Tradition

Creation of knowledge of one’s own context autonomously is the cognitive condition provided by tradition. In this condition one’s own experience is of paramount importance and hence ‘presence’ becomes the natural state of beingness. The context as the source of knowledge act as the mechanism to retain presence.  Hence cultural rootedness is the main characteristics of tradition. As there is no conscious teaching each being is ‘authentically and autonomously’ involved in making sense of their contexts and recreating knowledge, thus establishing rootedness. They also retain their own integrity as they do not fragment the wholistic nature of the world.

Beauty, then is not an afterthought but part of the integral experience. This is probably why they do not even have a word art but whatever they do turn out to be beautiful.

We have noticed that non-literate artisans produce beautiful things as if it was very natural for them to create beauty. 

It looks like whatever they did, just turned out to be beautiful. This seemed like an ordering principle in our biology itself and not an afterthought unlike what we do in modern society. We have also noticed that this happens not only while doing 'craft' but also in every action they performed. From activities in the kitchen- cutting, kneading, making etc- and various actions to the way the body is held.  The need to keep the kitchen clean and ordered stems from this. There was no thought- how to make things beautiful as beauty is an integral aspect of action or beauty is part and parcel of the Being. It appears that the vernacular is not about materials but about something in the being-ness of the people. They are continuously responding to materials that come in their way, both aesthetically and innovating new ways of doing. In a way doing very little or a feeling of letting things be with no effort to control.

Modern and traditional human beings are fundamentally different in their being-ness and that is why they have created a different kind of culture and knowledge system.

One thing to be kept in mind is that we are exploring this within the framework of modernity and an extra effort is required to understand the paradigm of traditional being-ness.