By TCN News,
Aligarh: A three-day national seminar on ‘Composite Culture: Reflections in Literature, Art and Architecture of Medieval India’ began today at Aligarh Muslim University. The seminar being organized by the Center of Advanced Study, Department of History, AMU was inaugurated by Professor P.K. Abdul Azis, Vice Chancellor of the university.
Highlighting the objective of the seminar, Professor Tariq Ahmad, Convener of the Seminar said that the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century marks a new chapter in the socio-cultural history of India. The immigrants from Central and West Asia from different culture, social and political settings gradually began accordingly themselves to the customs and culture of India. This resulted in the mingling of external with the indigenous in the most varied ways in the realms of art, architecture, literature, music, technology and social and political institutions.
L to R Prof. CPS Chauhan, Prof. Ravindra Kumar, AMU VC and Prof. Tariq Ahmad at a History Department Seminar
Prof. Tariq Ahmad mentioned that the establishment of the Mughal Empire with its control extended in time over most of India, hastened and enlarged the process of cultural admixture. Akbar’s ideas and policies not only encouraged such admixture, but also much innovative as well. Medieval India has thus left behind for us a precious legacy which, from the point of view of national integration and we need to study both critically and sympathetically.
Delivering the keynote address, noted historian Prof. Ravindra Kumar of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi said that the advent of the medieval period in India marks the beginning of a new expression in architecture.
He said that by the close of the sixteenth century most of the distinctive features of composite ‘Indo-Islamic’ architecture had come in place. This gave a cultural depth to the composite architecture and gave it a wider context in which the users always took a fluid and porous view of their terms and crossed their boundaries without inhibition.
In his presidential remarks, AMU Vice Chancellor, Prof. PK Abdul Azis said that this Center has a proud to produced outstanding historians like – Prof. Irfan Habib, Prof. Noorul Hasan and Prof. KA Nizami, etc.
He said that pre Mughal period, India has a unique architecture and the temples in South India are finest architectural monuments and the Taj Mahal is a perfect architecture of Mughal period.
Prof. Azis urged that we should re-create new architecture and to promote our composite culture.