Between Guru Gobind Singh And Gandhi, An Ode To A Gorgeous Yakshi in Bihar

Governments are philistines when it comes to promoting art, culture and heritage in the country. Obsessed with all things political, they have no time or inclination to think about other fields.

However, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar is celebrating the next year, 2017, in a big way to commemorate the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's Champaran Satyagraha as well as the 350th birth anniversary of the tenth Sikh guru, Patna-born Guru Gobind Singh. At the same time, it has kicked off celebrations to mark the centenary year of the discovery of Deedarganj Yakshi, its priceless possession, as the Year of the Art.

Connoisseurs of the Indian art and culture could not have asked for more. A yakshi (which means a female spirit of the earth), which has come to symbolise the best of indigenous art over the years, is finally getting her due. The 2,300-year-old idol remains a living testimony to the extraordinary craftsmanship of the sculptors of yore in the country. 

For the uninitiated, Deedarganj Yakshi is a statue of a woman dating back to the Mauryan era. Made of the shining Chunar sandstone, the 5-foot-2-inch-tall statue of a well-endowed woman carrying a fly-whisk is considered by many to be a tribute to the quintessential Indian feminine beauty.

Unfortunately, nobody knows who sculpted the beauty but the eye for details speaks volumes of the talent of her faceless creator — Bihar's own, unknown Pygmalion who disappeared into the pages of ancient history after bringing his Galatea into life. But then, who knows, it might even have been the creation of a woman sculptor.

Historians believe that the people in the Vedic and Mauryan era used to worship yakshi as deity. There is an interesting story — whether apocryphal or not is not known, though — about the way the yakshi was discovered on the banks of Ganga at Deedarganj on the eastern outskirts of Patna on October 18, 1917.

Quoting an official letter of EHS Walsh, the then commissioner of Patna, many researchers give credit to a local man named Ghulam Rasul for discovering the statuesque beauty, but others assert that it was first noticed by a washerwoman. 

It is said that the local members of her community used to clean clothes on the back of the idol which was lying upside down, stuck deep in the muddy river banks. One day, a washerwoman was terrified to see a venomous snake slithering inside a hole under what was till then believed to a large stone slab. When the woman, helped by the people around her, turned the slab around to find the snake, they were astonished to see an idol. Even though it was partially damaged, the splendid, life-size statue made of a single stone still left everyone bewitched.

The yakshi found home at the British-built Patna Museum which came up in the same year she was unearthed. She has since been the biggest attraction at the museum and has also travelled to the US and other countries to be part of the Festival of India in the 1980s. In fact, her nose was broken during the transit, and it might have robbed her a bit off her pristine beauty but not an iota of her historical and archaeological significance.

The State government has now taken the right step to commemorate the centenary of her discovery. Nitish has been harping on the rich cultural heritage of Bihar for many years, and the yakshi is the perfect symbol for him to underline how rich it was.

He says whoever had made the incredible beauty must have used all his imaginations while sculpting it in all her splendour. "Her unknown creator is lost in the pages of history but the outcome of his dedication and eye for minutest details are worth admiring even today," he said while declaring the day of her discovery as the Kala Diwas (Art day) in Bihar recently.

"Every time you see her, from whichever angle, you can notice something special about her."

The state's art and culture department has already begun organising different events such as "run for yakshi" in her honour. To begin with, it is inviting 25 artists from different parts of the country to do street paintings in the state capital on different themes, including the life and times of Guru Gobind Singh and Gandhi.

The Chief minister thinks that Bihar's history is the history of not only India but also of human civilisation. He wants to make the future generations aware of it by helping preserve everything from its hoary past.

When his government had sanctioned more than Rs 500 crore a few years ago to build a new Bihar museum in the heart of Patna (which, incidentally, will be the yakshi's new abode), Nitish had found himself at the receiving end of blistering attacks by his detractors. But he had always asserted that the state had many exquisite artefacts to showcase to the world.