Sages through the ages

From forests to feeds, India's eternal enigma—the ascetic—is again on display

- SHUBHANGI SHAH

A sanyasi meditating under a tree. A yogi contorting his body into difficult poses. A monk in maroon playing the traditional Nga, the Tibetan drum. A qalandar sitting at a dargah in deep devotion. A gurmukh doing seva. A saffron-robed monk imparting wisdom on Instagram, and another leading India's most populous state.

While India has witnessed the rise and fall of empires, new religions mushrooming and others getting space and even refuge, colonialism, independence and a modern, capitalist society taking shape, the ascetic has been a constant. They are those who chose foregoing over amassing, discipline over comfort and devotion over convention. They have been reclusive figures, spiritual guides but also teachers, rebels, fighters and even political figures. They are mysterious despite being in plain sight, and revered but also suspected.

And that contradiction was on display at the Delhi Art Gallery, or DAG, at the exhibition titled 'The Body of the Ascetic.'

"While the sadhu/monk has been an important catalyst in the Puranas, popular mythology, Indian history, and even rebel movements, there is little analysis about his role, how he fashions his identity, and the extent of the power that he wields," says Gayatri Sinha, art historian and curator of the exhibition. "This is especially true of art, where the sadhu appears in a continuous stream of image-making, from the period of the Ajanta caves to the present, but is not historicised or studied in the way that the gods, the kings and queens were." The display, she adds, "provided the opportunity to partially isolate this figure and read how different artists had treated it over the past 300 years or so".

Austere and controversial

And it is a juxtaposed depiction of the Indian ascetic.