A Confluence Of Cultures

Spanning a period of over a million years, a recently concluded exhibition comprising over 200 invaluable objects chronicles the history of the Indian subcontinent against the backdrop of what was happening concurrently across the world. It encapsulates the idea of syncretism in the many stories shared by India with other nations through the predominant tropes of early civilisations, trade, faith, empires, and the quest for freedom, among others.

- Aatish Nath

Humankind’s impact on the world cannot be overstated. We are living, after all, in the age of the Anthropocene, viewed as the dominant influence human activity has on all living systems and the environment as a whole. Two or three thousand years ago, the collective footprint that we, as a species, had on the world, was subtler. India and the World: A History in Nine Stories — a colossal exhibition held in Mumbai and New Delhi during the course of the last few months, and a first-time collaboration between the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, the National Museum, New Delhi and the British Museum, London — stretches back further in time. It brought together artefacts, ideas and stories of shared histories that demonstrate the knowledge and skill accrued over several years, and iterated over generations, to become the bedrock for civilisation, as we know it today. For the most part, these objects are direct antecedents to those used in the present day — think of coins, jewellery and urns; however, each also tells the story of human ingenuity and creativity.

In a time when knowledge wasn’t transferred through fibreoptic cables and cultures were valued for their distinctiveness, the exhibition, which bills itself as a ‘History in Nine Stories’, illustrates how progress followed parallel pathways in civilisations across the globe. A hand-axe found in Chittor, Rajasthan, and said to date back to 50,000 BC is remarkably similar in shape, size and form to those found in Jordan, Tanzania and the United Kingdom, with only the type of stone used giving away their provenance. Hewed from local red stone; near-opaque grey-green chert; hard-to-carve quartz; and flint respectively, each teardrop-shaped implement is striking for its sameness yet detached by both time and geography. The oldest, excavated in 1999 from the site of Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu, may be over one million years old!