Museums are living institutions that help create bonds between visitors, generations and cultures around the world. In its very essence, a museum is a link between the generations as it allows present and future generations to better comprehend their origins and history. Museums are constantly facing changes that bring them to reconsider their traditional mission and find new strategies to attract visitors towards more accessible collections. Thus, many museums restore the traditional methods of presentation of their collections to involve the community.
Since 1977, the International Museum Day is held worldwide on May 18, coordinated by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). For 2014, the theme of the day is ‘Museum collections make connections’. It emphasises the collaborations between museums and their importance for cultural exchanges and the knowledge of the world’s cultures. The best thing about museums is how they link different cultures together - by showcasing artifacts from past times and different countries and by making museums available for travelling tourists to learn about other places and people.
The day provides an opportunity for museum professionals to meet the public and alert them to the challenges that museums face. Following the definition of museums provided by the ICOM, a museum is a nonprofit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.
The concept of museums in India may be traced back to the historic times, in which references to the Chitrasala (picture gallery) do occur. However in India, the earliest necessity to house objects of antiquarian remains dates back to late 1796 AD when the Asiatic Society of Bengal felt the need to house the enormous collection of archaeological, ethnological, geological and zoological pursuits. The nucleus of the Asiatic Society Museum later provided to the Indian Museum, Calcutta in 1814. Since then, it has so magnificently developed and culminated into the fruitful existence of more than 400 museums in the country.
India is famous for its museums that prove the country’s rich culture. Indian museums are best to explore the people, culture, beliefs, and history of ancient India. Some of the unique Indian museums are the Indian Museum, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, and the National Museum and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) museums. The Indian Museum is the largest and oldest in India and has rare collections of antiques, armour and ornaments, fossils, skeletons and paintings. This is an autonomous institution under the Union Ministry of Culture.
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, is the main museum in Mumbai. It was founded in the early years of the 20th century by prominent citizens of Bombay to commemorate the visit of the then Prince of Wales. The museum was renamed in the early 2000s after Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire. It houses about 50,000 exhibits, categorised primarily into three sections: Art, Archaeology and Natural History.
The National Museum, New Delhi is one of the largest Indian museums established in 1949. It holds articles ranging from the prehistoric era to modern works of art. It also functions under the Union Ministry of Culture. The Sun God Surya is one of the finest from the Sun Ttemple, Konark in Odisha. The sculpture was once the sanctum image of the Konark temple installed for worship in the temple’s Garbhagriha and was later shifted to the National Museum for better upkeep. The image is normal two-armed rendered pursuing standards of human anatomy. Sadly, the sculpture’s forearms holding lotus have been completely destroyed.
It has been the policy of the Government of India to keep the small and movable antiquities, recovered from the ancient sites, in close association with the remains to which they belong so that they may be studied amid their natural surroundings and not lose focus by being transported. Therefore, a separate Museums Branch in the ASI was created in 1946. After the Independence, there was a spurt in the growth of the ASI’s site museums at different places. Presently, there are 44 site museums under the ASI’s control.
There are a very few museums in Odisha, the most famous being the State Museum, Bhubaneswar. The genesis of this museum goes back to the year 1932 when two notable historians Prof NC Banerjee and Prof Ghanshyam Dash of Ravenshaw College started collection of archaeological treasures. The small museum was then housed in the premises of the college. In 1938, the Government of Odisha transformed this nucleus into the Provincial Museum of Odisha. One of the most significant aspects of this museum is its manuscript gallery. Some of the rare palm leaf manuscripts, about 50,000, are housed in this gallery. Covering diverse subjects like religion, philosophy, astronomy, astrology, poetry, science, medicine, mathematics, warfare and crafts, these manuscripts are a repository of artistic expressions of that time.
These manuscripts were made by the incision of Odia script on a dried palm leaf with a stylus. The manuscripts depict highly symbolic scenery with costumes, jewellery, hairstyle and facial expressions similar to stone sculptures of Odisha. The museum also houses an illustrated manuscript of Gita Govinda written by the 12th-century poet Jayadeva.
The Tribal Research Institute Museum in Bhubaneswar has life-sized authentic tribal dwellings created by tribal craftsmen offering a view of the State’s tribal heritage. It has sections which showcase tribal artifacts and objects focusing on well researched, documented cultural life of Odisha tribals. Besides, the Regional Museum of Natural History, Bhubaneswar is an eastern regional centre of the National Museum of Natural History under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. Its goal is to impart environmental education to the public in general and the student community in particular in order to inculcate an awareness about the importance of flora ad fauna and subsequent conservation of our natural resources.
Museums have recognised that we cannot rely on traditional exhibition techniques to reach out and impact upon broad audience. We need to rethink our methods completely. We need to find new connections, new languages, new techniques and, most of all, new attitudes for development of the museums.
Museums are repositories of a nation’s valuable treasures. They play a positive and important role in modelling people’s tastes and making them aware of the history and creative talent. Technology today allows museums to explore their goals of ‘education, study and enjoyment’. These latest trends in seeking greater dissemination and sharing of information could lead to museum audience working together to form new online (and even off-line) communities and social networks. Websites are extremely popular with museums today because they can present much more information than ever possible. Museum websites have incorporated search engines for their online collections databases, where by typing in a few words, users can access thousands of images and descriptive information.
Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding and peace among peoples. New social paradigms such as the widespread adoption of social networking, together with ever-changing visitor expectations and the opportunities presented by digital media, will attract visitors to learn more about the artifacts of the museums. This will help make connections with different people from different regions.
(Dr Mayarani Praharaj works in the Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)