REPRINT OF THE "JOURNAL OF URUSVATI HIMALAYAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE", 25 November 2003, "Vedam Books" (materials of the press-conference)
"Dear Prof. Lokesh Chandra,
Dear Dr Alena Adamkova,
Dear Friends!
I am happy to see all of you here in the Russia House. We have assembled to pay homage to the unique Russian family of the Roerichs whose invaluable legacy is our common heritage.
Trying to comprehend the spiritual and material contribution of the Roerichs to the treasure-house of humankind, one sees an enormous edifice as high as the Himalayas and as boundless as the Russian steppe, pure and refine as perennial the Arctic snow of Russia, yet evergreen and fertile as the Ganges valley. The Roerichs have contributed significantly to the world of creative art by their immortal masterpieces, and greatly enriched philosophy through the teachings of Agni Yoga or Living Ethics, hoisted the Banner of Peace over the Planet to protect mankind's architectural and historic treasures.
Archeological, historical, ethnographic, linguistic, botanical, geological, cultural as well as other researches pursued by the Roerichs during their valiant expeditions resulted in founding of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute in the Kullu Valley where the studies of numerous findings and invaluable collections were continued. This was a unique scientific establishment with a new interdisciplinary approach and immaculate amalgam of various spheres of knowledge. All members of the family were tireless workers in this abode of science and culture, but the major engine who organized and headed the research was Yuri Nikolaevich Roerich - an inquisitive and industrious scholar, eminent orientalist, philologist, historian, ethnographer and explorer, writer and translator of many treatises, founder of the Russian school of Tibetology and a person who knew over 20 languages. His birth centenary was widely celebrated last year both in Russia and India. Today you will see an excerpt from the documentary made on the life of Yuri Nikolaevich - the elder son of Prof. Nicholas Roerich, who was not only the Director of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute but also the Editor of its journal - the "Journal of Urusvati" and the main contributor to the magazine.
Today, seventy years since, this scientific magazine, with unique materials of high academic value, a bibliographical rarity, has seen the light of the day again. The release of the first reprint of the "Journal of Urusvati" is indeed a momentous event and an important step towards the upcoming revival and resumption of full-scale activities of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute at the Roerich Estate in Naggar.
I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to the Indian Government and personally to the Prime Minister of India, H.E. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, for their persistent efforts in and devotion to safeguarding the legacy of this great Russian family in India. We highly appreciate his personal care and patronage over the Russian-Indian International Roerich Memorial Trust (IRMT) which has been functioning extremely successfully in Naggar for over a decade. We are thankful to the Prime Minister who again visited the Roerich Museum and Art Gallery last May and donated another 10 million rupees for restoration and development of the Estate and building of the International Roerich Art School which is coming into being under the auspices of the IRMT. We are sincerely grateful to the Government of Himachal Pradesh for its most active involvement in all the matters pertaining to the functioning of the Trust. We wholly welcome the decision of the State Government to declare the Roerich Estate a heritage site.
It is also heartening that the release of the Journal coincides with another auspicious event. Year-long celebrations of Dr Syatoslav N. Roerich's birth centenary initiated by the Government of Karnataka will start later this month in Bangalore with numerous functions and programmes dedicated to the Roerichs. There, in the southern Estate of Tataguni constructing of a befitting Memorial complex for Svyatoslav N. Roerich and Devika Rani-Roerich is in full swing. We are looking forward to emergence in Tataguni of a magnificent cultural centre and excellent museum, similar to the world-famous Leo Tolstoy's Yasnaya Polyana Estate in Russia. The Government of Karnataka has already made considerable headway in developing the Tataguni Estate into an international cultural and art centre open for all.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all those who actively participated in the publication of this historic volume. Our thanks go to the "Vedams Books" and its Director Mr Achal Madhavan, and Prof. Dr Lokesh Chandra who was a good friend of George and Svyatoslav Roerich. The release of the "Journal of Urusvati" is a remarkable event indeed and a joyful moment for all admirers of the Roerichs both in Russia and India. Scholars and common people will find it an interesting and inspiring reading full of scientific insight and incredible discoveries which will provide an exquisite food for thoughts and quench their thirst for knowledge".
A.M.Kadakin,
Ambassador of the Russian Federation in India
"GEORGE DE ROERICH was one of those scholars who could for the sake of developing the personality of а "people" transgress all the boundaries of different disciplines. Like many of his time he viewed а region and its people as the ultimate target of study while the specialised subjects through which you proceed to achieve this end as the mere means rather than the end in itself. Indology developed as а distinct branch of study in Germany almost in а comparable manner. Having himself settled down in the lush green undulating mountainous valley of Kullu he со uld со mе close to the people whose simple joys and ever smiling endowment brought а fresh meaning of life to him. One can understand his mind when he says, "Urusvati, the Abode of Science, is built in the Himalayas within the boundaries of ancient Aryavarta. Again the human spirit, purified by the continuous currents of the Himalayas will search an untiring labour. The healing herbs, medicinal research, wonderful magnetic and electric currents, the radioactivity and all those unspeakable treasures, which are preserved only in the Himalayas". Possibly this overwhelming influence of the Himalayas led George to cut out а part of Indology which by then had already become too big and spread out to be hammered down under а single discipline. What had started as merely а study of the Vedas and the Puranas in Indology was already leaving the domain of the classical and entering into the world of the folk and consequently also ethnography and cosmogony. The Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute seems to have taken shape in the mind of this unique personality - а poet, an artist, а thinker and above all а researcher.
Probably he wanted to create а corridor to mobilise his experiences of the advances of natural and biological sciences to his beloved Himalayas. The aim о f the unique Institute which apparently was established after а successful central Asiatic expedition was summarised in the following words:
"The bounds of its investigation will be the geographical limits of Asia and within these limits its enquires will be extended to whatever is performed by man and produced by nature." These words, the submission of the director о f the Institute, are borrowed from Sir William Jones who used them to define the scope of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 А .D. The first volume, which was published in 1931, embodies nine articles and is dedicated to Charles Rockwell Lanman, who was then the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University , on his 80th birthday. All the three volumes carry about the same number of articles. Topics chosen in these articles show а greater degree of concern for archaeology. Following this, one finds explorers' accounts of little known places of Central Asia, Tibet and Western Himalayas. Finally issues like exotic Himalayan plants, technique of body and mind, Tibetan customs and language, Punjabi language phonetics and even а short article on Lecethin, which controls the chemistry of the brain and spinal cord, are discussed. Each of these articles exposes us to man' s concern for knowledge during this early phase of human quest and to understand the world around him. More interestingly they also reveal the manner in which the logic for explanation has been sought at а time when Baconian Science was developing its rigour in the domain of natural sciences.
The 'Tibetan dialect in Lahul and the phonetics of Punjabi language are two pioneering studies in Indian linguistics. Likewise the exploration account of Central Asia and the ceremony of breaking the stone in Tibet are accounts, which should be of enormous interest in anthropology. Each volume ends with few book reviews, which with few exceptions, have always been done by Roerich himself. The manner in which these reviews have been done shows the enormous span of Roerich's knowledge and his ability to handle several European and Asian languages. Researchers in Indological, archaeological, linguistic and anthropological fields are always in need of such pioneering studies that are often scattered in various journals which are either discontinued or not traceable. The reprinting of these volumes will, indeed, be welcome to all these scholars. Although the absence of the practice of giving references cited makes many of these works limited in their value, yet the enormous details and thorough explanation of the delineations in each of these articles can demonstrate to the contemporary researchers how the readings flow easily when they are free of jargon and how these scholars never take the reader for granted".
О.К.BHATTACHARYA,
"THE HINDU",
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
"LATEST JOURNAL OF URUSVATI INSTITUTE RELEASED"
"Academics, scholars, diplomatic community and artists in the Capital graced a function at the Russian Centre of Science & Culture on October 6, 2003, where the latest Journal of Urusvati Institute of Himalayan Studies, Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, was released jointly by H.E. Mr. Alexander M. Kadakin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to India, and Dr. Lokesh Chandra, Director, International Academy of Indian Culture, New Delhi.
Indicative of the significance of the occasion, Mr. V. M. Polozkov, Director, Russian Centre of Science & Culture, described the release of the scientific journal, founded by the Roerich, as a landmark event considering the legacy attributed to the common Indo-Russian heritage.
In a nostalgic note Dr. Lokesh Chandra, Director, International Academy of Indian Culture, recalled his association with the Roerich family and he traced the background of the broad spectrum of heritage left by the Roerich family in the world cultural arena serving as a testimony to strategic partnership in the field of culture. He described the journal as a masterpiece with unique materials of high academic value. He acknowledged the valuable services of the esteemed Prime Minister in his capacity as the Chief Patron of the International Roerich Memorial Trust.
H.E. Mr. Alexander M. Kadakin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to India , noted that the Roerichs have contributed significantly to the world of creative art by their immortal masterpieces, and greatly enriched philosophy through the teachings of Agni Yoga or Living Ethics, hoisted the Banner of Peace over the Planet to protect mankind’s architectural and historic treasures. He referred to the Urusvati Himalayn Research Institute in the Kullu Valley as a scientific establishment with a new inter-disciplinary approach and immaculate amalgam of various spheres of knowledge. He described the release of the journal as a momentous event and and important step towards the upcoming revival and resumption of full-scale activities of the Urusvati Institute. The Ambassador expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister of India, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, and the Government of India for their persistent efforts in and devotion to safeguarding the legacy of the Roerich family in India.
Mr. Achal Madhavan, Director, Vedams Books Pvt. Ltd., pointed out that it was indeed a matter of great privilege to undertake the publishing of the journal.
Dr. Alena Adamkova, Curator, International Roerich Memorial Trust, Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, speaking on the occasion, threw light on the multifaceted activities of the Trust and the Institute".
Press-release
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