Immersing into the Library of Congress
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
The only passport to your satisfaction as a roving and probing traveller inside America is money in cash. You have to dispense money to buy a ticket to journey, to enter a place of interest, to get a drink from a dispensing machine, to quench your hunger at lunchtime, or to pick a souvenir. The only place in America which will offer you entirely free entries to great places of interest -- if not a free lunch -- is the capital city of Washington. And those places in Washington of breathtaking interests are, to my opinion, the best in the whole of the United States.
It is unsafe though to sweepingly qualify anything in the USA as the best. Because, you never know next time you come across the same thing elsewhere that same thing wrapped up a little differently may taste, sound and look much better than the one you had earlier adjudged as the best. All those which are good here are getting transformed into better and those better into the best, thanks to American mantra for continuous research and development.
Still, the best of the best in Washington, as I found out, is the Library of Congress -- a citadel wide open to anybody from any corner of the world, an institution that will spontaneously issue you, without a question asked, a permanent library card for your whole life if you present an identity clue that you are from this earth -- an international passport or a residency card. There you are absolutely free to swim over or immerse into anywhere inside any of the library's three buildings named after three former US presidents: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison.
There are some overwhelming situations when you can't express your feelings in words and phrases. Likewise, I was also dumbfounded looking at the dazzles as I strolled down the corridors of the Jefferson Building. Of all the places I have seen in the United States of America, Jefferson Building is the one which has most left me speechless.
There are thousands of sculptural wonders in the forms of figurines and artefacts garlanding the stairwells, ceilings, floors and nooks and corners of the Jefferson Building depicting understanding, knowledge, history, philosophy, melodies, tragedies, comedies, romance, erotica, fancy, tradition, and many human achievements and failures since the dawn of civilization. These wonders or, in other words, these silent sentinels should only be seen and felt -- one by one in a relaxed mood. Any attempt to describe those ebullient and breathtaking marvels in mundane language, I imagine, would be a sacrilegious attack on the creators who designed and constructed the building and then ornamented it with sparkling jewelleries.
Nevertheless, after staring for about a quarter of an hour at a magnificent marble mosaic portraying Minerva, depicted as a guardian of civilization and promoter of arts and sciences, as I climbed over the staircase holding the rails -- lest I slip over the mirror-like marble steps -- to Visitors' Gallery above the Main Reading Room my breath was almost taken out as I could not believe my eyes. I seated myself on a bench by the wall to take a respite and to reconcile my imagination with what I was viewing, oblivious of what Miss Flowers, our public tour guide, was saying about the ornate interior of the Reading Room. Suddenly I heard her saying 'Islam' as contributor to Physics. As if, in delirium, I heard her say: "Maswood, here is something you may find yourself mirrored in".
Jumping to my feet I leaped forward towards the thick viewing pane and looked at the paintings on the dome above the Reading Room. In awed silence I was watching the inscription 'Islam' in the murals that were adorning the dome -- the central and the highest point of the whole building and the culmination of the interior decorative scheme of the entire architectural feat.
To represent twelve countries, or epochs which, Blashfield the muralist felt, contributed most to civilization twelve seated figures with artefacts bearing testimony to the respective fields of advancement are portrayed on the round collar of the dome. To the immediate right of each figure is a tablet on which is inscribed the name of the country or epoch typified and, below this, the name of the outstanding contribution to human progress.
Egypt was shown as the contributor to 'written records', Judea to religion, Greece to philosophy, Rome to administration, Islam to physics, the Middle Ages to modern languages, Italy to fine arts, Germany to the art of painting, Spain to discovery, England to literature, France to emancipation and America to science. No other country, religion or epoch got a space in that colourful collar.
Being a Muslim I was naturally interested to study what the figure, the artefact and the inscription on the adjoining tablet were speaking about contribution made by Islam. It was an Arabian, his head turbaned, seated with his left foot set on a kettle-like glass urn that we see in the chemistry laboratories in the colleges. I guess the muralist perhaps wanted the symbol to suggest chemistry or medicine, not physics.
Anyhow, I felt elated thinking that millions of spectators for more than one hundred years since the building's opening on November 01, 1897 have seen not only the rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible carefully encased inside a glass chamber on the ground floor, those spectators also saw on the dome 75 feet above the marble floor of the Reading Room -- among twelve other countries or epochs -- an imagery of Islam with some metaphors expressing the great religion's contribution in the field of science -- call it physics, chemistry, algebra, medicine, or whatever.
Established in 1800 basically as a legislative library, initially housed in the Capitol Hall building and later shifted to the Italian Renaissance styled Jefferson Building, the Library of Congress, America's oldest cultural institution, has grown into a national institution, an international repository of information and knowledge of unparalleled dimensions. As the world's largest the Library of Congress boasts of 128 million items -- collected from all over the world -- covering books, maps, photographs, music, manuscript, and graphics in more than 460 languages placed on more than 500 miles of shelves in all the three buildings of the library and at remote storage facilities.
Two million tourists visit this library annually. Library of Congress' present philosophy and rationale behind its comprehensive collection is based on Jefferson's concept of universality that 'information and knowledge about all subjects are essential in a democracy -- for legislators and citizens alike'.
The Library of Congress would have been a typical library packed with weighty tomes of law where a few legislators with their narrow focus on legal matters would visit and where no one could quench his/her thirst for a variety of knowledge had Thomas Jefferson in 1814, after the British destroyed the library, not sold to the Library of Congress his 50 years' accumulation of books for a small price in spite of protests from some legislators that Jefferson's collection of books on assorted topics -- many written in foreign languages -- was not of relevance to a congressman.
Jefferson's personal collections of 6,487 volumes covering a wide range of subjects from law to architecture to beehives to 'what not', now being preserved in a separate section of the Jefferson Building, is considered the seed from which today's Library of Congress as a compendium of knowledge on every discipline under the sun has grown to spark our curiosity and imagination.
Totally exhausted, after walking for more than five hours inside the premises of the Library of Congress, I could no more stand on my feet. Now seated on a lawn outside the Jefferson Building and facing the fountain of King Neptune, the Roman God of the sea, I was wondering if America can shout so loudly with its history of only a few hundred years why we, Bangladeshis -- as a legacy of India -- with our history of thousands of years could not erect a monument like this Library to herald our long and rich heritage!
The writer is General Manager, Bangladesh Krishi Bank. He may be reached at e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com
It is unsafe though to sweepingly qualify anything in the USA as the best. Because, you never know next time you come across the same thing elsewhere that same thing wrapped up a little differently may taste, sound and look much better than the one you had earlier adjudged as the best. All those which are good here are getting transformed into better and those better into the best, thanks to American mantra for continuous research and development.
Still, the best of the best in Washington, as I found out, is the Library of Congress -- a citadel wide open to anybody from any corner of the world, an institution that will spontaneously issue you, without a question asked, a permanent library card for your whole life if you present an identity clue that you are from this earth -- an international passport or a residency card. There you are absolutely free to swim over or immerse into anywhere inside any of the library's three buildings named after three former US presidents: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison.
There are some overwhelming situations when you can't express your feelings in words and phrases. Likewise, I was also dumbfounded looking at the dazzles as I strolled down the corridors of the Jefferson Building. Of all the places I have seen in the United States of America, Jefferson Building is the one which has most left me speechless.
There are thousands of sculptural wonders in the forms of figurines and artefacts garlanding the stairwells, ceilings, floors and nooks and corners of the Jefferson Building depicting understanding, knowledge, history, philosophy, melodies, tragedies, comedies, romance, erotica, fancy, tradition, and many human achievements and failures since the dawn of civilization. These wonders or, in other words, these silent sentinels should only be seen and felt -- one by one in a relaxed mood. Any attempt to describe those ebullient and breathtaking marvels in mundane language, I imagine, would be a sacrilegious attack on the creators who designed and constructed the building and then ornamented it with sparkling jewelleries.
Nevertheless, after staring for about a quarter of an hour at a magnificent marble mosaic portraying Minerva, depicted as a guardian of civilization and promoter of arts and sciences, as I climbed over the staircase holding the rails -- lest I slip over the mirror-like marble steps -- to Visitors' Gallery above the Main Reading Room my breath was almost taken out as I could not believe my eyes. I seated myself on a bench by the wall to take a respite and to reconcile my imagination with what I was viewing, oblivious of what Miss Flowers, our public tour guide, was saying about the ornate interior of the Reading Room. Suddenly I heard her saying 'Islam' as contributor to Physics. As if, in delirium, I heard her say: "Maswood, here is something you may find yourself mirrored in".
Jumping to my feet I leaped forward towards the thick viewing pane and looked at the paintings on the dome above the Reading Room. In awed silence I was watching the inscription 'Islam' in the murals that were adorning the dome -- the central and the highest point of the whole building and the culmination of the interior decorative scheme of the entire architectural feat.
To represent twelve countries, or epochs which, Blashfield the muralist felt, contributed most to civilization twelve seated figures with artefacts bearing testimony to the respective fields of advancement are portrayed on the round collar of the dome. To the immediate right of each figure is a tablet on which is inscribed the name of the country or epoch typified and, below this, the name of the outstanding contribution to human progress.
Egypt was shown as the contributor to 'written records', Judea to religion, Greece to philosophy, Rome to administration, Islam to physics, the Middle Ages to modern languages, Italy to fine arts, Germany to the art of painting, Spain to discovery, England to literature, France to emancipation and America to science. No other country, religion or epoch got a space in that colourful collar.
Being a Muslim I was naturally interested to study what the figure, the artefact and the inscription on the adjoining tablet were speaking about contribution made by Islam. It was an Arabian, his head turbaned, seated with his left foot set on a kettle-like glass urn that we see in the chemistry laboratories in the colleges. I guess the muralist perhaps wanted the symbol to suggest chemistry or medicine, not physics.
Anyhow, I felt elated thinking that millions of spectators for more than one hundred years since the building's opening on November 01, 1897 have seen not only the rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible carefully encased inside a glass chamber on the ground floor, those spectators also saw on the dome 75 feet above the marble floor of the Reading Room -- among twelve other countries or epochs -- an imagery of Islam with some metaphors expressing the great religion's contribution in the field of science -- call it physics, chemistry, algebra, medicine, or whatever.
Established in 1800 basically as a legislative library, initially housed in the Capitol Hall building and later shifted to the Italian Renaissance styled Jefferson Building, the Library of Congress, America's oldest cultural institution, has grown into a national institution, an international repository of information and knowledge of unparalleled dimensions. As the world's largest the Library of Congress boasts of 128 million items -- collected from all over the world -- covering books, maps, photographs, music, manuscript, and graphics in more than 460 languages placed on more than 500 miles of shelves in all the three buildings of the library and at remote storage facilities.
Two million tourists visit this library annually. Library of Congress' present philosophy and rationale behind its comprehensive collection is based on Jefferson's concept of universality that 'information and knowledge about all subjects are essential in a democracy -- for legislators and citizens alike'.
The Library of Congress would have been a typical library packed with weighty tomes of law where a few legislators with their narrow focus on legal matters would visit and where no one could quench his/her thirst for a variety of knowledge had Thomas Jefferson in 1814, after the British destroyed the library, not sold to the Library of Congress his 50 years' accumulation of books for a small price in spite of protests from some legislators that Jefferson's collection of books on assorted topics -- many written in foreign languages -- was not of relevance to a congressman.
Jefferson's personal collections of 6,487 volumes covering a wide range of subjects from law to architecture to beehives to 'what not', now being preserved in a separate section of the Jefferson Building, is considered the seed from which today's Library of Congress as a compendium of knowledge on every discipline under the sun has grown to spark our curiosity and imagination.
Totally exhausted, after walking for more than five hours inside the premises of the Library of Congress, I could no more stand on my feet. Now seated on a lawn outside the Jefferson Building and facing the fountain of King Neptune, the Roman God of the sea, I was wondering if America can shout so loudly with its history of only a few hundred years why we, Bangladeshis -- as a legacy of India -- with our history of thousands of years could not erect a monument like this Library to herald our long and rich heritage!
The writer is General Manager, Bangladesh Krishi Bank. He may be reached at e-mail: maswood@hotmail.com