REFLECTIONS
High altitude art
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Why are the gatekeepers of art in museums and in other places so disinterested in the treasures there, wonders SHAKTI MAIRA after a visit to Alchi in Ladakh.
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THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
The splendour of Alchi.
HIGH in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, the Indus flows through the brown and largely barren landscape of Ladakh. Mountains of ochre, sienna, amber, umber, madder, maroon, purple and grey just occasionally punctuated by the bright emerald and sap green clusters of fields and trees around the tiny villages only as sparsely as modern free verse is. Here the sky looks much bluer than the regular sky blue — perhaps it's the clear air or the high altitude or the complementary contrast with the browns. Or perhaps it's the colour of air that has been permeated with the mantras from the numerous prayer flags, mani stones, prayer wheels and chanting monks.
It's a land of gompas and monasteries. Some are large and dominating, showing their feudal character, others are smaller — the expression of the collective struggle of a village to have a gompa, a mark of status for the community. And then there is Alchi, a collection of four small temples in a village on the banks of the Indus: a jewel of colours and forms that is so utterly beautiful that the normal state of breathlessness in this high altitude becomes a deep gasp!
Plain outside, rich inside
Though the board on the premises proclaims: "The great translator Rinchen Zangpo visited Ladakh and founded this famous shrine in 1020-1035 AD," little is known about the history of Alchi and its temples. Recent scholarship suggests they were built in the late 12th or early 13th Centuries with the skills of Kashmiri artisans.
The main three-storied temple, Sumtsek, is a modest-sized structure. The walls of loam and natural stones are in the Tibetan building tradition, while the woodwork of the columns, facades and walls is Kashmiri. The outside is plain and gives no hint of the richness inside. One has to stoop low to enter the temple through a narrow door: a movement designed perhaps to instil some humility and reverence in the pilgrim or visitor. Then comes the shock of the vibrancy and intricacy of the interior. The contrast between the plain exterior and the immensely rich interior is like a sharp blow: perhaps an intended device to remind us of the drabness of the outer life and the vibrant richness of the inner life?
Every inch of the walls, beams, columns and ceilings are intricately painted; so dense that initially the eye receives it almost as a pulsating field of vibrantly coloured wildflowers rampant with butterflies. It takes a few minutes to adjust and realise that the entire inside is covered with thousands of figures and symbols — a giant scale collection of miniature paintings, piled with intricate work like some celestial multi-dimensional Kashmiri carpet. The sheer density of colour and brushstrokes are of an artistic labour that is almost too difficult and masterly to comprehend.
Three giant figures dominate each wall. Avalokitesvara, Maitreya and Manjushri: the fields of Compassion, Hope and Wisdom. These figures rise above the first tier into the second, their faces lit with a light that enters from triangular windows at the higher levels — perhaps a metaphor for the light we all seek but that is available only as we progress upwards to higher levels of consciousness in the spiritual journey with the aid of the dharma?
The ground floor level seems to be the temporal realm of life. Here in addition to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, there are musicians and elephants, princes, princesses and patrons, peacock feathers stylistically rendered in an eclectic mix of Tibetan and Kashmiri faces and clothes. This first level is a magnificent and rich mixture of the temporal and sublime, something that always makes me feel good about Indian spirituality. No sharp distinctions between Good and Bad, God and Devil. The temporal and spiritual in a dance together — Nirvana is Samsara.
The lama caretaker
The middle tier is out of bounds to visitors but can be seen through the central opening. It has pairs of large moody mandalas on each wall that loom and seem to spin, exuding a strong energy that creates an extraordinary zone of centeredness, stillness and power. Much as I want to be allowed to go up the log staircase, and I try my best to persuade the lama caretaker who is watching me impatiently, permission is not given and I do find myself respecting the sacredness of that un-enterable space as it reminds me of the difficulties of entering that zone through meditative practice. The architecture is such that this higher level is clearly interpenetrated with the lower level and casts its power down to where I stand making me feel stilled and centred right where I am.
The last level, in the physical centre, is a three-dimensional yantra that disappears into the absolute central point of the temple — receding into eternity. And below it, a simple ancient central stupa, containing an unknown relic. The whole structure is a perfectly balanced and proportioned three-dimensional mandala, well conceived and executed. The glow of this womb-like chamber has soaked itself into me. In this temple I feel still, calmed, and want to stay longer in this artistic environment of form and colour, symbol and metaphor, but that cannot be. The caretaker lama continues to grumble that I am taking too long; haven't I seen enough? He doesn't have all day so I must leave. His attitude in sharing this art treasure was a low to this soaring experience: ungenerous and irritable.
Unable to restrain myself, I try and explain to this caretaker lama that rushing through this space is not what it was designed for, that it is against the very spirit of what was made. This artful temple was purposed to inspire, still and deeply touch the traveller. His haste and predilection to make this a quick-see-out experience is a disservice to the temple, its founders and its artists. Please, I urge him, to be more generous and allow this precious jewel of art to shine its magic for all who make it here.
But he is neither an artist, nor a lama well matured in compassion and wisdom. He doesn't seem to know much about the paintings, or may be he does but is bored with his job. He is most interested in moving me along so he can close the temple and go out to seek the next set of visitors; much more motivated to sell a few more tickets to the straggle of foreign tourists who may come through later. He was also keen to sell me postcards, and was unhappy when I declined.
Why, I wonder, do the gatekeepers of art in museums and places like Alchi so often behave like this: bored and disinterested in the art treasures in their institutions? It would have been nice to have an artist lama at Alchi, someone who could feel the fire of art and creativity in this masterpiece temple. Could the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which seems to have some role in looking after Alchi, make this experience better?
The attitude of the caretaker is non-artistic because for him this pulsating alive art has become an object and not the experience it offers. This is much like what art has become in the art-market — objects to be bought and sold, to be invested in. People are more focused on the object and less, if at all, on the art experience, which cannot be priced nor housed in a secular or religious institution. Yet it's the experience that is the heart of art and creativity.
More than religious art
The art in Alchi moves the spirit, not merely because it is religious art but because it is so stunningly beautiful.
This little temple is a true artistic achievement because it causes a shift in consciousness and evokes those feelings that we commonly call spiritual. Here art was made in the service of a spiritual tradition by highly creative artists who have used the mathematics and symbols of a formalised tradition but have imbued it with their own humanity and experience: there is play, surprise, emotion and delight. Is this, then, what separates religious art from spiritual art?
As I leave, the temple compound has filled with goats and a few cows. The lama gets busy bustling them out. The air fills with their meheaye — the perfectly appropriate music of lament of the artists who made Alchi and whose work cannot be felt as deeply as they may have hoped because of hustling officialdom.
Back in Delhi, I wonder if we could be inspired from Alchi? Could people who buy these new "builder's houses", many with little pooja rooms, commission our dying traditional miniaturists from nearby Rajasthan to fill these spaces with their magical art as was done at Alchi, and bring into contemporary use a beautiful traditional art?
Imagine a Delhi with hundreds of little pooja rooms with every square inch painted— little jewels of sacred space! Places where we could retreat from the grey, drab ugliness of our city landscape and find little baby Alchis.
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