Latika Gupta

Latika Gupta is a Delhi-based curator and writer. As an independent curator, she has curated a number of exhibitions in India and abroad. Her two major exhibitions include Homelands – A 21^st Century Story of Home Away, and All the Places in Between, an exhibition of contemporary art that she curated from the British Council collection which toured cities in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (2013-14); and a large scale historical exhibition of modern and contemporary art that she curated from the NGMA collections (2009). She has received many grants and fellowships which include Charles Wallace Trust fellowship in 2007 and 2017; research and travel grant from Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections; and an IFA fellowship to curate a permanent exhibition at the Munshi Aziz Bhat Museum of Central Asian and Kargil Trade Artifacts, Ladakh. She has edited and co-edited several issues of the Marg Magazine.

This grant will enable Latika to study the Cham, a Tibetan Buddhist performative ritual, at the monasteries of Kye in the upper Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, and Diskit in the Nubra Valley in Ladakh. Commonly understood as a Tibetan Buddhist masked ritual dance performed by monks for an audience, Cham, as a feature of Tibetan religious life is one of the most important of all Tibetan Buddhist rituals. Its annual performance strengthens community ties and reaffirms the relationship between the monastery, monks, Buddhist public and patrons. As one of the central rituals in Tibetan Buddhism, Cham was historically practiced at almost all monasteries across the Himalayas – from regions in Central Asia and Mongolia, across Tibet (now Tibetan Autonomous Region) to Buddhist regions in the Indian Himalayas such as Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

Of the many monasteries in Ladakh and Spiti, Latika will focus on Kye and Diskit for specific reasons. Both monasteries are among the oldest functioning Gelukpa monasteries in the region. They were established in the early years of the 15^th Century after the Gelukpa sect was founded by Tsongkhapa. Diskit is attributed to Sherab Sangpo – one of the six direct disciples of Tsongkhapa – and Kye, to his student, Sherab Lodro. Through a comparative study of the place, iconography and material culture of Cham, Latika will attempt to unpack the notions of ‘tradition’ and ‘authenticity’ to understand the relationship between religious, cultural and political identities.

Both Kye and Diskit look to the Tashi Lhunpo monastery in Shigatse for their ritual and spiritual lineage – a relationship that is now mediated by the Tashi Lhunpo monastery-in-exile, established in the 1970s at Bylakuppe in Karnataka. Historically, Tashi Lhunpo monastery headed by the Panchen Lama, the second-highest incarnation next to the Dalai Lama lineage, presented a challenge to the overarching authority of the Dalai Lama in Central Tibet. Consequently, the powers of the Panchen Lama were curtailed and the Gelukpa lineage headed by the Dalai Lama became the highest authority in Tibetan Buddhism. Latika argues that at present in the absence of the authority of the Panchen Lama, Tashi Lhunpo monastery and other monasteries that look to it are subsumed under the institution of Dalai Lama, thus making Buddhism seem like a homogenous and unified practice, when in reality it is a complex and heterogeneous one. Through this project, she will probe the reasons for the invention of such a tradition and why the Tashi Lhunpo monastery is chosen as its source.

Using Eric Hobsbawm’s model of ‘invented traditions’, Latika aims to understand the claims to authenticity and ancient lineage made by the monastery and the monastic community. She will examine the evolution of Cham – the changes in costume, additions to ornamentation, the recent inclusion of a set of thangkas, and the conditions in which such visual transformations are permitted. Completely isolated for a large part of the year due to heavy snowfall, these monasteries are the focal point for religious and cultural activities of the Spiti and Nubra valleys. This isolation has allowed them to retain a form of tantric practice that is not practised in the other mainstream monasteries. Latika will analyse whether this is a clue to localisation of the tradition within monasteries that are located far from the spotlight of mainstream Gelukpa diasporic ritual practices.

Latika will conduct fieldwork in Spiti, Ladakh, Bylakuppe and Dharamsala with a methodology that is at the intersection of art history, anthropology and studies of material culture. She will study the role of Cham vis-à-vis its power to transform the local landscape symbolically, as a process of magic and faith. She will also study how it seeks both material continuity of objects such as textiles, masks and sculptures and simultaneous cyclical destruction as part of a process of ritual rejuvenation.  A detailed analysis will be undertaken of the form and function of the materials used that visually establish a lineage to the main teachers of the Gelukpa sect. Additionally, the project will also document and study the material culture in situ that is not exclusively related to the Cham and its transformation. She will conduct interviews with different local communities, performing monks, believers and tourists during the course of her fieldwork. 

The outcome of this project will be comprehensive photographic documentation and a series of essays on the transformations impacting form and function of the Cham. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final reports will be the series of essays and the photographic documentation. The budget is commensurate with the proposal.

This grant is made possible with support from Titan Company Limited.