PUDUCHERRY: Auro Bharati and Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) have opened an exhibition to jointly commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo and the 77th year of India's Independence. With the theme 'Spiritual Gift of India to the World', the exhibition commenced on Friday (August 12) and will be open till August 21, at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, except for public holidays.
Inaugurated by Tourism Minister K Lakshminarayanan, the exhibition is divided into four branches, namely, Spiritual Tradition, Knowledge, Consciousness, and Spiritual Transformation, and showcases 150 artworks by artists from India and abroad. These include sacred landscapes, integral aspects of nature, heritage and monuments of religious and spiritual significance, cults, practices, and festivities related to spirituality. Lakshminarayanan said, "The exhibition is about the gift that Indian spiritualism has given the world. It is what Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo envisaged — the Bharat as the Mother with the co-existence of all religions and faith. All arts found here are proof of the rich culture and spirituality."
The minister was joined by Padma shri winning terracotta sculptor V K Munusamy Sthapathy and Lalit Verma, President, of Aurodhan Art Gallery. The exhibition is an attempt to define spirituality in the light of Sri Aurobindo, a leader of India’s freedom movement and a spiritual visionary, said Kishor Kumar Tripathy, the member secretary of SAS and one of the curators of the exhibition apart from Charu Tripathy, also from SAS. Senior artists R Raghavan, R Rajendran, K Balasubramanian, Muralidharan, Narendra Babu and many others were present during the ceremony.