A GLIMPSE OF VEDIC LITERATURE
REPORTS – THE Annual Day of Kalakosa is celebrated on Gurupurnima day. The day is marked not as a ritual, but as a point where the scholars of the division pause and ponder over the academic year gone by and chart out a course of action for the next year. The programme this year began with Vyasa smaran by Dr, Kirti Kant Sharma and Dr. Sangmitra Basu. They rendered individually a collection of verses, drawn from various texts, glorifying the great sage Vyasa. This was followed by Veda Path. Sanskrit scholars recited the 40th chapter of Shukla Yajurveda, (Madhyandin recension). This chapter of 18 verses is better known as Isavasyopanished.
“Vandamahe Gurucharanaravinda….” a beautiful invocation of the Teacher was rendered in a melodious voice by Smt. Uma Garg. Smt. Garg, a disciple of renowned musician Smt. Sumati Mutatkar is reader in the Dept. of Music in Delhi University. She sang the Guruvandana a second time as special tribute to her guru, Smt. Sumati Mutatkar, who was present at the hall. Member Secretary Prof. N.R. Shetty presented the elderly artist with a moment and sought her blessings. (Photo inside front cover).
The Chief Guest at the function was Shri Sampat Narayan, a very senior and respected scholar and colleague, acknowledged as an authority on temple rituals. Dr. N.D. Sharma, the acting head of Kalakosa division welcomed the gathering. He outlined the importance of the day. The reports of the work at Kalakosa in the preceding year were presented by Dr. Advaitavadini Kaul, Dr. Vijay Shankar Shukla, Dr. Lalit Mohan Gujral and Dr. Bachchan Kumar. Publication is the forte of Kalakosa. Kalattvakosh, Kalamoolshastra, Kalasamalochana and Area Studies are broadly the classifications under which books are published. Kalatattvakosh is a long-term project of publishing the lexicon of fundamental terms. Some 300 fundamental terms have been identified which find repeated reference in various texts. In all 250 texts from various disciplines have been selected for the purpose. In this series, four volumes had already been published and fifth, complementary to the previous one, is in the final stages of preparation.
Kalamoolshastra is a project to publish fundamental texts. This is also a long-term programme. In its first phase, a ‘garland’ of 108 texts will be published. Till now, 20 manuscripts have been brought out in 30 volumes. Some 15 volumes are in final stages of preparation and 20 more have been assigned to various scholars. Dr. Advaitavadini Kaul is in charge of these two series.
Kalasamolachana, a series that publishes the writings of great masters in the area of arts and culture has 35 publication to its credit. Last year alone, 11 titles were published under this series. Dr. L.M. Gujral is in charge of this series.
In the Area Studies, IGNCA organized an international seminar on ‘Documentation of Central Asian Antiquities’ in April 2000. Yet another seminar on ‘Art and Religion of Xinjiang’ was hosted by IGNCA and the Hong Kong University in December 2000. This seminar was held in two parts, the first two days in Hong Kong and the Next tow days in India (IGNCA). Dr. Radha Banjerjee was the coordinator for both the seminars. In the wake of the demolition of Bamiyan Buddha, the unit organized a one-day seminar in collaboration with the Museum Association of India, National Museum. Glimpses of Early Indo-Indonesian Culture: Collected papers of H.B. Sarkar and Edited by Dr. Bachchan Kumar was published by this division. Dr. Kumar also contributed articles to Journals and participated in the 17th International Ramayana Conference.
Dr. Madhavan K. Palat, Hony. Consultant, Area Studies visited Moscow between May and July, 2000 and discussed collaboration for documentation of material available at Oriental Centre of the Russian State Library, Moscow (ONION). Already, the archival material identified by Prof. Palat from the Uzbekistan Archives are being digitized at IGNCA and the work is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The Conference proceedings volume Social Identities in Revolutionary Russia, Edited by Prof. Palat has been published by Palgrave (Macmillan) Publishers, UK and IGNCA.
After the presentation of reports, a scholar in the divisions. Dr. Sushma Jadoo guided as through ‘Kalakosa: a Journey. This was followed by an address by Dr. Sampat Narayan, in Sanskrit. Prof. N.R. Shetty in his address urged all the scholars, especially in Kalakosa to devote more energy and take up new manuscripts for studies. He said IGNCA had a huge and precious collection of manuscripts but they are little used. Pandit Vidya Prasad Mishra in his inimitable style, spluttered with poetry presented the vote of thanks. The programme was compared by Dr. Sudhir Lall.
AT THE VARANASI OFFICE
The Kalakosa office in Varanasi celebrated the day with a lecture on ‘dhvani-sahitya ka parama tattva’ by Prof. Bishwanath Bhattacharya. At the start of the programme, Dr. Urmila Sharma renderedmangalacarana Prof. R.C. Sharma gave the welcome address and also presented a brief report of the work done in the last one year.
Prof. Bhattacharya, in his interesting lecture sought to establish the view of Anandavardhan that, dhvani (suggestion) is the soul of poetry. He supported his point by presenting the view of various aesthetes like Dandin, Bhamaha, etc., on the soul of poetry. Pt. H.N. Chakravarty, Former Chief Pandit of this office, delivered a brief speech on the importance of guru.
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