Ancient India Sacred stone

Features image: Dancing Ganesha with bowl of sweets, sandstone, India, about AD 750. Photo © 2025 The Trustees of the British Museum.
 
Join award-winning earth scientist Dr Anjana Khatwa in conversation with Dr Sushma Jansari, curator of the Ancient India: living traditions exhibition, as they discuss the sacredness of rock.
 
Rock is an often-invisible aspect of our natural world – a backdrop to our busy lives that exists silently, unseen and unrecognised. But for thousands of years on the Indian subcontinent, it has been seen as sacred – imbued with the spirit of Ma Dharti, Mother Earth.
The 21 incarnations of Ma Dharti take shape in wondrous forms, from Parvati, goddess of the Himalaya mountains, to a small rocky outcrop in a temple worshipped as the goddess Shitala. Even the red quartz pebbles found in the Narmada River in India are considered sacred, seen as representations of Lord Shiva. These belief systems align with other cultures across the world – where animacy, life and spirit is present even in inanimate aspects of the natural world. In this talk, Khatwa reframes our relationship with the geological landscape by drawing together science, Indigenous knowledge and wisdom from global majority cultures.