Jammu’s Culture & Place Consciousness

People don’t create their culture consciously but it develops as per the innovations and interactions with nature. Arts and crafts of the region suggest that the artisans enjoyed patronage .It can be witnessed from the excavations that have been made at various places like Krimchi, Manwal, Mud block, and other places like the banks of Chenab in Akhnoor. The architectural marvels like forts at almost all modern districts of Jammu shows that administration was working with immense care and pain to evolve the society in tune with the universal outlook and was marching in tune with the demands of the time. People were concerned about the infrastructure and needs that shape the imagination in conscious societies. Terracotta specimens and pottery unearthed at Ambaran beside the tooth relics of Buddha make it abundantly clear that the society of Jammu was interacting with various facts in those times and experiencing the cultural maturity.These are not mere remnants of the past but show the importance of the present. Jammu’s expanse and multiplicity of hidden treasure that is being unearthed has the value of being the treasure that should be seen as the great opportunity to market its as the destination that was the cultural melting pot. Being located in the hills its art forms came to be called as Pahari art.As has been argued elsewhere that culture is a continuous stream that never stagnates and marches ahead amid all odds. The fragile elements that don’t stand the test of the times are washed away but the strong forms that have the intrinsic resilience are the elements qualifying as the heritage of the masses. Jammu’s art forms are an addition to the rich tangible heritage.After all the tangible can be defined by the soul of intangible. What is represented in the form of the buildings and old houses in the localities like Mohalla Afghana, Mohalla Ustad, Kali Jani, Purani Mandi, Jullaka Mohalla is the depiction of the society that existed at that time. Generations may have changed but the space and specimens visible in the houses inhabited by the new generations connect then with the moorings and innovation of their forefathers that brought them to the present and made the upholders of their legacy.The architectural marvels and designs that are witnessed in the lanes and bylanes of the old city and interiors of the rural areas depicts the penetration of the skills and how these skills were valued by the locals and it was the craze of the times to design their houses and establishments in that trend.The technical astuteness can be judged from the fact these artisans not only designed these houses for dwellings but when compared to the modern construction ,one is astonished to witness that it incorporated the geographic compulsions as well. The recent earthquakes that have turned the modern constructions into rubble are no match to these heritage assets as they have withstood the tremors of the seismic challenges. It seems that those artisans were well aware of these challenges and developed their techniques as such.Not only local wisdom and material was used in constructing the forts, palaces, houses and shrines but the temple art that have come to the fore at the archaeological sites excavated by ASI at the locations like Krimchi, Manwal, R.S. Pura reveals another important facet. These temples are styled in the Orrisan art. It is clear that there was close contact with the artisans from the other states of India and royal houses patronized this by their influence. The Bouli(spring) art is another facet that shows how rulers gave credence to nature and its resources. The trishul that is standing tall at Shudh Mahadev is another example of cultural manifestation. Inscriptions on it have been deciphered and it reveals that people regarded Jammu as the pilgrimage centre in other parts of India. The excavations and deciphering of inscriptions at that place that people as far as the South of India have visited Jammu. It means that in the collective consciousness of the people all over India and Puranic instructions leave many dimensions open to the historians to establish the links that existed in the days gone by.