From Sindhu-Sarasvati to the Modern Day
On 18th February 2026, the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems hosted Sri Halley Goswami, an independent scholar and artist from Kolkata, for a guest lecture tracing Bengal’s artistic heritage from the Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation to the present. The audience was genuinely mixed, students, practising artists and faculty, and their questions shaped the session into something livelier than a standard lecture.
Sri Goswami started at the foundations: the art and architecture of the Sindhu-Sarasvati period, moving through the Pala-Sena rulers, the terracotta temples, the Patachitra tradition, and eventually the Bengal School. Abanindranath Tagore’s movement that drew on Ajanta murals, Mughal miniature work and international influences to build a distinctly Indian visual modernity.
