Art: The Integral Vision

Baidyanath Saraswati, Unesco Professor, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, was associated with the Anthropological Survey of India, Culcutta, for a decade, and another decade with the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. During this period he did extensive fieldwork in rural India and conducted a detailed study of the sacred city of Varanasi. As a Professor of Visva-Bharati University, Ranchi University and North-Eastern Hill University, he taught anthropology in a highly unconventional style. For the last twelve years, he is drawing out relevant themes from traditional thoughts and modern sciences to build up an indigenous anthropology from within. His research opens up new possibilities for non-Western anthropologists to imagine a future for themselves. He has authored The Sacred Science of Man, The Sacred Science of Nature, as well as other books and articles.

Dr. Madhu Khanna, project scholar of the Crossing Project, earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Wolfson College, Oxford University in 1986 with a specialization in Hindu Shakta Tantra. She has to her credit two popular publications: Yantra: the Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity and the Tantric Way (co-author), both published by Thames and Hudson, London with American, French, German and Danish editions. Her seminal work, The Sricakra of the Cult of Goddess Tripursundari, based on Sanskrit Manuscript sources is forthcoming. She has researched the major interdisciplinary-cross-cultural exhibitions organized by the IGNCA and edited the exhibition Catalogue of fundamental categories of civilization (on the theme of Prakriti, Rita-ritu, and Man and Mask). She was awarded the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in 1991 to work on her project, :Indian Goddess and Feminist Consciousness”. She is the President and founder member of the Tantra Foundation, New Delhi. Art present, she is an Associate Professor with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.

S.C. Malik retired as a UGC Professorial Research Scientist in Anthropology (1988-1997). Earlier, he was associates with the Institute of Advanced Study (1966-1989), Shimla; M.S. University of Baroda (1956-1971); and was the Fulbright Smith-Mundt Scholar at the University of Chicago (1963-65). His major contribution is in pioneering multidisciplinary research methodologies and theoretical models for the study of Indian civilization and lately within the framework of philosophical anthropology for a study of modern civilization. Some of his major books are: India Civilization: The Formative Period (1968); Understanding Indian Civilization: A Framework of Enquiry (1975); Modern Civilization: A Crisis of Fragmentation (1989); Reconceptualising the Sciences and the Humanities: An Integral Approach (1995). There are several edited volumes and significant papers to his credit.