Finding common ground | 'Shared Stories: An Art Journey Across Civilisations Beyond Boundaries' at Humayun's Tomb Museum

At the Humayun’s Tomb Museum in Delhi, a most curious artefact leads the ongoing exhibition Shared Stories: An Art Journey Across Civilizations Beyond Boundaries. This is a fragment of a statue of the Hindu goddess Durga in her ‘Mahishasur Mardini’ aspect, slaying the demon Mahishasur who is traditionally drawn with a buffalo-head. The Durga-fragment is from Afghanistan, dating back to the 9th-11th century AD, and was discovered in a Buddhist monastery. This is precisely the kind of artefact you’ll find in Shared Stories, an exhibition that specialises in cases of cultural hybridity, cross-pollination and the free exchange of ideas and motifs across civilisations. It’s a collaborative effort between the Humayun’s Tomb Museum, the Italian Institute of Culture and Museo delle Civilt (‘museum of civilisations’ in Italian), Rome. The exhibition has been curated by the Italian archaeologist Laura Giuliano and will be on display for another two months.