Bihar is seeing renewed interest in the nearly forgotten 18th-century art form, in which Mughal miniature met European naturalism. Picture watercolours on imported paper, in delicate brushwork on pale, bare backgrounds, and the stark image of two men in dhotis working in a distillery. Or a woman, dressed in blue-and-yellow ghaghra and dupatta, dancing in a palace hall while the musicians play. These artworks are part of an 18th-century Indian painting tradition known as Patna Kalam.

It was a pre-photographic visual documentation of the daily lives of ordinary people, featuring vegetable sellers, blacksmiths and servants fetching groceries, among others. Last December, Patna Kalam paintings were part of an exhibition at the Bihar Museum Biennale 2025, where it witnessed a renewed interest. Which begs the question: why is an art built to capture daily life now surviving only behind glass?

Patna Kalam Hidden away in storage in art colleges, or confined to private collections and the archives of the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the nearly lost Patna Kalam was reintroduced via the Patna Kalam: Ek Virasat exhibition held at Patna Museum between December 2025 and February 2026, and a workshop for keen students. Art enthusiasts agree that if not for such interest from the State government, they would have had to travel outside India to see this art tradition.

Apart from the Patna Museum paintings, the exhibition featured works lent by Sanjay Kumar, a Dhanbad resident and descendant of the famous Patna Kalam painter Hulas Lal. The regional art style “employed the technique of the Company School of Painting, with distinct characteristics intrinsic to Patna city - its people, culture and day-to-day life,” says INTACH’s (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) Patna chapter convenor Bhairav Lal Das.

In it, Mughal miniature detail blended with European naturalism. Art teacher Dinesh Kumar elaborates that Patna Kalam is bereft of any ornamentation; there’s no play of light and shadow, or any background. Think of a purdah-nasheen woman peeking from her palanquin’s red curtains, painted in gouache on mica (also called sunmica or abrak). Or a roadside baniya (grocer) sitting and weighing seeds or pulses.

Happy with the response and pleasantly surprised by the interest in the workshop, Bihar Museum’s director general Anjani Kumar Singh now hopes to find good art trainers to impart technical skills and help create contemporary Patna Kalam. At Patna University’s College of Arts and Crafts, workshop participants were glued to administrative officer Chanchal Kumar’s Patna Kalam, a reference photobook of paintings. Ironically, the original paintings remained locked in trunks in the same premises, inaccessible to the public. Last July, Aditya Jalan, great-grandson of businessman and art connoisseur Dewan Bahadur Radha Krishna Jalan, opened Planet Patna, a private museum with a large collection of Company Paintings, including Patna Kalam.

“My great-grandfather was passionate about objects of historical significance; he even purchased Napoleon’s bed on a trip to Europe in 1935,” says Aditya, adding that his father, Bal Manohar, exchanged colonial-era stamps for the Patna Kalam paintings. The museum at another site is open to all — with an entry fee of ₹100 — unlike the locked museum at his home, which is one of Patna’s iconic landmarks for art lovers, the century-old Quila house, better known as the Jalan House. Patna Kalam vs. Tikuli

Back in April, Bihar Museum displayed Hidden Treasures of Tikuli Art. Like Patna Kalam, the 800-year-old Tikuli painting tradition, too, originated in Patna. This traditional craft, which gets its name from the tikuli or bindis women wear, is seen in home décor, coasters, and trays, and is known for its bright colours, fine detailing, and use of enamel paint on hard surfaces. Revived in the mid-20th century, Tikuli survives to this day, unlike Patna Kalam, which was lost after Independence.

"Patna Kalam has the influence of Mughal art, Rajasthani miniature painting and European style, while Tikuli art is influenced by Patna Kalam, Rajasthani miniature painting and Mithila painting,” says Tikuli artist Ashok Kumar Biswas, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2024.

Sporadically, people have attempted to document Patna Kalam. For instance, Padma Shri awardee Shyam Sharma, former principal of Patna’s College of Arts and Crafts, has authored the book Patna Kalam (2011, Lalit Kala Academy). Sanjay Kumar, who comes from an illustrious line of Patna Kalam artists, says, “My grandfather Shyam Bihari Lal pursued Patna Kalam paintings till his end.” Several paintings of his ancestral family are at the Metropolitan and Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and at the Patna Museum.

Hope in contemporary stories?
Ashok Kumar Sinha, deputy director of Bihar Museum, hails Patna Kalam as Bihar’s heritage. He says, “We have plans on dedicating a gallery to exhibit Patna Kalam paintings permanently there. Just as we took Sita’s exhibition, Vaidehi Sita, in 2024, to several Indian states and abroad, we may do something similar for the Patna Kalam paintings, which many people are not aware of.” Jitendra Mohan, a Fine Arts professor who conducts Patna Kalam workshops, recalls a childhood that featured the heritage art and wishes that more time were invested in it.

"I live in Patna city, where Patna Kalam originated, and I grew up seeing it in my neighbourhood, visiting the houses of acclaimed artists Mahadeo Lal and Ishwari Prasad Verma, and museums like Jalan House,” says Mohan, who observed in the workshops that the “fresh artists” (young students) performed better than, say, the Madhubani folk artists, in drawing human figures, with appropriate measurement and colour scheme that is required for Patna Kalam paintings. Besides the Bihar Museum, INTACH has organised nine workshops on Patna Kalam since 2023, across different venues, so awareness is spreading.

Student Anurag Kumar Verma wants to pursue Fine Arts and keep practising Patna Kalam. Patna-based arts and culture enthusiast Rachana Priyadarshini, who participated in the INTACH workshops, says, “From copying to incorporating contemporary elements, to drawing freehand, and observing architecture and people, we are on the right path.” Patna, today, is far more chaotic; street paintings are not possible for they require peace and space for nuanced art.

Aditya Kumar Singh, an architect and part of the Urban Sketchers global artists community in Patna, says that sketching a contemporary building takes him half-an-hour while a Patna Kalam painting takes three days to make with full dedication. Singh is doubtful about its sustenance, but Lal Das says that INTACH will provide incentives for budding artists and build a good bank of Patna Kalam paintings through workshops to promote and sell them.

https://www.thehindu.com/society/patna-kalam-revival-india-bihar-forgotten-art/article70711121.ece/amp/, June 1, 2026

Standing in the courtyard of the Qutb complex in Delhi, the Iron Pillar is one of the most extraordinary achievements of ancient Indian metallurgy. Forged during the Gupta period around the 4th or 5th century CE, the monument has stood beneath the open sky for nearly 1,600 years while showing remarkably little corrosion. Historians widely associate it with King Chandra, whom most scholars identify as Chandragupta II, the celebrated Gupta ruler who also bore the title Vikramaditya. Weighing more than six tonnes and rising over seven metres high, the pillar has fascinated generations of historians, archaeologists and scientists.

Its endurance has transformed it from a royal monument into a symbol of ancient India's scientific and engineering achievements, inspiring decades of research into the secrets behind its remarkable preservation. The scientific secret behind the Iron Pillar's remarkable resistance to rusting For centuries, the Iron Pillar's remarkable condition puzzled visitors and researchers alike.

How could a massive iron structure survive nearly sixteen centuries of exposure to rain, humidity and changing weather conditions? Modern scientific research has transformed the pillar from a historical curiosity into one of the world's most celebrated examples of ancient corrosion-resistant metallurgy. Much of this understanding comes from the work of Professor R. Balasubramaniam of IIT Kanpur, whose landmark studies published in Corrosion Science and Current Science examined the monument's composition and corrosion behaviour in unprecedented detail.

Balasubramaniam's research revealed that the answer lies in the way ancient Indian craftsmen produced the iron. Unlike modern blast-furnace iron, the pillar contains unusually high levels of phosphorus. Ancient ironmakers used production techniques that allowed this phosphorus to remain within the metal rather than being removed during processing. The pillar itself was not cast as a single piece.

Instead, Gupta-era metallurgists forged numerous iron blooms and painstakingly forge-welded them together to create the finished structure. The process required extraordinary technical skill, especially considering the monument weighs more than six tonnes and was produced more than 1,600 years ago. The protective layer that guards the pillar Working with metallurgist A.V. Ramesh Kumar, Balasubramaniam investigated the chemistry of the pillar's surface and discovered the secret behind its long-term preservation. Their research showed that the phosphorus in the iron gradually helped create a protective passive film on the pillar's surface. Over centuries, this film developed into a stable barrier that slowed corrosion and shielded the iron beneath.

Scientists identified phosphate-rich compounds within this layer, including crystalline iron hydrogen phosphate hydrate. The iron also contains microscopic slag particles and unreduced oxides left behind during the forging process. Together, these features encouraged the formation of a natural protective coating that has preserved the monument for centuries.

The findings were published in Balasubramaniam's influential papers, including On the Corrosion Resistance of the Delhi Iron Pillar (2000) and On the Growth Kinetics of the Protective Passive Film of the Delhi Iron Pillar (2002), as well as his books The Story of the Delhi Iron Pillar and Delhi Iron Pillar: New Insights. A monument to Chandragupta II 'Vikramaditya' The Iron Pillar is more than a metallurgical marvel. It is also a monument linked to one of the most powerful rulers of ancient India. A Sanskrit inscription engraved on the pillar praises a king named Chandra. Based on the language, script and historical references contained in the inscription, most historians identify him as Chandragupta II, the Gupta emperor who ruled during the late 4th and early 5th centuries CE and was known by the title Vikramaditya.

Under Chandragupta II, the Gupta Empire expanded significantly and oversaw a period of remarkable cultural, artistic and scientific achievement. The Iron Pillar is widely regarded as one of the most enduring symbols of that era. What is written on the pillar? The inscription, written in Sanskrit and engraved in Brahmi script, celebrates King Chandra's military achievements and religious devotion. According to the Archaeological Survey of India, the text identifies the monument as a Vishnudhvaja, or standard dedicated to Lord Vishnu.

It also refers to a place known as Vishnupada, meaning "the footprint of Vishnu", where the pillar was originally erected. The inscription praises the king's victories and describes how his fame spread across distant regions. For historians, it serves as one of the most important pieces of evidence connecting the monument to the Gupta period. Where the pillar likely began Although the pillar now stands at the Qutb complex, scholars generally agree that it was not originally erected in Delhi.

One of the strongest scholarly theories places its original location at Udayagiri in present-day Madhya Pradesh. Researchers including Meera I. Dass and R. Balasubramaniam have argued that archaeological, inscriptional and iconographic evidence points towards Udayagiri as the monument's first home. The theory fits well with the pillar's association with Vishnu worship and Chandragupta II, both of which were closely linked to the Udayagiri region during the Gupta period. The monument's arrival in Delhi forms an important part of local historical tradition. Delhi's historical traditions associate the pillar with Anangpal Tomar, the 11th-century ruler credited with founding Lal Kot, the earliest fortified settlement of Delhi.

According to these accounts, Anangpal transported the pillar from its earlier location and installed it in his capital.While scholars continue to debate the precise route by which the monument reached Delhi, most agree that it originated elsewhere and was relocated centuries after its creation. Moving a six-tonne iron pillar across hundreds of kilometres of medieval India would itself have been an extraordinary engineering accomplishment. Older than the Qutb Minar itself The Iron Pillar had already stood for centuries before the construction of the Qutb Minar began around 1199 CE under Qutb al-Din Aibak.

Its presence within the complex creates a remarkable historical overlap between the Gupta Empire and the Delhi Sultanate. While the Qutb Minar became one of India's most recognisable monuments, the Iron Pillar remained an even older witness to the country's history. A living monument to ancient Indian science For nearly sixteen centuries, the Iron Pillar has watched empires rise and fall.

It stood during the age of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya, witnessed the emergence of Rajput kingdoms, survived the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire, endured British rule and remains standing in independent India. Professor R. Balasubramaniam, whose pioneering research helped explain the pillar's corrosion resistance, described it as "a living testimony to the skill of metallurgists of ancient India." Few monuments illustrate that achievement more vividly. More than 1,600 years after it was erected, the Iron Pillar continues to stand as a symbol of India's scientific ingenuity, engineering excellence and enduring cultural heritage.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/this-magnificent-iron-pillar-at-qutb-minar-has-remained-rust-free-for-1600-years-heres-why/articleshowprint/131479204.cms, June 4, 2026