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A Visit to Bishnupur

A short trip in the suburbia of Bishnupur in the Bankura district suddenly led my students as well as myself to think afresh about city life, its history and culture; as we constantly and instinctively started comparing it to this site of historical as well as art historical importance. True, the history of Bishnupur out shadows the history of Calcutta not only in respect of time, but also in respect of art – the art of a people who lived some fifteen hundred years ago and yet who claim a far better understanding of the visual art/ culture than any of the city’s artist/architect before the advent of the European colonialists. This ancient city (or at least as it was then) of the malla  (= wrestler) kings, is today known for its terra cotta temples (and more interestingly for the relief plaques on them); its legacy of the ancient weaving art of the Baluchari sarees which evolved straight from the images carved on the plaques of these temples; the ganjifas or the traditional hand painted cards – all of which are a collector’s dream coming true.

The terra cotta panels on these temples are acute observations and recordings of the social, cultural, political and religious practices so true to the Bengali life. However, to the art connoisseur, it is not these somber aspects so much as the artist’s involvement with the local flora and fauna and the life of the common people, seen through the eyes of the simpleton, which seems more appealing and thereby engaging. Spatial treatment on these relief plaques is, of course, devoid of linear perspective and unlike the relief panels at Sanchi, where the subjects in the background are rendered in a tier like arrangement to suggest recession in space, the Bishnupuri panels do not at all hint at such a possibility. They are always flat images; the figures are normally placed facing each other in profiles, standing side by side on the same ground, carved with a two-dimensional orientation with occasional suggestions of profile in three-fourth. And even with such a meager sense of space the artist has often ventured to solve the most crucial and complex situations with an amazing simplicity.

For instance, a woman in labor at a household in one such relief panels at the Madanmohan temple is rendered lying in her bed while another woman fans her to soothe her. Interestingly, the baby in her womb has clearly chiseled out as if the mother has a transparent womb. A nanny looks after the slightly older child, while in such a chaotic situation, a bell hanging down from the ceiling swings to herald the good news. Creating three sequential positions, much after the fashion of animation frames, renders its movement of swinging in the air. Movement, as it seems, is a quintessential feature of these relief panels. Not only the dancing figures, whose braids and sash-ends fling in air as they move about, but also the walking pedestrians, the warriors engaged in a battle feature lively movement. It’s always life gyrating and pulsating in these relief images, notwithstanding their two- dimensional orientation. Foreign influences are not ruled out completely. They also record the arrival of the Portugese; the guns and ammunitions they brought with them and the proud ships in which they arrived. Their costumes, appearing weird in the eyes of the local artists were of course appropriated in the traditional style. Below the animal friezes show how the artist made numerous recordings of these local creatures. The duck panel on one of the walls shows each one in a different gesture – one preening itself; the other poking its head into a ditch, searching for snails – not one seems to repeat/imitate the gesture of the other. One in the buffalo frieze shows a how a delinquent calf leaps before its mother as they return home; another shows a mating couple in their most intimate – all in the simple, often schematized and yet stylized rendition. These works do not bear the strong classical element of the Kandariya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho, but a somewhat poignant and adorable element of the folk art dominates them.

Returning to the city, it felt that our regular conversation with the city has undergone a sea change. It was now like viewing the city with the bird’s eye. The city seemed so unappealing, superfluous and synthetic now. Notwithstanding all its rapes and murders, skyscrapers and shopping malls, multiplexes and page three people  - such multiplicity can make for a time and a people who preceded them some fifteen hundred years ago and who had left their mark in a time that was a completely austere one. And yet they trapped the core of our culture at its roots and preserved it at a place away from all the humdrum of the city, away from the automatons we constantly live with.