Venue: Subhiksha, 70, MRC Nagar Main Road, R A Puram, Chennai 28

Winged Yakshi, 1st century BCE, Chandraketugarh, West Bengal

Art historian Dr. Naman P Ahuja, specializes in the sculptural arts of Ancient India and medieval Sultanate painting. Previously Fellow of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Tutor of Indian Art at the British Museum, London he is now Associate Professor of Ancient Indian Art and Architecture at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi.

This talk will bring to the fore startling new discoveries of the earliest Indian images from 200 BC - AD 200. These objects, made of terracotta, ivory, wood and metal, were the small objects of worship from people's homes and betray a completely different system and order of religious icons compared to what we have learnt so far from the contemporaneous great stone monuments at Bharhut, Sanchi and Amaravati. It takes us, thus, into the private worlds of ancient Indians, their myths and icons, gods and demons. Artistically too, these little objects are highly accomplished, like finely detailed jewels, taking our aesthetic appreciation of Indian art to new heights.