Audio | Homage to Max Mueller: cultural programmes & seminar

A radio programme by Christoph Hahn with German introductions and explanations © 2000 Bayerischer Rundfunk

Excerpts from live programmes and report (click Download >View to listen/read)

Sruti Magazine (India’s premier music and dance magazine, PDF 560 KB):

Excerpt

1974 stamp of India © Wikipedia

Max Mueller Bhavan (German Cultural Institute) in Chennai organised a clutch of cultural programmes and a seminar during 28-30 November 2000 to mark the death centenary of Max Mueller, a great Indologist. Born in 1823, Mueller died when he was 77.

Mueller is remembered for stimulating widespread interest in Indology, mythology, philosophy, comparative religion, linguistics and social criticism. The special cultural relations between India and Germany are largely attributed to his works.

Mueller never visited India. But, had he come to India, he would likely have sought the company of musicians and scholars in the field of the performing arts, considering that he wanted to become a musician and belonged to a family that considered music and poetry a way of life. His first love was indeed music which he would have taken up as a profession but for the unfavourable climate for such a pursuit in his days.

The famous Indologist is best known all over the world for the publication of the Sacred Books of the East (51 volumes), amongst several other works. He was an ardent promoter of Indian independence and cultural self-assertion.

Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, entrusted Ludwig Pesch, a German who has spent years learning and studying Carnatic music, with the task of planning a befitting programme of tribute in Chennai in the wider context of a major German festival under way in India. Hundreds of German artists and scholars are presently touring India but Pesch was to help mount a celebration of a different kind- primarily with and for South Indian participants.

Dr. Eleonore Rahimi (Institutsleiterin, Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai) & Ludwig Pesch

Ludwig Pesch felt that this presented him with an opportunity to highlight the manner in which Max Mueller would have wanted the manifestations and contributions of other civilizations to be recognised, and to explore cultural achievements connecting people from different periods and places. In the event, he sought and secured the cooperation of several renowned performers and scholars, and the students of Brhaddhvani, to be Max Mueller’s guides on ‘a cultural tour’ of South India.

The celebrations began with an invocation and ended with a Musical Journey, both presented by Brhaddhvani’s students.

The morning and afternoon sessions organised at the Max Mueller Bhavan consisted of lecture demonstrations by the artists of four public programmes held at the MMB and at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan auditorium.

There were also lectures and lecdems by several eminent scholars in accordance with their chosen fields of specialisation: Dr. K.V. Ramesh (Patronage in South Indian Performing Arts: Evidence from Epigraphical Records); Dr. Premeela Gurumurthy (Harikatha Kalakshepam: A popular multicultural art in the 19th and early 20th centuries); Nirmala Paniker with her daughter and disciple, Kapila (Mohini Attam: About the research conducted at Natanakairali); P. Nanda Kumar (Dance music in Kerala: edakka with mizhavu players of the Natanakairali ensemble); Dr. Prema Nandakumar (References to South Indian Performing arts in early literature); Dr. V.V. Srivatsa (Language in Indian Art); Vidya Shankar (Sanskrit and Music); Rajkumar Bharathi (Bharatiyar’s contribution to the South Indian music repertoire); T.R. Sundaresan with Pakala Ramdas (The beauty of Yati patterns); S. Rajam with disciples and T.R. Sundaresan (Max Mueller’s great musical contemporaries in different parts of South India: Parameswara Bhagavatar, Patnam Subramania Iyer, Ponniah Pillai, Vedanayakam Pillai, and Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar).

Considering that theatre was the original performing art which also comprised dance and music to varying degrees, the first day was entirely devoted to theatre and Harikatha. The second was devoted to dance, and the third to music to reflect the evolution of these arts in their own right.

G. Venu, Founder-Director, Natanakairali (Irinjalakuda) gave the opening lecture-demonstration titled ‘Koodiyattam, the Sanskrit theatre of Kerala: Research, training and presentation in the tradition of Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar’. The story of this small, but famous cultural centre is fascinating and unique in having quietly worked with minimum resources, but successfully so, for the revival of Kerala’s traditional performance traditions over a period of 25 years, this being the silver jubilee.

Source: HOMAGE TO MAX MUELLER IN CHENNAI: PRESENTATIONS OF MUSIC, DANCE & DRAMA
Sruti, India’s premier music and dance magazine – Issue 197, February 2001
https://www.sruti.com/febmar01/febn&n2.html17.10.2001

Learn more: Max Mueller (Wikipedia) >>

“A defining period in Montessori’s outlook”: Letters from India

Maria Montessori Writes to Her Grandchildren

In October 1939, while the “storm of war was gathering in Europe”, Maria and Mario Montessori set off to India to deliver a training course and lecture tour. When Italy became involved in the war, the British rule of India did not give the Montessoris permission to leave; they were to spend close to seven years in India, which would become a defining period in Montessori’s outlook on life and education.

Maria & Mario Montessori with Rukmini Devi & George Arundale (Adyar/Chennai)

“Only the collaboration between the children and the adults will be able to solve the problems of our time.”
Maria Montessori Writes to Her Grandchildren1

The letters Montessori wrote to her four teenage grandchildren in Holland give a completely new, private insight into that compellingly interesting period. We see a woman who is deeply connected to her family and friends. We also see her strong commitment to bringing progress and fighting illiteracy in India, which grew into an enduring love for the country and its people. Montessori’s colourful descriptions of her journey and life in India, her worries about her grandchildren in war-torn Europe, and her son’s imprisonment make a fascinating read.

Source: Maria Montessori Writes to Her Grandchildren (Association Montessori Internationale Montessori 150 © 2021)
https://montessori150.org/maria-montessori/montessori-books/maria-montessori-writes-her-grandchildren
Date Visited: 7 June 2023

Italian currency bill 3 October 1990

“Uttarayam”, Santiniketan, Bengal
6 January 1940

Dear Dr. Montessori,

It is a great joy to hear from you and have your good wishes which I warmly reciprocate. As you know, I am a great admirer of your work in education, and along with my countrymen think it very fortunate indeed that India, at this hour, can get your guidance in creative self-expression.((“man expresses himself age after age in new creations“)) I am confident, that education of the young, which must underly all work of national reconstruction, will find a new and lasting inspiration from your presence.

May I hope that you will visit our Institution when you come to Bengal.

With kind regards,
Yours sincerely

Rabindranath Tagore((Transcription from a typewritten letter seen at Association Montessori Internationale in Amsterdam))

  1. “Report on the First Indian Training Course in Education” (Madras, 11 November 1939) by Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) quoted in Maria Montessori Writes to her Grandchildren: letters from India, 1939-1946 (Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company, 2020, p. 38 []

Strength of faith and clarity of mind amidst “the din of war, the shrieks of hatred” – Rabindranath Tagore

The lumbering structure of modern progress, riveted by the iron bolts of efficiency […] will fall in a heap of ruin and cause serious obstruction to the traffic of the world. Do we not see of this even now? [1917] Does not the voice come to us through the din of war, the shrieks of hatred, the wailing of despair, through the churning of the unspeakable filth which has been accumulating for ages in the bottom of this nationalism >>

The music of life – remembering Mahatma Gandhi

“Gandhi is a universal figure. […] He is affirmed and avowed in many parts of the world while Indians might of course forget him or scorn him or defile him as they are doing now.” – Historian Ramachandra Guha in conversation with sociologist Nandini Sundar (The Wire, 21 March 2022) >>

I would go so far as to say that Western music which has made immense strides should also blend with the Indian. Visva-Bharati is conceived as a world university […] I have a suspicion that perhaps there is more of music than warranted by life, or I will put the thought in another way. The music of life is in danger of being lost in the music of the voice. Why not the music of the walk, of the march, of every movement of ours, and of every activity? […] So far as I know, Gurudev [Rabindranath Tagore] stood for all this in his own person.

From a letter to Rathindranath Tagore (dated 22 December 1945), quoted in: The Oxford India Gandhi: Essential Writings. Compiled and edited by Gopalkrishna Gandhi. New Delhi, 2008 (p. 568)

In true music there is no place for communal differences and hostility. True music is created only when life is attuned to a single tune and a single time beat. Music is born only where the strings of the heart are not out of tune.

Mahatma Gandhi – A unique musician” by Namrata Mishra >>

I interpret image-worship in two ways, in one form of image-worship, the person who contemplates the image becomes absorbed in the contemplation of the qualities for which it stands. This is image-worship in its wholesome form – in the other form of it, the person who contemplates the image does not think about the qualities but looks upon the image itself as the primary thing.

Gandhi on image worship in Singing Gandhi’s India, p. 78 

Born on October 2, 1869, the father of the nation is known of his struggles for non-violence, equality and freedom. However, does anyone know how good Gandhi was as a student?

Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar on October 2, 1869 and received primary education in the city. He was not a bright student and used to learn by writing with his finger in the dust. He was neither considered to be very gifted in the classroom nor in the playing field. However, a book ‘Mahatma on the Pitch: Gandhi & Cricket in India’ talks about how his fondness of cricket. – Read more in the Indian Express (9 October 2018) >>

Unveiling of new UN stamps at “Non-violence in Action” (on the occasion of the International Day of Non-Violence)

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” – Mahatma Gandhi quoted by H.E. Mrs. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly on the occasion of the International Day of Non-Violence at the United Nations >>

More on and by Rabindranath Tagore >>

Listen to Tagore: Unlocking Cages: Sunil Khilnani tells the story of the Bengali writer and thinker Rabindranath Tagore: https://bbc.in/1KVh4Cf >>
The acclaimed BBC 4 podcast series titled Incarnations: India in 50 Lives has also been published in book form (Allen Lane).

“I was moved by how many of these lives pose challenges to the Indian present,” he writes, “and remind us of future possibilities that are in danger of being closed off.”((Sunil Khilnani quoted in a review by William Dalrymple in The Guardian, 14 March 2016))

Gopalkrishna Gandhi on misquoting Mahatma Gandhi
(addressing a gathering at Alladi Memorial Trust and the Centre for Human Rights of University of Hyderabad in 2017)

“‘Be the change you want to see, Enough for everyone’s need not anyone’s greed, An eye for an eye will end up making the whole world blind, Western civilization is a good idea’ were not Gandhiji’s words” [and] his style was “nourishing rather than lavish” >>