Charles Correa. Charles Correa
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Название: Charles Correa
Автор: Charles Correa
Издательство: Readbox publishing GmbH
Жанр: Языкознание
Серия: E-Books
isbn: 9783775734028
isbn:
Each vastu-purush-mandala is a perfect square, subdivided into identical squares, creating a series which starts from 1 and goes on to 4, 9, 16, 25 . . . right up to 1024. In temple architecture, the most commonly used mandalas are those of 64 and 81 squares, with the various deities allocated places in accordance with their importance and with the mystical qualities inherent in the diagram. The mandala is not a plan; it represents an energy field. Its centre signifies both shunya (the absolute void) as well as bindu (the world seed and the source of all energy). In all mandalas, at this centre is located Brahman, the Supreme Principle. According to Hinduism, when the cycles of reincarnation are finally over, and the atman (the individual soul) is released from each of us, it goes to Brahman—that is, to the centre of this energy field.
The analogy to the black holes of contemporary physics is astounding! Energy devours itself, and the individual soul (after completing all the cycles of reincarnation) goes not to an eternal reward in heaven or the garden of paradise, but down the vortex of energy in the centre of the black hole. How incredible that such a concept should have surfaced so many thousands of years ago. As the noted French academician Gaston Bachelard pointed out, the intuitive insight of the artist (or for that matter, the seer) cannot be explained through the cause-and-effect structure of scientific reasoning—but, like a depth charge, is something that explodes at the centre of our being, releasing to the surface the debris of recognition. This is why the invisible, the mythic, the sacred, will always be central to art—and to our lives.
The Vedic altar:
the pre-cut stones were assembled only for the duration of the ritual, and then dismantled—because the sacred should not continue to exist in the profane world of our everyday lives
Purush: the Cosmic Man
Another reservoir of mythic images is the Jain cosmograph, depicting the manifest landscape of the middle world. Cosmographs depict the continents inhabited by man, with all the various species of animals, the encircling waters, and the long rivers. At the centre is Mount Meru, the sacred mountain. This powerful Vedic archetype is directly translated into built-form in the Buddhist stupas, among the most perfect examples extant of architecture as a model of the cosmos. Their very form symbolizes Mount Meru. The central wooden post buried within the masonry is the axis mundi (the column that passes through the centre of the universe). Around the stupa (the dome-shaped mound) is the open-to-sky pradakshina, a sacred circumambulatory pathway through which the pilgrim walks, so that he may become one with the cosmos that the stupa represents.
These metaphysical concerns are clearly articulated in Jain icons of purush (man), depicting his two principal aspects: human and cosmic. This is a paradigm we can perhaps extend to represent the more generalized condition of man and his context (i.e., the mythic beliefs in which he perceives himself to exist). Man, in all probability regardless of time and place, does not change—but his context changes. Thus, with the coming of Islam to India in the 8th century, the context of the cosmos is replaced with new myths. In part these are a personal relationship with a judgemental divinity, and in part these are a social contract (as in the Christian precept ‘Love thy neighbour’). The mythic images change also, from the vastu-purush-mandala to the char-bagh (the Garden of Paradise of Persia, a concept that goes far back into history and is an enduring feature of Persian art and architecture). Linked with a love for trees and flowers, these gardens reflect the harmony between man and nature; symbolically and physically, water is the source of life, and the four water channels meeting at right angles at the centre symbolize the meeting of man and God. These new myths generate a completely new kind of built-form—like the Taj Mahal, where the austere severity of cosmic analogues is replaced with a new architecture of sensuous form and surface, of exquisite and hedonistic delight.
Two imaginary landscapes . . . that generated two profoundly different kinds of architecture
The Jain cosmograph depicting the entire manifest world, with the sacred Mount Meru at the centre
The char-bagh: the mythic Garden of Paradise
A peerless example of the char-bagh in architecture is Humayun’s Tomb, built in memory of Emperor Humayun. Constructed of red sandstone with a dressing of white marble, it is the first substantial example of Mughal architecture. Here, the char-bagh motif has been enlarged and repeated in intricate patterns, generating a whole new world of architectonic concepts, and making this a work of seminal importance among the other great masterpieces of Mughal architecture that were to follow. The extraordinary power mythic beliefs and images exercise on architecture is evident when we compare the Jain cosmograph with the Islamic char-bagh. Both are metaphysical landscapes, but since they are based on profoundly different concepts of the essential nature of man and his context, they lead inevitably to totally different kinds of architecture.
With the arrival of European colonialists, the myths change again. The Europeans brought new values: science, rationalism, progress—fallouts of the Age of Reason. These found an enthusiastic response in India—possibly because here already existed considerable traditions of mathematics, astronomy and science. With the result that India was affected in profound ways. First, there was the impact of 19th century high-tech railways, post and telegraph services criss-crossing the subcontinent with dazzling speed, changing irrevocably the poorest Indian’s sense of mobility, communication, and hence, aspirations.
From this impact followed the second consequence. To Indians (as indeed to other Asians) the scientific and technological achievements of the Europeans were primarily an outcome of their attitude towards life. In all of Asia, for so many centuries, we have carried so much baggage. Suddenly a new position was perceived: we were stronger if we did not prejudge any option, in fact, if we did not carry any baggage at all, if the mind was a tabula rasa. To draw on a clean slate must have been a heady message indeed: to invent the future, or more modestly, to invent appliances for everyday comfort—mosquito nets and solar topees and extendable armchairs. Or, more grandly, to invent a new city: Chandigarh. Or most ambitious of all: to reinvent China through a structure of communes! The mythic power of the Age of Reason, like the ones that went before them, are truly mind-blowing.
Of course, not all colonialists were fascinated by the values of rationalism and science. The vast majority were soldiers, administrators and traders, and to assert their presence (and perhaps to reassure themselves), they imported European architecture and lifestyles to the subcontinent, regardless of any relevance they might have had. Architecture based on the superficial transfer of images from another culture or another age cannot survive; architecture must be generated from the transformation of those images, that is, by expressing anew the mythic beliefs that underly them. Yet sadly, as the decades went by, European architecture in India retreated more and more into a cocoon of remembered symbols and gestures.
Furthermore, even as these influences were spreading, the intrinsic power of the СКАЧАТЬ