New Book:
The Flame and the Lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian Art from the Kronos Collections
By Martin Lerner
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art - 1984
Read Book Online:
http://bit.ly/WXm4g8
Download pdf Book:
http://bit.ly/YbXHwf
The webpage is not available!
Interesting to note how many of the kronos collectibles, originate from eastern UP's doab area between Mathura & Meerut/Hastinapur area. Note the harpoons & anthomorphic figures ( symbol of INTACH) circa 800BC to 1500BC, in the kronos collection - so many of these & so many terracotta statues ( 500 BC to 400 AD) period still surface everyday from the agricultural fields here. Over the past 48 hours I've been driving in this area , stopping at towns like Budaun, Etah, Aonla, Kasganj etc etc. - Villagers around these towns have offered me one anthomorphic figure (hey INTACH - wakeup - buy this one for a few thousand rupees !!) , several harpoons, hundreds of kushan & panchala seals & coins with clear brahmi inscriptions , an antenna sword (iron age/mahabharata period), dozens of terracottas including broken buddha busts, vast range of ancient beads & near complete necklaces. Everything thats not in gold & silver, seems to be easily available. I dont think the sarkar & ASI etc can control this vast area. When will we wake up to create a citizen's heritage awareness & participation model. Except Kannauj ( which has a small private museum) , none of these ancient doab area cities have any museums. ASI has an office in Agra only. The villagers themselves would happily donate to local museums in-exchange for recognition/small rewards, if there was such an opportunity. For now, most of this stuff seems headed out/smuggled out westwards into kronos & other collections .... If anyone has suggestions on how to reverse this trend, do say ..
Thank you Ratnesh Mathur. This is a real eye-opener!!