UPSC GS1 History Art Culture

2022-01-14 07:34:02 Borobudur Stupa

Borobudur, begun around 800, is the quite simply the largest Buddhist monument in the world and one of the great cultural achievements of humanity. It is a stepped pyramid built from more than one and a half million blocks of stone and decorated with around 500 statues of Lord Buddha. These are arranged in terraces of decreasing size, as if on the sacred slopes of Mount Meru.

It was built, possibly by the Sangramadha Nanjaya Sailendra dynasty of Mataram, Central Java, or maybe "charismatic religious leaders rather than kings." For surprisingly there is no great palace complex associated with it. The only inscription associated with Borobudur dates from 842 and is from a woman who gave land to sustain it. For all the mystery, this is the climax of the ninth century golden age of Java, when so many remarkable monuments were built here, both Hindu and Buddhist, taking Indic ideas brought here by the great maritime trading networks of the day and creating dramatic new forms with them. This was possible thanks to the massive trading profits that the merchants and spice traders of Java were making from international trade.

Shaped in the form of a mandala, and topped with a Gandhara-style stupa, the step pyramid of Borobodur seeks to represent some Indic cosmological theory and seems intended to represent in stone a Mahayana Buddhist view of the universe. This is possibly the Three Realms of Mahayana Buddhism; or the Six (or Ten) Perfections. Either way, the sculpted illustrations of texts have been arranged in a carefully designed sequence, gradually leading to a meticulously orchestrated religious climax, with each higher level of the monument leading to a higher level of consciousness, so as you climb you make a spiritual journey, transporting yourself from this world to a higher plane of being.


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2022-01-14 07:34:02 Kanishka Casket and the Gandhara Art

In 1908, during the excavations at the Shah-ji-ki-Dheri mound in Peshawar, archaeologist DB Spooner found a small gilded bronze casket with a tightly fitted lid, sitting on a coin issued during the reign of the Kushana Emperor Kanishka. This was deceptively simple for something that once held the relics of the Buddha.

On the lid of the casket were etchings of the Buddha surrounded by the Vedic deities Indra and Brahma. On the edge of the lid, a frieze of geese in flight, a very Greek motif. The casket as a whole displays many features of Greek art that are typical also of Gandhara art, and the Gandhara region where it was found.

#Buddhism
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2022-01-14 07:33:02 Unique Sculpture of 4 deer with 1 head, Ajanta, Cave 1

In Buddhism, the deer symbolizes peace, serenity & harmony. Buddha gave his first sermon at Deer Park, Sarnath. The Buddhist ideal of ahimsa teaches compassion for all living beings.

Source: ASI, GoI

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2022-01-12 12:32:30 https://t.me/+aGDo4onZqSkxMDNl Open / Comment

2022-01-12 11:45:03 Portrait of the Elephant Alam Guman, c.1640
Artist: Bichitr

Opaque watercolor and gold on paper.

Persian inscription (possibly in Shah Jahan's hand): "Likeness of 'Alam Guman Gajraj [the arrogant one of the earth, king of elephants] whose value is one lakh"

Along with seventeen other elephants from Mewar, this famous tusker was presented to the Mughal emperor Jahangir during the New Year celebrations.

The portrait conveys the monumentality of the animal both in the contrasting size of its rider and in the sober coloring of its dark body.

Bichitr is best known for his portraits of human royals dating to the 1630s, but he also captured animal likenesses on paper.

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2022-01-11 18:55:05 Rani Avantibai Lodhi (died 1858) was an Indian freedom fighter and the queen of Ramgarh (present-day Dindori) in Madhya Pradesh.

An opponent of the British East India Company during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, information concerning her is sparse and mostly comes from folklore.

In 21st century, she has been used as an icon in Lodhi politics, she comes from the Lodhi Rajput Community.

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2022-01-11 11:34:01 Chaturbhuja Temple, Gwalior

The rock cut Chaturbhuja temple inside the Gwalior fort holds India's earliest known epigraphical evidence of zero inscribed on stone.

Dated 876 CE, it was built during the reign of Raja Mihira Bhoja Deva.

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2022-01-10 18:54:01 Jhalkaribai (1830–1858) was a woman soldier who played an important role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

She served in the women's army of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. She eventually rose to a position of a prominent advisor to the queen, Rani of Jhansi.

At the height of the Siege of Jhansi, she disguised herself as the queen and fought on her behalf, on the front, allowing the queen to escape safely out of the fort.

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2022-01-10 11:54:01 Kittur Chennamma (1778 –1829) was the Rani of Kittur, a princely state in Karnataka.

She led an armed rebellion against the British East India Company in 1824 in defiance of the doctrine of lapse in an attempt to maintain Indian control over the region, in which she defeated them, but she died in the imprisonment of second rebellion by the British East India Company.

One of the first female rulers to rebel against British rule, she became a folk hero in Karnataka and symbol of the independence movement in India.

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2022-01-09 18:53:01 Begum Hazrat Mahal (1820-1879), also known as the Begum of Awadh, was the second wife of Nawab of Awadh Wajid Ali Shah, and the regent of Awadh in 1857–1858.

She is known for the leading role she had in the rebellion against the British East India Company during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

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