Khajuravahataka

Reading

His Excellency Shri Pranab Mukherjee, in his Republic Day address to the Nation, extolled the culture of reading; reading to expand one's mind, and creativity; a quest of learning from the rich heritage the Nation has to offer.

The President often includes quotations from the classical texts in his addresses.

The City of Date Palms

Khajuravahataka holds out a mysterious enigma of silence. Almost nothing is known about the intellectual exchange that attracted Faiths with their scholars and ascetics, to this early mediæval city, and bequeathed such a portrayal of corporeal effervescence.

My Sketch

I executed a quick sketch in terracotta air-drying modelling clay, shown in my photograph, for this is one of the best ways of studying the idiom of the stone carvings, in the hope of coming closer to the hermeneutic of these artists and the cultural climate of their day.

A Bather's Sari

Those who know the rich text of Monsieur Loius FRÉDÉRIC and Shri Ragu Rai, will at once recall the image of the bather, freshly emerged from the nulla in which she has bathed with her gold-violet sari, the wet fabric clinging mysteriously, crinkling and defining a fascinating physique, an ephemeral vision soon to be dissipated by the sun which dries the veils in a few minutes.. as Monsieur Loius FRÉDÉRIC describes poetically, an evanescence imitating the mysterious fading away of the intellectual foment of The City of Date Palms.

A UNESCO Heritage Site

The City of Date Palms, in its modern name Khajuraho, stands as a world heritage site, the patrimony of its intellectual and artistic flourishing belong to all, but, importantly, what does it mean to give the cultural and natural heritage a function in the life of the community.. according to the UNESCO Convention of 1972?

Le Ramayan de Tulsi-Das

Madamme Charlotte VAUDEVILLE in the 1977 UNESCO Series on India translated and introduced the version of the Ramayana by Tulsi-Das, and a lovely line from The Hospitality of the People of the Forest (II. 249-251) is rendered

Les gens de bien acceptent les dons faits avec amour!

How did the hospitality of the forest communities stimulate scholars, travellers, ascetics, artisans, scribes, and whoever else, to give us the wonders of Khajuravahataka?

The Hymn of Vespers

Two evenings ago, when I was studying this subject and making my notes, the office hymn of vespers was

Plasmator hominus, Deus..

LHIII:699

My grateful acknowledgement to

The President of India's Notices

Khajuraho

Monsieur Loius FRÉDÉRIC Shri Ragu Rai

Éditions Didier 1991,

Laurence King Publishing 1992

UNESCO Convention 1972

Le Ramayan de Tulsi Das

Madame Charlotte VAUDEVILLE

Paris Société d'Éditions Les Belles Lettres

Collection UNESCO D'Œuvres Représentatives Série Indienne 1977

Liturgia Horarum Vol. III