 |
| Rumtek monastery in Gangtok, Sikkim |
Gangtok, Sept. 18: The old manuscripts, frescoes and murals that are decaying with time may get a fresh lease of life with local monks and painters being trained on the techniques of conservation and restoration.
In a bid to create home bred-experts, some 50 participants, most of them monks from various monasteries and artisans from Sikkim, are being trained to conserve illustrated manuscripts, thankas (religious wall hangings and scrolls), murals and frescoes, and metal artefacts.
The two week-long workshop is being jointly organised by the Sikkim archives, cultural affairs and heritage department and National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property, Lucknow. State culture minister G.M. Gurung inaugurated the meet at the youth hostel in Tadong today.
Joint secretary of the culture department K. Basnett told The Telegraph that experts have been roped in to train the monks, the lharipas (mural painters) and the gendrungs (master artists), who will be given “broad ideas on conservation techniques to enable them to take care of the artwork in their own monasteries and institutes”.
Experts brought from the research laboratory for the workshop include senior scientists U.S. Lall and V.C. Sharma, head of the conservation section Virendra Kumar and senior science assistant Ganshyam.
This is the second such workshop to be held in the state. The first one was held in Namchi in 2001, when experts from the research laboratory also helped restore some of the murals and artefacts at the old Nagadak monastery in South Sikkim.
Kumar said his institute’s involvement with Sikkim dates back to 1976 when it was engaged for restoration work at the Phodong monastery in North Sikkim. Later, it also helped save old murals and wall frescoes on the mud walls of the Shinon monastery in South Sikkim. Kumar said during the present workshop they would visit Sangha Choling monastery in West Sikkim to find out if it required restoration.
At the inaugural function, Gurung, who was the chief guest, asked the participants to make the most of the opportunity.
