The reason for our few days’ delay is because this year the Autumnal Equinox falls on the 23 September, which is rare. Our newsletter will be shorter, with the promise that our Winter Solstice edition will bring you up to date with all the projects for the centenary of Alain Daniélou’s birth.
One interesting project on Alain Daniélou’s work is forthcoming thanks to Mr. Rosenberg Colorni, Daniélou’s former Italian publisher (Red Edizioni), he is now working, using Bali (Indonesia) as a base. where he is organising a photographic exhibition. This event makes me extremely happy, especially in view of his statement that “I have several strong motives for organising this exhibition, the first being my continuing great interest in Daniélou’s work which will, I believe, be widely appreciated by the expatriate residents of Bali.
My second reason is that I feel it will be very positive for Balian Hinduism to be in contact with the Hinduism of its country of origin. Whereas Muslim Indonesians feels its ties to the vast Islam world and Indonesian Chinese feel the same about their own great homeland, Hindu Indonesians feel rather orphan-like. It is only very recently that the Indian Embassy has opened a cultural centre on Bali, seeking to make up for this absence, and is making considerable headway.
At the same time, a so-called “anti-porno” law is being proposed and is supported by Muslim fundamentalists. This is a disguised attempt to introduce sharia concepts in a country whose constitution clearly states its non-confessional and pluralistic status, which – until now – has always been the case.
All “progressive” movements, with the backing of “traditionalist” groups and all those interested in the country’s history, culture and traditions, have mobilised to demonstrate that any law of this kind constitutes an unacceptable violation of the history and culture of this society. At the same time, we wish to get across and show that sensuality and sexuality can be very different from “commercialised sex”, the most degrading aspect of which is low-level pornography.
Jacques Cloarec
EXPOSITIONS
– Eroticism in Traditional India (provisional title))
Alain Daniélou – Raymond Burnier
Exhibition combining photographs taken from the book l’Inde Traditionnelle published by éditions Fayard in 2002, and more particularly prints of the erotic sculptures at the temples of Khajurâho. The exhibition also includes texts by Alain Daniélou and Jacques Cloarec.
As Jacques Cloarec points out in his editorial, this project is being set up thanks to Sig. Rosenberg-Colorni’s interest in the work of Alain Daniélou.
EXTRAIT
– Catalogue de l’oeuvre d’Alain Daniélou
Par Anne Prunet et Marie-Laure Bruker.
Extraits de ce catalogue :
THE GODS’ LIVESTOCK & OTHER TALES
(LE BETAIL DES DIEUX ET AUTRES CONTES GANGETIQUES)
Les Fous de Dieu, contes gangétiques
Éditions Buchet-Chastel, 1975
Reissue: Le Bétail des dieux et autres contes gangétiques, 1983 ; Éditions du Rocher, 1994.
It is we humans who are the gods’ livestock, though unaware that we are only a part of creation and that our true role is to observe and enjoy the world of living beings. In this world, man “passes through a forest of symbols, which he finds familiar to his eye”.
The universe of connexions and synaestheasia so dear to Baudelaire “where the invisible world touches the visible world at each step” is recreated by Daniélou in this collection of Gangetic tales. Humans may sometimes grasp such symbols, but do not manage to provide them with any rational explanation. Only the Sannyasis, those wandering monks, custodians of immemorial knowledge, can master, understand and sometimes even control these astonishing facts. These seven Gangetic tales are extraordinary and fascinating stories, whose atmosphere is both troubling and serene.
Though timeless and universal, the tales are also set in the India of the partition, of Tagore, with its threat of civil war, the unfortunate consequences of British colonialism that never completely manages to destroy this world of ancestral knowledge that dwells not only in the sedentary India of the Brahmans and their books, but also in the vagrant world of the Sadhus and Sannyasis, whose knowledge is still more ancient, more secret and more precious.
