ABSTRACT
A visitor to South Asia cannot help but be struck by the rich visual cultures and many living traditions that are part of everyday life. The protected heritage, largely consisting of historic buildings in tourist enclaves, appears however to be cut off from that vibrant milieu, narrating a partial story of the past. Although representing the high aesthetic achievements of an age, the monuments narrate only a partial story of cultural heritage. This is an outcome of preservation efforts carrying the burden of past policies and practices of colonial institutions. An incomplete understanding of what constitutes heritage, a focus on monuments to the exclusion of their landscapes and community rituals that animated them in the past, is responsible for this schism. The result is an overwhelming focus on ‘tangible’ or material heritage without any vocabulary or tools to address the issue of safeguarding ‘intangible heritage’, that is values, skills and modes of human expression that gave meaning to monuments.
