Traditional knowledge systems of India are profound, deep rooted and insightful. They have benefited humanity – everyone – without any discrimination and have the resilience to fit into every need, situations, compulsions, and obligations. These traditions have been carried through generations traveling from days to years to decades and to centuries and millennia in varied forms like oral traditions, skills, competencies, stories and legends then to the realm of refined socio-cultural expressions like architecture, languages, folklores, rituals, performing arts like dance and music, mythologies, visual arts, and lifestyles. This further pans into the scientific knowledge, including medicines, astronomy, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy. Spiritualism including yoga and pranayama are the dimensions adding to the subtle layers leading to the evolution of beliefs and practices like Jainism and Buddhism. All this wonderful kaleidoscopic system of rich traditions gives us enormous amounts of wealth both to conserve and to display.
When it comes to showcasing, the responsibility falls on the museums. This responsibility is three-fold. First to select carefully curated representative pieces from the vast resources, second to display them with optimal utilization of available resources and matching with the taste of the audience and third to conserve them for the posterity. Curating, displaying, and conserving, are the three pillars on which the museums must thus play their role to carry forward the traditional knowledge of India. Added to this is the omnibus social responsibility of imparting education to the viewers – imparting knowledge, which is truthful, candid, and supported with the facts. One of the key symptoms of true knowledge is – it is self-disseminating. This completes the cycle of mutual support and sustenance when every visitor becomes a co-sharer of this continuum.
In this backdrop, the domestic spaces are the beholders of traditional knowledge. At the same time, domestic spaces are also feeders and act as the precursors for the objects and are interlaced with traditional knowledge before they get showcased in museums. These feeder domestic spaces at all levels – be it of the tribals, or of commoners, or of the royal houses – have provided a constant stream of traditional art forms which museums have lapped across the globe. I recall the interaction of Shri Sudarshan Sahu with the Hon’ble President, Draupadi Murmu. During a banquet where he was invited, he presented two engraved kansa bowls – kundi design kansa bela for dining pakhala and one small tatia meant for taking sajana saga or the green salad. Both these bowls are engraved chitrakala of saura tribe, palli scene of a typical tribal village, Paridhi procession of King engraved at village Kantilo. Hon’ble President appreciated the collection and the conservation of these exquisite metalcraft from the heritage collection of Mr. Sahu in his personal museum at Bhuvaneshwar. What I am trying to emphasize is the journey of the immaculate metal crafted vessel for daily use from a tribal village to a personal collection in an urban heritage museum and from there to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, thus becoming an integral part of the national heritage collection as every gift to Hon’ble President gets recorded, enlisted in toshakhana and becomes a national wealth.
Thus, where else can one find a comprehensive conglomeration of curated, preserved, displayed, and consistently conserved rich hereditary collection of objects and knowledge traditions than the domestic spaces. This passionately accumulated tangible and intangible wealth of parampara, of inheritance and of paramparagat knowledge not only gives us a feeling of our belongingness to the magnificent culture, but also a proud owner of it. Parampara, as we know, is compounded by using two words or expressions – param and para. It is the best handed over successively by each preceding generation to the next generation. From this ecosystem emanates the concept of museum.
Heritage, as we all know, has been grouped into three broad categories: tangible, intangible, and natural. Domestic spaces, houses, quotidian or everyday life and vernacular are important segments where heritage studies have failed to pay sufficient attention to. Domestic spaces have been viewed by many conservationists as something personal and private and sometimes also dull, uneventful, uninteresting, and parochial. But when viewed as interlaced evolving historical and cultural forms, and an embodiment of emotional reservoir holding enormous social complexities, these domestic spaces acquire deeper meaningful horizons of study for the conservationists also. From handcrafted artifacts to textiles, paintings, jewelry, furniture, decoration pieces, chandeliers, puja samagri, votive figures, utensils, musical instruments, many personal belongings, like diaries, family-albums, stamps and first day cover collections, the list is endless. In Indian joint family traditions, every family has variety of objects which can easily qualify the definition of domestic heritage. This heritage has been conserved and maintained within domestic spaces without any formal scientific application, and therefore, is also a rich source of knowledge regarding the techniques of conservation. Perhaps most of us would have seen our mothers and grandmothers keeping their benarasi zari silk sarees free from the moths and cracking at the crease for generations by just turning the folds regularly and keeping some leaves and spices in between.
Besides the tangible objects, the unexplored areas of intangible heritage and related traditional knowledge that resides in the domestic domain are folklores, gastronomical traditions, home remedies, musical compositions and recordings, children’s stories, family, or community specific linguistic expressions, and above all the oral history. The basic rationale behind preservation of any heritage and particularly cultural heritage is to accord it a due recognition as being an achievement and its usefulness for posterity. It influences and is influenced by the currents of innovations, adaptations, aesthetic and spiritual beliefs, traditions, customs, and practices by the successive generations.
Home is a depository of the material past and with its own spaces and layers. It is reflected in the double meaning of the German word heimlich, meaning homely representing both, something visible and something out of sight. As the elements of domestic heritage are interlaced with the local, community, national and global heritage and keep interacting, changing, and evolving with the stream of time. Interpreting the continuum of a single element, be it artifact or tradition, can reveal the layers of history, social paradigm and culture of the society and the role played by every individual within which it is situated. Thus, it offers a wonderful opportunity to historians and conservationists alike to harness the unexplored terrains of commoners’ contribution with ease and finesse.
Academic Advisor, BL Institute of Indology and former Director, ICCR