Oxford University digitises depictions of Hindu deities

Oxford University digitised more than one hundred 19th Century Kalighat paintings depicting Hindu deities. The digitisation is part of a wider project at the university’s Bodleian library to make thousands of rare manuscripts and images accessible to the public. Religious statesman, Rajan Zed, took to Twitter to heap praise on the university: We commend #OxfordUniversity for digitizing 110 19th-century #KalighatPaintings of #Hindu deities & others & posting on new #OnlinePortal. — Rajan Zed (@rajanzed) August 1, 2015 Sir Monier Monier-Williams acquired the Kalighat paintings for the Indian Institute Library following his third fund-raising trip to India in 1883. You can trace the history of the Kalighat art to a Kali Temple on the bank of the Buri Ganga (a canal diverging from the Ganges River) in southern Kolkata (Calcutta). This form of Bengali folk art, created between 1800 and 1930, was a product sold to tourists and pilgrims as souvenirs. The sprawling metropolitan success of 18th-century Kolkata attracted a wealth of creative talents. Others moved to the city due to the economic grip of The East India Company in the region. Among them were the trained artists of Murshidabad and folk painters (patuas). A patua depicted mythologies, religious figures, popular [...]

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