The Government Research Fellowship Lectures for 2013-2014 were presented by Dr Jyotsna Tanna.

The series of three lectures covered a variety of subjects relating to the Mahabharata.

Professor Girish B Jani,  Additional Director, Post-Graduate and Research Department, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,  Bombay, presided over this lecture.

Dr. (Mrs.) Jyotsna Tanna writes about Politics in the Mahabharata:

 “The great Epic tells the story of the great war, but it is also a science of polity.  Down through the centuries, the Epic has survived.  Since the early part of our civilization, many political ideas existed and were still in the process of development, when the Mahabharata came in to existence.

“Here is an humble attempt to trace the political elements (also known as Arthashastra) in the Epic.  Contrary to modern  belief, the Science of Polity was fairly developed as we find in the Mahabharata.  “Here all the seven parts of the body politic are discussed in brief.  The seven elements known as Anga or Prakritis, are – King, Amatya, Kosa, Danda, Pura, Janapade and Mitra.  The republican states that existed in that age also dealt here.  Each element is briefly discussed, the king being the most important and pivot, is discussed in details.” 

  The Government Research Fellowship Lectures for 2013-2014 were presented by Dr Jyotsna Tanna. 

The series of three lectures focused on different themes in the Mahabharata.

 Mr Muncherji N M Cama, President, The K R Cama Oriental Institute presided over this lecture.

Dr. (Mrs.) Jyotsna Tanna writes about Dharma in the Mahabharata:

“The great Epic tells the story of the great war, but it is also a science of polity.  Down through the centuries, the Epic has survived.  Since the early part of our civilization, many political ideas existed and were still in the process of development, when the Mahabharata came in to existence.

“Here is an humble attempt to trace the political elements (also known as Arthashastra) in the Epic.  Contrary to modern  belief, the Science of Polity was fairly developed as we find in the Mahabharata.  Here all the seven parts of the body politic are discussed in brief.  The seven elements known as Anga or Prakritis, are – King, Amatya, Kosa, Danda, Pura, Janapade and Mitra.  The republican states that existed in that age also dealt here.  Each element is briefly discussed, the king being the most important and pivot, is discussed in details.” 

 The Government Research Fellowship Lectures for 2013-2014 were presented by Dr Jyotsna Tanna.

The series of three lectures encompassed different themes from the Mahabharata. 

Dr Usha Thakkar, Honorary Director,Institute of Research on Gandhian Thoughtand Rural Development & Honorary Secretary, Mani Bhavan,  Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, presided.

Dr. (Mrs.) Jyotsna Tanna writes on the subject:

“A study of any society is not complete without understanding position of women in that society.  I propose to discuss  the position of the woman during the Epic age this evening.  The position of daughter, women in social atmosphere, Special position of a mother in general,  marriage,  Niyoga, polyandry and their general position is discussed.

“Along with this discussion, a few women characters from the Epic are discussed here.  They are Draupadi, Kunta, Gandhari.  They are directly connected with the main story of the Epic other outstanding women like Sulabha and Vidura, though not the part of the main story are discussed here.”

 Neeta Premchand was educated in India. Her degrees were in German and French, but History was the subject that fascinated her.

She learnt to make paper in Japan and acquired a respect for paper and for papermakers. She has travelled extensively, mainly on the paper trail... including an amazing trip overland across the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the footsteps of Fa  Hien and Kumarajiva.

An important project she was involved with was the building of Paper Tube houses in Kutch with a Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban, after the earthquake.

She presently conducts workshops for children, teaching papermaking and creating a greater awareness of how much pleasure one can get from a simple sheet of paper..

She has written a book 'Off the deckle edge, a papermaking journey in India' as also some children’s books which were published by the Rietberg Museum in Zurich.

Neeta took over a mill in Aurangabad which made paper for the court of the Emperor Jehangir and her objective is to gain respect and appreciation for a 500 year old tradition.Neeta Premchand was educated in India. Her degrees were in German and French, but History was the subject that fascinated her.

She learnt to make paper in Japan and acquired a respect for paper and for papermakers. She has travelled extensively, mainly on the paper trail... including an amazing trip overland across the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the footsteps of Fa  Hien and Kumarajiva.

An important project she was involved with was the building of Paper Tube houses in Kutch with a Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban, after the earthquake.

She presently conducts workshops for children, teaching papermaking and creating a greater awareness of how much pleasure one can get from a simple sheet of paper..

She has written a book 'Off the deckle edge, a papermaking journey in India' as also some children’s books which were published by the Rietberg Museum in Zurich.

Neeta took over a mill in Aurangabad which made paper for the court of the Emperor Jehangir and her objective is to gain respect and appreciation for a 500 year old tradition.

 The Gulestan and Rustom Billimoria Memorial Lecture for 2013 was delivered by Mr Vikas Dilawari, renowned Conservation Architect.

Mr Vikas Dilawari is a practicing conservation architect with more than two decades of experience exclusively in conservation field, ranging from urban to architecture. 
He is presently the Head of Department of Conservation Dept at KRVIA Mumbai. 
He was instrumental, with INTACH’s Mumbai chapter, in obtaining a listing for the Victoria Terminus railway station (now renamed the CST Station) as a World Heritage Site in 2004. 
The restoration of the Dr Bhau Daji lad Museum in Mumbai was undertaken under his guidance and supervision and was awarded the UNESCO Asia Pacific Award of Excellence in 2005. Very recently his work on the restoration of Sethna, Patel, Gamadia and Dadyseth patel off Wadia street in Tardeo won him  the UNESCO ASIA PACIFIC award of Distinction in 2012 
He has successfully executed several conservation projects in last two decades ranging from singular monuments to the residential grain mostly around Mumbai.

CONSERVATION OF THE CITY’S UNPROTECTED HERITAGE

Mr Vikas Dilawari writes:

 “In the UK it is said that a new museum comes up every week whereas in Mumbai, it is seen that a heritage building is demolished every week. It is this clash between Conservation and Development that we see occurring in the entire South-Asian sub-continental region, and that we are trying to grapple with. While trying to find a balance between conservation and development, our leaders (politicians and the government) look towards the East e.g. to Shanghai (China) for development models, whereas, at the other end of the spectrum, the miniscule conservation lobby looks towards the West (Europe). While finding a way forward, we should actually be looking around us for solutions that are rooted in our context.

“Interestingly research on ‘Bombay’ reveals that the city faced similar civic problems that we struggle with today; however, the earlier solutions were pragmatic and as a result yesterday’s architecture is still present as today’s heritage. Attempts were made, with political will to make the city more live-able, to improve conditions along with proper infrastructural investments.  Good enforcement and monitoring, formation of a strong and enlightened municipality, the Rampart Removal Committee, the City Improvement Trust, and allocation of Special Funds for new Public Buildings being commissioned made Bombay at par with other World cities and also was the reason for Bombay being described as “one of the finest cities East of the Suez” in 19^th Cent.   

“However, in the last two decades the city has witnessed a lot of changes viz- a-viz re-development of buildings, which is altering the city’s character and skyline. On one hand Mumbai is the first city in the country to have heritage regulations integrated in its Development Control Rules in 1995; at same time a lot of the unprotected heritage which is also referred to the “grain” of the city is being eroded at an alarming rate.   

“The last few years of my practice has involved working on ordinary housing projects that form the social fabric of the city. These structures now face demolition threats as many of these look unimpressive as they have been neglected and not maintained as a fallout of the RENT CONTROL ACT since 1944.

“The recent experience of the conservation of about a dozen of such ordinary, late 19th and early 20th century building stock for my clients, the Garib Zarthostiona Rehethan Fund, a charitable Trust that owns about 100 buildings in Central Mumbai, has convinced me that an alternative model of Conservation of these unprotected sites can work if the government gives incentives for the genuine needs of the inhabitant and its repairs, rather that encouraging and giving incentives to redevelopment. The redevelopment that is happening anyway does not create any of the affordable housing stock which is need of the city and loads the fragile infrastructure and disrupts the well-established socio-cultural pattern of the city and is unlike the redevelopment/restructuring of the 19^th cent Bombay where yesterday’s architecture has become todays heritage.”

 Perveez Aggarwal was awarded a post-graduate degree from Nagpur University after which she undertook a number of successful business ventures, including the Diners Club franchise in India (Until 2001.) She is presently closely associated with the operations of the country’s first chain of business centers in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Mrs. Aggarwal is the proprietor of “My Beautiful Embroideries”. This company has adopted the ancient style of Parsi Gara embroidery to create saris, outfits, shawls, stoles, skirts and scarves. The design, color and motifs are of Persian and Chinese origin.

The company was started to give employment to uneducated but talented craftsmen and to keep alive the art of hand embroidery in India.  In 1992, communal riots in Mumbai displaced many craftsmen.  Perveez took it upon herself the task of re-establishing these talented artisans and their craft in a small, albeit successful manner, choosing the “Gara”  or ancient Parsi embroidery as her inspiration for adopting the style to suit the contemporary palette. These embroideries are less intricate, but more wearable and can be adapted to fashion trends.  The designs colour and motifs are of Persian, Indian and Chinese origin.

 In recognition of her contribution to the world of fashion in India, she was presented with the Kingfisher Fashion Award in 2001 acknowledging her role as a pioneer in the field.

 Third Session: Political Philosophy and Statecraft in Principalities, Kingdoms and City-States

Chair: Prof. Shehernaz R Nalwalla.

Fourth Session: The Representation of the Other in Art and Text

Chair:Dr Phiroze Vasunia

Fifth Session: Reception and Tradition

Chair: Ervad Dr Rooyintan P Peer

 Valedictory Address: Professor Sir John Boardman’s paper on The Greeks in Asia, Read by Prof Shehernaz R Nalwalla.

 The Inaugural Address was presented by Dr Usha Thakkar, Hon. Director of the Institute of Research on Gandhian Thought And Rural Development, who delivered a well appreciated exposition on The Arthasastra. 

First Session: Philosophy And The Care Of The Self

Chair: Dr Kanchana Mahadevan

 Second Session: Conflict and Co-existence: Alexander’s Legacy in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands

Chair: Dr Rashmi Poddar.

 Professor Dr Albert de Jong is Professor of Comparative Religion in the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and academic director of the Leiden Institute for Religious Studies. He teaches courses on the academic study of religion, as well as on the history of religions of the ancient world.

De Jong studied Theology and Persian in Utrecht and old and middle Iranian languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht in 1996, with a dissertation on Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin literature (published in 1997). He was a Golda Meir Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1996-1997) and has been in Leiden since 1997, first as a post-doctoral researcher and from 1998 as lecturer in Religious Studies.

His main research interests are the history of Zoroastrianism, Middle Persian literature, Manichaeism and the religion of the Mandaeans. He has published widely in all these fields, and is currently working on A History of Zoroastrianism IV: Parthian Zoroastrianism, partly based on the scholarly Nachlass of Professor Mary Boyce. This will be the fifth volume in the series A History of Zoroastrianism and will cover not just the history of Zoroastrianism by itself, but also the interaction between Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, Manichaeans, and Mandaeans in a crucial period of their development. These communities are all served by a considerable body of scholarly literature and by ongoing scholarly attention, but often in regrettable isolation from the wider context. He is simultaneously working on The Religious History of the Sasanian Empire (224-642 CE).

Dr Albert de Jong wrote on the subject:

“Scholarly interest in Zoroastrianism goes back to the seventeenth century, when traders and travellers from Europe encountered Zoroastrians in Iran and India. Although the field has drawn to it some of the most brilliant scholars in the humanities of the nineteenth and the twentieth century, the field has now entered a period of stagnation.

“This stagnation is at least partly caused by increasing specialization, with the attendant loss of interest in wider, more enompassing questions. Scholars of Zoroastrianism have traditionally resisted theoretical perspectives - as a luxury they could not afford, in view of the few specialists and the many texts that still awaited philological work.

“The results of this reluctance have by now become so evident that the subject can be said to be in a state of crisis, due to a lack of relevance (both for the wider academic community and for the living Zoroastriani communities), the absence of agreement on even the most basic matters, and a lack of questions.

“To confront the crisis, I shall try to sketch an agenda for the future, not of Zoroastrianism (that is for Zoroastrians to decide), but of its study.”

  Dr Usha Thakkar spoke on The Arthasastra at the Inaugural function of the Seminar on “Indo-Hellenic Cultural Transactions.”

Dr. Usha Thakkar is Hon. Director, Institute of Research on Gandhian Thought and Rural Development, and Hon. Secretary, Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Mumbai. She is former Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. 

She has been Vice-President, Asiatic Society of Mumbai, and Banasthali Vidyapith (Deemed University for women), Rajasthan.

 She has done postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago on Fulbright Fellowship and at Cornell University on Sr. Fulbright Fellowship and at York University (Canada) on WID Fellowship from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. She was also Visiting Fellow at Sheffield City Polytechnic, UK. 

Her research areas are Gandhian Studies, Ancient Indian Political Thought, Women’s Studies,  and Indian Politics. She has presented papers at many national and international conferences and has contributed in many prestigious journals. Her co-authored and co-edited publications include Understanding Gandhi , Women in Indian Society , Zero Point Bombay: In and Around Horniman Circle , Culture and making of Identity in Contemporary India , Politics in Maharashtra ,Kautilya’s Arthashastra  and Women’s Studies Series (in Gujarati). Dr. Usha Thakkar is Hon. Director, Institute of Research on Gandhian Thought and Rural Development, and Hon. Secretary, Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Mumbai. She is former Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. 

She has been Vice-President, Asiatic Society of Mumbai, and Banasthali Vidyapith (Deemed University for women), Rajasthan.

 She has done postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago on Fulbright Fellowship and at Cornell University on Sr. Fulbright Fellowship and at York University (Canada) on WID Fellowship from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. She was also Visiting Fellow at Sheffield City Polytechnic, UK. 

Her research areas are Gandhian Studies, Ancient Indian Political Thought, Women’s Studies,  and Indian Politics. She has presented papers at many national and international conferences and has contributed in many prestigious journals. Her co-authored and co-edited publications include Understanding Gandhi , Women in Indian Society , Zero Point Bombay: In and Around Horniman Circle , Culture and making of Identity in Contemporary India , Politics in Maharashtra ,Kautilya’s Arthashastra  and Women’s Studies Series (in Gujarati). 

 Dr Afshin Marasi wrote:

“In April and May of 1932, Rabindranath Tagore travelled to Iran on an official visit. He had been invited to Iran at the guest of Reza Shah Pahlavi. Using an array of primary source material, this lecture recounts the cultural history of this event.

“It is argued that Dinshah Irani, the prominent Parsi leader of Bombay’s “Iran League,” played an important role in making the arrangements for this visit. Irani, who had for many years played a central role in reviving Zoroastrianism inside Iran and promoting renewed contacts between Iran and India, had already well-established contacts with leading cultural, intellectual, and political figures inside Iran.

“Through these contacts Irani arranged for the government of Reza Shah to invite Tagore to Iran. Dinshah Irani accompanied Tagore during the four-week trip. The talk recounts the details of this trip from the perspective of the cultural and political history of an emerging Iranian national identity of the interwar period.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Afshin Marashi is the Farzaneh Family Chair of Iranian Studies College of International Studies at the  University of Oklahoma

After receiving his Ph.D. in history from UCLA, he was Assistant/Associate Professor, Department of History, California State University, Sacramento, from, 2003 to 2010, he joined the University of Oklahoma the following year.

Dr Marashi has been the recipient of several awards and honours. Besides receiving the Pedagogy Award, CSUS, on five separate occasions between 2004 and 2009, he was awarded the Dissertation Fellowship: Andrew Mellon Foundation in 1998-99 and the Regent's Dissertation Fellowship-UCLA the following year. He has also received prestigious travel grants which allowed him to study in Turkey.

Dr Marashi has written a well received book, “Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870-1940” (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008) and is the co-author of the soon to be released “Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity: Histories and Historiographies”, eds., Kamran Aghaie and Afshin Marashi (Austin: University of Texas Press.) He has also authored several important papers which have been published in important peer-reviewed periodicals.

Dr Bhandare writes:

"The period after the advent of the Greek under Alexander the Great is recognized as a ‘marker’ in the political, social and cultural history of the subcontinent. The Greek presence, initially of the Greco-Bactrian Satraps of Alexander’s successors the Seleucids and later the ‘Indo-Greek’ rulers of ancient Gandhara, Kashmir and the Punjab heralded a new vista by bringing together two distinct cultures – Hellenic and Indic – and allowing them to suffuse together in an almost osmotic fashion, creating a world in greater Central Asian space of mountains, passes, and steppes that was   dominated by a syncretism between Greek artistic sensibilities and Indic religions and social life. Buddhism was patronised by wealthy merchants benefitting from the trade of the fabled silk-route and great schools of Indian Art such as the Gandhara and the Mathura school flourished.

"The coins of the Indo-Greek present an interesting insight into this World. Possessing unique characteristics such as inscriptions in two languages (Greek and Prakrit), depicting the earliest icnic depictions of Indic Gods and leaving a significant legacy in terms of usage, types and circulation, they are indeed one of the most stunning amongst a series of numismatic ‘gems’ of ancient India. The lecture will present an overview of the coinage, focussing on its history, evolution, decline and impact. It will also focus on legacy of the Indo-Greeks and the contribution the study of this coinage has made to contribute to our understanding of India’s ancient past."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr Shailendra Bhandare was awarded a PhD degree by the University of Bombay in 1999 for his thesis on ‘The Historical Analysis of Satavahana Era: A Study of Coins’

After a stint as visiting Fellow at FitzwilliamMuseum, University of Cambridge, he received a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Society for South Asian Studies, London and served as Curator, Department of Coins and Medals, the British Museum, London.

In 2002, he was appointed the Assistant Keeper, South Asian and Oriental Numismatics, Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; Member of faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.

Dr Bhandare has served on several important committees, including the Society for South Asian Studies (British Academy),  2000-2002 and is a ember of the Council of the Royal Numismatic Society (1999-2001)

 His publications include  ‘From Kautilya to Kosambi: the Quest for an Asokan/Mauryan Coinage’, in Patrick Olivelle, Janice Leoshko and Himanshu P Ray (eds), ‘Reimaging Asoka: Memory and History’, OUP, 2012;  Coinage of the Nizams of Hyderabad: New Discoveries and Reattributions - Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, no. 210, Winter 2012 and The Marathas in Delhi in the ‘Panipat Year’: Numismatic Insights - Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, no. 209, Autumn 2011.

  Yousuf Saeed is an independent filmmaker and researcher based in New Delhi. His documentary films on Amir Khusrau, Basant and the classical music of south Asia, such as "Khayal Darpan" have been shown world-wide. Yousuf is also the director of Tasveer Ghar, a digital archive of India's popular visual culture.

Reading and showing illustrations from his recent book, “Muslim Devotional Art in India,” the author, MrYousuf Saeed, will talk about the history of Islamic popular devotional art and visual culture in 20th century India, which weaves the personal narrative of the author’s journey through his understanding of the faith with his research about the making of such devotional art and its use by the masses.

The presentation was followed by a discussion led by Ms. Mumtaz Currim, an eminent author who has written about Islamic art and heritage.

 Mumtaz Currim is an Islamic scholar and art historian who is known for her work on Islam in India. Her presentations and writings, the result of intensive research and vast editorial experience, trace the development of Islamic intellectual and art traditions in India keeping in mind the Islamic worldview.  

 Holding a Masters' Degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, she has been a visiting lecturer for a post-graduate course in the History of Indian Aesthetics conducted by the Philosophy Department of the University of Mumbai. Her illustrated lectures covered Islamic disciplines and the arts of architecture, calligraphy, writing, and miniature painting, and Sufism, their inter-connectedness and growth in an Indian milieu.     

 Apart from her lectures, Mumtaz Currim has participated in seminars and edited a scholarly and richly illustrated volume on leading Sufi Dargahs in India entitled “Dargahs—the Abodes of Saints” to which scholars from India and abroad have contributed. Edited for Marg Publications in October 2004, reprinted in March 2011. She was also researcher for an illustrated volume entitled “Mughal Style” authored by George Michell, an IBH publication, October 2007.

 Her latest work “Jannat, Paradise in Islamic Art,” a seminal volume published by The Marg Foundation in July 2012, presents visions of paradise from the Indian sub-continent. Here scholars dwell on eschatological, cosmological, calligraphic, royal, literary and popular expressions from thirteenth century onward. What is remarkable is the ideological continuity of these representations inspired by Quranic and early Islamic texts where paradise is seen as jannat or gardens of everlasting peace, beauty and bliss.

 A travel writer of note, she has covered leading cities, cross-country journeys, and historic sites in India and abroad. Her interest in Islamic cultures and heritage has encouraged her to journey across Spain, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Mohenjo Daro and Northern Areas of Pakistan, and   Indonesia.

Prof. (Dr.) Sherene Ratnagar, past Professor of Archaeology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, specialized in Mesopotamian archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London. She later spent a year in Iraq as Fellow of the British School of Archaeology in that country.  She later worked on the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus civilization for her doctorate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. This work is published, in its second edition (2004), as Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

 She is the author of several books, including Makers and Shapers: Early Indian Technology in the Home,    Village, and Urban Workshop. Delhi (Tulika. 2007), The Timeline History of Ancient Egypt (London: Worth, 2009) and Makers and Shapers: Early Indian Technology in the Household, Village, and Urban Workshop (Delhi: Tulika, 2007.)

Dr Ratnagar has also authored Essays on Pastoralists and Prehistoric Tribal Peoples and Three Essays

Which is a collection of previously published articles in which she looks at the past  of, not the high cultures and cities, but of those  who have laid the base and continuity of subsistence and economy in our country. 

Her book with D. Mandal, Ayodhya: Archaeology after Excavation (Delhi: Tulika. 2007) is a brutal critique of  the  Archaeological Survey's claims about a temple  under the mosque. 
Dr Ratnagar is much sought after as a speaker and during the last few years has lectured at  Delhi University;  India International Centre; Carsten Niebuhr Institute at the  University of Copenhagen;  Summer School of  the National Endowment for the Humanities, USA,  in Delhi;  and  Bucharest.

She is currently working on a collection of essays on  Harappan archaeology and plans  an intensive study  in  the comparative archaeology of empires.

 "Did Rains do the Harappans in?" was a newspaper headline last June.

  The newspaper was reporting the result of a study by an international  team of scientists, saying it was decrease in monsoon rainfall that was the ultimate cause of the end of the civilization of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.
  The argument, which involves summer inundations and winter rainfall and the drying of the Ghaggar-Sarasvati Rivers was discussed.
  Connected issues were the question of monsoon management for buffalo herding (was this a sacred animal in Harappan times?), for draining away storm water, and most of all, in Kutch, for harvesting and storing  water brought by flashfloods.
  It was argued that it was the water under the ground that the  Harappans would have learned to treasure.
  The talk was illustrated with slides.

 Prof Vivek P Pachpande holds a masters degree in philosophy from the University of Bombay and is presently a Visiting Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at the same Institution.

 His areas of interest include Epistemology (Indian and Western), Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of the Mind and Socio-Political Philosophy.

 His research paper entitled “Myth of Consciousness” was published in the proceedings of an international seminar on “Mind, Brain and Consciousness” organised by K. G. Joshi college of Arts, and N. G. Bedekar College of Commerce in collaboration with Menssana Monographs, WPA (World’s Psychiatric association) and ICPR (Indian Counsil of Philosophical Research) in January 2010.

 His paper on ‘Reflexions on Qualia & Consciousness’, Proceedings of the 84th Indian Philosophical Congress, hosted by the Dept of Philosophy, University of Mumbai is awaiting publication.

 Prof Pachpande was awarded the Aavabai Wadia Fellowship for research by K. R. Cama Oriental Institute for the duration of two years (December 2009-2011) on the topic “Racial Conflict and genocide in the Mahabharata: an Ethical Perspective”, the subject on which he is presenting his lecture.

 Prof Pachpande writes:

“Almost every person in India knows the basic story of the Mahabharata; it is an integral part of our culture. In Indian tradition, it is accepted as Itihasa or a historical narrative of particular people. Although primarily it is a story of a family quarrel over the crown of Hasthinapura, over time it found itself as a repository of countless ethical, religious and philosophical issues.

 “While narrating the primary story, the characters of the Mahabharata are portrayed in all their human strengths and weaknesses. Almost all of their actions are examined, sometimes criticised and even censured in the text itself.

 “However, one type of action does not find censure in the Mahabharata. The exterminatory acts committed against those human beings who were outside the general socio-cultural sphere were hardly acknowledged. Undoubtedly, there were many such groups of people; they came in conflict with the newly settled Aryans. Destructive acts committed against them were either ignored or glossed over by the authors of this unbiased epic.

 “I will try to explicate two such attempts of complete annihilation against groups carried out by three important personages in the Mahabharata, namely, Krishna, Arjuna and Arjuna’s great-grandson, Janamejaya. These exterminatory acts would be labelled ‘genocide’ in our day, and I intend to dub them so.

 “While examining genocidal activities I wish to examine the prevalent ethical framework of the Mahabharatic people. I will show that even considering prevailing ethical framework of Mahabharatic era, the genocidal activities carried out could have been censurable. The genocidal acts were not censured in the text is a shortcoming of the text, and as an admirer of Mahabharata, I consider it my duty and right to remove this shortcoming.”

  Sanghamitra Sen was awarded a Master of Arts degree by the University of Bombay in 2006. Thereafter she took a Course in Documentation and Preservation of Archival Material conducted by the Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai. She later completed a Post-Graduate Diploma course in Museology and Art Conservation from the Prince of Wales Museum in affiliation with the University.

 Ms. Sen is presently engaged in setting up of Godrej Archives. Her responsibilities include managing out-reach activities and planning and executing a ground-breaking initiative taken up by Godrej Archives, i.e. ‘Chronicling the Present’, among other supervisory responsibilities.  She was awarded the Mrs. Avabai B Wadia Research Fellowship for 2009-2010 by the K R Cama Oriental Institute. Her research was on the subject on which she will expound in her lecture.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mid-19th century India, witnessed a process of industrialisation taking roots in an otherwise agrarian economy. With this came a mass exodus of rural labour looking for jobs in mills and subsequently, by the turn of the century, the need to house these migrating populations became real and urgent. The colonial government obsessed itself with grand public buildings, symbolizing the power and might of the crown, but failed to recognise another crucial form of public buildings – mass housing, save for the limited efforts made by Bombay Improvement Trust and Bombay Development Department in the city. To make up for insufficient measures taken by the state and to ensure a steady supply of labour, some mill-owners built single-room tenements in industrial cities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. This period also saw several far-sighted industrialists such as J N Tata, Laxman Kashinath Kirloskar, Walchand Hirachand, among others, who went beyond providing a mere roof, but built a microcosm where every conceivable need of employees was catered to.

The talk mapped some early efforts made by industrialists in providing housing for their workforce, with a special focus on Pirojshanagar – the township of the Godrej Group set up in 1951 in a distant suburb of Bombay. Further, it will discuss the impact of such efforts on labour housing in general and assess the phenomenon of ‘company towns’ or ‘colonies’ or ‘townships’ through the prism of labour-management relations.

 The Sir Rustom P Masani Elocution Competition is an annual feature of the K R Cama Oriental Institute and attracts aa large number of entries from under-graduate and post-graduate students of Bombay University and the S. N. D. T. University.

The subjects chosen this year were:

 There were thirty-seven entries this year, drawn from a wide spectrum of city colleges and the standard of declamation was uniformly high.

The prize winners were:

 Devaki  Dhuldhoy and Kaizeen Jehangir are presently studying towards their B.A. degrees at St. Xaviers College, Bombay, majoring in the field of History. While Devika intends to pursue a career in the field of Journalism and Research, Kaizeen plans to involve herself in education, with an emphasis on research.

Kaizeen and Devika write: "Throughout the course of history, it is observed that women have been grossly under-represented. Records of the strengths and weaknesses of men are available aplenty, while women have been constantly side-lined. Our study analyses the ground-breaking changes that took place in the sphere of women’seducation, which was the result of a long drawn struggle, taken much for granted today. goes on to ascertain the social conditions of women, the educational situation and the journalistic developments of 19th century India. As its primary source, we have made use of the first Indian Women’s magazine- The Stree Bodhe, published in the Gujarati language and several other books and journals in both English and Gujarati as its secondary sources."

 Stree Bodhe was a magazine first published in 1857 and remained in circulation till about 1950. Covering a wide range of topics, it was a true pioneer of women’s progress.

 Dr Touraj Daryaee visited the K R Cama Oriental Institute to deliver a series of three talks under the Government Research Fellowship Lectures in August 2010. This book consists of the contents of these lectures

 The King is Dead! Long Live Many Kings and Queens:

The Sasanian Empire in Chaos

  This talk covered the late Sasanian Empire from the death of Khusro Parwez in 628 CE to the Arab Muslim incursions into Iranshar into Fars in 634 CE. The talk discusses the chaos that followed Khusro II's death and will provide a picture of the end of the Sasanian Empire and how it collapsed. The last two decades of Sasanian rule were divided into three periods: I) Fratricide and the Waning of Monarchic Legitimacy (628-630 CE) which begins with Kawad II's rule and his son, Ardashir III; II) Factionalism and Division (630-632 CE) which is the time of a number of monarchs and queens, sometimes ruling at the same time: Burān / Arzarmidokht / Khusro III / Khusro IV / Peroz (630-632  C.E.): and III) Wandering Kingship (632-651 CE) which coincides with the reign of Yazdgerd III and the Arab Muslim conquest of Iran.

 War, Blood and Conquest:

The Arab Muslim Takeover of Fars.

 This lecture focused on the numismatic evidence for study of the conquest of Fars, its date and the gradual processes by which the province fell to the Arab Muslims. It showed the cities of Fars could not withstand the Muslim forces which revolted time after time. It was shown that what the Islamic texts report in terms of the dates of the conquest contradict the numismatic evidence and this suggests that it took far longer for the Arab Muslims to conquer Fars and the entire Sasanian Empire.

 Iranian Resistance and Remembrance:

Zoroastrian Apocalypse as History

 This lecture was concerned with the conflict and political disorder of the Islamic conquest of Iran and the accommodations which were eventually made between the conquerors and the conquered. The function of the local independent lords, as well as other contenders for control of the province, such as Arab Muslim rebels and various religious groups, was discussed. Finally, the lecture attempted to view how the Zoroastrian inhabitants of Fars viewed their predicament in the face of political defeat and accommodation. This was done by looking at Zoroastrian apocalyptic literature which provides communal views of the political developments of the eighth and ninth centuries C.E. These texts also historicize the last attempt by the family of Sasan to take back the Sasanian Empire from the Arab Muslim conquerors.

 Dr. Touraj Daryaee was born in Tehran in 1967. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Califirnia, Los Angeles. He is currently the Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran and the Persianate World and the Associate Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture at the University of California, Irvine.

 Dr. Daryaee's research has focused on ancient and early medieval history of Iran, specifically the Sasanian Empire. He has worked on Middle Persian literature, editing and translating several texts with commentary on geography, dinner speech, chess and backgammon. He is also interested in the history of Zoroastrianism in Late Antiquity and its encounter with Islam. He is the editor of the Name-ye Iran-e Bastan: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies as well as the director of Sasanika: Late Antique Near East Project.

 His latest books include Sasanian Iran: Portrait of a Late Antique Empire, Mazda Publishers, 2008; with I. Afshar, Scholars & Humanists, Iranian Studies in Henning and Taqizadeh Correspondence 1937-1966, Mazda, 2009; Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, IB Tauris, London, 2009; and the The Oxford History of Iran ed. T. Daryaee, Oxford University Press, 2012.

 The Influence of Religious Teaching on Parsis: A Brief Account- Dasturji Dr Peshotan Mirza- 15th Jun 2012

 Ardaseer Cursetjee, is one of India's most revered yet possibly unsung sons. A scion of the Wadia family which created the Bombay dockyards and built much of the early Indian Navy, he is best known for being the first person from his country to be elected a Fellow of the British Royal Society, the most prestigious scientific body in the world. It is well documented that, at the age of 31, leaving his family behind him, Ardaseer first set out to travel from Bombay to London in 1840.

 Philip Whiteside is Ardaseer Cursetjee Wadia's great great great grandson. He gets the connection from his mother's side of the family, with his maternal grandmother having been the daughter of Ardaseer's grandson.

He first came to India in 1994 and stayed for four months, travelling the length and breadth of the country. Out of the 61 countries he has travelled to, he still regards that trip to India as the most rewarding travelling experience he has enjoyed.

Philip only found out he was descended from a famous Indian a few years ago, after his family began to research their history. He went on to discover he's not the only British descendant either.  

A marketing consultant by profession, Philip decided to take a break from work to pursue a quest to find out more about his revered ancestor and about what it meant to cross half the world. 

He decided to do the return journey that Ardaseer did and appears now in Mumbai having travelled overland from London hoping to find out more about what led his ancestor to end up leaving India and settling in England until his death.

Valentin I. Korovikov was born in Moscow in 1924. In 1949 he graduated from the Philosophy and Geography Departments at Moscow State University, where he later taught at the Department of Western Philosophy. At the same time he worked as an Editor of the Western Geography Department for the Large Soviet Encyclopedia and was a Correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.  In 1981-1988 he worked in India as a Special Correspondent of the Pravda newspaper in the South Asia region.  In 1981 he visited an exhibition of folk art in New-Delhi, where the bright paintings of Mithila women came to his attention and after that he began to collect these paintings and gathered information about this magical art.

 Madhubani or Mithila painting (Madhubani means “honey forest”) appeared in the district of Madhubani, which is now a part of Bihar. In ancient times this territory was a part of the prosperous kingdom of Mithila which stretched to the foothills of the Himalayas. Madhubani painting is a traditional ritual house occupation of women. Initially such paintings were used as a decoration for houses, their themes and images repeated on other handicrafts: (caskets, trays, embroidery, special ritual ornaments “alpona”, which were drawn on the ground near the houses). Ancient paintings of Madhubani were hidden in the closed houses and were not the subject of artistic study for many years. The north Bihar earthquake of 1934 changed everything. Many houses were destroyed and it turned out that the walls and floors of these modest homes were covered with expressive symbolic painted images.

Born and educated in Russia, Dr. Sofiya Karanjia received her Master Degree in Museology, Art History and Cultural Studies from the Russian State University for Humanities (Moscow) and was later awarded a Ph.D. in Art History (Department of Asian and African Art) from the Russian State Institute of Art Studies (Moscow).

    She has curated several exhibitions: “Wonderful spirits of Bihar houses. Madhubani painting from V.I.Korovikov’s collection” at the State Museum of Oriental Arts in Moscow, 2004; “Speaking Art. Indian legends and myths narrated by traditional artists and craftsmen” at the CSMVS (formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India) in Bombay, 2008; “Devis and Diyas”. Traditional art of painted Goddess’s clothes - Matano chandarvo – from Gujarat at the Hacienda gallery.

    Her writings on Indian traditional arts and crafts have been published widely. Dr. Sofiya Karanjia currently teaches as a visiting faculty on South Asian Arts and Material Culture at the Russian State University for Humanities, International Design School, Moscow and at the Rachana Sansad School of Interior Design.

The 2012 Avabai B Wadia Memorial Lecture in memory of Priroz Dorabji Mehta was delivered by the noted Buddhist scholar, Dr C D Sebastian.

Dr C. D. Sebastian is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

He was awarded a Ph. D. in Indian Philosophy by the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and thereafter completed a post-doctorate programme at the University of Bristol, UK.

In 2010 he was a DAAD Forschungsaufenhalt Fellow at the University of Erfurt (Germany) and in the following year was recognised as an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Buddhist Studies, University ofBristol (UK) in 2011.

His books include 'Metaphysics and Mysticism in Mahayana Buddhism' (2005), 'Recent Researches in Buddhist Studies' (2008), and 'Buddhism: Essays on Ethics and Religion' (2012). He has to his credit more than 80 Research Papers in refereed journals and edited volumes. He is Editor of 'Journal of Sacred Scriptures.'

While holding the position of a full-time professor at the Sir J. J. College of Architecture for thirty-two years, until her retirement, Dr Aban Zarir Sethna was also a visiting lecturer at the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI) and at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.  She is presently a visiting Lecturer at both, The Sir J. J. School of Architecture and the Rizvi College of Architecture.

She is presently researching the local history of Bombay, particularly the Colaba area. She has published several important pieces on Bombay’s architectural heritage and has lectured widely on the city’s history.

MUNCHERJI C. MURZBAN

UNSUNG ‘NATIVE’ ARCHITECT OF 19^TH CENTURY COLONIAL BOMBAY

Born in Bombay in 1839, he trained in the Engineering School in Pune and “creditably” passed the Government Public Works Department Examination in 1855.

Appointed as Probationary Assistant Engineer in 1858, much of his initial work was in Pune building barracks, patcheries,  roads and bridges.

A chance break in his carreer came in 1869 when an assistant to the Architectural Secretary to Bombay Rampart Removal Committee  was needed. Strongly recommended by Governor Bartle Frère, the then Governor of Bombay, Muncherji became Trubshaw’s assistant  and helped build a “New Town” largely on the Esplanade in Bombay. By and by, he was promoted and placed in the Assistant Engineer’s grade.

As Assistant Engineer, he not only superintended construction of scores of Public Buildings, but designed a number of them as well. Among the latter were hospitals, a dispensary, a church, two schools  and a gymnasium at Khetwadi.

He was the second Indian to be appointed as Executive Engineer of the whole of Bombay Presidency and became the first “Native” Indian to become Executive Engineer of the Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1893. This was the highest post for any Indian attainable then.

In his capacity as Executive Engineer of the Bombay Municipal Corporation, he did sterling work upgrading Bombay’s physical infrastructure. He also promoted extensive housing projects for the poor in Bombay.

All in all, Muncherji Murzban was instrumental in shaping urban Bombay and creating a “New City”, as much as high-profile British architects. However, due credit has not been given to  Mr Muncherji Murzban’s work; who remains “unsung” - both as Engineer and Architect.

Dr Saryu V Doshi, Eminent Art Historian, Editor & Curator, released  the Institute's latest publication, "Parsi Portraits from the Studio of Raja Ravi Varma" by Ms Priya Moholay Jaradi.

The book documents portraits of Parsi subjects painted in the studio of Raja Ravi Varma, an aspect of the great artist that has been hardly studied.

The author demonstrates how the westernising influence of Imperial Policy groomed the art practice and taste of several Indian portraitists and their patrons. It was especially predominant in Bombay city. Alonside Varma’s career, the urbanisation and westernisation of the Parsi community in Bombay is discussed to evidence the changing yet complementary nature of cultural and artistic tastes of asn emerging portraitist and his clientele.

 The author of this work, Priya Maholay Jaradi was awarded her Masters degree by the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. After functioning as an independent curator in Mumbai for a few years, she worked as Assistant Curator at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. Since 2008, Priya has been a doctoral candidate in South Asian studies at the National University of Singapore.

This 91 page book contains 26 colour reproductions of the artists work.

 -----------------------------------------------------

 Dr (Mrs) Saryu V. Doshi is an eminent Art Historian, Research Scholar, Editor and Curator.

 After receiving her Ph.D. in Ancient Indian History and Culture from the University of Bombay, Dr Doshi was awarded a JRD.Rockefeller Grant for Post-Doctoral Research in USA. Thereafter, she was appointed a Visiting Professor at Pune University, The University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.

 In recognition of her scholarly research in the field of Art and Culture and her unflagging efforts in promoting and popularizing the many facets of India’s vast heritage, she was appointed Pro-tem Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. Later she was honoured with the position of Honorary Director, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

 After editing Marg Publications with great distinction in the 1980s, Dr Doshi has since authored seven books, including three as a joint author. She regularly contributes thoughtful articles to scholarly and academic journals and also writes for the country’s leading newspapers and magazines.

 Dr Doshi has curated thirteen exhibitions for the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai, helping to popularise the medium in the city.

Dr John R Perry writes:

“The ideal of justice has been extolled throughout the history of Iran, from the Achaemenian through the Sassanian and Islamic eras, as a major virtue in the good ruler. As God’s viceroy on earth, the shah has been held duty bound as a condition of his farr, or divinely-bestowed aura, to protect the rights and redress the wrongs of his subjects, in order to ensure harmony and good order in the kingdom. Ideals, of course, can be fallible in practice. An essential mechanism to ensure that this noble theory is not diluted or corrupted in the maze of routine administration is the appointment of an independent officer to encourage and verify complaints, and represent the plaintiff at court. Such an institution did evolve in, e.g., ancient China and medieval Spain, but it has often been lacking in otherwise sophisticated legal systems both ancient and modern.

“There is abundant evidence, however, that an ombudsman (to use the modern Swedish, and now international, term for this official) did exist in the Sassanian empire, and persisted in Iran under subsequent Islamic governments right up until the early twentieth century. This study will adduce the scattered references in Sassanian, Samanid, Seljuk, Aqquyunlu, Safavid, Zand and Qajar documents to demonstrate how the Zoroastriain priest-administrator known as the drigôshân-yâtakgow ‘attorney of the poor’ survived under various designations, most recently that of vakîl al-ra’âyâ ‘attorney of the subjects’, and to show what finally became of him.”

Dr. John R Perry is Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago.

After obtaining his Ph.D. in Oriental Studies (Arabic & Persian) from Cambridge University, he taught at the Faculty of Letters, Tehran University in 1964-65. After holding the position of Lecturer in Arabic for six years at St. Andrews University, Scotland, Dr Perry received the prestigious appointment to the University of Chicago as a Visitor & Assistant/Assoc. Professor. He was appointed a Professor there in 1992.

Dr Perry has a number of awards and honours to his credit. These include a Carnegie Trust grant for linguistic fieldwork in Iraq, 1970-71; AIIS Fellowship for lexicological research in India, 1989; AIPS Fellowship for lexicological research in Pakistan, 1995; the Lois Roth Prize for Persian (Tajik) translation, 2003 and a JNIAS Visiting Fellowship, Delhi, January - March 2012.

Widely published, Dr Perry has authored several books, including Karim Khan Zand, A History of Iran 1747-1779. U. of Chicago Press; A Tajik Persian Reference Grammar. Handbook of Oriental Studies, Vol. 11. Leiden; and Early Persian Lexicography: Farhangs of the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries, by Solomon I. Baevskii. Languages of Asia series, London: Global Oriental Press (translation of Ranniaia persidskaia leksikorafiia, Moscow, 1989; Revised and updated by J. R. Perry).

Ms Ruth Pleyer holds a Masters degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

However, for the past ten years she has worked as a successful provenance researcher, investigating the history of works of art which are suspected to have been looted from their former Jewish owners during the Holocaust.

Ms Pleyer has painstakingly researched the fascinating story of Framroze J Davar and  G. Sztavjanik’s world cycle tour. She visited Bombay in February 2012 to track down further details about these intrepid travelers. She presented the audience with a detailed account of her efforts to discover aspects about this adventurous pair of cyclists.

Mr Domnick Hruza, an expert in the field of visual arts, spoke about the actual travels of Mr Davar and Mr Sztavjanik, presenting the audience with a fascinating account of the arduous journey the cyclists undertook with very little finance and a load of gumption and good spirit.

A documentary film on the subject was screened on this occasion.

Lecture - 4

Government Research Fellowship Lectures: 2012 - 2013.

  Celebrating 2500-years of the Persian Empire in 1971.

Dr Talin Grigor Dr Talin Grigor writes:

In October 1971, the king of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah celebrated “the 2,500-year Anniversary of the Founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great.” The famed ruins of Persepolis were chosen as not only the authentic site of historical reenactments, but also as the ultimate symbol of Iran’s monarchy, nation, and civilization. The biggest intervention on the site was the erection of the so-called Tent City on the ruins’ southern section, described by an invitee as “one hundred and sixty desert acres covered with some seventy tents, sumptuously decorated by Jansen of Paris...” The city housed the king’s 600 foreign guests. The adjoined Tent City and Persepolis enabled both the staging of an international political theatrics and provided the space for a temporal leap from antiquity to modernity. While intended to assert Iran’s global cultural as well as political reputation, the neo-Achaemenid spaces and rituals that recreated the entire history of the Persian Empire were in effect a thoroughly self-Orientalizing spectacle. It was an Iranian mimicry that wholeheartedly embodied the Saidian model of European orientalist tactics and matrix. Persepolis ‘71 would be remembered in Iran’s 20^th-century history as the most explicit and extravagant articulation of the grand scheme of social engineering and cultural revivalism – a perverse expression of the shah’s “Great Civilization.”

The celebrations served their purpose, which according to the king was, “to re-awaken the peo­ple of Iran to their past and re-awaken the world to Iran.” It not only validated the neo-Achaemenid architectural culture under the Qajar from the 1820s on and the Pahlavis from the 1930s on, but also gave the Orientalist tendencies in politics, popular culture, and historiography a new impetus. When in March 1976, Mohammad Reza Shah decreed the substitution of the Muslim Solar Calendar with the Royal Calendar, the 2,500-year Celebrations were recalled to endorse both the reason underpinning this gigantic temporal shift and its historical exactitude. Equating performance with political power and enactment with historical lineage, time itself was reset at Persepolis ‘71. Overnight, the Muslim 1355 mutated into the Royal 2535. Prime Minister Hoveyda declared, “this is indeed a reflection of the historic fact that during this long period, there has been only one Iran and one monarchial system and that these two are so closely interwoven that they represent one con­cept.” In response to public outrage, the king vowed that this would put Iran “ahead” of the West in terms of historical progress, since from now on, ‘they [1976 Europe] would look forward to us [2565 Iran].’ This endorsement was abundantly expressed in major Western popular journals and newspapers. Ten days after the Persepolis celebrations, next to the illustration of rather bored Iranian soldiers dressed in Achaemenid military costume, Paris Match boldly confirmed, “They have not changed since 2,500 years ago.”

Dr Talinn Grigor is presently Assistant Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Brandeis University in the United States.

After receiving her doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her work on ‘Political Propaganda, and Public Architecture in Twentieth-Century Iran,’ Dr Grigor taught at Cornell University before taking up her present assignment.

In 2008-2009, Dr Grigor was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. She has also received important recognition from the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund and from the Soudavar Memorial Foundation.

Dr Grigor’s book titled ‘Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs’ was published in 2009 and was very well received. Her next book, ‘Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavi’ is to be released shortly. She has also published a number of peer reviewed articles on Iran in important journals

Dr Grigor is a linguist, fluent in French, Persian, Armenian, with a working knowledge of Russian and Italian. She is a Member, Advisory Board of Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran, Harvard University, Cambridge and a Member, Editorial Board of International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, Amsterdam.

Government Research Fellowship Lectures: 2012 - 2013.

Lecture No.3

Burying Ferdowsi in Reza Shah’s New Iran

Dr Talinn Grigor writes:

“The most intriguing of all the monuments conceived by Iran’s secularist ruling elite in the twentieth century is, undoubtedly, the modern mausoleum of Ferdawsi, the author of the epic story of the pre-Islamic kings of Iran, the Shahnameh or the Book of Kings. When Reza Shah Pahlavi’s (r. 1921-1941) government ministers decided to celebrate, with great fanfare, the medieval poet’s millenary anniversary in 1934, the contemporaneous discovery of the alleged original tomb of Ferdowsi gave rise to a new mausoleum in his hometown, Tus, on the border of Afghanistan. The story of Ferdowsi’s mausoleum is a long and a thorny one, because despite its modest appearance, this landmark was exceptional in both its architectural and political substance. Structurally, it was simple, yet perpetually unstable; financially, far more expensive than the state-budget would allow; iconographically, the subject of intense controversy; bureaucratically, intertwined with un-professionalism, indifference, and despotism; politically, the object of blatant politics; and historically, while inevitable, still the most problematic. Furthermore, its inauguration was tied to a major academic conference in Tehran and Tus that subsequently extended to Soviet Moscow, Nazi Berlin, as well as Paris, London, and New York. The paramount icon of revivalistic and modernistic ideologies, Ferdowsi’s monument encapsulated the aspirations and visions of the early Pahlavi elite and served as a blueprint for subsequent public landmarks and ceremonies in modern Iran.

“Capitalizing on Ferdowsi’s monument, the Pahlavi elite invoked a discourse of “bright future[s]” and “national spirit.” Its final form, construction process, invented rituals, and shifting meanings represent the complexities of a rapid modernization and an uneven development. For while the king and later his son pushed to modernize Iran and fostered socioeconomic equality – thus creating and expanding the modern middle class and its mores – they prevented, often deliberately, political development – thus incessantly widening the chasm between rulers and ruled. This uneven sociopolitical development, I believe, can best be exposed in the stories behind Pahlavi propagandistic architecture, such as Ferdowsi’s tomb, for each attempt to convey the history of Iran’s modern architecture reveals profound doubts and inherent contradictions veiled behind monumental façades and impressive inaugural ceremonies. Ferdowsi’s mausoleum, from its very conception in the early 1920s to its vandalism during and after the Iranian Revolution of 1977-1979, endures in modern Iranian history as the ultimate pictogram of its utopic futurity.”

-----------------------------------------------------

Dr Talinn Grigor is presently Assistant Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Brandeis University in the United States.

After receiving her doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her work on ‘Political Propaganda, and Public Architecture in Twentieth-Century Iran,’ Dr Grigor taught at Cornell University before taking up her present assignment.

In 2008-2009, Dr Grigor was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. She has also received important recognition from the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund and from the Soudavar Memorial Foundation.

Dr Grigor’s book titled ‘Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs’ was published in 2009 and was very well received. Her next book, ‘Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavi’ is to be released shortly. She has also published a number of peer reviewed articles on Iran in important journals

Dr Grigor is a linguist, fluent in French, Persian, Armenian, with a working knowledge of Russian and Italian. She is a Member, Advisory Board of Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran, Harvard University, Cambridge and a Member, Editorial Board of International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, Amsterdam.

Government Research Fellowship Lectures: 2012 - 2013.

Lecture No. 2

Western Art Historiography in Iranian and Parsi Architecture

Dr Talinn Grigor writes:

"Described as one of the most heated controversies of modern scholarship, the 1901 Orient or Rome debate was inflamed by the simultaneous publication of two books. While Italian archaeologist Giovanni Rivoira argued that the origin of Western architecture is found in Roman ingenuity, Austrian art historian Josef Strzygowski contended, “The true source of Western artistic genius is located in the Indogermanic Geist,” pointing instead to Armenia, Iran, and India as the Oriental Aryans. Between 1896 and 1926, post-colonial intelligentsia of these countries not only engaged one side of the debate in claiming socio-political hegemony in the imperialistic network of modern nations, but also invented an eclecticism that echoed Strzygowski’s Aryan architecture and destabilized universalistic discourses on artistic purity and cultural hybridity. The presentation will be examine the role of Armenia in Strzygowski’s racial and cultural theories and will raise architectural examples form Iran’s modernity and its appropriation of the Orient or Rome debate into national struggles for international equality and domestic fair rule."

Dr Talinn Grigor is presently Assistant Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Brandeis University in the United States.

After receiving her doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her work on ‘Political Propaganda, and Public Architecture in Twentieth-Century Iran,’ Dr Grigor taught at Cornell University before taking up her present assignment.

In 2008-2009, Dr Grigor was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. She has also received important recognition from the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund and from the Soudavar Memorial Foundation.

Dr Grigor’s book titled ‘Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs’ was published in 2009 and was very well received. Her next book, ‘Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavi’ is to be released shortly. She has also published a number of peer reviewed articles on Iran in important journals

Dr Grigor is a linguist, fluent in French, Persian, Armenian, with a working knowledge of Russian and Italian. She is a Member, Advisory Board of Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran, Harvard University, Cambridge and a Member, Editorial Board of International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, Amsterdam.

Lecture -1

Government Research Fellowship Lectures: 2012 - 2013.

Dr Talin Grigor writes:

"In April 1854, when Manekji Limji Hataria landed in Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, contact between the Parsis of India and their coreligious Zoroastrians in Qajar Iran had been sporadic since the fall of the Sassanian Empire in 651. Hataria had been sent to Iran by the Society for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Zoroastrians in Persia, founded by affluent Parsi philanthropists based in Bombay. Hataria’s assignment was sizeable: he was to improve the legal, infrastructural, and sociopolitical conditions of Irani Zoroastrians, numbering some seven thousand souls, and concentrated in the provinces of Yazd and Kerman. An experienced diplomat and philanthropist, Hataria's forty-year effort, supported by steady Parsi money and British diplomatic protection, would prove pivotal not only to the progress of his adopted community but also, inadvertently, to the whole of Iran’s reform program in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Architecture, a major sphere of Parsi patronage, was one of the most vivid aspects of this colonial encounter.

"Hataria’s activities were the beginning of the Parsi reformist affect on not only his adopted Zoroastrian community, but on the whole of the modern Iranian society well into the 20^th century. For, as this paper demonstrates, though in normative architectural historiography, the neo-Achaemenid revival of the 1920s and 1930s, promoted by Western orientalists and erected under Reza Shah Pahlavi, is considered an artistic manifestation of Iranian nationalism, it is in fact to the 19^th-century Parsi philanthropists of India that we ought to turn to for the origin of such a pivotal cultural movement and national identity; one that was initially endemic of (post)colonial conditions of in-between-ness and hybridity. Individual Parsi patrons, who thus impacted Indo-Persian arts and politics, operated from a range of marginal identities as Zoroastrians, as original Iranians, as British citizens, and as Indian subjects: in short, as local others. It is their dual perspective that both rendered their artistic vision unique and their politics effective. Here, moreover, we observe a shift in power politics that overturned the flow of cultural influence: the Parsis had for centuries perceived Persia as their motherland and Irani Zoroastrians as their socio-cultural model; now, with the rise of British hegemony, Zoroastrians were to turn to the Parsis of the Raj for the reinvention of a progressive modern-self. When, in 1913, the first fire temple was constructed in Tehran, it was designed on the “Parsi Plan”. This same ‘progressive modern-self’ would, in due course, become the dominant national discourse of the Muslim reformists under the Pahlavis."

------------------------------------------------------------

Dr Talinn Grigor is presently Assistant Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Brandeis University in the United States.

After receiving her doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her work on ‘Political Propaganda, and Public Architecture in Twentieth-Century Iran,’ Dr Grigor taught at Cornell University before taking up her present assignment.

In 2008-2009, Dr Grigor was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. She has also received important recognition from the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund and from the Soudavar Memorial Foundation.

Dr Grigor’s book titled ‘Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage under the Pahlavi Monarchs’ was published in 2009 and was very well received. Her next book, ‘Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavi’ is to be released shortly. She has also published a number of peer reviewed articles on Iran in important journals

Dr Grigor is a linguist, fluent in French, Persian, Armenian, with a working knowledge of Russian and Italian. She is a Member, Advisory Board of Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran, Harvard University, Cambridge and a Member, Editorial Board of International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, Amsterdam

Mr. Daniel J Sheffield is a Ph.D. candidate in Iranain and Persian Studies at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, Harvard University, U S A. The topic of his Ph.D. dissertation is “In the path of the Prophet : Sacred Narratives of Zarathushtra in Medieval and Early Modern Zoroastrianism”.

He has been a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations of the Harvard University since 2006. He has had a very distinguished academic career and has been the recipient of many Grants and Fellowships including the Persian Heritage Fellowship (2006-2007) and the Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant for 2008-2009.

Dr Narayani Gupta was awarded an M. A. degree in Modern History by Oxford University in 1966, after which she successfully completed her doctoral studies in the history of Delhi in the 19^th and 20^th centuries from Delhi University.

She was a Homi Bhabha Fellow in 1981-’83 and undertook her work on Urbanisation in Modern South India. Later, she was a Consultant with the National Commission on Urbanization and wrote a history of Indian Urbanisation. After teaching several post-graduate courses at Delhi University, she joined the Jamia Millia Islamia where she was a professor.

She is presently a Consultant with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage Dr Gupta has a number of important publications to her credit. Besides, Delhi Between Two Empires, 1803-1931(Oxford University Press, Delhi) 1981 and reprints, she has also edited T.G.P. Spear’s Delhi, Its History and Its Monuments (OUP, Delhi, 1997 and regular reprints,) among several other works.

She has presented papers at over fifteen international seminars and has been invited to US universities under the Indo-US Commission Distinguished Visitors’ Programme (1987.)She was a Visiting professor, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris (2001) and a Guest speaker at biennial meeting of Australian Association for Asian Studies (2004.)

Dr Narayani Gupta writes:

"Three towns in India are planning to bid for World Heritage City status. It is interesting at this point of time to look back on the concept of built heritage. The Archaeological Survey of India is celebrating its 150th birthday this year - again a good moment to see what its role has been in raising awareness and generating skills to conserve the built heritage.

"There are many binaries - the 'colonial government' and that of Independent India, the geographies before 1947 and those of the linguistic states, archaeologists as against conservation architects, 'dead' monuments as against living ones, the Ministry of Tourism's agenda against that of the Ministry of Urban Development. To my mind, the most important question is: How far have the people of our country become more connected with its built heritage in the last 50 years?"

The year 2010 was commemorated as the 500^th anniversary of the coronation of the Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire. The K R Cama Oriental Institute is commemorating this occasion with a seminar highlighting the contribution of this great ruler.

Krishnadevaraya (reign-period 1509-1529) welded together much of southern India not only politically but also culturally. His achievements in the political arena have been fairly well documented ever since A Forgotten Empire, by Robert Sewell, was published in 1900. However, the contribution of this great monarch and his immediate successors of the Tuluva dynasty (1505-1565 AD) of Vijayanagara in the promotion of new concepts of kingship and in welding together much of southern India into a common zone of cultural exchange and identity, as well as the cultural continuity in southern India from the sixteenth century to modern times, have not been adequately explored.

The seminar focused on cultural developments in southern India during the first half of the sixteenth century, with special reference to Krishnadevaraya. It also presented a wider picture of the forces of both cultural continuity and change in southern India from the pre-Vijayanagara onwards, with special emphasis on the early sixteenth century.

There were three sessions on the second day of the Seminar, followed by a Valedictory Address. The day’s speakers were:

3. Urbanisation under Krishnadevaraya and the Tuluvas	Chairperson: Dr. Narayani Gupta
a) Growth of the Capital City of Vijayanagara under Krishnadevaraya and the Tuluvas	Dr. (Sr.) Anila Verghese	Principal, Sophia College, Mumbai
b) The Countryside under Krishnadevaraya: Early Sixteenth-Century transformations outside the City.	Prof. Kathleen Morrison	Professor of Anthropology, Director, Centre for International Studies, University of Chicago, U S A
c) Think Globally, Act Locally?’ Perspectives on the Economy of Tuluva Vijayanagara	Ms Elizabeth Bridges	1. Ph.D Scholar, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, U S A
4. Religious Developments and Royal Festivals under Krishnadevaraya and the later Tuluvas	Chairperson: Dr. Rhoda Ahluwalia
a) Krishnadevaraya and the Patronage of Vyasatirtha	Dr. Valerie Stoker	Associate Professor, Department of Religion, Director, Liberal Studies Program, Wright State University, U S A
b) Kingship and the Celebration of the Royal Festivals – Mahanavami and Vasantotsava – in the sixteenth century	Dr. Anna Dallapiccola
5. The Tuluvas and the Successor Nayaka States – Cultural Continuity and Change	Chairperson: Dr. Rashmi Poddar
a) Imperial Memory: the Vijayanagara legacy in the Art of the Tamil Nayakas	Dr. Crispin Branfoot	Senior Lecturer in South Asian Art and Archaeology, Department of History of Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, U K
b) Stylistic continuity and change in the temple architecture of the Ikkeri Nayakas	Amita Kanekar	Independent Writer, Faculty at Goa College of Architecture
c) The Gowdas and Wodeyars	Dr. S.K. Aruni	Deputy Director, ICHR, Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore
Valedictory	Dr. George Michell	Research Scholar

The year 2010 was commemorated as the 500^th anniversary of the coronation of the Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire. The K R Cama Oriental Institute is commemorating this occasion with a seminar highlighting the contribution of this great ruler.

Krishnadevaraya (reign-period 1509-1529) welded together much of southern India not only politically but also culturally. His achievements in the political arena have been fairly well documented ever since A Forgotten Empire, by Robert Sewell, was published in 1900. However, the contribution of this great monarch and his immediate successors of the Tuluva dynasty (1505-1565 AD) of Vijayanagara in the promotion of new concepts of kingship and in welding together much of southern India into a common zone of cultural exchange and identity, as well as the cultural continuity in southern India from the sixteenth century to modern times, have not been adequately explored.

The seminar  focused on cultural developments in southern India during the first half of the sixteenth century, with special reference to Krishnadevaraya. It also presented a wider picture of the forces of both cultural continuity and change in southern India from the pre-Vijayanagara onwards, with special emphasis on the early sixteenth century.

There were two sessions on the first day, preceeded by the Inaugural Address. The speakers were:

Keynote Address	Prof. Y. Subbarayalu	Researcher & Head, Dept. of Indology, The French Institute of Pondicherry
1. Krishnadevaraya and the concept of ‘Kingship’	Chairperson: Dr. John M. Fritz
a) Krishnadevaraya as the ‘Great King’ in politics, warfare, and the patronage of the arts.	Dr. K.G. Gopala Krishna Rao	Research Scholar, Bangalore
b) Historical Memory and Statecraft in Late Medieval South India: A Study Of Krishnadevaraya’s Campaign Of A D 1517	Prof. Venkata Raghotham	University of Pondicherry
c) How Vallabhacarya Met Krishnadevaraya	Prof. John Hawley	Professor, Department of Religion, Barnard College, Adjunct Professor, Department of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, U S A
Krishnadevaraya, his identity rests in the image	Dr Annapurna Garimella	Research Scholar, Bangalore
2.Krishnadevaraya and the Promotion of Literature and the Arts	Chairperson: Dr. Devangana Desai
a) Telugu Literature During the time of Sri Krishnadevaraya: Aspects of Allegory	Dr. Srinivas Sistla	Associate Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam
b) Music and Dance under Krishnadevaraya and his successors	Dr. Purnima Srikrishna	Research Scholar, Mumbai
c) Krishnadevaraya and the development of South Indian Temple Architecture	Dr. (Sr) Anila Verghese	Principal, Sophia College, Mumbai
d) Vijayanagara Painting and the Enigma of the Virupaksha Temple Murals	Prof. Anna Dallapiccola	Former Professor of Indian Art at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg, Germany

The Sir Rustom P Masani Elocution Inter-Collegiate Competition was held in the Jiwanji Mody Hall on December 10, 2011. The eminent judges were Mrs. Rashna H Khan, Dr Kekoo M S Kavarana and Mrs Jayshree Grover.

Twelve students from six city colleges participated. The standard was high and the three judges unanimously awarded the first prize to Lamia Bagasrawala of Jai Hind College who spoke on “Tagore and Nationalism.”

The second prize was claimed by Rukshar Surve of S. I. E. S. College of Commerce & Economics, who eloquently discussed the subject: “Can Religion Survive without Rituals?” The third prize was awarded to Sukanya Telang of Ramnarain Ruia College who spoke on the same subject.

GOVERNMENT RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP LECTURES - 2011-2012

KUTCH AND ITS RECEPTIVITY TO THE WORLD

1st  LECTURE -  THE RIVER INDUS AND THE NOMADIC COMMUNITIES

OF KUTCH

Kutch’s four hundred year history as a semi-independent kingdom from 1548-1948 with its own mint and currency (the kori and the dhinglo), its insignia, the Mahi Mahatib (or golden fish), its bardic tradition and school of poets, its distinctive dialect (Kutchi), its religious syncretism resulting from a strong Sufi tradition and above all, its unique but harsh environment, have contributed to the evolution of a distinctive Kutchi culture and identity.

The occupations of people living in this challenged land range from sea-faring to arable farming, nomadic pastoralism to a wide range of craft activity. These in turn have led to the development of distinctive sub-cultures and group identities. The sub-cultures include the courtly culture of the Maharaos and the Bhaiyyad or royal brotherhood, the maritime culture of Kutchi sailors and maalams (captains or sea pilots), shipwrights, merchants and fisherfolk and the nomadic culture of Kutch’s many pastoral communities. Underlying the distinctive sub-cultures of Kutch is a shared love of the land and an awareness that survival has been possible as a result of inter-group cooperation, innovation and an exceptional receptivity to the outside world.

These three lectures explore Kutch’s interaction with the peoples of Sind, Western India, East Africa, Central Asia, and Europe that have enabled the Kutchi people to survive and often prosper. Today however, the syncretic culture and multi-hued identity of Kutch is threatened by sectarian forces and uncontrolled industrialization. Much is at stake and much needs to be done to protect a culture which is valuable not just to Western India, but to the country as a whole.

-----------------------------------------------------

Dr Mariam Dossal retired as Professor of History, Department of History, University of Mumbai. She has published many articles in academic journals of repute.

She has authored three books so far including Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City, 1845 – 1875’; State Intervention and Popular Response in Nineteenth Century ; Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope: Bombay/Mumbai, c.,1660 To Present Times.

GOVERNMENT RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP LECTURES - 2011-2012

KUTCH AND ITS RECEPTIVITY TO THE WORLD

2nd LECTURE - THE INDIAN OCEAN AND ITS RECEPTIVITY TO THE WORLD

Kutch’s four hundred year history as a semi-independent kingdom from 1548-1948 with its own mint and currency (the kori and the dhinglo), its insignia, the Mahi Mahatib (or golden fish), its bardic tradition and school of poets, its distinctive dialect (Kutchi), its religious syncretism resulting from a strong Sufi tradition and above all, its unique but harsh environment, have contributed to the evolution of a distinctive Kutchi culture and identity.

The occupations of people living in this challenged land range from sea-faring to arable farming, nomadic pastoralism to a wide range of craft activity. These in turn have led to the development of distinctive sub-cultures and group identities. The sub-cultures include the courtly culture of the Maharaos and the Bhaiyyad or royal brotherhood, the maritime culture of Kutchi sailors and maalams (captains or sea pilots), shipwrights, merchants and fisherfolk and the nomadic culture of Kutch’s many pastoral communities. Underlying the distinctive sub-cultures of Kutch is a shared love of the land and an awareness that survival has been possible as a result of inter-group cooperation, innovation and an exceptional receptivity to the outside world.

These three lectures explore Kutch’s interaction with the peoples of Sind, Western India, East Africa, Central Asia, and Europe that have enabled the Kutchi people to survive and often prosper. Today however, the syncretic culture and multi-hued identity of Kutch is threatened by sectarian forces and uncontrolled industrialization. Much is at stake and much needs to be done to protect a culture which is valuable not just to Western India, but to the country as a whole.

-----------------------------------------------------

Dr Mariam Dossal retired as Professor of History, Department of History, University of Mumbai. She has published many articles in academic journals of repute.

She has authored three books so far including Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City, 1845 – 1875’; State Intervention and Popular Response in Nineteenth Century ; Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope: Bombay/Mumbai, c.,1660 To Present Times.

GOVERNMENT RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP LECTURES - 2011-2012

KUTCH AND ITS RECEPTIVITY TO THE WORLD

3rd LECTURE - ROYAL PATRONAGE, LOCAL NEEDS AND EUROPEAN INFLUENCE ON THE CRAFTS OF KUTCH

Kutch’s four hundred year history as a semi-independent kingdom from 1548-1948 with its own mint and currency (the kori and the dhinglo), its insignia, the Mahi Mahatib (or golden fish), its bardic tradition and school of poets, its distinctive dialect (Kutchi), its religious syncretism resulting from a strong Sufi tradition and above all, its unique but harsh environment, have contributed to the evolution of a distinctive Kutchi culture and identity.

The occupations of people living in this challenged land range from sea-faring to arable farming, nomadic pastoralism to a wide range of craft activity. These in turn have led to the development of distinctive sub-cultures and group identities. The sub-cultures include the courtly culture of the Maharaos and the Bhaiyyad or royal brotherhood, the maritime culture of Kutchi sailors and maalams (captains or sea pilots), shipwrights, merchants and fisherfolk and the nomadic culture of Kutch’s many pastoral communities. Underlying the distinctive sub-cultures of Kutch is a shared love of the land and an awareness that survival has been possible as a result of inter-group cooperation, innovation and an exceptional receptivity to the outside world.

These three lectures explore Kutch’s interaction with the peoples of Sind, Western India, East Africa, Central Asia, and Europe that have enabled the Kutchi people to survive and often prosper. Today however, the syncretic culture and multi-hued identity of Kutch is threatened by sectarian forces and uncontrolled industrialization. Much is at stake and much needs to be done to protect a culture which is valuable not just to Western India, but to the country as a whole.

-----------------------------------------------------

Dr Mariam Dossal retired as Professor of History, Department of History, University of Mumbai. She has published many articles in academic journals of repute.

She has authored three books so far including Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City, 1845 – 1875’; State Intervention and Popular Response in Nineteenth Century ; Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope: Bombay/Mumbai, c.,1660 To Present Times.

Dr. Prachi Jariwala, a student of the University of Mumbai, had been initiated in Indian Classical Dance at a tender age. Initially, she received her training in the Bharata Natyam style of Indian Classical Dance under Smt. Latha Surendran. Since 1996, she has been learning the Odissi style from Smt. Daksha Mashruwala, a renowned Odissi dancer and senior disciple of late Padmavibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Both the styles having deep roots in understanding the sculptural art!

She has rendered performances in India and abroad. Some of them being:

¨ Hampi festival Hampi, Karnataka.

¨ Shivrâtri Sangeet Samâroha, Varanasi.

¨ Gurudakshina festival, Ahmadabad.

¨ Birmingham Museum, U.K.

¨ Soho house Museum, U.K.

¨ Asian Music Festival at Henley, London.

¨ Edinburgh Hindu Mandir and Culture Centre, Scotland.

¨ International Women’s Association Sana, Yemen.

¨ Gyerong Mountains Gods Ritual Festival, South Korea.

¨ For the celebration of 125 years of the Rajabai Tower.

The Sur Shingar Samsad has conferred upon her a title ‘Shringar Mani’.

Academically, she has obtained graduate and Post-graduate degrees in Ancient Indian Culture. She has a Ph.D. in the same subject, her topic being ‘Buddha in Ancient Indian Sculptures’, under the guidance of Prof. S. A. Upadhyay of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

The unique combination of academics and performing art has enabled her to give series of lectures and demonstrations in India and abroad. She has conducted intensive lectures, demonstrations and workshops in Edinburgh in 2004. She has also developed specific themes in dance to arouse the interest of children.

She has also acted in a film called ‘Hamari Beti’ directed by Mr. A.K.Bir and produced by Dr. Rama Naidu, where she plays the role of an Odissi dancer! This film was premiered at the Chicago World Film Festival in October 2006.

Dr Suraj Avinash Pandit was awarded his PhD degree by Bombay University in 2005 for his dissertation on “Religious Development of Buddhism Understood Through the Art of Kanheri” and is presently the Head and lecturer in the department of Ancient Indian Culture at Sathaye College, Vile Parle, Mumbai.

 He was the recipient in 2006-07 of the Asiatic Society of Bombay’s  Justice K.T. Telang Fellowship for Indology to enable him to work on his study of “Bodhisattva Figures from Kanheri” for the year 2006-07.

Last year he chaired a Session on ‘Buddhist Studies’ at an International Conference organized by SLABS (Shri Lanka Association of Buddhist Studies) at Pallanare, Kandy, Shri Lanka.

 He is a member of several important committees constituted by the University of Mumbai. He is the Chairperson of the Ad-hoc Board of Studies in Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology and a member of the Research Recognition Committee in Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology. Dr Pandit is a member of the Academic Council of the University of Mumbai as also a member of the University’s Faculty of Arts.

  Dr Pandit has a number of research papers to his credit. He has been published in several respected journals, including the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay and The Eastern Buddhist Society, Japan.

Temples have always been associated with dance in India.  Dance was offered to the deity as a part of the temple rituals all over India. The massive temples with towering Shikharas were adorned with sculptures speaking the grammar of Natyashastra in their depiction.

Indian classical dances draw inspiration from various arts, sculpture being one, and painting being the other.

This talk explained the correlation of the two arts of dance and sculpture, one is a performing expression, and the other is a plastic medium. 

Orissa, on the Eastern shore of India has evolved a unique & beautiful classical dance style known as Odissi, originating from the “Gotipuas” and the “Maharis”. This dance style is ornately related to the sculptures. The relation between sculpture and dance has existed on Indian soil from times immemorial. It is as much an inspiration for the artist to bring out their dance to a sculpturesque finesse as it is for the sculptor to chisel lyrical dance in hard stone.

Dr. Prachi Jariwala, a student of the University of Mumbai, had been initiated in Indian Classical Dance at a tender age. Initially, she received her training in the Bharata Natyam style of Indian Classical Dance under Smt. Latha Surendran. Since 1996, she has been learning the Odissi style from Smt. Daksha Mashruwala, a renowned Odissi dancer and senior disciple of late Padmavibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Both the styles having deep roots in understanding the sculptural art!

She has rendered performances in India and abroad. Some of them being:

¨     Hampi festival Hampi, Karnataka.

¨     Shivrâtri Sangeet Samâroha, Varanasi.

¨     Gurudakshina festival, Ahmadabad.

¨     Birmingham Museum, U.K.

¨     Soho house Museum, U.K.

¨     Asian Music Festival at Henley, London.

¨     Edinburgh Hindu Mandir and Culture Centre, Scotland.

¨     International Women’s Association Sana, Yemen.

¨     Gyerong Mountains Gods Ritual Festival, South Korea.

¨     For the celebration of 125 years of the Rajabai Tower.

The Sur Shingar Samsad has conferred upon her a title ‘Shringar Mani’.

Academically, she has obtained graduate and Post-graduate degrees in Ancient Indian Culture. She has a Ph.D. in the same subject, her topic being ‘Buddha in Ancient Indian Sculptures’, under the guidance of Prof. S. A. Upadhyay of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

The unique combination of academics and performing art has enabled her to give series of lectures and demonstrations in India and abroad. She has conducted intensive lectures, demonstrations and workshops in Edinburgh in 2004. She has also developed specific themes in dance to arouse the interest of children. She has also acted in a film called ‘Hamari Beti’ directed by Mr. A.K.Bir and produced by Dr. Rama Naidu, where she plays the role of an Odissi dancer! This film was premiered at the Chicago World Film Festival in October 2006.

Prods Oktor Skjaervo is the Aga Khan Professor of Iranian Studies at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization of Harvard University. He is a Norwegian national and a student of Old Iranian languages (Avestan, Pahlavi, etc.), literatures, and religions (Zoroastrianism, Manicheism), in addition to  Iranian dialects. He was Assistant Editor and Senior Assistant Editor of the Encyclopædia Iranica from 1985 until 1991, when he was appointed to Harvard University. Among his numerous publications are several articles for the Encyclopædia Iranica, including, “Aþdahâ,” “Iranian words in Chinese texts,” “Iranian Languages and Scripts,” and, more recently, “Jamšîd” and “Kayanids.

Dr Zeenat Shaukat Ali is the Founder Director General, Wisdom Foundation (World Institute of Islamic Studies For Dialogue, Mediation Gender and Peace.

Dr.Ali is a professor of Islamic Studies at St Xaviers College, Mumbai, and is a known international scholar on the subject of Islam and high status granted to Islamic Women in the Quran.

Visions of the Blue God: The Emergence of the Krishna Narrative in North Indian Sculpture and Painting     

Judging from frequency of invocation, illustration, and presence in the religious consciousness of the sub-continent, Krishna is certainly among the most important of the gods of Hinduism.  Among his most important roles in his long history is that of the narrator of the Bhagavad Gita, the moral and ethical text in the great epic the Mahabharata, in which the charioteer of Arjuna responds to that great hero’s moving and hearfelt question when he asks why he should go onto the field of battle to kill his own kinsmen and the god reveals to Arjuna his omnipresence as the supreme divinity (Bhagavad Gita IX.7.88). 

It is this very concept of the universal nature of Krsna that is both symbolically and literally at the root of the seemingly endless representations of the god that we find in even a cursory overview of Indian literature and visual art.  The resulting works, like the divinity they represent, present a continuity over time and region that challenges commonly accepted categories of sacred and secular, high culture and popular culture, regional divisions, and even sectarian divides. 

The forms of the god and the expressions of devotion to him have changed considerably over the millenia.  The illustrated lecture examines uses and forms of Krsna imagery in sculpture and painting over time from the Kushana period to the 17^th century. 

-----------------------------------------------------

Daniel James Ehnbom is Associate Professor in the McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

Dr Ehnbom completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Indian Studies from The University of Wisconsin-Madison and then went on to The University of Chicago from where he was awarded an M.A.in History of Art (South Asian art with Far Eastern minor.) He was awarded a PH.D. by the same university on the History of Art in 1984. His dissertation was titled "An Analysis and Reconstruction of the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana from the Caurapancasika Group.”

Dr Ehnbom joined the McIntire Department of Art, University of Virginia in 1992 and has been Associate Professor since 1995. He is the South Asianist in the Art History Department and Adjunct Curator of South Asian Art at the University of Virginia Art Museum. He was Director of the Center for South Asian Studies (1997-2003).  In Spring 2008, he was Academic Dean for The University of Virginia Semester at Sea Program.

He is Co-Director (with Beverly Blois, Northern Virginia CC) of the National Endowment for the Humanities, July 2011, Institute for 24 competitively chosen U.S. College and University Professors from two- and four-year institutions, “The Historical and Cultural Development of Modern India”, conducted in Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi (www.ccha-assoc.org/India2011).  This is a repeat at the request of the NEH of a similar program from Summer 2008.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Contracted to write the Indian section of a survey of Asian art to be published in 2012 by Pearson/Prentice-Hall.

Eight entries on South Asian painting and sculpture in Andrea Douglas, ed., The Museum, Conditions & Spaces: Selections from The University of Virginia Art Museum Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Art Museum, 2004), pp. 50-1; 78-81; 148-51; 170-1; and 182-5.

 Indische Miniaturen: Die Sammlung Ehrenfeld.  Stuttgart and Zurich: Belser Verlag, 1988.  B. Weitbrecht and E. Tivig, translators.

Indian Miniature Painting.  With Andrew Topsfield.  London: Spink and Son, Ltd., 1987.

 Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection.  New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the American Federation of Arts, 1985.

The catalogue was selected as an outstanding academic book in the 1986-87 listing of Choice, the journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.

FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS:

The National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, The American Institute

 of Indian Studies, The American Council of Learned Societies, The Weedon Foundation, the UVA Shannon Center, and the UVA Teaching Technology Initiative project.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS:

Association for Asian Studies

College Art Association

The European Association of South Asian Archaeologists

The American Committee for Southern Asian Art

Fellow, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Vedanta is not different from Science , Philosophy, Logic or Religion. If  science  finds truth, Vedanta discovers truth. There is room for monism, dualism and pluralism so as to suit the needs of the human mind & attitude .

The truth or reality being the same in spite of changing times, the methods and applications of Vedantic principles have been diverse over the last two centuries. Hence we study philosophical systems like Adviata vedanta  of Sankara, Visitadvaita of Ramanuja  and Dvaita of Madhwa even today.

  Many thinkers and philosophers have taken the greatness of Vedanta philosophy across the globe. The challenges  and questions continue… We seek answers again …The subject matter of philosophy has been God, Universe, Man, Origin of man, Evil, Death, and many more  . .

 To bring  the relevance of Vedanta into the twenty-first century,  leaving aside pedantic ideas  and to bring a new lease of life to the subject, we have many  great thinkers like  Vivekananda, Aurobindo,  Jiddu Krishnamurthy  Ramana Maharshi, KC Bhattcharya,  Rajnesh, Tagore and so on.  The need of man and his quest has remained the same in shifting scenario.   These new thinkers have brought fresh developments, new perceptions, clear insights to Indian philosophy. 

 Dr Uma  Shankar is Associate Professor,  Head, Department of Philosophy, S.I.E.S. college of Arts, Science and college . She has eighteen years of teaching experience with undergraduates and ten years with post- graduate students.

She has been involved in serious research and  has participated in many national and international seminars and presented papers on various themes like  Adviata Vedanta,  Religion & Spirituality, Shakthi Worship. Guru Parampara,   Saranagathi,   Mystics – Shaiva & Vaishnava traditions, Philosophy of yoga, Women mystics of India, Mysticism, Spirituality &Management, Bio ethical issues  like Surrogacy, Euthanasia and Suicide, also Indian saints-Music and literature and  Science and Religion.

She is a member of the Bombay Philosophical Society  and the  Indian Philosophical Congress. Presently she is guiding six students towards their Ph. D.  and two  students for the M.Phil  degree . She is the Chairperson of the board of studies in Logic & Philosophy at her college.

VADA DASTOORJI  KAIKHUSROO N. DASTOOR MEHERJIRANA

WORLDLY CAREER

B.Sc., L.L.B Advocate.

Presently :  Practising Advocate since 25 years.

Previously : Law – Executive in L.I.C., Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.

Retired from Bank of Baroda.

Last Position:  General Manager, Chief Legal Advisor and Chief Vigilance Officer

Ex – Part-time Post graduate (L.L.M.) Lecturer in the University of Bombay.

Author of a book on Banking Law.

Ex – Faculty in Training Colleges of Reserve Bank of India and various Banks.

 RELIGIOUS CAREER

Navar – Maraatab (older tradition).  Son of Ervad Navroze Dastoor, a full-fledged Mobed who had performed more than 80 Nirangdins.  Nephew of Ervad Rustom Dinshah Dastoor (Bapaji), a well-known scholar, teacher and post-graduate lecturer in Avesta-Pehlvi.

Student of the Zarthoshti and other major Religions since the age of 12 years.

In particular, the life-long student of Ilm-e-Khshnoom, the authentic Mysticism of the Zarthoshti Din propagated by Baheramshah Shroff of Surat in the last century.

Sub-Editor of a Weekly, “Parsi Avaz” for 25 years , edited by Jehangir Chiniwalla.

Disciple of Framroze and Jehangir Sohrabji Chiniwalla, the Chief Propagators of Ilm-e-Khshnoom.

Since 1974 delivered more than 3000 lectures in India and U.S.A..

Conducted week-long camps in U.S.A. every year since 23 years, speaking 6 hours a day.  The lecture activity continues till date.

Conducted seven 3 day camps in Udwada and Mumbai on Avesta prayers.

Floated “Dini Avaz” and “Parsi Pukar”, monthly magazines as organs of Zarthoshti Din and Ilm-e-Khshnoom, now merged in “Parsi Avaz”, a three monthly Enlish and Gujarati magazine.

Author of “The Divine Science of Navjote and Sudreh-Kushti” and “Zarathushtra, the Yazata”.

Has written hundreds of articles on Zarthoshti Religion as also on modern science and Parsi public topics.  This continues till date.

Appointed as Datoor Maherjirana of Navsari on 25-1-2010.

EXTRA CURRICULAR

Keeps in touch with the advances in modern theoretical Physics, whose subject matter is the intellectual quest for Nature’s Truth and Reality.

Ardent student of Indian Classical music since very young age.  Ex-Artiste (flute player) at All India Radio, Baroda and Bombay.

-------------------------------------------------------

I  Introductory:

Atash : Divine Light between Man and Ahura Mazda.

The Thoughts and feelings whilst standing before the Holy Fire in Atash Beheram or Agiary.

Two basic Manthra-sentences : “Nemasatey Atrash Mazdaao Ahurahey Hudaao Mazishta Yazata” and “Aathro Ahurahey Mazdaao Poothra”.

Aurobindo Ghosh’s Book : “Hymns to the MYSTIC FIRE”.

Rig Veda 1-1 “Agnimillay Purohitam…”

II  Atash : 

1.  The Lord of divine Energy behind all motions in Ahura’s Creation.

The Lord of all Karmic motions of humans.

III  The visible fire, external manifestation of Ahura Mazda’s “Poothra”.

Atash Baheraam, Aadraan, Daadgah.  Rituals and procedures for consecration.

16 kinds of vocational and other Fires.

IV  “Atash Niyaish” – Meanings and messages of a few selected passages.

“Oos Moi Ujareshwa Ahura….”

Oh Ahura! Purify me, enlighten me, elevate me.

Bestow on me the mind frame of Armaiti.

Make me the receipient of Thy Divine Energy (“Aalaat”), Thy Bliss and ecstasy (Ushtaa”)……….(Gatha Haa 33-11,12.)

    2.   “At Toi Aatrem Ahura…..”

          Oh Ahura ! May Your Son Athra enlighten the Atash within me.  (Gatha Haa 34-4)

    3.   “Vispaebyo Sastem Baraiti….”  

           Ahura Mazda’s Athra gives us “day-meal” and “night meal” i.e. the good karma and                  

    bad karma, and drives us to our Frashogard, (Salvation, Moksha). (Atash Niyaish-16)

   4.    “Vispanaam Par-Charentaam Atarsh Jast Adidaya…”

          What gift has the walking friend brought for the sitting friend?

          Here, the “sitting  friend” is the enthroned Atash; “walking friend” is the one who is constantly walking on the path of his life – karma.  If he has brought the results of his good actions, the Enthroned Friend will bless him and lead him on the divine path of Frashogard.  If he has brought the results of his bad actions, the Enthroned Friend will pluck them out,  For the former there will be reward; for the latter there will be punishment.  Either case is a walk on the Path of Frashogard.  For the former, it will be flowery, for the latter, thorny.                        (Atash Niyaish, paragraphs 17 to 20.)

5.    “Saochey Booye Ahamye Namaney….”

Oh Atash !  In this Home may You continue to spread Your Divine Light, Your Divine Wisdom, Your Divine Asha and Strength, during the whole Zarvan-e-Darego Khadat…..and right up to the arrival of Frashogard.  (Atash Niyaish paragraph 12.)

Dr. Amita Valmiki,

Associate Professor, Head, Department of Philosophy,

Ramniranjan Jhunjhunwala College, Ghatkopar (W), Mumbai - 400 086.

* B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Certificate Course in Sanskrit, Diploma in Comparative Mythology

(all through University of Mumbai),

* Member of Board of Studies in Logic & Philosophy, Member of Faculty of Arts.

* Article published in Navneet Samarpan, Gujarati Magazine.

* Articles on Living Ethical Issues and Philosophy of Religion published.

* Published articles in APCI Encyclopedia of Philosophy – ‘Meaning’ and ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’

* Presented papers at International, National and State level seminars.

* Presented paper at Bonn University, Germany on ‘Kierkegaard to Kabir’ on 9^th June, 2010.

* Presented paper in seminar ‘Conversations with Sen’ (in presence of Dr. Amartya Sen) on ‘Indian and Greek Concept of Justice – A Tie’ at Department of Philosophy, University of Mumbai.

* Have chaired sessions at International Seminar.

* Participated in number of Round Table Conferences.

* Presented paper thrice at Bombay Philosophical Society.

* Has been visiting faculty at Dept. of Philosophy at PG level and visiting faculty at Jainology, Certificate and Diploma Courses, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Mumbai, K. R. Cama Institute, Fort and Buddhist Centre, K. J. Somaiya College, Vidyavihar, Mumbai.

* Have been a convener (jointly) of Indo-German Colloquium – “Between East and West – a cross-cultural encounter” and convener (jointly) of UGC sponsored National Seminar on “Health-Care in India – Issues and Challenges” (Topic – Bioethical Issues and Yoga as alternative means of medicine and philosophy).

* Have conducted workshops on Personality Development at various institutes and have delivered lectures on Value Based Education, Discovering World Religions, Comparative Religions, and Mysticism.

* Specialization - Philosophy of Religion

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mysticism and Environmental EthicsDr Valmiki writes, “For me, it was a basic haunting question as ‘what is religion?’ and ‘what role does mysticism (or bhakti or the path of devotion) play in human life?’ In the evolutionary process, man has been affected by many things, but not as much as the way he is affected by religion. In human development, religion has played a pivotal role in building society. Many changes have come through because of religion. In this talk I will make an attempt to concentrate on one path of religion that is the path of mysticism that has had tremendous impact on human society. Many religious men, who were in their own way social reformers, through the path of devotion affected the framework of society, for instance, women’s rights were given due attention, environmental ethics was given importance, social evil like castism, racism, class and gender distinctions gradually lost their intense grip; this was possible because of the mystics, those were aspired through the love of God, to change society positively. Here we are talking about theistic mysticism. How much success they achieved in their endeavor is a different issue altogether. But they are praise worthy for their attempt.

Kabir said, “I searched for God for years and years and could not find him. Then I dropped the whole idea and became still and loving…… Now I know the way…… it is not in formalities, but in an informal friendliness with the existence.”

"This is what ‘religion’ means to me. Religion is simple, innocent, straight-forwardness in knowing “Him”. Perhaps I would define religion in this manner. Religion for me is not a personal property belonging to a group of individuals, a diaspora, nor is it a private institution run by some trustees, it is like air that ‘does not belong’ to any one group or individual, but vital for breath and survival. Therefore, if  I were asked to define ‘Religion’, I will do it as – Religion is as natural a process as other basic necessities are – viz – food, clothing and shelter. It is basic human instinct to ‘believe’, believe in something that is subtle, fine, meta in existence, the feeling of ‘ONENESS’ with the whole of the universe."

"I am inspired by traditional styles of painting, like Indian/Persian miniatures, Byzantine icons and Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts, but I blend these ancient forms with pop cultural elements from our times to create a new vocabulary of my own. Using the rich colors of gouache I apply layers, literally with the paint, as well as metaphorically with the content.

“My painting is my ritual, my celebration, my essence. My research and ideas flow simultaneously together and make up the fabric of my work. I use gouache paints and 22K gold leaf to form layers of jewel like color. My background in painting, enameling on metal and theater set design all influence my work. My characters are real as they act out contemporary situations and dilemmas, while also celebrating my womanhood, my abilities, my strengths and my ambitions. The ornateness of the culture from which I came once seemed difficult and unnecessary to apply in my work. Now I have found a way to use it, to be able to weave current issues and parts of my life in its intricacies, thus making this ornateness strong and meaningful. In this way, I attempt to create a dialogue between the ancient and the modern, forcing a confrontation of unresolved issues.

“I am an artist originally from Bombay, India, of Bene Israel Jewish descent. My work reflects my background and the transition between my old and new worlds. Having grown up in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim society, having been educated in Catholic and Zoroastrian schools, having been raised Jewish and now living in America, I have always had to reflect upon the cultural boundary zones in which I have lived.  In this transcultural America I feel a strong need to make art that will speak to my audience of our similarities, not our differences as I feel I can contribute to a much-needed "repair" (Tikkun) through my art. I would like my audience to re-evaluate their notions and concepts about identity and race, thus understanding that such misconceptions could lead to racism, hate and war.” – Siona Benjamin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Siona  Benjamin is an artist and educator with several solo and group exhibitions of her paintings having been held in prestigious Indian and American galleries. Her work has been reproduced in important journals, including the Financial Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times arts section.

She is presently in India on a Fulbright senior scholar research fellowship.

Siona has lectured on her subject at several museums and colleges in the United States and has participated in several group discussions with other distinguished artists.

Ms Benjamin has been a visiting professor and artist in residence at some reputed colleges in the U.S.

She has also been deeply involved in theatre scene design and has undertaken a number of assignments for opera and musicals in that country.

Her paintings are to be found in several private and public collections, including the  Newark Public Library, New Jersey and the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University.

I am inspired by traditional styles of painting, like Indian/Persian miniatures, Byzantine icons and Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts, but I blend these ancient forms with pop cultural elements from our times to create a new vocabulary of my own. Using the rich colors of gouache I apply layers, literally with the paint, as well as metaphorically with the content.

“My painting is my ritual, my celebration, my essence. My research and ideas flow simultaneously together and make up the fabric of my work. I use gouache paints and 22K gold leaf to form layers of jewel like color. My background in painting, enameling on metal and theater set design all influence my work. My characters are real as they act out contemporary situations and dilemmas, while also celebrating my womanhood, my abilities, my strengths and my ambitions. The ornateness of the culture from which I came once seemed difficult and unnecessary to apply in my work. Now I have found a way to use it, to be able to weave current issues and parts of my life in its intricacies, thus making this ornateness strong and meaningful. In this way, I attempt to create a dialogue between the ancient and the modern, forcing a confrontation of unresolved issues.

“I am an artist originally from Bombay, India, of Bene Israel Jewish descent. My work reflects my background and the transition between my old and new worlds. Having grown up in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim society, having been educated in Catholic and Zoroastrian schools, having been raised Jewish and now living in America, I have always had to reflect upon the cultural boundary zones in which I have lived.  In this transcultural America I feel a strong need to make art that will speak to my audience of our similarities, not our differences as I feel I can contribute to a much-needed "repair" (Tikkun) through my art. I would like my audience to re-evaluate their notions and concepts about identity and race, thus understanding that such misconceptions could lead to racism, hate and war.” – Siona Benjamin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Siona  Benjamin is an artist and educator with several solo and group exhibitions of her paintings having been held in prestigious Indian and American galleries. Her work has been reproduced in important journals, including the Financial Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times arts section.

She is presently in India on a Fulbright senior scholar research fellowship.

Siona has lectured on her subject at several museums and colleges in the United States and has participated in several group discussions with other distinguished artists.

Ms Benjamin has been a visiting professor and artist in residence at some reputed colleges in the U.S.

She has also been deeply involved in theatre scene design and has undertaken a number of assignments for opera and musicals in that country.

Her paintings are to be found in several private and public collections, including the  Newark Public Library, New Jersey and the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University.

Siona Benjamin is a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, with an emphasis in Theater Set Design. She has also earned this degree from Southern Illinois University. While in India in the 1980’s, she was awarded  diplomas in Metals (Enameling) and in Fine Arts by the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art, Bombay.

VADA DASTOORJI  KAIKHUSROO N. DASTOOR MEHERJIRANA

WORLDLY CAREER

B.Sc., L.L.B Advocate.

Presently :  Practising Advocate since 25 years.

Previously : Law – Executive in L.I.C., Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.

Retired from Bank of Baroda.

Last Position:  General Manager, Chief Legal Advisor and Chief Vigilance Officer

Ex – Part-time Post graduate (L.L.M.) Lecturer in the University of Bombay.

Author of a book on Banking Law.

Ex – Faculty in Training Colleges of Reserve Bank of India and various Banks.

 RELIGIOUS CAREER

Navar – Maraatab (older tradition).  Son of Ervad Navroze Dastoor, a full-fledged Mobed who had performed more than 80 Nirangdins.  Nephew of Ervad Rustom Dinshah Dastoor (Bapaji), a well-known scholar, teacher and post-graduate lecturer in Avesta-Pehlvi.

Student of the Zarthoshti and other major Religions since the age of 12 years.

In particular, the life-long student of Ilm-e-Khshnoom, the authentic Mysticism of the Zarthoshti Din propagated by Baheramshah Shroff of Surat in the last century.

Sub-Editor of a Weekly, “Parsi Avaz” for 25 years , edited by Jehangir Chiniwalla.

Disciple of Framroze and Jehangir Sohrabji Chiniwalla, the Chief Propagators of Ilm-e-Khshnoom.

Since 1974 delivered more than 3000 lectures in India and U.S.A..

Conducted week-long camps in U.S.A. every year since 23 years, speaking 6 hours a day.  The lecture activity continues till date.

Conducted seven 3 day camps in Udwada and Mumbai on Avesta prayers.

Floated “Dini Avaz” and “Parsi Pukar”, monthly magazines as organs of Zarthoshti Din and Ilm-e-Khshnoom, now merged in “Parsi Avaz”, a three monthly Enlish and Gujarati magazine.

 Cont’d…

Author of “The Divine Science of Navjote and Sudreh-Kushti” and “Zarathushtra, the Yazata”.

Has written hundreds of articles on Zarthoshti Religion as also on modern science and Parsi public topics.  This continues till date.

Appointed as Datoor Maherjirana of Navsari on 25-1-2010.

EXTRA CURRICULAR

Keeps in touch with the advances in modern theoretical Physics, whose subject matter is the intellectual quest for Nature’s Truth and Reality.

Ardent student of Indian Classical music since very young age.  Ex-Artiste (flute player) at All India Radio, Baroda and Bombay.

------------------------------------------------------

Vada Dastoorji Kaikhusroo N Dastoor Meherji Rana will cover the following issues during the course of his two lectures:

·         Basic foundations of all Religions: Knowledge, Practice, Devotion.

·         The end of modern science collapse of common sense. Failure of the three dimensional consciousness of ordiary non-saintly human beings.

·         Religion, Science beyond all modern sciences.

·         The rules of Life as ordained by Religion. Life itself is Religion.

·         Devotion, an equipment of the heart. Love, compassion, tears.

·         Common Truths and teachings of all Religions:

·         Existence of God – not an intellectual concept, but EXPERIENCE.

“Soul” within physical body.

Salvation, Mukti, Moksha, Nirvana, Frasho-gard.

Evil within. Alchemy of evil into good.

·         Main Religions amongst the humans.

The word “Daenaao” in Gatha 31-11, 33-13, 34-13,  46-6, 49-9..

·         Other Religions on “Daenaao” Bhagvad Gita 3-35, 18-47.

·         Teachings of Islam.

·         The points of variance in different Religions – Procedures, practices, ‘tarikat’s.

·         (If time permits) Special Topic: “Surrender”, where almost all Religions converge or give the same Message.

·         (If time permits) Special topic “Reincarnation”, where scriptures of different Religions are said to differ (Do they?)

·         Conclusion – Frame of mind, and throb of the heart – as directed by Religion. 

Professor S A Upadhyaya is Director of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Post-Graduate and Research Department and a research guide in Sanskrit, Ancient Indian Culture and Fine Arts (Dance), besides being a DAAD scholar.

He has held the post of A V Humboldt Fellow (1978) and guest professor for Indology at Tuebingen University (1980-1982). He is presently a Trustee and member of the Governing Board of the K R Cama Oriental Institute. He is the recipient of the Best Teacher Award from the Maharashtra government and the Eminent Sanskrit Scholar Award from the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi (2000). He participated in the Hindu – Christian Dialogues at the sesquicentenary celebrations of Max Muller’s birth.

Professor Upadhyaya has been actively associated with the Max Muller Bhavan, the Heras Society and Deccan College in Pune, along with several other cultural organisations.

He has edited several prestigious publications including the Professor H D Velankar Memorial Volume (with Dr S N Gajendragadkar), the M M Prof J H Dave Felicitation Volume, Reflections of Indian Art by Heimo Ray and several plays by Bhasa, Kalidasa and Harsha.

Professor Upadhyaya presented a fascinating overview of the six systems of Indian Philosophy. His lucid style made this a revelatory lecture for the uninitiated.

Like all religions in the Early Middle Ages, Zoroastrianism engaged in religious polemics and disputations with its rivals.  One of the most important of these Zoroastrian polemics is contained in a text called the Shkand Gumanig Wizar, or Doubt-Dispelling Treatise, written in the ninth century.

The Shkand includes polemics against Manichaeism and other religions.  This talk will focus on the Shkand's critique of Judaism.  It will show how some of the statements about Jewish theology contained in the polemic are influenced by Jewish mysticism of that time.  In particular, the speaker will discuss how the Jewish notion that God shares his power with an angelic co-ruler named Metatron, an idea found in the Talmud and Jewish magical and mystical texts, had a role in shaping the Shkand's critique.

Mr Samuel Thrope is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies, specializing in Talmud and Sasanian Religion. He has participated in several advanced programmes, including an Arabic and Persian Immersion Program at the University of  Wisconsin and the summer institute in critical theory at Cornell University.  He also attended The American Institute of Indian Studies, Jaipur and was awarded one of ten Advanced Language Fellowships in Hindi.

Mr Thrope has been working on The Middle Persian Dictionary Project since 2007 and is presently Assistant Editor, editing and translating Middle Persian texts in xml format for ongoing project of the Israel Academy of Sciences.

In 2010 he was part of the Friedberg Genizah Project as a Researcher, transcribing and translating medieval manuscripts in the Early Judeo-Persian dialect as part of a team led by Dr.Thamar Eilam Gindin.

He also worked as an assistant to the Curator of The Library of the University of California at Berkeley, working closely with the  Judaica Collection.

Dr. Eugen Ciurtin, Secretary of the Scientific Council at the Institute for the History of Religions, Romanian Academy and the Scientific Researcher, Department of Indian and Iranian Religions at this Institution, delivered the third Avabai B Wadia Memorial Lecture in memory of Phiroz Dorabji Mehta on “Earth Space and Environment in Indian Buddhist Thought.” This lecture, based on previous research conducted in institutions devoted to Indian, Buddhist and History of religious studies in France, Romania and India (2007-2010), attempts to reconsider an assortment of neglected features in Indian Buddhist thought from a comparative viewpoint. The lecture presented the problem and some fundamental characteristics of earthquakes as detailed in more than two hundred independent Pali and Sanskrit texts (mainly, but also in some Chinese and Tibetan translations), aiming at refreshing our understanding of Buddhist conceptions of space and environment.

PLATO AND ARTHASASTRA - PLATO'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & INDIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT by Dr SHERIYAR OOKERJEE,  The K R Cama Oriental Institute’s latest publication, was released by Prof Richard Sorabji , Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Kings College, London, on January 20, 2011.

From 1948 to 1985, Dr Ookerjee taught Western Philosophy at the Wilson College, Bombay and was the head of the Department of Philosophy from 1957. A recognised post-graduate lecturer in philosophy of the University of Mumbai, he was the president of the Bombay Philosophical Society. Dr Ookerkee specialises in the philosophies of Plato and F H Bradley. He has extensively lectured abroad and was awarded a fellowship by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research from 2004 to 2006.

Plato and Kautilya were both anxious to preserve a stable and unified State, but while Kautilya sought to achieve it by making the king extremely powerful and not scrupling to use any means, fair or foul, Plato visualises a band of superlatively wise and moral philosopher-kings, specially trained in statecraft. From these differences flow different conceptions of the lifestyles, qualities, duties and education of rulers.

This book discusses all these and related matters, like the nature of the state and justice, law-making, punishment and totalitarianism. It also incidentally brings out the difference between the Western and Indian concepts of political philosophy and styles of philosophising.

Professor Dr  J Havewalla has been a Professor and Chairperson of the Centre for Persian and Central Asian Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies, New Delhi. She taught Persian there for more than 35 years.  She was the youngest student to obtain her PhD from the University of Tehran, Iran in 1970.  The topic of her dissertation was Rawabat-e-Parsiyanba Hend va Iran (Parsi relations with India and Iran).

Professsor Dr Havewalla is a recipient of the President of India’s Certificate of Honour for Persian learning and research.  She had previously lectured for five years at the R D National College, Bombay.  She has taught Persian to the non-Iranian staff of Iran Air and taught in classes sponsored by the Iran Culture House.  She had also taught Persian at the K R Cama Oriental Institute from 1966 to 1971.

She has contributed papers in the fields of Persian and Indo-Iranian studies and has translated many literary works from Persian into English and several Indian languages.

The Fig Leaf of the Gibbonites in David’s Kingdom; Kings II Ch. 21 Verses 1-15

We seem to be dealing with a small and simple story which starts with a drought and ends with the skies opening up with pouring rain. 

“The story’s facts are simple: After three years of drought and famine, David asked the Lord for the reason.  The Lord replies that it is because of Saul and what he did to the Gibbonites.  David calls the Gibbonites and asked them what to do.  At first they said that have no claims but when he asked again they said that the curse will be lifted only when seven of Saul’s descendents will be sacrificed.  David accepts and the seven of Saul’s family, five sons of Meirav (Saul’s oldest daughter – who was a candidate to be David’s wife and in the last moment was given to Adriel – and two of Saul’s sons with Ritzpa (Saul’s mistress). The second part of the story describes how Ritzpa takes care of the corpses.  How she devotedly stays near the corpses for months and does not allow the beasts and the eagles to defile the bodies. Silently, with no speeches, she convinces David to bring Saul’s and Jonathan’s bodies back from Yavesh Gilad and bury all in the family tomb.

“Many questions arise while reading:

Is this chapter documented chronologically? It is very significant if it is an appendix – meaning it happened in David’s early rule but was documented at the end of the book because it was less important than documenting David’s sin with Batsheva and the destructive results. Or did it happen in the late period of David’s rule, as documented, and is a significant example of the late days of his kingdom.

What did Saul do to the Gibbonites.  We have no direct information of Saul confronting the Gibbonites.

Why did David not ask God for instructions what to do? Is he the right authority to decide God’s punishment.  How come the Gibbonites become the authority for a religious punishment.

If it is God’s punishment, how does David rescue Mefiboshet’s life because of his swearing to Jonathan (Saul’s son and David’s soul friend).

What is the earlier relationship between David and Mefiboshet, Michal and Meirav- the potential heirs of Saul’s rule that can illuminate this chapter better.

Does Ritzpa’s behaviour express a silent provocation against the King’s actions or is it a tragic expression of the helplessness of her motherhood?

How does David’s decision stand with the Israeli (biblical) Law that does not allow desecration of human bodies? (In Deuteronomy, Ch. 22 we are obligated to bury the body on the same day of death otherwise it is a sin to God because Man was created in God’s form).

“In effect, this is not an innocent story and not a closed story.  This story relates to and creates a dialogue with other stories, and this dialogue threatens to destroy the innocent interpretations of this story.

“First I wish to give some basic information on the Gibbonites and the history of the relations between them and Israel:

The Gibbonites were a nation inhabiting four cities in the centre of Israel before Joshua conquered the land.  They understood in the very beginning of the war that Joshua was going to obliterate them as one of the seven nations of Canaan and they decided to fool him and tell him that they came from a distant place outside the borders of Canaan and want to make peace with him.  Joshua agreed and signed a peace and mutual defense and collaboration agreement but after discovering the fraud he curses them to be the water carriers and timber cutters of the community.

“When the Holy Ark returns from the Philistines who had captured it, (King I Ch 7), it stays for some time in Kiryat Ya’arim which is known as one of the four Gibbonite cities, meaning in the early times of David’s kingdom this is clearly no longer a Gibbonite City.

Ba’ana and Rechab the murderers of Ishboshet, the son of Saul, were probably Gibbonites.

“In Solomon’s time, we already know that in Gibbon (another of the four cities) there was a big centre for worship of the Israel God and its land was given to the High Priests.

“These facts show that the conflict between Saul and the Gibbonites lasted throughout his reign and was connected with Saul’s attempt to unify the twelve tribes into one nation and the Gibbonites were a foreign element in the midst.

“Now we return to our story.  We should make note that the story is told by three elements: God, the Author and the Gibbonites themselves.  However, God’s version seems to be suspect.  Firstly, David is trained to talk to God and consult him intermittently.  Usually, Nathan the prophet is involved.  Here, it seems that there are no other witnesses to this conversation with God. David is the only one who hears God’s reply.  Secondly, David does not ask God what to do – as he was used to do in the other conversations.  He initiates the invitation to the Gibbonites.

Moreover, the Gibbonites give two answers.  In the first, they say they have no claims against anyone in Israel.  Only after the King encouraged them to give a more suitable answer did they request the revenge of the killing of seven of Saul’s offspring.  It is even odder that we know from other stories of David reign that he is so determinately against honour revenge (when Joab kills Abner because of his killing Asa-el, when he decides to protect the wise woman’s son from her family’s vengeance).  Here he agrees immediately to undertake vengeance.

“Now we arrive at my suggestion of interpretation.  The Author of this chapter must describe it as an event meant to solve the national problem of famine by grace of the King.  However, he gives some hints to disperse the innocent mask of the story.  He does it with special words.  We have an idiom in Hebrew which says that Life and Death is in the power of words.

“In all the occasions where David has conversations with God, only twice does the story use the terminology of “asking God”.  The first of these is when he is pleading for his son’s life during illness (the son of David and Batsheva – a result of The Sin) and the second time when he pleads to kill the sons of Saul. Perhaps the Author meant to make a hidden comparison between these two events – the hypocrisy of using God to further his own personal interests.

“The Author mentioned that Saul’s sons should be killed on the “Hill of Saul”, and adds “The Chosen King of God” – a fact seemingly neglected by David as the current “Chosen King”.

“The main weapon of the Author is the use of the verb “pity”. Three times is this verb used in the First Book of Kings:

“When Saul has “pity” on the Amalykite king for his own (Saul’s) prestige and benefit. (Saul had no pity for women, children, animals etc, but he did have for the Amalykite King).

When Nathan comes to David with the fable of the case of the rich man using the poor man’s lamb to feed his guest, and David thinking it fact, verdicts him to death. The Author uses pity stating that the rich man had “pity” on his own flock and thus used the one and only lamb of the poor man.

“In our story, it says that David had pity for Mephiboshet, Jonathan’s son.  Of course, we understand from the story that it is NOT pity but an obligation because of his promise to Jonathan.  Mephiboshet is a cripple, cannot be a king and not cannot endanger David rule.

“We see that in all three cases, pity is used in a cynical and sarcastic way to criticise the decisions of the King. The only real pity that we have in our story is the tragic silent pity of Ritzpa to her dead sons.

“From all these hints we find in the text, we can conclude that the Author has to tell a story that will not endanger the connection between his neck and his head.  However he is brave enough to plant hints for the intelligent and knowledgeable reader to understand the true meaning of the events.  I feel he had the inspiration to be brave, from the unique concept of the Israeli Kingdom, Our kings are not sons of gods and are thus always obligated to constitutional rule.  This is the basic assumption that gives the prophets their special power of criticism of the King.  Throughout the rule of Kings in Israel, the Kings always knew that they are committed to obey the law, just as are the lowest slave in their Kingdom.  The Law was always above them.

“I am very proud to be a part of this brave tradition of opposition to autocratic rule.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NAME: Tsippy Levin Byron

ADDRESS: 7 Keren Hayesod St, Ramat Ilan 54051, Israel

PHONE: +972-3-5320408; Mobile: +972-54-585142; e-MAIL: tsippy1502@gmail.com

DATE OF BIRTH: 15^th February, 1955

PLACE OF BIRTH: Tel-Aviv, Israel.

MARITAL STATUS: Married + 4 children

CITIZENSHIP: Israeli

EDUCATION:

2007-today – writing of doctorate thesis on: “Spiritual Idealism and the Remnants of Family Memory as Jewish Identity in the Writings of Natalia Ginzburg and Clara Sereni”

2007 – Approval received for doctorate thesis in the Faculty of Comparative Literature – Bar-Ilan University.

December 2006 Ordained as a Communal leader (Rabbi) following a three year course of Study at Tmura (the School of Humanistic Rabbinical Studies).

2007 - Prize received for my Thesis from The Centre of Jewish Women Studies in Bar Ilan University.

1997 – Halicon – Course in Creative Writing in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem.

1994: Graduated from Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel - M.A. (Jewish Philosophy) – Thesis on Comparison of the Zionistic Views of Franz Rosenzweig and Emanuel Levinas.

1992-3 – Professional Speaking Course – The Kibbutz Theatre, Ramat Efal.

1991 Studied Subject Management Course University of Ben Gurion – Beersheva.

1978: Graduated from Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel - B.A. (Bible and Hebrew

            Literature) and Teaching Diploma

EMPLOYMENT:

2009-today – Guest lecturer in Tel-Aviv University, Chimbalista Centre

1999-today – Guiding and accompanying local communities with lectures on Judaism and Bible, preparation for holy days and conducting Jewish secular ceremonies (e.g. weddings, bar- and bat- mitzvahs, funerals etc.) while creating awareness of personal responsibility for our Jewish secular identity. Arranging and leading Kabalat Shabbat ceremonies with Ora Sittner and Shuly Natan.

1995-2008 – Educational Institute Shar Hanegev - Subject Mistress, Bible and

            Literature teacher

1995-today – Training of Bible and interdisciplinary humistic studies for teachers in various

            institutions.

1992-2000 – Lecturer in the Yaakov Herzog Centre for Jewish Education

ARMY SERVICE:

1973-1974 Served as Corporal in the Casualties unit

GENERAL:

Published four books of poems. The first in 1998 obtained an award from the Amos - President's - Foundation), Second in 2001 and Third in 2006. A fourth book of poems was published in September, 2010. All received the Yehoshua Rabinowitch Art Foundation and the Mifal Hapayiss Award.  Complimentary critiques published in the literary sections of the Main Daily Newspapers, Radio and Television.  In the process of publishing a fifth book of poems – which will be a bilingual edition Hebrew and English, dealing among other with cultural meeting between India and Israel.

2009 – Received first prize in a national poetry competition from Kollech for a poem on feminine, modern interpretation of the Bible.

 LANGUAGES: English, Hebrew, Yiddish (partial fluency).

Pradip Das graduated with Honours in History from the Presidency College  Calcutta and the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London.

 His working life was spent in Bombay as Chief of Marketing, Castrol Limited and subsequently as Vice President, Projects with the Modys and Executive Director of the National Association of the Blind. He is currently President, Chetana Foundation for Social Awareness, Research and Development based in Calcutta.

Pradip Das was inspired by the architectural elegance of Sir Edwin Lutyens  as a  child and was  drawn to the work of Christopher Wren, Inigo Jones and Robert Adam during his years in London as a student.  His interest in Calcutta’s Religious Architecture comes as much from his own extensive reading and keen observation of Western and Eastern classical architecture as much as their confluence and concessions to local climatic conditions in Colonial India. He studied the phenomenon of hybridisation which sweeps across public and private buildings in the city and by the “exceptionalism” created by India’s British rulers to establish their authority in the nation’s Colonial Capital  for almost 300 years.

Mr Das is a researcher and creative writer. His published work includes “An Introduction to Classical Hindustani Music” “A Scent of Clover” a collection of his own memoirs and “The History of the Tollygunge Club since 1895” which he co-authored with his wife, Dr Amita Das. He is currently working on a major project for the House of Birla and expects to publish his own detailed study of the Religious Architecture of Colonial Calcutta in 2011. The subject has already attracted the attention of the West Bengal Heritage Commission and Calcutta’s Asiatic Society.

Pradip Das has contributed to leading newspapers and journals on a variety of subjects from Management to the Arts and Politics. One of his pieces on  the 18th century British painter, John Zoffany, has recently been accepted by MARG publications of Bombay and is expected to appear soon. 

URBANISATION AND RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE IN COLONIAL CALCUTTA – A SUMMARY

The mansions and churches built by the British  dominated Calcutta’s landscape in the 18^th and 19^th centuries and  came to be associated not only with the architecture of the city but as symbols of Imperial power. Colonial writers and painters always focussed on British achievements ignoring or at best bypassing  other communities like the Greeks, the Armenians, the Chinese and Jewish settlers  who were attracted to the city by its commercial prospects. This also applied to the indigenous population of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains etc. However, contrary to colonial claims of  supremacy, British  religious architecture did not conform to strict European classical norms. Some of it was borrowed to suit  local  climatic conditions and/or layouts.  Its influence on the indigenous architectural styles of the period was, in consequence, also hybrid.

The talk focused on Imperial Calcutta, not Bengal-- a piece of land which developed independently of the rest of the state to replicate the English landscape. It was  an attempt to wean the native population away from the residual culture of the Nawabs and to hold them in awe of a foreign ruler.  The shift of power from the Moghul capital of Murshidabad  to  Calcutta after Plassey,  brought with it the economic incentives of urbanisation accompanied by the inevitable sequence of privilege and patronage. This, in turn, was faithfully reflected in the religious architecture of the city and is uniquely captured in the many monuments of that period, including churches, mosques and temples.

 THIS TALK WAS HELD AT THE ALEXANDRA GIRLS' INSTITUTION, C M C HALL, FORT, BOMBAY 400 001.

Ervad Dr Ramiyar Karanjia spoke on The Baj-dharna (Dron Yasht) Rituals at 6.00 p.m. at The Alexandra Girls English Institution, 31 Hazarilal Somani Road, Bombay 400001.

  Ervad Dr Ramiyar Parvez Karanjia, is the Principal of the Dadar Athornan Institute, Mumbai and the Sir J J Zarthoshti and Mullan Feroze Madressas (Institute for Indo-Iranian Studies). He obtained his Ph D degree for his dissertation on the Avesta-Pahlavi languages from the University of Mumbai in 1993. 

He delivers lectures and conducts Seminars on Zoroastrianism, spirituality and Iranian history all over the world. He is a motivational speaker who talks on matters relating to children, youth and adults.

 He has authored numerous books and papers and has been a research scholar at several prestigious Universities including the Universities of Heidelberg, Germany, TFSC, Moscow, Uppsala, Sweden and Bergen, Norway.

 The Drôn Yasht, referred to as the Bâj-dharnâ in India, is an important and widely performed ritual by the Zoroastrian priests. It is basically performed for consecration - an important theme in Zoroastrian theology. It touches various aspects of the religious life of a Zoroastrian, and more importantly, their religious institutions.

The performance of Bâj-dharnâ is an essential pre-requisite for the performance of other inner rituals as it bestows ritual power on the performer. It is essentially performed for the consecration of drôn and other edible ritual requisites, things and places connected with rituals, as also for commemorating and celebrating festivals and events. Whenever rituals are to be performed collectively, the Bâj-dharnâ invariably forms a part of the group.

 Dastur Dr K M Jamasp Asa presided.

 Ervad Dr Ramiyar Karanjia's new book on the The Baj-dharna (Dron Yasht) was on sale at the venue.

At 6.00 p.m. on September 15, 2010 at the Sohrab Palamkote Hall, 636, Firdausi Road, Muncherji Joshi Colony, Opposide The Five Gardens, Dadar East, Bombay 400 014, The "Baj-dharna (Dron Yasht)" by Ervad Dr Ramiyar Karanjia was released at the hands of Dastur Dr. Peshotan H Mirza who spoke on "The Baj Dharna Ritual."

The Drôn Yasht, referred to as the Bâj-dharnâ in India, is an important and widely performed ritual by the Zoroastrian priests. It is basically performed for consecration - an important theme in Zoroastrian theology. It touches various aspects of the religious life of a Zoroastrian, and more importantly, their religious institutions.

The performance of Bâj-dharnâ is an essential pre-requisite for the performance of other inner rituals as it bestows ritual power on the performer. It is essentially performed for the consecration of drôn and other edible ritual requisites, things and places connected with rituals, as also for commemorating and celebrating festivals and events. Whenever rituals are to be performed collectively, the Bâj-dharnâ invariably forms a part of the group.

 There has been no complete book on the ritual written in English so far. This is the first time that the ritual is presented in its entirety, including its history, implements, acts, text, translation, structure and semiotics.

 This work had been undertaken as part of the Wenner Gren Fellowship at the Uppsala University in 1999 and also as a part of the DFG Project at Heidelberg University during 2002-2003.

Ervad Dr Ramiyar Parvez Karanjia, is the Principal of the Dadar Athornan Institute, Mumbai and the Sir J J Zarthoshti and Mullan Feroze Madressas (Institute for Indo-Iranian Studies). He obtained his Ph D degree for his dissertation on the Avesta-Pahlavi languages from the University of Mumbai in 1993. 

 He delivers lectures and conducts Seminars on Zoroastrianism, spirituality and Iranian history all over the world. He is a motivational speaker who talks on matters relating to children, youth and adults.

 He has authored numerous books and papers and has been a research scholar at several prestigious Universities including the Universities of Heidelberg, Germany, TFSC, Moscow, Uppsala, Sweden and Bergen, Norway.

 Dastur Dr. Peshotan Dastur Hormazdyar Mirza

Born at Udvada in November 1944.

Priestly Education and Training at:

Seth Sorabji Manekji Damanwala Madressa, Udvada.

The M.F. Cama Athornan Institute, Andheri.

Ordained the Zoroastrian Priestly orders of Navar, Maratab and Samel; performed higher liturgical services and ‘Boi’ ceremony of Holy Iranshah Atash-Behram, Udvada.

Passed SSC examination joined St.Xavier’s college Mumbai and obtained B.Sc (Honors), M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from the University of Bombay.

Studied Avesta-Pahlavi and Iranian History at Sir J.J. Zarthosti Madressa and Mulla Firoze Madressa, Mumbai alongside University studies in Science.

Appointed Dastur (High- Priest) of Iranshah Atash Behram; Samast Anjuman, Udvada on 13^th May 2004.

Posts Held:

·         Lecturer in Chemistry at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai;

·         Development and Documentation Scientist at International Draxon Industries, Tehran, Iran.

·         Retired from the post of General Manager– Technical Services in a Chemical manufacturing company in Mumbai.

·         Former member –Science and Technology Sub-committee, Bombay Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

• Member - Research Committee- The K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai
• Member of Managing Committee - M. F. Cama Athornan Institute and its Ex-student Association. 
• Trustee – Athornan Mandal and Udvada Anjuman.

 Besides discharging Religious duties as a High Priest of Iranshah Atash Behram Udvada Anjuman, presently is also working as a Technical Consultant in a chemical manufacturing company in Mumbai.

Attended and participated in Religious and Technical seminars and conferences. He was an invitee to the World Conference on Spiritual Regeneration and Human Values at Bangalore in January 2003, and addressed the gathering there on Spirituality and Science. Attended a conference of World Religions Dialogue and Symphony at Mahuva, Bhavnagar in 2009.

Lectured on Zoroastrian Religious and Historical subjects at various places of Parsi settlements in India, Singapore, Dubai and Iran.

‘O Ahura, We Desire Your Fire To Be Strong Through Asha’: Language, Literature And Learning From The Gathas

 Dr. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, National Council for the Humanities, Research Associate, Harvard University

  In this talk the speaker attempted to survey some of the most often asked questions regarding the Gathas and tried to provide some historical context for better answering these questions:

What are the Gathas? What are their formal characteristics that separate them from other ancient texts? When, where, and by whom were they composed? Questions of approximate geographies and relative chronologies have proven to be highly contentious over the last century. How were they made? What oral processes were used to compose these beautiful and enigmatic poems? And finally, how do we study millennia-old poems in the 21st century? How do we moderns learn from these ancient texts and what do we need to do to make better sense of them?

This talk served as both a general survey and as an introduction to some of the challenges in learning from the world’s most enigmatic religious texts.”

 Born in Bombay and raised in the U.S., Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina received his M.A. in 2003 and his Ph.D. in 2007 from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University under the guidance of Professor Prods Oktor Skjærvø. After completing his doctoral work, Dr. Vevaina served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Undergraduate Core Curriculum and as the Lecturer on Old Iranian at Harvard from 2007-2009. He is currently a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow of the National Council for the Humanities in the United States of America. Dr. Vevaina has taught a number of courses related to Zoroastrianism including, Old Persian Language and Literature and Middle Language and Literature, an Introduction to Zoroastrianism and a seminar course on Contemporary Zoroastrianism. His research interests include: theoretical approaches to the study of Zoroastrianism; the history and development of Zoroastrian scriptural interpretation; colonial and post-colonial constructions of religion; and religion in Diaspora. He is currently working on a number of articles and a forthcoming book project to be published by Harrassowitz Verlag of Wiesbaden, Germany. Dr. Vevaina is also the co-editor (with Michael Stausberg of the University of Bergen, Norway) of the forthcoming, The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Zoroastrianism, to be published by Wiley-Blackwell of Oxford, U.K. The companion will bring together 35 of the world’s experts on Zoroastrianism from a dozen countries. In January 2011 he will be beginning a lectureship at Stanford University in their Department of Religious Studies.

Government Fellowship Lectures 2010 -2011

Iranian Resistance and Remembrance:

Zoroastrian Apocalypse as History

 The third lecture in this series was concerned with the conflict and political disorder of the Islamic conquest of Iran and the accommodations which were eventually made between the conquerors and the conquered. The function of the local independent lords, as well as other contenders for control of the province, such as Arab Muslim rebels and various religious groups, was discussed. Finally, the lecture attempted to detail how the Zoroastrian inhabitants of Fars viewed their predicament in the face of political defeat and accommodation. This was done by looking at Zoroastrian apocalyptic literature which provided communal views of the political developments of the eighth and ninth centuries C.E. These texts also historicize the last attempt by the family of Sasan to take back the Sasanian Empire from the Arab Muslim conquerors.

 Dr. Touraj Daryaee's research has focused on ancient and early medieval history of Iran, specifically the Sasanian Empire. He has worked on Middle Persian literature, editing and translating several texts with commentary on geography, dinner speech, chess and backgammon. He is also interested in the history of Zoroastrianism in Late Antiquity and its encounter with Islam. He is the editor of the Name-ye Iran-e Bastan: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies as well as the director of Sasanika: Late Antique Near East Project.

 His latest books include Sasanian Iran: Portrait of a Late Antique Empire, Mazda Publishers, 2008; with I. Afshar, Scholars & Humanists, Iranian Studies in Henning and Taqizadeh Correspondence 1937-1966, Mazda, 2009; Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, IB Tauris, London, 2009; and the forthcoming The Oxford History of Iran ed. T. Daryaee, Oxford University Press, 2010.

The lecture series was most ably presided over by Dr Sherene Ratnakar.

Government Fellowship Lectures 2010 -2011

War, Blood and Conquest:

The Arab Muslim Takeover of Fars.

 This lecture focused on the numismatic evidence for study of the conquest of Fars, its date and the gradual processes by which the province fell to the Arab Muslims. It was shown that the initial process of the conquest was quite bloody and that while militarily the people in the cities of Fars could not withstand the Muslim forces, they revolted time after time. It was also shown that what the Islamic texts report in terms of the dates of the conquest contradict the numismatic evidence and this suggests that it took far longer for the Arab Muslims to conquer Fars and the entire Sasanian Empire.

Dr. Touraj Daryaee is the Howard C. Baskerville Professor in the History of Iran and the Persianate World and the Associate Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture at the University of California, Irvine.

 Dr. Daryaee's research has focused on ancient and early medieval history of Iran, specifically the Sasanian Empire. He has worked on Middle Persian literature, editing and translating several texts with commentary on geography, dinner speech, chess and backgammon. He is also interested in the history of Zoroastrianism in Late Antiquity and its encounter with Islam. He is the editor of the Name-ye Iran-e Bastan: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies as well as the director of Sasanika: Late Antique Near East Project.

 His latest books include Sasanian Iran: Portrait of a Late Antique Empire, Mazda Publishers, 2008; with I. Afshar, Scholars & Humanists, Iranian Studies in Henning and Taqizadeh Correspondence 1937-1966, Mazda, 2009; Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, IB Tauris, London, 2009; and the forthcoming The Oxford History of Iran ed. T. Daryaee, Oxford University Press, 2010.

The city of Bombay and many towns around it on the Konkan coast were home to two  Jewish communities in India- The Bene Israel and the Baghdadi Jews. Both the communities separated by centuries in their arrival and therefore in ritual and custom built several places of worship. The extant examples are mostly from the 19th and the early 20th century. Two attributes signify the Jewish presence on the West Coast of India- syncretism and philanthropy.

 The Bene Israel, originating in a myth of a shipwreck, made a home out of Konkan and successfully assimilated themselves with the local people, Hindus and Muslims mostly. Their places of worship were modest, functional and non-iconic as they became a part of the unselfconscious cosmopolitanism of the Konkan. The Baghdadis migrated as traders and the house of Sassoons is known for their propensity to build urban institutions and grand synagogues to rival the glory of the colonial masters with whom they identified.

 The lecture with many illustrations examined the religious and public architecture of the Jews in and around Bombay with an aim to recreate their social and economic pursuits and contribution to public life.

  Note: This lecture was based on a research paper written for the K.R.Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai for publication. A part of this ongoing study by the author is based on the ‘Navi Mumbai Heritage Project’ carried out by PiCA Research Cell, led by the author and sponsored by the MMRDA Heritage Conservation Committee.

Ms. Smita Dalvi is an Assistant Professor in Pillai’s College of Architecture, (PiCA) New Panvel. She obtained her Masters Degree in Building Science from the IIT-Delhi and a PG Diploma in Indian Aesthetics from the Mumbai University. Her areas of research include Urban Heritage and History of Art & Culture, particularly the Indo- Islamic Architecture and Painting. She has presented papers and widely lectured on these subjects. In 2007, she was awarded a fellowship of ‘Fulbright Visiting Specialist: Direct Access to the Muslim World’.

The lecture, an abridged version of a research paper, pivoted  around 6 verses culled out by the author from the Gathas, the most ancient of Zoroastrian scriptures.  The 6 verses pertain to two concepts, viz., Cosmology or the Evolution of the Cosmos or Universe, and Cosmogenesis or the genesis (i.e. birth or origin) of the Universe.

In the Gathas, Prophet Zoroaster speaks of a ‘Growing God’,  which in terms of modern Astro-physics or Space-Time science (which includes Einstein’s Theory of Relativity), may be equated with an ‘Ever Expanding Universe’.  The second concept, viz., of Cosmogenesis or birth of the Universe, which Zoroaster speaks of, is in consonance with the ‘Big Bang’ theory of modern science.  Thus, in the Gathas of Zoroaster are contained the germ or seminal element of modern scientific Cosmic theories, establishing Prophet Zoroaster as the ‘precursor’ of these modern theories.

 It was only a year or two back that such scientific links were detected by me in some few (5 to 6) verses of the Gathas (composed by Prophet Zoroaster roughly 3500 years back), links comparable to and justified by some of the most recent theories and advances in Cosmology or the science of the Universe, a branch or division of Space-Time Physics.

These startling links, hitherto not dealt with by any scholar, came to me as something of a revelation, highlighting the end of my 50 years’ long excursion in the field of Iranology & Zoroastrian religion. My initial studies however were in the science stream, after graduating from which I had a short one-year stint of teaching science, mainly physics (relevant to the present thesis) at the University level. Ever since then, I developed a flair for scientific literature, including modern areas of physics such as the Quantum & Relativity, Cosmic theories, etc.

The concerned verses are six. Out of these, one verse, viz., Ys. 31.7, bears on both the above areas (a) & (b), and the remaining 5 verses on the first area (a). For instance, Ys.31.7 runs “Who (Ahura Mazda or God) first thought thus: Let the heavens/firmament be filled with light … “ . This is in consonance with the modern scientific concept of Cosmogenesis, viz., the ‘BIG BANG’ THEORY, according to which the Universe began with a huge bang and a streaming forth of light. At its birth the Universe was minute and infinitely hot and dense.

 The second concept, viz., that of Cosmology or evolution of the universe, on which the Gatha verses bear, both directly and indirectly, is the concept of a ‘Growing God’ in the Gathas, as equated with an ‘Expanding Universe’ as per modern Space-science.

The very first verse below (Ys.33.10) brings out this concept of a ‘GROWING GOD’ as equated with an ‘EVER EXPANDING UNIVERSE’ through the agency of ‘Asha’ (Skt. ‘Rita’), the ‘Universal Order’ or the Law governing the Universe or Cosmos.

  Mr. Sam Doctor has done his MA (Gold Medalist) in Ancient & Middle Iranian languages;  a B.Sc. in Chemistry-Physics, with Maths,  and a diploma in Sanskrit,  all at Bombay University;  Ph.D. course work (one semester) in Iranian and Comparative Oriental Studies (Berkeley Univ., USA), and finally a D.Litt.

 He was one-time lecturer & demonstrator  in Physics (Adarsh Science College Classes, 1964),  and Head of Dept. of Iranian Studies, Zoroastrian College.  He also taught Science & Maths, English, & Avestan language at the Andheri Madressa or Seminary.

 His studies and writings cover a wide range of Orientalia, including Indo-Iranian History, Archaeology and specialized Astronomy. He has 20  research papers to his credit.  He had also presided over the Iranian Section of the All India Oriental Conference, 2002.

     Among 3 projects in 3 different areas of research currently undertaken by Doctor, one is the production of a voluminous book on the ‘Gathas’, which Doctor has been working on for the past 12 years.

After an illustrious career in law and merchant banking, Dr Kekobad Dossabhoy Doongriwalla took over the running of his ancestral business of salt manufacture at Doongri, Thana District. In 1998 he was accepted as a doctoral student by Dr Varsha Shirgaonkar, Head of the History department at Ruia College, Bombay. In 2006, he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Bombay for his History of Salt Works in Bombay and Salsette from 1750 to 1950.

"Focus on the history of Salt Works lands, the very origins of Salt manufacture, the different and rather diverse tenures of lands on which Salt has been hitherto manufactured; the various methods and extents of punitive taxation on the Salt manufactured, have  merely been restricted to a few government reports and books written by both Government Officers and various authors who reproduced Government Data.

"No attempt had been made till date to codify and make a comprehensive summary of the origins and history of Salt manufacture, particularly in Bombay and Salsette. A sketchy history on the Salt Industry by senior officers of the Salt Department who published biased one sided reports, and various editions of the Gazettes and Gazetteers published from time to time by both the Union and State Governments, was the only information available to the public. The evolution and nature of the tenures of the lands occupied by Salt Works in different areas, of the numerous taxes, Cess and levies can only be found in the numerous and well preserved records that had been maintained by the Portuguese, the Marathas and more particularly by the British. My research is based mainly on the primary sources as mentioned in my Thesis; and as such, the secondary sources are few in number. 

"The primary sources used herein are mostly the ones located in the Department of Archives of the Maharashtra State in Mumbai, and in the Peshwai Dafter in Pune. The original papers, records, files and information from numerous private individuals who gave the researcher access on grounds of anonymity also are utilized in this work.  I took up the work of going into the very root/origins of Salt Works and lands as very very few people had any knowledge of the ownership of their lands. The Central and State Governments had from 1983 colluded  with each other to grab without compensation Salt Work lands in order to benefit the builder lobby of which they are a party."  - Dr. Kekobad D Doongriwalla

What is our process to encounter the city, especially the city we visit as travellers or strangers?  We encounter the city as a space of experience, dwelling, referencing ideas, storing histories, and planning. The experiencing of a city is often left to the realms of exotica or literary practice, while ‘to know’ or understand or study the city implies the employment of a very scientific practice or method. The 'experience' of being in a new city, walking it, is charcaterised by the relationship that one has with the city as a visitor. Travelling within place, or being a stranger in a context, yet coaxing to produce a relationship with the 'not yet known' space is probably an essential experience to even finally understand the city that is 'my own'. This talk will discuss the anxieties of experiencing and writing about cities that are 'not my own'.

Kaiwan Mehta has studied Architecture, Literature, Indian Aesthetics and Cultural Studies. He is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. While being involved in teaching, writing and research on architecture and the city, he has been associated with many institutions in Mumbai, India and Europe. He has recently authored Alice in Bhuleshwar – Navigating a Mumbai Neighbourhood (Yoda Press, New Delhi: 2009). This book takes the reader for a walk through the streets and past the buildings of the 'native town' of colonial Bombay, reading their histories and excavating their memories, while continuing to negotiate their present context. 

He has just finished his fellowship at AkademieSchloss Solitude, Stuttgart, which involved living and travelling in some European cities.

The Government Research Fellowship Lectures for 2009-2010 as detailed below, were delivered by Dr Mitra Sharafi,  Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Law School, U S A .

 1. October 8, 2009 :  “Parsing Law : Strategy and Paradox in  Zoroastrian Legal History”
             Mr Darius J Khambata,  Additional Solicitor General of India presided.

2. October 9, 2009 : “Parsing Gender : the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Acts (1865 and 1936)”
             The Hon’ble Mrs Justice Roshan S Dalvi, Judge, Bombay High Court presided.

3. October 10, 2009 : “Parsing Religion : the Rangoon Navjote Case (1925)”   

Mr Fredun E De Vitre,  Senior Counsel, presided.
 

Professor Dr Sabar J Havewalla was Professor and Chairperson, Centre for Persian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Mr Dinyar P Patel, Ph.D. Candidate in Modern Indian History,

Harvard University, U SA.

Mrs Rati Dady Wadia, Former Principal, Queen Mary School, Mumbai is interested in Zoroastrian issues and has made a deep study of the subject. 

Dr Arvind P Jamkhedkar is the Director, K J Somaiya Centre for South and South East Asian Studies.

Mr Adi F Doctor is a Scholar of Zoroastrian History and Religion.

Mr Jagdish Gandhi is a Research Scholar in Indology and has extensively studied the Saraswati River issue.

Dr Kirti Narain is the Principal of The Jai Hind College, Mumbai and has undertaken extensive research on his subject

Mr. Daniel J Sheffield is a Ph.D. candidate in Iranain and Persian Studies at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, Harvard University, U S A.  The topic of his Ph.D. dissertation is “In the path of the Prophet : Sacred Narratives of Zarathushtra in Medieval and Early Modern Zoroastrianism”. 

He has been a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations of the Harvard University since 2006.  He has had a very distinguished academic career and has been the recipient of many Grants and Fellowships including the Persian Heritage Fellowship (2006-2007) and the Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant for 2008-2009.

 Dr. (Ms.) Mihaela Timuş is a Scientific Researcher at the Institute for the History of Religions, Romanian Academy, Bucharest.

Prof. Dr. James Alan Jaffe from The Department of History, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater , spoke on Arbitration and Panchayats in Early Colonial Bombay.

Prof. Dr. Sonja Brentjis is a Research Scholar at the University of Seville, Spain.

Dr. Milind Malshe is Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, VIII Bt. spoke on Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy: The Man and his Vision, before releasing the Institute's new publication, China and the Making of Bombay by Dr. Madhavi Thampi & Dr. Shalini Saksena.

Hon'ble Mrs. Justice Sujata Manohar, Retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India, spoke on "Women in Law." and also released the Institute's publication, Autumn Leaves, an autobiography of Ms. Mithan J Lam.

Dr. Anna Krasnowolska, Head, Department of Iranian Studies, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, delivered the Dinshaw J Irani Memorial Lectures, as follows:

June 8 , 2009 – The Knowledge of Zoroastrianism and its writing in Poland. (Chairperson: Er. Dr. Rooyinton P Peer, Trustee of the K R Cama Oriental Institute.

June 9, 2009 – A Controversial Custom in Biruni’s Chronology (A Discussion on Burning Animals in Sade Fires.) (Chairperson: Dr. (Mrs.) Sabar J Havewalla, Former Professor & Chairperson, Centre for Persian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.)

June 10, 2009 – Metaphorical Use of the Descriptions of Nature in Persian Epic Poetry (Shahnameh, Vis-o-Ramin.) (Chairperson: Dr. (Mrs.) Sabar J Havewalla)

June 11, 2009 – Elements of the Zoroastrian Apocalyptic Tradition in the Shahnameh - (Chairperson: Er. Dr. Rooyinton P Peer.)

Dr. Chandra B Varma, Reader, Department of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad delivered this, the Second Avabai B Wadia Memorial Lecture.

Daniel J Sheffield is a Ph.D. candidate in Iranain and Persian Studies at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, Harvard University, U S A.  The topic of his Ph.D. dissertation is “In the path of the Prophet : Sacred Narratives of Zarathushtra in Medieval and Early Modern Zoroastrianism”. 

He has been a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations of the Harvard University since 2006.  He has had a very distinguished academic career and has been the recipient of many Grants and Fellowships including the Persian Heritage Fellowship (2006-2007) and the Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant for 2008-2009.

 Within the Parsi Zoroastrian community, there are a number of stories narrating the life of the prophet Zarathustra. From his miraculous laughter at birth to his journey to the court of Kay Vishtaspa, the story of the life of Zarathustra has been the subject of books, films, comic books, and even computer games. But where does this story come from, and how has it reac

This lecture was delivered on the occasion of the death centenary of the late Kharshedji Rustomji Cama.

Mr. Sabyasachi Mukherjee is the Director of The Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya The Prince of Wales Museum.)

Prof. (Dr.) Sherene Ratnagar, past Professor of Archaeology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, specialized in Mesopotamian archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London. She later spent a year in Iraq as Fellow of the British School of Archaeology in that country.

  She later worked on the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus civilization for her doctorate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. This work is published, in its second edition (2004), as Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age, Delhi: Oxford University Press.
 She is the author of a half-dozen other books, including The Timeline History of Ancient Egypt, London: Worth, 2009, and Makers and Shapers: Early Indian Technology in the Household, Village, and Urban Workshop, Delhi: Tulika, 2007, as well as three books on the Harappa civilization.
 

Prof. Ratnagar’s well received talk at the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute on March 10, 2010 was on the subject of “Ancient Mesopotamia and the West.”  She expertly profiled this ancient civilization and explained why the West saw its own origins therein.
 

Her illustrated talk indicated the importance of early Mesopotamia in world history.  Prof. Ratnagar went on to connect Babylonian civilization with the world of the Old Testament and elucidated how this prosperous civilization bestowed on the world a legacy of mathematics, astronomy, a rich literary corpus and a precocious technology.  

The talk was followed by a very active question and answer session which Dr. Ratnagar most ably fielded.
 

Sr. (Dr.) Anila Verghese is an alumna of Sophia College.  She completed her B.A. in History in 1970 and her M.A. in History in 1972, securing in both a First Class - First from the University of Bombay.  In 1980 she completed the Diploma in Higher Education and in 1989 her Ph.D. in History, both from the University of Bombay. 

Sr. Anila is recognized nationally and internationally as an authority on Hampi-Vijayanagara (in Karnataka), the world heritage site wh

Dr. (Sr.) Anila Verghese has been a staff member of the Department of History, Sophia College for Women, Mumbai, since June 1977.  She has served the institution as Vice-Principal of the College for five years (1996-2001) and was appointed Principal of Sophia College in June 2001, a post that she holds even today.   She was awarded the ‘Innovative Principal Award for 2002’ by the All India Association of Christian Higher Education (AIACHE).  In 2005 she was awarded the ‘Best Teacher Award’ by the University of Mumbai.