The light of Asia

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Movie
Original title The Light of Asia (German) / Prem Sanyas (Hindi) / The Light of Asia (English)
Country of production Germany , India
original language German , English
Publishing year 1925
length restored English version: 97 minutes
Rod
Director Franz east
script Niranjan Pal
production Franz Osten , Himansu Rai
music Hansheinrich Dransmann (original cinema music), Pierre Oser (restored version)
camera Josef Wirsching , Wilhelm Kiermeier
occupation

The lamp of Asia is a German-Indian feature film by Franz Osten from 1925. It is the first co-production by German and Indian filmmakers and the first international co-production in India. The film tells the life of the founder of religion and historical Buddha Gautama . The script was based on the epic poem of the same name by Sir Edwin Arnold from 1879.

action

The film begins with documentary recordings of street scenes in Rajasthan and Bombay , the Jama Masjid in Delhi , the ghats in Benares and Gaya ( Bihar ), where some European tourists are led by an Indian through a market and to the Buddha temple . They notice a huge tree, a Bodhi tree , and an old man sitting there begins to tell them the story of Gautama who came to enlightenment under such a tree .

The Indian King Suddhodhana had been waiting long and in vain for the birth of a son when an emissary from his subjects asked him to appoint a successor or to take another wife. A sacred elephant is sent into the streets of the city to choose a successor from the population, but the animal did not choose any of the children offered to it, as Queen Maya had become pregnant after all. She has a son, whom they call Gautama, and dies shortly afterwards.

Years later, Gautama takes part in his first hunt with his cousin Devadatta. He is shocked when the hunting leopard rips off an antelope and breaks off the hunt. On another occasion, Devadatta shoots a swan in front of Gautama's eyes.

The king - troubled by a nocturnal dream with an empty throne - his dream interpreters tell that Gautama will take the path of renunciation. They advise the king to raise his son ignorant of old age, disease and death, and to expose him to the temptations of women if he were to deter him. Since Gautama does not allow himself to be infatuated by the women at his own court, Suddhodana wants to marry him to Gopa, the beautiful daughter of King Dandapani. Gopa falls in love with Gautama, but before marrying Gautama has to prove himself in a triple competition. He turns out to be clever and the wedding takes place.

All signs of old age, illness and death are withheld from Gautama in his palace, he lives happily with his wife. Even when he drives into town, orders are made under threat of death that the old and sick are not allowed to leave their homes. On the way out, faced with an old man, he asks his charioteer Channa whether some people are born like this. The sight of a terminally ill and a dead man at the gates of the city confronts him with the transience of human life. His concern urges him to decide whether to live as a future king or as a poor, homeless and lonely wanderer. At night he leaves his wife, the palace and the wealth to find redemption and the right path. Gopa is upset the next morning.

Gautama exchanges his clothes with a beggar and walks through the country dressed in rags. Gopa also leaves the palace and goes in search of Gautama. In weeks of meditation under a Bodhi tree, he resists illusions and the rigors of the weather until he reaches enlightenment . From then on he preached to the Hindus about the falsehood of their actions - the yogis against the flagellation of their bodies, in the temple against the cruelty of animal sacrifices. When Gopa finally finds him, he is surrounded by numerous followers and preaches renunciation of the worldly. Gopa falls on his knees before him and becomes his disciple.

background

Seeta Devi in ​​a still from the film

The film was based on the epic poem The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) from 1879. A German translation was published in 1923 under the title Die Buddha-Legende by Leipziger Insel-Verlag. The film is related to a growing interest in Buddhist topics in Germany. Also Hermann Hesse's Siddharta came out recently.

The leading roles were taken on by members of the amateur acting troupe The Indian Players Company. Film sets and costumes were designed by the later actors and directors Charu Roy and Devika Rani . The film was shot on location in India. The Maharaja of Jaipur supported the film team by providing his court, 30 richly decorated elephants and the participation of his subjects as extras. Great Eastern Film Corporation (Delhi) and Emelka Film (Munich) were involved as production companies. The lamp from Asia was produced in a German and an English language and cut version. The Berlin Film Inspection Agency approved the film on October 2, 1925, with a length of 2250 meters, and gave it the title “popular education and artistically valuable”. After its premiere on October 22, 1925 in Munich, it was used worldwide, including in South America, China and Japan; the premiere in India was in 1926.

Prem Sanyas was the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Franz Osten and Himansu Rai . They then made Shiraz (1928) and Prapancha Pash (1929) - two more German-Indian silent films - and from 1935 to 1939, Osten worked in India as the main director of Rai's production company Bombay Talkies , where he made 16 Hindi films .

Reviews

  • His [Buddha's] spiritual career is overlaid in the film by sequences that could have come from a Ufa cultural film, for example the festive processions with magnificently decorated elephants, the competitive games or the strange ritual at the Buddha's marriage to Gopa. The German film critics particularly praised the authenticity of these scenes. Blinded by the splendor it unfolded, very few people recognized that the film dealt with the historical circumstances extremely generously. For example, Buddha, who is known to have lived around 500 BC, spends his childhood and youth in the palace of a Mughal prince from the 17th century in the film. The costumes and the ritual at the Buddha's wedding, which corresponded to Bengali traditions, collide with this anachronistic architecture. With the help of these syncretistic procedures, it was possible to create an image of India that did not correspond to reality, but was considered authentic by the audience and made the film a great success in Europe.
  • The film suggests that the real goal of Buddhism is the de-sexualization of women.
  • One of the highlights of the film, in addition to Seeta Devi's appearance is Wirsching use of depth of field ( deep focus , as observed) in the scene as Gopa a competition between Gautama and Devadatta in the royal court.

restoration

For the restoration of the film, the English cut and language version was chosen, which was somewhat more extensive and better preserved than the German, but which does not include a list of the film staff. In contrast to the German version, this version contains a subheading about the making of the film and the proof of authenticity “As shown by Royal Command at Windsor Castle on April 27th, 1926.” A black and white backup copy made in the 1960s of the nitro original served as the basis ; the coloring of the material was carried out on the basis of the still in the British Film Institute stored, viragierten original negative.

literature

  • Wilhelm Ruhland : The lamp of Asia. Gautama Buddha's struggle for love and renunciation. From the Emelka film of the same name . With a foreword by Niranjan Pal . Drei Masken Verlag, Munich 1925
  • Edwin Arnold : The lamp of Asia. Sir Edwin Arnold's "The light of Asia" . Translated into the prose of the 20th century by Franz Langmayr . (Original title: The Light of Asia ). Perlinger, Wörgl 1985, 246 pages, ISBN 3-85399-036-3

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Complete text of the poem The Light of Asia (1879) by Edwin Arnold based on an edition of the Theosophical Society from 1891.
  2. ↑ Compare the evidence in the catalog of the German National Library
  3. ↑ see Buddhism in Germany # Buddhism at the time of the Weimar Republic (1918–1933)
  4. ↑ Subtitles at the beginning of the film
  5. ↑ Gerhard Koch, in: Chidananda Das Gupta / Werner Kobe (ed.): Kino in Indien, Verlag Wolf Mersch, Freiburg 1986
  6. ↑ Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi 1994, p. 248
  7. ↑ Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, New Delhi 1994, p. 248

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