Date: 28 July 2020, Tuesday

Name of Speaker: Piyush Das

Designation: Assistant Professor

Title of Proposition: Are Sacred and Secular Opposites? A Case of Ekamra Kshetra in Bhubaneswar 

India’s sacred sites are complex regions that have evolved over time with various layers of history, memory, knowledge of the biotic and abiotic environments, knowledge retention and knowledge transfer techniques, beliefs, changing landscapes, changing cultural ecosystems, and many others. Such complex cultural landscape sites have various components that are both tangible and intangible and can be cultural or natural. These components are interconnected in different ways and have been existing as a single system and as a single resource for thousands of years.
One such sacred historic region is Ekamrakshetra in eastern India where the documented diversity of the remains of its cultural heritage can be traced back to more than two thousand years. Different religions such as Buddhism and Jainism have rendered various results of cultural dynamics on this land. With the spread of different sects of Hinduism, the landscape went through many complex processes of change and adaptation. The unique sacred landscape continues till today and showcases exemplary resources of various typologies.
The talk explores the architecture and planning of the region while returning to the meanings of the terms sacred and secular which become blurred in the context of such a site.

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN5fbThjEO8

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