Vrindavani Vastra is a drape woven by Assamese weavers led by Mathuradas Burha Aata during 16th century under the guidance of Srimanta Sankardeva, a Vaishnavite saint and scholar who lived in present-day Assam. [1] The lead weaver Mathuradas Burha Aata a disciple of Sri Sri Madhabdev, who was the first Satradhikar of the Barpeta Satra. Mathuradas Burha Aata along with his 12 assistant weavers wove the Brindavani Bastra. The large drape illustrates the childhood activities of Lord Krishna in Vrindavan. [1] Parts of the original Vrindavani vastra are presently owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Musee Guimet (the Guimet Museum) in Paris. The piece of cloth demonstrates the skillful weaving methods developed during medieval times and such complexity is rarely seen in present-day Assam. [2]
Assamese silk weavers depicted scenes from Bhagavatha, Mahabharatha, mainly of the childhood days of Lord Krishalala on silk clothes under the supervision of Saint, scholar, and poet Srimanta Sankardeva and his disciple Madhvadeva during 16th Century. [3] First woven between 1567 and 1569, it was taken to Bhutan and then later to Tibet, where European merchants brought it back to Europe. Presently, it is owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Musee Guimet in Paris. [1] Some reports suggest that the Vrindavani Vastra piece was collected by a reporter of "The Times" (London) and donated to the museum [3] around 1904. [2] Similar silk drapes are also held by other museums like The Philadelphia Museum of Art. [4] In 2004, a similar piece of silk drape, probably designed by Sankaradeva during 16th Century, was put up for auction by the auction house of Christie's in New York, with a reserve price of $120,000. [5] This type of silken-weaving artwork was produced up to around 1715 in Assam and its neighborhood [6] and exported to places like Tibet. [1]
The exhibit owned by British Museum, acquired in 1904 from Tibet, is nine and half meters long and is made up of several pieces of silk drapes depicting Krishna's (or Vishnu's) life. [2] Along with colorful pictorial depictions, it has a portion of a poem written by Srimanta Sankardev woven on it. [2]
There were futile efforts by government agencies of India to bring back the silk drape back to India. [1] During 2013, Assam government, India has requested British Museum to exhibit Vrindavani Vastra at London so that art lovers, researchers, and local people with Assamese heritage can admire the piece of art. [3] This textile is now on display until August 2016 in the exhibition 'Krishna in the garden of Assam: the cultural context of an Indian textile' in Room 91 of the British Museum. Entry is free. [7]
A sari is a women's garment from the Indian subcontinent, that consists of an un-stitched stretch of woven fabric arranged over the body as a robe, with one end attached to the waist, while the other end rests over one shoulder as a stole (shawl), sometimes baring a part of the midriff. It may vary from 4.1 to 8.2 metres in length, and 60 to 120 centimetres in breadth, and is form of ethnic wear in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. There are various names and styles of sari manufacture and draping, the most common being the Nivi style. The sari is worn with a fitted bodice also called a choli and a petticoat called ghagra, parkar, or ul-pavadai. It remains fashionable in the Indian Subcontinent today.
Dispur is the capital of the Indian state of Assam and is a suburb of Guwahati.
Sattriya, or Sattriya Nritya, is a major Indian classical dance. This dance was initially created as part of Bhaona which are performances of Ankiya Nat, one-act plays, originally created by Sankardev, the 15th-16th century polymath from Assam. These dances are part of the living traditions today of Sattras, which are communities of live-in devotees belonging to the Ekasarana dharma, the religion established by Sankardev.
Srimanta Sankardev was a 15th–16th century Assamese polymath; a saint-scholar, poet, playwright, dancer, actor, musician, artist social-religious reformer and a figure of importance in the cultural and religious history of Assam, India. He is widely credited with building on past cultural relics and devising new forms of music (Borgeet), theatrical performance, dance (Sattriya), literary language (Brajavali). Besides, he has left an extensive literary oeuvre of trans-created scriptures, poetry and theological works written in Sanskrit, Assamese and Brajavali. The Bhagavatic religious movement he started, Ekasarana Dharma and also called Neo-Vaishnavite movement, influenced two medieval kingdoms – Koch and the Ahom kingdom – and the assembly of devotees he initiated evolved over time into monastic centers called Sattras, which continue to be important socio-religious institutions in Assam and to a lesser extent in North Bengal. Sankardev inspired the Bhakti movement in Assam just as Guru Nanak, Ramananda, Namdev, Kabir, Basava and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu inspired it elsewhere in the Indian subcontinent.
Mājuli or Majuli is a river island in the Brahmaputra River, Assam and in 2016 it became the first island to be made a district in India. In the 1790s the island covered an area of 1300 sqare kilometers or. It had an area of 1,255 square kilometres (485 sq mi) at the beginning of the 20th century, but having lost significantly to erosion it covers 352 square kilometres (136 sq mi) as at 2014. Majuli has shrunk as the river surrounding it has grown.
Srimanta Sankaradev Kalakshetra, commonly known as Kalakshetra, is a cultural institution in the Panjabari area of Guwahati, Assam, India, named after the medieval poet-playwright and reformer Srimanta Sankardev. It includes a cultural museum, library, a children's park, and various facilities for preserving, demonstrating and performing cultural items and history. In addition to being Northeast India's largest cultural congregation, the Kalakshetra is also a major tourist spot in Guwahati. Built in the 1990s, the artistic excellence of Assam and rest of the north-eastern region is displayed here. There are eateries, places of worship, emporiums and open-air theatres within the sprawling Kalakshetra premises.
Indira Goswami, known by her pen name Mamoni Raisom Goswami and popularly as Mamoni Baideo, was an Indian writer, poet, professor, scholar and editor.
Ekasarana Dharma is a neo-Vaishnavite monolithic religion propagated by Srimanta Sankardeva in the 15th-16th century in the Indian state of Assam. It reduced focus on Vedic ritualism and focuses on devotion (bhakti) to Krishna in the form of congregational listening (shravan) and singing his name and deeds (kirtan).
Assamese literature is the entire corpus of poetry, novels, short stories, plays, documents and other writings in the Assamese language. It also includes the literary works in the older forms of the language during its evolution to the contemporary form and its cultural heritage and tradition. The literary heritage of the Assamese language can be traced back to the c. 9-10th century in the Charyapada, where the earliest elements of the language can be discerned.
The culture of Assam is traditionally a hybrid one, developed due to cultural assimilation of different ethno-cultural groups under various political-economic systems in different periods of its history.
Assam silk denotes the three major types of indigenous wild silks produced in Assam—golden muga, white pat and warm eri silk. The Assam silk industry, now centered in Sualkuchi, is a labor-intensive industry.
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Kerala sari (Set-sari) is a clothing of women in the Indian state of Kerala.
Prof Bhabananda Deka was a pioneer Assam economist and author who conducted novel research on the economy of the far eastern part of India. He was also a leading Indian-Assamese litterateur of the famed 'Awahon-Ramdhenu Era' of Assamese literature during the mid-20th century. He was the author of a total of 115 English and Assamese books including textbooks on a range of fifteen subjects including economics, ancient Assamese literature, philosophy, education, religion, mythology, archaeology, tribal study, poetry, drama, memoirs, civics, political science, biographies; he also edited books and journals. He also authored a variety of research papers and articles about the state of Assam, a state in the north-eastern part of India. He pioneered the writing of books on Economics in Assamese. His Assamese book Axomor Arthaneeti was the first ever research-based comprehensive book on Assam Economics, which was published for the first time in 1963. He was conferred with the honorary title of 'Asom Ratna' -- 'Jewel of Assam' by the intellectuals of Assam on 19 August 2007 at a public meet held under the presidency of Prof. (Dr) Satyendra Narayan Goswami.
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vrindavani vastra.