The Camels of Genghis Khan

While passing through Ulaanbataar (UB), I had seen a strange sculpture with a row of camels standing in a tiny park in the middle of the road. I wanted to look at them properly and photograph them. However, it was a busy crossing, always full of traffic and clicking a picture of those camels from a moving car was impossible. So one afternoon I decided to walk and search for those camels.

This post is about my walk through the city, searching for those camels in Ulaanbataar (UB), the capital of Mongolia.

Mongolian Hero Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan is the national hero of Mongolia. His statues adorn some of the famous landmarks of the country like the central square of UB in front of the national parliament. They can also be seen in some unlikely places like his giant face designed on the side of a hill overlooking the city. Genghis Khan had led his caravans to conquer the world.

Mongolia is the land of nomadic people with their animals including horses, sheep, goats and camels – in fact Mongolia has 10 times more animals/cattle compared to its human population. So those camels could have been a representation of a Mongolian nomad. Thus, those sculptures could be a representation of the great Khan or of a Mongolian nomad.

Old wall-paintings & The Motorbike Guy

This time, I am staying at Shangri-La hotel on Embassy road in UB. I came out of the hotel and started my walk by going towards left, to the Children’s Palace, while across the road I could see Bayangol hotel, which is one of the historical hotels of UB.

I have been to Mongolia many times for work related to a disability programme. During my first visit to Mongolia in early 1990s, I had stayed in the Bayangol hotel. At that time UB was a completely different city, as Mongolia was just coming out of decades of a communist regime under the Soviet influence. Hardly anyone spoke English, while many persons spoke Russian. There were only a few buildings in this part of UB at that time while the road was narrow and there was no traffic except for a rare car.

This whole area is now completely transformed, full of sky-scrappers. The much wider road is jam-packed with cars. In the nearby Sukhbataar square there is the new parliament building. It is a beautiful place today with wonderful ambience and colourful buildings.

As I started my walk on Embassy road, I saw some beautiful old wall-paintings along the road. Their colours had faded but I could still make out their designs, which seemed to be telling some Buddhist story regarding the killing of some demon. I hope that these can be rennovated.

My first stop was the metallic sculpture of the Motorbike Man, which looks straight out of the Mad Max films, with an alien guy driving an amazing alien looking motorbike. I loved this sculpture placed just outside the Children's Palace. It seems to be the work of an artist called Mr. Santo, born in Thailand, who uses chains, springs, rods, ball bearings, brake bands, gears, and lots of other recycled metal to create art.

Park Place City Marker

I turned left on Chinggis Road (another way of saying Genghis), which is a broad road with never-ending traffic. My next stop was to admire the metallic city-marker of Park Place, showing the distances from UB to major cities of the world, including London, Sydney, Moscow and Beijing.

I have seen similar distance markers in many cities but this was the first time to see a metallic sculpture made for this purpose.

Peace Bridge

Going further south along the Chinggis Road I reached the Peace Bridge which passes above Dund-Gol river and Narnii Road, the bypass road of UB made for avoiding the traffic of the city centre.

The Peace Bridge was built with Chinese help in 1963 and was renovated in 2012. Dund-Gol is a small river, which joins Tuul river to the south of UB. From the Peace Bridge, I could see little water in Dund Gol (literally ‘Middle River’). Fortunately, it seemed relatively free of the trash which such places usually seem to get due to neglect.

The Blue Horses and the Summer Fountain

After crossing the bridge I reached the area around the National Sports Stadium of UB, which is full of shopping areas, restaurants and other modern buildings. In front of the square facing the Nadaam Mall, there was an open space with two beautiful blue horses, made in plastic or some synthetic materials. After the Motorbike Man and Park Place City Distances indicator and these horses, I was really impressed by the quality of public art in UB. It was also good to see that local youth had not tried to deface these art works by writing on them, which is a common problem in most urban places.

The fountains next to the horses, erupted with water suddenly and in unpredictable ways. Children playing between those fountains, were having a lot of fun as it was a warm day and many of them were soaking wet. As usually happens in such situations, a couple of adolescent boys had picked another boy and forced-carried him above one of the erupting fountains, accompanied with a lot of shouting and merry-making. Families sitting around looked at them with tolerant bemusement.

Children's Park

Next to the Nadaam Mall is the only pedestrian crossing bridge over Chenggis road. With so much traffic on this road, it was a safe way for me to cross the road. On the other side, the bridge led to a children's park full of statues of zebras, deer, eagles and tigers, where families were children were visiting. It is almost like a zoo, the only difference was that instead of live animals, it has statues.

It also had a nice fountain with the Blue coloured sculpture of a woman wearing traditional Mongolian dress.

Behind the park, I saw an old building which had a mosaic of a Soviet style of wall-art from the pre-1990s period (in the image below). Most of such buildings are slowly being replaced by new constructions. I wish someone would photograph and keep a record of all such wall-arts as these represent the city history.

Genghis Khan Camel Caravan

Finally, I reached the Camel sculptures in the traffic island marking the point where the north-to-south going Chenggis road meets the east-to-west going Chenggis avenue, which goes towards the international airport. The metal sculptures are called the "Silk Road Complex monument" and are the works of an artist called Dalkh-Ochir.

In 2015 a competition was held to identify sculptures for UB and in that competition 15 sculptures were selected. These have been placed in different parts of UB, including the motorbike man mentioned above.

In the Silk Road sculptures, initially there was only one statue of a Bactrian camel. Now there are 9 Bactrian camels, one dog and a bearded man on a horse, who may represent Genghis Khan or perhaps a Mongolian nomad. According to the GoGo website, "Initially the camel monument complex was named Migration and the idea of camels facing towards the city center has a meaning of inflow of wealth."

I am glad that I had decided to make this walk to look for those camels. They looked absolutely amazing. The sculptures are huge and made with a metallic sheet, and thus can hopefully withstand the harsh Mongolian winter.

I spent some time walking around the sculptures and clicking pictures while the amused locals, waiting for the bus at the bus-stand across the road looked at me.

To Conclude

Just after the Silk Road monument complex crossing, there was the Palace and Museum of Bogd Khan, who was the first king of Mongolia after its independence from China in early twentieth century. However, I was too tired by this time and decided to leave visiting that to another day.

It was a very satisfying walk. It took me a couple of hours, but that was because I was stopping every where to look around and click pictures. If you are in a hurry, you can do it faster. The image below shows another Soviet-era wall-art from a building near the Silk Road complex crossing. I am fascinated by the history hidden in these wall-arts.

UB has some wonderful examples of good quality public art. Though I have been to UB many times, I am not much acquainted with the town except for the area around Gandam monastery. I am glad that this time I could explore a new part of the city.

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#mongoliaub #ubmongolia #ulaanbaatar #publicart #genghiskhan

Beautiful sculptures of gymnastics and yoga

I love sculptures and art in public spaces. Many countries put up statues of famous persons in the city squares and gardens. However, sculptures of persons doing gymnastics, athletics, sports and yoga are not very common. In this post I want to share some images of sculptures related to sports and yoga.

To introduce this theme, the sculpture below shows the Olympics banner being carried by the athletes. This sculpture is located near the Ouchy port on the lake in Lausanne (Switzerland) at the entrance to the Olympics park which hosts the offices of international Olympics committee.

Bologna (Italy): Let me start with two sculptures from Bologna, where I have lived for many years.

The first sculpture is by Italian sculptor Leonardo Lucchi, who is known for his airy and light looking art. He achieves this effect by showing them in motion, so that only a tiny part of their bodies is touching the ground. In this sculpture he has a teenage boy balancing on a pole, with his arms raised up. He looks ready to make a jump.

The second sculpture is by the Serbian artist Biljana Petrovic. It has a man sitting with his knees bent, his feet touching, his hands extended clasped tightly in a yoga pose with his rippling muscles straining with the effort.

Delhi (India):  India does not have many good public sculptures except for those of political figures. However, over the recent years, some good sculptures have been put up in the airports. The next image from Terminal 3 of the Delhi airport showing the 12 asanas of yoga exercise known as Surya Namaskar is one example of these sculptures. The sculptures are by Indian sculptor from Jaipur, Nikhil Bhandari.

Geneva (Switzerland): This beautiful sculpture of a gymnast with a ribbon is part of 5 bronze Olympian sculptures by British sculptor Eleanore Cardozo. It is placed in front of the Palais Wilson building, which hosted the League of Nations, before it became the United Nations and shifted to New York. Palais Wilson building now hosts the Human Rights commission of the UN.

Kozhikode (India):  Manancheri park in Kozhikode (old name, Calicut) has many sculptures. Most of these are poorly made and poorly maintained. They are also very clearly inspired by socialist art of 1960s and 1970s. However, one of the sculptures of an acrobatic boy with his legs playfully raised up in the air, transmits the joy of life, similar to the Shirshasana yoga exercise. A similar statue is also placed in Panjim (Goa), close to ferry port. I was unable to find out the name of its sculptor. This sculpture is by K. S. Radhakrishnan (information provided by Deepa Gopal Sunil).

Lausanne (Switzerland):  The Olympics park in Lausanne, already mentioned above, is full of sculptures about different sports. Two of its sculptures are presented here.

The first sculpture is by the Hungarian artist Gabor Mihaly. It has a group of 3 cyclists on two bicycles and a total of five wheels, which together represent the 5 circles on the Olympics flag.

The second sculpture is by the famous British and Australian sculptor John Robinson. It has a gymnast girl on a beam. It represents the well known Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci who had received a perfect 10 out of 10 score for her gymnastics in the Montreal Olympics in 1976 and had won 5 gold medals.

Manchestor (UK): The next image is from a public art exhibition in the First street in Manchestor, showing female figures in different colours who seemed to be doing yoga or acrobatics. These sculptures were created by the Colin Spofforth studio of sculpture and design.

New York (USA):  The sculpture from the central park in New York is by Milton Hebald. It represents Prospero and Miranda from the Shakespeare's play 'The Tempest'. Probably, this sculpture does not strictly fit in the criteria of this post. However, when I saw this sculpture, with their hair and clothes flying up in the air, I thought that it shows a couple doing artistic gymnastics.

Schio (Italy): I live in Schio (VI) in the north-east of Italy, the next sculpture is from here and it is by a local artist called Mario Converio. It has a gymnast doing a workout with a ring. Balanced on her head, she is floating in the air.

Vicenza (Italy): Here is another work of Leonardo Lucchi. It is similar to the one presented above - here a girl is trying to balance herself on a narrow plank. However, instead of a sense of equilibrium, this sculpture transmits a sense of precariousness, as if the child is going to fall down.

At the end, let me conclude this post with a sculpture from Verona (Italy), the city of Romeo and Juliet. This sculpture is by the famous British sculptor Marc Quinn. In this the girl doing a yoga pose is balancing herself on the tip of elbows.

So did you like my selection of sculptures related to sports, gymnastics and yoga? I think that sports and yoga are good themes for sculptures, also because they are not very common.

Have you seen any good sports related sculptures? Do share information about them.

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Shiva icons across the centuries

As a child, I was always fascinated by the figure of Shiv ji (Lord Shiva), because of his ash smeared body, and the drunkards, drug addicts and the bhoot-pret among his followers. When he dances Tandav in anger, he is a god of destruction. These were all unusual and "bad boy" characteristics for a god. This post is about the Shiv (Shiva) icons in the archaeological section of the national museum in Delhi.

After a few decades, recently I was back in the National Museum and was pleasantly surprised by all the changes. Instead of the dusty glass cases holding poorly labelled objects, it has now much better exhibition spaces, similar to some of the better museums in Europe. Thankfully, now you are also allowed to photograph. If you haven't been to National Museum, I recommend visiting it!

Let me start with the image of the delicate and graceful bronze dancing Nataraja sculpture from the 12th century Chola empire, which symbolises destruction and the new creation. Among his flowing hair, on the right side, you can see the river Ganga (Ganges). The centre of his forehead has the third eye, while a snake is wrapped around his right arm.

Shiva icons in archaeological section of the national museum

One of the most common representation of Shiv is as Shivling (Shivalinga).

Shivling is a round or cylindrical form (male principle) placed on a circular base that represents Yoni, the female principle. While some see it only as a phallic symbol, for the believers, it has different metaphysical meanings including a union of Purusha/body and Prakriti/mind. Some people see the trinity itself symbolised in the Shivling – the circular base represents Brahma, the octagonal stem represents Vishnu and the round top represents Shiv. Often people may choose a smooth and round stone from a river bed and worship it as Shivling, these are called Saligram.

The image below has a very special Shivling - it is Chatturmukhi (four faced) with representations of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh (Shiv) and Surya on its four sides. It is from the 6th century Gupta empire period.

Shiva in Harappan culture

The cult of Shiv goes back to much older period in India, during the Middle Stone Age (Middle Palaeolithic). Michael Wood, in “The story of India” has written: “The stone lingam and yoni (male and female principles) – that are found in the worship of Shiva come out of the deep past … These aspects of the indigenous culture of India are part of the givenness of the deep past, which is shared by all Indians, whatever their ancestry, language or religion.”

Wood has also mentioned the Shiv figure depicted in prehistoric cave paintings of Bhimbetka: “… looking at the dancing deity at Bhimbetka with his bangles and trident, one can’t help but recall the image of dancing Shiva seen on pilgrim posters today …”

Thus, while the Shiv cult is much older, the earliest Shiv icons in the museum are from 2000-2700 BCE, from the Indus Valley civilisation. These include the famous Pashupatinath seal from Harappa, which shows a person sitting in yogic posture along with different animals (Shiv is also known as Pashupatinath or the lord of the animals).

However, the national museum also a number of Shivlings from Indus valley civilisation found in places like Dholavira and Rakhigarhi, like the large Shivling shown in the image below.

Early Icons

Among the early icons is another Chatturmukhi Shivling - it is from 2nd century CE, when Kushans from central Asia were ruling the Indus valley and parts of north India. It is less well preserved and has a rougher quality. A special feature is the chain motive sculpted on the top third, thus effectively dividing the Shivling into three parts.

Another early icon is an Ekmukha (one faced) Shivling, with the head of Shiva (recognised by the third eye in his forehead) on one side. It is from 5th century Gupta period.

Shiv icons in medieval India

The next icon is an Uma-Mahesh sculpture from 9-10 century Pratihara period in north India. Khajuraho was a part of Pratihara empire, before the Chandelas (under the Chandela, the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho were created). This Uma-Mahesh sculpture has a clear erotic/sexual component. 

Another representation of Shiv with his consort and family is from 10th century Chalukya period in south India. It touches on sexuality in a different way. In this, Shiv is shown holding a snake in his right hand - snake is seen as a representation of desires and sexuality.

The erotic art of Khajuraho has been seen as a part of Tantrik traditions, in which Shiv and Shakti are together and sexuality is a part of the path for the search of divine. The next image is from 11-12 century Khajuraho under the Chandela period, showing women devotees praying to a Shivling.

Composite icons of Shiv

Shiv is also part of some composite icons. Two examples of these icons from the national museum are presented here.

The first is a Harihar icon, combing Hari (Vishnu) and Har (Shiv). This 12th century statue is from Gahadval in Rajasthan.

The second is an Ardhnarishiwar icon - Ardh (half) Nari (woman) Ishwar (God), representing Shiv and his consort Shakti in the same statue. This 15th century bronze sculpture is from Vijaynagar empire in south India.

Recent icons

Among the more recent icons, there is a striking ivory sculpture from 19th century from South India. It has all the attributes of Shiv - snake, damru (small drum) and the third eye, however the hair style and face seem more similar to representations of Buddha.

Followers of Shiv

Apart from Shiv icons, national museum also has some icons of his more famous followers. The next image presents one of them. It is a bronze statue of saint Manikkavachkar, a Tamil poet from 9th century, famous for his songs about lord Shiv. The sculpture is from 12th century Chola empire in south India.

Conclusions

I love visiting museums and I am glad that I decided to visit the National Museum in Delhi. It is a wonderful place to learn about the rich culture and traditions of India. There is so much to see.

In an article of Devdutt Pattanaik, he had written about the lack of appreciation of the temple art depicting Indic icons among modern Indians and asked, “How many parents actually take their children to museums or to temples and play the game of ‘Let us identify this god’… Our icons have been reduced to ‘property’, possessing them is more important than appreciating them.” I hope that this post will stimulate you to visit national museum and other museums.

Let me conclude this post with another kind of Shivling - it is called a Lingudhbava, it has Shiv appearing (udbhav) inside the Shivling. This 12th century sculpture is also from Chola empire in south India.

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Around the world with 80 cows

Cows are considered sacred by a large number of Indians. They are a popular theme in sculptures and a source of meat in other parts of the world. In this post I am bringing together some of my favourite images of cows and cow-sculptures from different corners of the world.

Let me start this post with a beautiful green cow with black dots from the 2015 World Expo in Milan. The popularity of cow-sculptures can be understood from the "Cows in Parade" initiative - it was one of the biggest public art events ever organised and between 1999 till 2015, has been held in about 15 countries so far.

In this post, I am devoting more space to cows in India because it is here that we have such a complex relationship with them and because they evoke so much passions among Indians unlike any other animal.

Cows in India

As in almost every aspect of life, India has multiple and contradictory approaches to the cows and their sacredness. On one hand, people offer food and prayers to them, build Gaushalas (cow homes) for them, and put up their statues in the temples. The beliefs about the sacredness of cows, though more predominant among Hindus,  are shared in different degrees between the different Indic religions. On other other hand, ill nourished cows can be seen looking for food in the garbage dumps, eating plastic bags and sitting abandoned in the middle of the roads while the traffic passes around them. My images of cows from India bring together some of these contradictions.

Let me start with some images from the north-east of India. The first image is from Ambubashi festival in Guwahati. One of the Sadhavis near the Kamakhaya temple asked me to click her picture with the Gaumata (mother cow).

The next two beautiful images of the cow sculptures are from the entrance of the Shukreshwar temple on the banks of Brahmaputra in Guwahati. These include a statue of the mythical Kamdhenu cow.

The fourth image is about the worship of a young cow during the Rongali Bihu celebration in Assam.

The fifth image is from Bellary district in Karnataka, showing a cattle market, especially for the sale of cows.

The next image is also from north Karnataka, showing a centre for protection of indigenous varieties of Indian cows.  It includes services for sterilizing and making medicines from the cow urine according to the Ayurveda traditions.

The next Indian image is actually from the V.A. museum in London, showing an antique sculpture of the mythical Kamdhenu from south India. Kamdhenu is the cow of the gods, which can fulfill all the wishes of those who pray to it.

The next image is from a Garbage dump in Boragaon (Assam) showing cows searching for food.

The final image from India is from Nagaland, showing the cow/bull horns decorating the entrance of a house. Different parts of India, especially in the north-east and in Kerala, also have wide-spread traditions of eating cow meat.

Cows from other parts of the world

While in India the cow sculptures are almost always linked with Hindu temples, in the rest of the world, cows do not have a sacred significance. Instead, as mentioned earlier about the "Cow in Parade" initiative, cow sculptures are mainly about art. Let me start this part with a cow sculpture from Brazil, which has a huge cow meat-eating culture. This beautiful sculpture is from Goiania in central part of the country.

The next cow sculpture is from Vienna in Austria. It is designed like a bar for drinking beer.

The next two images of multi-coloured cows were clicked in the World Expo 2015 in Milan (Italy), but they are a part of the "Cows in Parade" initiative.

The final two images of cows are from the Novegno mountain near our home in Schio in north-east of Italy, showing two varieties of local cows placidly grazing in the green mountain pastures. Under the pressure of globalisation, specific high milk-yielding species of cows are replacing the indigenous species of cows all around the world. In this scenario, some groups are fighting to conserve their indigenous varieties of cows.

Conclusions

I hope you have enjoyed this world tour of the cows and cow-sculptures. These were not exactly 80 cows (there are around 40-45 cows in these images) but I liked the title so much that I had to use it.

When I thought of writing this post, I did not realise that I had so many pictures of cows from different parts of the world. In the end, I had to leave out many of those images, but I had fun selecting the images and writing it!

Let me conclude this post with an image of blue cow sculpture with the European flag from the World Expo in Milan.

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