More in support of Muqadima-e Chughtai

Dear Chughtai Sb,

This is my 2^nd letter in a row. I must admit that my friend, this pseudo-intellectual, self-declared guardian of the Western art history narrative is becoming my muse to fight this muqadima even more passionately. Other enthusiastic associates have also shown keen interest and have requested to club their petitions regarding legacy and authenticity of Eastern and Islamic aesthetics along with our South Asian/Pakistani. For them, I shall press that you often contextualise your practice as ‘Eastern’ and since you were a practising Muslim it must cater to Islamic concerns by default. Though, I wonder if art has a religion in the sense that it needs to be baptised or circumcised.

Coming back to the ongoing case — the false allegation on Eastern art lacking the theoretical foundations, a little historical snooping can strengthen our argument. I would like to draw the attention of the opposing advocates towards the Vedic and Buddhist scripture. In Vedas one finds a variety of terms e.g. vastu, pratima, citra, prakriti, rupa and likha which indicate various kinds of aesthetic ideas and activities. Rigveda describes godly creative instinct as saci which inspires several technical skills in humans while maya stands for innate creative energies that may transmute potency of assuming different shapes. It talks of visti as a mysterious power that inflicts creative skills and refers tvastr as all kinds of forms, animate and inanimate. In Buddhist scripture, one is advised to awaken the mind to natural beauty through meditation. Buddhism indorses that overall attitude towards universe should be purely aesthetic that must be enhanced vividly. I shall refrain from commenting on Islamic aesthetic concerns in Quranic text for I am no scholar of religion but as a practitioner of faith I think of Allah as al-Musawir, The Creator, The Originator of Beauty. In this context where the ideals of creativity, originality, innovation, imagination and vision are addressed in the holy scripture, art shall be considered a sacred act and a part of religious debate and not only philosophical. In such societies art becomes a way of life and not just a feeling, experience or an expression as recorded by the modern Western aestheticians.

My final argument in support of Muqadima-e Chughtai would be the prevailing confusion on the evolving descriptions of the titles of Philosophy and Aesthetics along with the varying approach towards these subjects in the early modern period. Aesthetics as a separate field of knowledge and as ‘the science of how something is cognised’ is a 18^th century product of Western academics. I wonder where the ancient philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, and their discourse on beauty and art stand in such a scheme. And what about Alberti and Vasari who codified the ideals of art during Italian Renaissance? If we are able to resolve the riddle between two terms; Philosophy being the main subject favouring the culture of reasoning and rationalising of various phenomenon, Aesthetics as its branch catering to the subject of art and beauty and acknowledge a third, though merely unnecessary, category as Analytic Aesthetics we may have a chance to defend and validate Eastern aesthetics. Please note, that even in the West some scholars are looking forward to write the epitaph of analytic aesthetics with blunt question of what exactly it contributed towards art. They specifically refer to the conceptual analysis, representation, meaning, reference, metaphysics and ontology, truth and knowledge and ethics and value as major topics of investigation. How is it different from the scope of Philosophy or Aesthetics? I don’t know.

My concluding remarks would be that in the historical debates on aesthetics, the Western philosophers have confused aesthetics with dominant ways in which they found beauty being expressed in their cultures. Neither are those methods of expression universal nor are the particular styles widespread. Therefore, the definition and understanding of aesthetics as a branch of philosophy that caters to the issues of beauty must be realised as an ever evolving approach towards various cultural expressions and creative acts.

Bano

May 2024

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2024.

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