Intangible heritage & Speaking heritage as a way forward
(An entry for RTF Essay Competition 2020)
Heritage structures go beyond the architectural or artistic features cloaking the value of their connection with the people in the context. The visual values outweighing the psychological values in a heritage structure, amidst being the first impression of every onlooker, stay in a secondary range of impact. The primary range of impact revolves around the “soul” or “spirit” of the structure that are often more than bricks and stones. Intangible heritage that draws its definition from the stories that trace back the temple history, songs about the beauty of the practice and every other living reminder of the past-present link, tend to bind with the people and ‘live’ with them as beliefs and practices that influence their “way of life”. These beliefs are of complete religious inheritance that has been conformed to, across ages, without criticism, forming the primary link to any religious structure. Practices are the secondary linkages that lie outside the religious subject, as the socio-cultural aspects that are influenced by the religious beliefs. Amidst such an absence of a direct link, the practices are equally affected by heritage measures and their transition, making intangible heritage, a humanitarian re-definition of heritage.
With the advent of modern age where migration has distanced people from their heritage precincts - the native lands, a large part of intangible heritage is at the verge of being ‘forgotten’. Although the migratory population become the human carriers of such heritage values, the depth of the values are often lost in the geographical transition, owing to the new context and its fresh impact. Thus, the heritage that we remember becomes only a part of the original.
“Heritage is not what we remember. It is what must not be forgotten”.
The true value of that intangible heritage lies in the degree of its importance for the people in the context, if not the others. The cultural strings attached to the practice and belief-based heritage form an integral part of the entire livelihood, raising the need to stay un-forgotten. Such strings have the need to stand the test of time and all the evolutionary factors it magnetizes.
The attempt to save the traditions
from becoming forgotten and re-establishing their architectural & socio-cultural
value have a potential benefit from an exhaustive literary record of un-recorded history, evolution across ages, socio-cultural impact on the neighbouring
population and a raise in awareness
for preservation of values. Such literary records carry the stories of
traditions further, preserving the values as worded details. Additionally, an
exhaustive study record of the influence of religious structures on the
lifestyle of the population could encompass the architectural metamorphosis of the temple or any other religious
structure, for understanding how the alterations in its functioning diverts the
direction of evolution of the practices. The
literary dimension of architecture-heritage amalgamation is thereby
explored effectively. With an unbiased vision, the record could potentially
gather cases of small pockets of heritage that hold a link to its inhabitants and
their livability, which are as important as the heritage value in itself.
THE TALE OF
A LOST TEMPLE : A CASE OF TEMPLE METAMORPHOSIS
A Small
Pocket Of Heritage In Interior Tamilnadu
A town nestled deep inside the fertile agricultural lands of Salem, Tamilnadu, had a unique way of worship that has nothing but sands of in-existential evidences, filling the place in the present. The unique pattern of worship where the indigenous people form mud figurines from their very own agricultural lands that they worship as God, have now been left unattended, slowly degrading the value of the original worship patterns and rituals supported by architectural space values. Once beautified and cared by a large agricultural population, the place has now become a rudimentary imagery because of certain government claims. Urbanization and migration has minimized the visitor count that further weakens the support necessary for the local population to revive their intangible heritage. Lack of iconographic evidences and strong visitor numbers, pushed the government to clear the land and provide a separate land, some miles away, for the temple worship to continue.
The original temple has a rare mode of Kannimar worship, a sporadic formless pattern of worship, where people worship the land that feeds them, with earthen moulds and honour the god of light, as the light in that protects them from the vast lands that turn dark by the dawn. Contrasting to the strong belief in idolism in the Indian lands, this worship pattern is one of the rare reminders of “nirguna bhakthi” (Formless devotion) that adds to the multifaceted nature of Indian tradition. Fading with time, the land of the old temple that holds the last reminders in the vicinity has been disturbed and seized for wasteland revival. Its relocation at a far-off space is breaking the immediate population and their ties. The old land has been left unattended, slowly left to be uninhabitable. Due to the loss of human habitation or intervention, the site suffers a potential blighted condition inviting unfavourable structures and activities – A cemetery space by the side, clothes hanging over the fence of the demolished structure, and every other negative space feature.
Such a case raises the speculation of the heritage value of a small temple in a rural setting that could possibly revive the habitation in the context, along with a strong impact on the local livelihood.
Can a place of worship be shifted,
just like a house?
What is the value of a temple,
irrespective of its scale – small or large?
What impact does the shift have on the
population?
What are the missed ritualistic
patterns during the shift?
What difference does the population at
zone A and population at the old zone B have, with respect to 'the way of living'?
Can the community travel for worship?
How important is the ritualistic
pattern for the population?
How does it re-assure history and
architectural values?
How can government norms be amended?
How could the value of unknown unique practices and architecture be utilised to help the same?
A form of ‘speaking heritage’ with a literary record such as a book or a documentary, studies and collects the architectural & cultural values of unknown temples and their unique worship patterns that could both preserve the core originality and nativity strings, along with the establishment of existential proofs for several population groups to save their traditions from becoming forgotten. This could also take a form of an existential proof that would in-turn spread awareness about the areas of value that are under threat. Taking up the people’s voice as evidences, the ‘speaking heritage’ would emphasise the power of oral history, social strings and a multiple-audience-opinion, making the public statements as the core strength. Just as century-old literature was able to save the native right on several lands, a small collection of values into a record could be an attempt towards helping the local population stand for their rights on their cultural value.
Further seen as a take into the problem-solving attribute of architecture and construction with a vision towards analysis of public opinion, ‘speaking heritage’ can re-establish Evidence-based methods with the help of editorial evidences. Altogether, the emphasis of intangible heritage that takes up the power of ‘speaking heritage’ becomes a sensible addition in re-defining heritage as a humanitarian aspect where it takes an objective role over the conventional subjective role.
-Akshaya Muralikumar
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