European Human Heritage vs. South Asian Human Heritage

As published on ArchiTimes magazine.

The World Heritage committee recognized the “outstanding universal value” of the monasteries of San Millan de Yuso and de Suso in 1997, including them for their historical significance centering around the revival of Christian monasticism in Europe. Not only are the monasteries still places of spiritual wonder for more devout pilgrims heading out to seek enlightenment, they also hold the title for being “the cradle of the Spanish language” due to a few texts discovered that hold possibly the first major signs of written Castilian.

It was here that I was selected to work as a heritage professional to document the old walls belonging to the monastery that still stood around the town.

The history of San Millan de la Cogolla revolves around a Saint Emilianus who settled in the area in the fifth century. Laying down the foundations of the Suso community, he left behind a very strong religious culture. The Suso monastery is now located in the area where the saint secluded himself when he was young and lived the rest of his life, dying at the age of 101 years old. His disciples dug out the caves surrounding his rock tomb and created a small monastery.

The earliest structure was created in the middle of the dense forest, taking advantage of the hollows in the rock. After the formation of the cave-like building, the 6th century saw two vaulted compartments added to the structure. These Visigothic arches are still apparent today. From the 10th century, we see a more Mozarabic style, due to the heavy Moorish influence in Spain, but the paintings on the walls were blackened or burnt off when Almanzor set fire to the monastery in the year 1002.

May buildings in Spain host paintings of brave Spaniards killing Arabs and defending their country. Saint Emilianus has also been cast in a warrior-like light with a carving showing him holding up a black sword and rearing his horse on top of the chopped off heads of Arab soldiers. Despite the rivalry, Moorish influence on the architecture and the language of Spain is very apparent.

The monastery of Yuso was built, according to legend, because of a group of oxen carrying the remains of Saint Emilianus. Walking down from the location of the Suso monastery, they refused to move from the place where the Yuso monastery now stands, and so that was where the king and the monks of the time decided to construct. The monastery that originally stood there was of Romanesque architecture, but was built on by Benedictine monks in the 16th century to introduce a mixture of Renaissance and Baroque styles to the mix.

One cannot help but compare our own stories to theirs, with the twist that we stand on opposite sides of history.

Working as an international heritage professional and documenting part of the monastery, I was given the privilege of visiting parts of the monastery not open for everyone to see. What astounded me the most, however, was not the centuries old library and the first copy of Vitruvius’ drawings that the friar specially took out to show this group of architectural conservation enthusiasts; no, it was the great amount of effort that went into restoring the architecture of the town.

The monasteries date from around the 5th century. The stones on the Suso monastery have been individually documented, with every small carving and indentation studied and taken into account. Theories have been formulated regarding the engraved drawings, with many speculating that they were in fact plans for the monastery. The Yuso monastery also holds similar studies, despite its later construction. The eras of architecture are distinctly visible and shown to visitors on guided tours, and the locality of the buildings has also managed to stay comparatively intact. When one walks into the Suso monastery, one can imagine how it must have been like all those centuries ago, and how the saint might have assimilated his lifestyle with the natural habitat of the area.

I say comparatively because I intend to speak about local practices in conservation and restoration. While architects and archaeologists working in our heritage buildings have painstakingly ensured a productive use of the funding provided, it is unfortunate that the places they work with are constantly under attack. Locals do not hesitate to vandalize these buildings every time they visit, leaving behind their own engravings, maybe hoping to enmesh themselves into the history that these buildings carry. Not only is this discouraging, but it also means that we require a more vigorous standard of constant restoration just to keep our own buildings visit-worthy. This effort also constrains the people working on the projects, and in turn there are many places that are left distraught as the teams in question do not have the resources to work on everything that might be termed as heritage.

Quickly jumping back to the monastery and my part in the documentation, I was interested to know whether the part of the building that I was documenting was in fact important to the locals of the small town. A wall that stretched around the town and had become a sort of hindrance for many people due to it being in the way of their desired development does not seem a likely candidate for being saved as heritage – and yet, it supposedly carries on human heritage and, hence, must be preserved. With hundreds of such sites in our vicinities, many of them tombs of spiritual men and women, what exactly is meant to be preserved and what is to be left to disintegrate and turn into ruin? Perhaps the greatest act of restoration in Lahore has been the Picture Wall in the Lahore Fort, or the Wazir Khan Mosque near Delhi Gate. While the two of these seem to make sense, does it also make sense to restore the muhallas and havelis around them when so many people have moved out of the walled city due to the inconveniences one faces when living in that neighborhood?

One could also argue that the preservation of tombs is always important due to the spiritual effect they hold over the local population. It is somewhat of a “human heritage” as it carries on beliefs and traditions long associated with our community. If a foreigner was to view them, however, they might have opposing views, such as why is a tomb given more importance than a group of homeless people?

It is not only the tombs that carry on our heritage, however, and what is of interest to me is also how the many cultural and religious influences over the years have not managed to assimilate into what we term indigenous. The Sehdara in Jahangir’s Quadrangle in Lahore Fort, an area I also spoke about during my time in San Millan, holds literal layers of history that we have yet to uncover and talk about. Will the religious authorities undermine the conservation of such a building due to the apparent alienness of the paintings on the walls?

The Christian figures have been defaced multiple times and painted over, depicting new eras of usage and design. These eras, once investigated, could help give us a greater insight into the multi-faceted society that we spring from, and how we do not have to stick to one dialogue of token representation in an area dominated by a single stream of magical thinking. Heritage and conservation could very well be the solution to intolerance.

The debate between what is to be saved and what is to be left to die is an old one. However, when comparing the quality of work in a small, distant town in the north of Spain to that done in the biggest city of Punjab, one is forced to acknowledge the sad realization that ours is a country lacking in so much more than we imagine. The fact that our debates over heritage and culture never take precedence over other political issues, and with the ongoing disasters that the country must give careful attention to, means that we might never see any concrete answer to the debate, as there are not enough people talking about the matter for it to show the kinds of results that I saw in San Millan de la Cogolla, where I found myself shaking my head in wonder at the structures we had to document for “conservation and restoration”. Back home, I thought, my colleagues would never let me hear the end of this.