindness of strangers and on the interdependent and interconnected kinship between societies far and near and across time and age. Clearly ‘globalisation’ is not ‘new’, rather it has been a project in progress for centuries, ploughing its way through history.

An epic undertaking that has taken nearly four years to realise due to transcontinental negotiations, in-depth research and logistical challenges, Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome is enriched by borrowings from CSMVS’ Indian and international partners such as the J Paul Getty Museum, British Museum and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Across continents and millennia, human cultures have sought to capture the essence of the divine form through art and creative expression. In turn, the holy pursuit of setting “the angel free from the marble,” as the master Italian sculptor Michelangelo put it, has profoundly shaped our understanding of beauty and grace. Ancient Sculptures offers a fascinating study of connec­tions and contrasts between the popular stories, myths and legends that grew out of the ancient Indian, Mediterranean and West Asian regions. By summoning gods and goddesses from far-off lands and engaging them in a meaningful dialogue with each other, complementary narratives emerge that deepen India’s common links with other cultures. “All these sculptures are sacred objects because that is where the ancient world often invested its spirit, time and resource. The sacred form is essentially where many of the early standards of sculptural art were established,” says Roy, adding that as trading ties flour­ished between these countries it led to an exchange of not only commodities but also knowledge and ideas.

Hindus believe in the holy trinity of Lord Brahma as the creator, Vishnu as the preserver and Shiva as the destroyer. It is said that when the demon Hiranyaksha abducted the earth goddess Bhu-devi and hid her at the bottom of the cosmic ocean, Vishnu appeared in the form of a ‘Varaha’ or the wild boar to res­cue her. Varaha is the third of Vishnu’s ten avatars and a sculpture titled Yajna Varaha (900-1099 CE), which occupies a pride of place at the CSMVS exhibition, brings to life this majestic tale. The buff sandstone object, dating back to the 10th century, was discovered in a riverbed of a remote village called Sunari in the Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh. In an article published in the Hindu in 2022, mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik argues that the boar who rescues the earth “made his first appearance in a late Vedic work, the Shatapatha Brahamana, dated to 700 BCE.” The idea of Vishnu’s incarnations gained popularity during the Gupta period (4th–6th centuries CE), although the earli­est zoomorphic depictions of the god date to the 5th century. “Here,” says Nilanjana Som, “Varaha is presented as a colossal an­imal figure. His body is adorned with over 350 images of saints, sages and even gods who are witnessing this event. You can see Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh on the forehead. At the same time, Saraswati is depicted on his snout and Bhu-devi herself can be seen holding onto the right tusk of Varaha after being rescued.”

As demonstrated in Ancient Sculptures, zoomorphism, the practice of portraying gods with animal characteristics, was prevalent in ancient Egypt as well. The Egyptian goddess Sekhmet (literally, the ‘powerful one’) is often portrayed as a lion-headed force of nature who can both protect humans when appeased and kill them when provoked. The sun disc on her head is supposed to indicate that she was born out of the sun deity Ra’s eye. Elsewhere, some myths suggest that she’s the daughter of Ra. Loaned by the British Museum, the 3,000-year-old Sekhmet at CSMVS was a part of King Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple in Thebes, Egypt and was later moved across the Nile to the temple of Mut in Karnak. Indian divinity abounds with zoomorphic hybrids like the part-lion and part-human incarnation of Vishnu called Narasimha, and then the familiar Ganesha and Hanuman.

Another aspect that inextricably binds Indian and Egyptian cultures is their reverence for nature. The Ganga and the Nile have been more than just rivers throughout history. They have served as the cradle of civilisations, providing physical as well as spiritual nourishment to their inhabitants. Standing beside the sculpture of Hapy—the god of the annual flooding of the Nile—one can’t help but admire its story as it unfolds before us. With its wig, beard and hieroglyphs, this is a “very typical Egyptian sculpture,” insists Nilanjana Som. “For ancient Egyptians, Hapy symbolised the promise of a nev­er-ending supply of abundance and prosperity for its people brought by the annual flooding of the Nile, as the river was the primary source of water for Egypt. In this sculpture, Hapy carries offerings which are the fruits of his fertile soil such as lotuses, grapes, pomegranates, and geese to the main deity of the temple Amun-Ra, the king of gods. His belly signifies abundance, much like our very own Lord Ganesha,” she says. Art from the land of Queen Nefertiti is eas­ier to recognise since Egyptian artisans frequently opted for materials like gran­ite and granodiorite due to their solid consistency and stability. “Egyptians believed in the afterlife, therefore they used durable materials, and often static postures. By contrast, the Roman and Greek arts focussed mostly on what one might call ‘frozen motion’. Marbles and bronzes were popular choices for these artists,” explains Joyoti Roy.

The Hellenistic deities have long been celebrated for their muscular propor­tions, grace and heroism. Their idealised perfection has set a high standard for beauty all around the world, making them the very archetype of it. A phrase that perhaps aptly captures this phenomenon is, ‘Greek god.’ The male Greek deities on display at the CSMVS rotunda, includ­ing Dionysus, Apollo, Triton and Zeus, exude elegance. (Bacchus for Romans) is represented through two finely chiselled models borrowed from the Olympian collections of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the British Museum. “It is important to understand that for the ancient Greeks, a perfect athletic body was also an indication of a superior mind, hence they chose their divine to possess such attributes,” Roy shares, adding, “In antiquity, it was a common sight to see men work­ing out together and keeping themselves fit at gymnasiums, as well as showcasing their athletic abilities in competitions such as the Olympics. Men were also frequently warriors, as warfare was a crucial facet of early Greek life and they needed to be ready to join combat at any moment.” One sculpture of , the Greek god of intoxication, shows him holding a cluster of grapes. Both Apollo and , sons of Zeus, symbolise life’s duali­ties. , who was said to have been reborn from the thighs of his father Zeus, inspired a cult-like following among women and his presence, says Joyoti Roy, is “often depicted with frenzied men engaged in singing and dancing.” But his story also serves as a cau­tionary tale against the dangers of excess, debauchery and lack of order and his imagery was used to demonstrate this moral lesson to civilised Greek society. Some accounts allude that might have originally hailed from India.

Like Apollo and , Aphrodite (Venus in Roman) is commonly depicted in the nude as well, a trend that took root only after the great Athenian sculptor Praxiteles created the first naked version of the Greek goddess of love and passion back in the 4th century. “Nakedness shows her paradigmatic beauty,” Andreas Scholl, director of the collection of classical antiqui­ties at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, says in an accompanying video playing at the exhibition. Scholl further explains that it was the people of Kos who initially commissioned Praxiteles to conjure up Aphrodite’s image but they were scandalised by the sight of the naked goddesses. She was subsequently bought by the city of Knidos. “That was a very good idea,” Scholl admits. “Because when she was shown in a round tem­ple where you could watch her from all sides she soon became a massive tourist attraction.”

You won’t know by looking closely at these exceptional Greek and Roman sculptures that they would have been painted in bright colours in their heyday but as archaeological research is starting to uncover, the pigments might have lost their vibrancy over time. To an Indian eye, one major distinction between the Indian and Greek/Roman divinity is that while Indian gods and goddesses appear to have a direct interaction with their devotees (implying a friendship of sorts), the Greek/Roman deities are always on a pedestal, facing away from the viewers. “In India,” Nilanjana Som explains, “darshan or the divine gaze upon the devotee is important. In Mediterranean cultures, the temple was the house of the god. The actual act of devotion happened at the altar, outside. Devotees would get a glimpse of the gods, who are otherworldly beings, from a distance.”

Given the show’s success, CSMVS is in the process of de­veloping more exhibits that will trace ancient India’s cultural interaction with the rest of the world. For now, these fine sculp­tures reveal how various cultures created religious art in their own unique ways and how the sacred form might have served as the wellspring for the earliest flushes of human expression.

(Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome is on display at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, till October 1)

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Shaikh Ayaz

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