Lokesh Chandra

PhD, Professor, Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture
India, Delhi

Pax Cultura of Nicholas Roerich

To define the "white mystic" Nikolai Roerich we may cite the 14th century Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenko whose work The Harvest of Leisure begins: "My ink-dish lies before me. My heart is like a mirror - all the world is reflected in it...I think of strangely mingled things". The head and heart of Roerich was absorbed in the countless unknowns of time and traditions, where his intense and multiple identity was his inner weather. Like the dialectic of Hegel, he integrated the Christian "thesis" and the Buddhist "anti-thesis" into the "synthesis" of cultural interflow in a universal manifestation of beauty. Roerich sought to mine the buried veins of continuity and connection of his Viking origins, Slavic flowering, Mongolian blood, Buddhist eutopia of Shambhala, in a preverbal experience for which there is no language beyond metaphor. As a fine artist that Roerich was, he had a fine mind, meditating on the vastness of human life and nature, whence came his vision of the Pax Cultura whereby human endeavour of all ages would be preserved for generations so that the Lotus would never be in a Sea of Fire.

The very name Nikolai symbolises Saint Nicholas of the 4/5th century who has been most popular in both Eastern and Western churches. Devotion to him extended to all pans of the world. He was the chosen patron saint of Russia and his miracles were a favourite subject for medieval artists and liturgical plays. He was transformed into Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, or Father Frost, and his feast day became 25th December, the birthday of Mithra or Sun God of the pagan tradition. The legendary Saint Nicholas reincarnated as Nikolai Roerich to shine into the realm of spirituality, beauty, and nature, to open our eyes to a true human culture, to reveal the interconnection between the world’s cultures, and to ensure the existence of masterpieces of art and architecture by an international pact. As a young man, he travelled across Northern Russia to paint crumbling buildings and appealed to the Russian Government to preserve these priceless links to the past. Cultural preservation was to inspire generations over the centuries to come with the gradual evolution of the creative genius of humanity.

Roerlch's paintings of Russian prehistoric life and the wanderings of Vikings earned him a unique place among the Russian painters of the early 20th century. Rurik (Rorik) who died in AD 879 was a leader of the Scandinavian Vikings, the founder of the Russian dynasty of Ryurikovichi. The Primary Chronicle of Russia compiled in the 12th century relates that the people of Novgorod were tired of strife and in 862 invited the favourite Vikings to establish a just government. In response, Prince Rurik came with a large retinue, and became the ruler of the regime of Novgorod. Nicholas Roerich claimed descent from Rurik who forged Slav unity. He named his sons after Rurik's son Igor and grandson Svyatoslav. He searched archaeological sites, folklore and myths as the beginnings of Russia. They were the subjects of his first paintings. His deep nationalistic roots later on strengthened the Tibetans, Mongols and Indians to value their traditions. There is memory of classical expressions which are an awareness of "continued creativity". They are a seamless fabric between meta-native consciousness and the objective world of the present tense: both winds were to meet and rise to heaven. The flow of reality is the richness of experience. The wanderings of the Vikings were so to say a martial hierophany to Roerich who spent years travelling across Mongolia and Tibet in an intense devotion to culture.

Art of the Orient influenced his decorative and monumental style. On his maternal side traces of Mongolian ancestry were "that foundation of heredity which in art, as in everything else, is so vitally essential". Along with this racial affinity with the Orient, Roerich had an intellectual and aesthetic unison with India through his beliefs which he shared with the old Rishis of this land (Exhibition of the paintings of Prof N. Roerich and S. Roerich, held under the auspices of the Art Department of the University of the Punjab, 16 - 28 Dec. 1940). At this exhibition I was only 13 years when 1 stood face to face with Roerich, his impressive countenance was like that of a living Rishi, a torch-bearer of beauty and enlightenment. It was a freezing cold morning at 9.00 a.m. and a large number of British officials had come for the inauguration in their shimmering uniforms of imperial splendour. My father Prof. RaghuVira was thrilled by the amazing consonance of the colors of the high peaks of the Himalayas on the canvases. All around were the high officials of the police, army and civil services representing the might of the British Empire. Father said to Roerich: "I will pay homage to your dream of form and color, to your adoration of the Himalayas, in the words of Kalidasa: he recited aloud: asty uttarasyam disi devalalma himalayo nama nagadhirajah". Roerich folded his hands in reverence, and the British bureaucracy stood stunned that an Indian freedom fighter dared raise his voice in a predominantly European audience. The paintings were emitting shining light and harmonious vibrations, and in the words of Roerich "in the name of beauty and knowledge, the wall between the West and the East has vanished". To Indians Roerich appealed a Sage, a Rishi in whom the trinity of time lived and enlivened creativity: the past as inspiration, the present as action, and the future as dream.

Speaking at an exhibition of Roerich's paintings organized at New Delhi in December 1947 on his passing away, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru paid a feeling tribute to his genius: "When I think of Nicholas Roerich, I am astounded at the scope and abundance of his activities and creative genius. A great artist, a great scholar and writer, archaeologist and explorer, he touched and lighted up so many aspects of human endeavour. The very quantity is stupendous — thousands of paintings and each one of them a great work of art. When you look at these paintings, so many of the Himalayas, you seem to catch the spirit of those great mountains which have towered over the Indian plains and been our sentinels for ages past. They remind us of so much in our history, our thought, our cultural and spiritual heritage so much not merely of the India of the past, but of something that is permanent and eternal about India, that we cannot help feeling a great sense of indebtedness to Nicholas Roerich who has enshrined that spirit in these magnificent canvases".

Similar sentiments were expressed by Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi in 1974 on his centenary celebrations: "My father and I were privileged to know Nicholas Roerich. He was one of the most impressive people I have met. He was a combination of modern savant and ancient Rishi. He lived in the Himalaya for years and seems to have captured the spirit of the mountains, portraying their ever changing moods and colors. Nicholas Roerich's work has inspired many new trends among our own painters. The centenary celebrations provide an occasion for us to pay tribute to this great artist and philosopher who made India his home".

The devastations of World War I in 1918, and the Russian Revolution when sacred structures became debris and dust, priceless treasures of art were destroyed, desecration of culture was the ideology, and intellectuals became enemies of the people: all this inspired Roerich to seek an international protocol to protect and conserve cultural treasures of mankind so that the eternal values of our psychosphere are not bartered away for moments of expediency.

Roerich was deeply involved in the promised land of Shambhala where goodness and virtue would triumph. In 1926 he said; "when the image of Shambhala... will reach Urga, then will flash the first light of the New Era truth". Shambhala is a recurrent theme of his writings. This intellectual strand added to the urgency of his Pax Cultura. In 1929 he published the complete text of the Pact to ensure the protection of monuments, museums, institutions and their personnel during war. He designed the distinctive "Banner of Peace" to be placed on objects to be protected. In 1931 he envisioned a new goddess devoted to the Pact, and called her Madonna Oriflamma. Oriflamma is the ancient battle standard of the kings of France, the banner of St. Denis, Ori is Latin aurum 'gold' and flamma 'flame'. St. Denis was the first bishop of Paris and the patron saint of France. He had come to France during the reign of Roman Emperor Decius (AD 201 – 251). The goddess is reminiscent of the agniyoga of Roerich. Her counterpart in Buddhism is Marici 'Lady of Sunrise Splendour' who travels before the sun and moon, is inescapable, unerring, unassailable by weapons. She is radiant and golden. She is a powerful protectress: simply calling her to mind elicits her protective powers. What an evocative Madonna was envisioned by Roerich in a spontaneous configuration.

In 1930 a draft of the Pact was presented to an international committee for consideration. It was supported by Romain Rollan, Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, H.G.Wells and many other leading literary giants, scientists and Nobel laureates. The Pax Cultura for the protection of artistic and scientific institutions and historic monuments was signed on 15th April 1935 by the President of the USA Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House and by 21 other republics of the Pan-American Union.

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• The Roerich Pact and the Banner of Peace as a Remarkable Phenomenon of the World Culture
Reports and Speeches at the International Social and Scientific Conference.
Delhi – Kullu – Shimla – Kalimpong October 22– November 5 2010