Feline fables in Indian culture

The author, who passed away recently, was universally acknowledged as one of the leading authorities on Indian art.

- DEVANGSHU DATTA

This, the last book he ever wrote, is a departure from his usual oeuvre. It is an examination of the feline factor the cat motif that runs through art and literature in our syncretistic nation.

Although Professor BN Goswamy claims he wasn't extraordinarily fond of cats as a species, he was obviously more enamoured of them than he was willing to admit. In his preface he says he was struck by the fact that many of his friends across the art world were committed ailurophiles and some even possessed clouders of cats. He was also fascinated by the idea of cats and how they popped up everywhere and the cultural differences in the ways people interacted with them.

The book is, as one would expect, deeply scholarly and permeated with the gentle humour that characterised Goswamy. The subtitle is pretty much a complete description of the content. There are stories drawn from the traditions of various religions.

There is art drawn from every kind of Indian source. There is poetry, and there are proverbs and parables.

There are Buddhist fables from the Jatakas, Islamic tales of cats beloved of the Prophet and his followers, references to them in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali, and the Egyptian deification of these little hunters. The book also dwells on the horrific persecution of cats in Europe during the Dark Ages.