Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions

The Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions (CHiTra) / Gujarat Culture Studies Program

and The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida

are delighted to present

The Inaugural Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Patel Endowed Lecture in Gujarat Studies

and

The Roy C. Craven, Jr. Memorial Lecture

by

John Guy

Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Traders to the World:  Cosmopolitan Gujarat as an Agent of Global Exchange in Medieval India and its Artistic Legacy 

Friday, November 12^th, 2:00 pm

The talk will be held at the Chandler Auditorium, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida 

It will also be live streamed at www.youtube.com/HarnMuseumofArt

Abstract: Gujarat has played a key role in India’s engagement with the wider world since antiquity. The weaving and dyeing of cotton and silk textiles, the extraction and processing of gemstones, temple, shrine and mosque architecture, the mastery of shipbuilding and navigational skills, the accommodation of a succession of religions alongside early Brahmanism – most notably Jainism and Islam – all have contributed to creating a diverse community quick to share skills and accommodate the new.  This lecture will explore two aspects of the multi-stranded social fabric that constituted Gujarat historically and has given it is distinctive regional character. The first is the accommodation of Svetambara Jainism, the arrival of which is attributed to the ‘Great Migration’ of Jains that is believed to have occurred as a result of a severe famine in ancient Magadha, the region of Mahavira’s birth, around 300 BCE.  It is told that two rival orders, the Digambara  and the Svetambara – who both claimed to be the true inheritors of Mahavira’s teachings – elected to migrate to different regions of India, the Sky-clad (Digambara) south to the Deccan whilst the White-clad Jains (Svetambara) became the predominant order in western India (Gujarat and Rajasthan). Over the next 2000+ years the Svetambara Jains created a rich artistic legacy that is closely identified with medieval and early modern Gujarat.

The second aspect of Gujarati culture to be addressed is the premier role that Gujarat assumed in early global exchange systems. This involved many levels of society, from craft professionals to merchants and mariners. Hindus, Jains, and Muslims all played a role in the making and global distribution of goods from Gujarat. The region became famed early in its history for its high-quality dyed cottons and woven silk textiles, such that Gujarati textile makers have rightly been dubbed the “Master Weavers and Dyers to the World”.

John Guy is the Florence and Herbert Irving Curator of the Arts of South and Southeast Asia at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries London (2003) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016). He has worked on a number of archaeological excavations, including maritime sites, and served as an advisor to UNESCO on historical sites in Southeast Asia.

He has curated numerous international art exhibitions and published widely in journals and collected volumes. His major books include Oriental Trade Ceramics in South-East Asia. Ninth to Sixteenth Centuries (OUP 1986), Ceramic Traditions of South-East Asia (OUP 1989), Indian Art and Connoisseurship (1995), South East Asia and China: Art, Commerce and Interaction (ed. 1996), Woven Cargoes. Indian Textiles in the East (1998), Indian Temple Sculpture (2007), Wonder of the Age. Master Painters of India (co-author 2011), Interwoven Globe. The Worldwide Textile Trade (co-author 2013), Lost Kingdoms. Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia (2014), and Art & Independence. Y.G. Srimati and the Indian Style (2019).