Balram Srivastava

Prof Balram Srivastava (Born in 1930), a reputed scholar of Indian Art and Culture, was mostly educated in Banaras Hindu University and obtained Ph.D. Degree from the same University in 1964. Till today he has about 14 books & 44 published Research Papers on different Indological Aspects including Arts & Aesthetics. He started his academic career by joining the Department of Purana in the Sanskrit University, Varanasi and also acted as Founder Curator of Sanskrit University Museum, Varanasi from 1959-1964. He joined the Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University in 1964. Under the UGC grants he explored various regions of Orissa, in search of art-material for his book on the regional idioms of Orissan Arts. At the invitation of Nepalese Government, he explored the Vagamati Valley of Kathmandu and discovered a number of sculptural treasures higher to unknown and un-studied. He was invited with a travel grant by the Australian National University Canberra (1969-70) to give a series of lectures on Early Mediaeval Arts and also participated in the 20th International Congress of Orientalists held in 1997. He was a visiting fellow in the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla HP INDIA for two years where he again worked on the regional idioms of Orissan Art. He brought out his research in his "Art of Khiching" which is widely appreciated for the reason that in this work he has fixed the chronology of Orissan Art for the first time. He joined the Department of History of Arts, Banaras Hindu UNiversity in 1979, where in 1985 he bacame Professor of Aesthetics. He contributed in this field of Aesthetics by bringing out a book "Nature of Indian Aesthetics" in which he has attempted to determine the relationship of poetics with visual arts, particularly with reference to sculptural arts. In 1988-89, he was invited to Wisconsin University USA to deliver a course of lectures on Indian Aesthetics with special reference to Indian Art. In 1990 he was awarded senior fellowship of ICHR on his project "Historiography of Indian Art". Presently he is associated with editorial board of Nagari Pracharni Patrika and UP Sanskrit Sansthanam.