On October 9-10, 2013, the third conference of the project group "Under the Sky of South Asia" (PNUA), headed by I. P. Glushkova, was organized by the Center for Indian Studies. Within the framework of the chosen topic "Territory and belonging", the main topic of discussion was the physical and virtual relationship of individuals, various social, ethnic, political, religious and other groups (communities) with territories - real or imaginary.

The conference was attended by specialists from various fields: historians, sociologists, geographers, art historians, political scientists, anthropologists and philologists (including postgraduates, undergraduates and students). The project brought together researchers from different regions of Russia, including research centers and universities in Moscow, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ivanovo, as well as the Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kiev).

The reports included in the program of the first day of the conference were united by the organizers under the general title "Territory as an idea and its implementation".

After an introductory speech by I. P. Glushkova with the report " Where did the medieval Indians live?" L. B. Alaev (IB RAS) made a speech. Based mainly on information from South Indian inscriptions of the VI-Xth centuries, he described how the mythical and real intertwined in the ideas of the inhabitants of South India about their country. N. A. Zheleznova (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in the report "The idea of sacred territory in the Jain tradition" considered the ideas of the Jains about the structure of the universe and its structure, what sacred places stand out in it and what causes it. The report concluded by showing how these views relate (or do not relate) to the actual geography of India. In her report "The sacred geography of the Nayanars: the connection of the god Shiva with the Tamil South of India", M. B. Pavlova (MSU ISAA) spoke about how the Nayanars, representatives of the poetic tradition of Shaivite Bhakti, revealed a characteristic feature of the religious cultures of Hinduism - the idea of the connection of the deity with a specific area. As a result, the geographical places sung by the Nayanars in hymns gained fame and laid the foundation for the sacred geography of the region.

S. E. Sidorova (IB RAS) in her report "Good Old England on the Indian subcontinent" on the example of English gardens that the British bred in India, showed how the construction of a "home" far from home at the individual level was used by the British to appropriate foreign territories.

O. A. Lavrenova (Moscow) in her report "The philosophy of landscape in the works of N. K. and S. N. Roerich", considering various landscape and genre paintings of artists, traced how the philosophy of landscape in the works of N. K. Roerich and S. N. Roerich was born from the interaction of geographical and cultural space, and the beauty of the earth and the national culture in its most seemingly ordinary manifestations became a step to the Highest.

D. N. Lelyukhin (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences), based on three inscriptions of the Lichthava kings who ruled in the Kathmandu Valley in the IV-VIII centuries AD, as well as on the analysis of other historical sources, proposed for discussion his own version of the origin of the country's name Nepal, which is different from those accepted in historiography, which was substantiated in the report " The Origin of the name countries Nepal: new version?".

The following two reports were also devoted to Nepal. In the first of them, "Between the Nepalese Valley and Gorkha: the perception of "one's" territory in Nepal at the early stage of the formation of a single kingdom (late XVIII - early XIX centuries)", D. E. Markov (A. Krymsky Institute of Higher Education, Kiev) identified the factors that contributed to the fact that the Nepalese Valley (Yeepal desh) became the largest city in the world. the central land of the Nepalese state formed in 1769 as a result of the unification policy of the Gorkha ruler Prithvi Narayan Shah. In the second, "Territory through the eyes of an artist: Nepal in the paintings of Galina Tikhomirova", Maya Matsar (Iv.GU, Ivanovo) examined how, refracted in the artist's work, someone else's territory-Nepal-turns into a place of "personal stay", without losing its "otherness".

K. A. Demichev (Nizhny Novgorod) devoted his report "The Concept of' one's ' land in the Sikh tradition and Ideology: from Community to Empire "to the process of acquiring' one's ' territory by the Sikh religious community: first within the Mughal Empire, and then as an independent state, and how this territory was perceived by the Sikhs themselves.

In her report "Punjab, "Punjabiyat" and issues of toponymy", A.V. Voikovskaya (MSU Faculty of Medicine) considered the peculiarities of using the term "Punjabiyat" (literally, "Punjabishness"). in various parts of the Punjab historical region in North-West India, as well as representatives of the large Punjabi diaspora abroad and residents of the part of Punjab that is now part of Pakistan.

The first day of the conference was concluded with a report by I. P. Glushkova (IB RAS) "Geocartoid Parade, or visual stabilization of Indian federalism", which considered the role of cartoids, i.e. extremely simplified maps that convey the spatial form of the state or its constituent units, in the political reality of India. They are used both at the national level to create a geographical sense of belonging to a previously nonexistent state-national territory and to form an "imaginary community", and in individual states, justifying the connection within the outlined space of heterogeneous groups, often not connected by a common language, ethnicity, religion, or collective past, but rather by the use of a single language. already responding to their cartographic identity.

Reports of the second day of the conference were united by the theme "Belonging: adaptation and confrontation". It was opened by the second report of I. P. Glushkova "Two in one: an administrative and territorial incident of the Maratha principality (Devas) in the center of India", in which she told the story of the unique city of Devas and the principality of the same name, which was ruled by two branches of the princely Pawar family, first jointly, and then divided between them. It is this city that the English writer E. M. Forster called "the strangest corner of the world outside of Alice in Wonderland".

The topic of Indian principalities was continued by L. A. Chereshneva (LSPU, Lipetsk) in the report " Geographical gravitation and nostalgia for sovereignty (Hyderabad dilemma)". She examined the evolution of the principality of Hyderabad, which was first a province of the Mughal Empire and part of British India, and then became a state within the independent Indian state, its attempts to fight for sovereignty and their results. V. P. Kashin's report "Telengana: from historical region to state" on the dramatic struggle of the historical region of Telengana, formerly part of the principality of Hyderabad, for separation from Andhra Pradesh and the creation of a separate state, based on the rich material of the author's field research, was relevant in this context. This struggle became particularly acute in 2009-2013 and ended with the fundamental decision of the Government of India to create the state of Telengana. The report "The Red Corridor and the Territorial Integrity of India" by T. A. Pavlova (Moscow) was devoted to one of the most acute problems that threaten, according to the statement of the Prime Minister of India. Singh, India's security, and the problem of the Naxalite Maoists and their creation of the "Red Corridor" - the area in which the ultra-left rebels are most active and which is practically not controlled by the authorities. The report analyzed various factors that contributed to the creation of the "corridor" and considered the actions of the central Government of India aimed at solving the problem.

S. I. Ryzhakova (IAE RAS) in the report "To the north-east of the "chicken neck". North Bengal: region within region or between?", analyzing historical, cultural and ethnic factors, tried to answer the question: what was the basis for distinguishing North Bengal as a separate sub-region within certain boundaries? I. P. Alekseeva (MSU) in her report "Natural landscapes and ethno - cultural differentiation of India: explicit and hidden borders" presented the results of research conducted by superimposing various maps of India-geographical, climatic, linguistic and others. As a result, maps were compiled that reflect the relationship of natural and landscape conditions with spatial manifestations of culture in India.

E. A. Pakhomov (RIA Novosti, Moscow) in his report "The beginning/end of South Asia, or the Transit" Tribal Zone "and the Law of Belonging "examined the peculiarities of the situation of the Federal Tribal Administration Territory (TFTU) in the Pakistani province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North-Western Border Province), considered the border between South Asia and the world to the north and west of it both as part of Pakistan, and earlier, in British India. It seems to be a special border area, which is not so much a border as a transit area or "country of passage", which is also associated with the peculiarities of its perception by both local residents and the state center.

In the report "Border"and" Borderland "as orientation metaphors of the section", A. A. Suvorova (Institute of Cinematography of the Russian Academy of Sciences) traced how writers and cinematographers in India and Pakistan from-

The topic of The Partition of British India is discussed, stating that in many ways this event contributed to the formation of modern literature and art in the Indian subcontinent. Moreover, A. A. Suvorova emphasized that in this case, when describing events, we are talking not only about the state border between the countries (border), but also about a special border zone of alienation connecting them, the frontier (frontier), which Frederick Turner called "the meeting place of savagery and civilization." The answer to the question on which side of the Indo-Pakistani frontier "savagery" lives, and where "civilization" lies, is determined by the self-identification of the author and his characters. The topic of the division of British India and the creation of Pakistan on its territory was continued in his report "Territoriality as a factor in the creation and preservation of Pakistan" by V. Ya.Belokrenitsky (IB RAS), who identified the stages of forming ideas about the future territory of Pakistan among its creators and emphasized that along with the socio-religious factor, the territorial factor also played a role. He noted how important the territorial factor is for the preservation of modern Pakistan.

A.V. Bochkovskaya devoted her report " A 'Beautiful city' shared or no one's? " to the peculiarities of the situation of the city of Chandigarh, which was specially built in the early 1950s as the capital of the Indian part of Punjab, and after the separation of the state of Haryana from its composition in 1966, as a unique city of the capital of two states at the same time. This special position of Chandigarh causes constant disputes about its ownership.

The problem of borders and their understanding in ancient times was raised by D. N. Lelyukhin in the report " The territory of the state and its borders. The "outskirts" in the Edicts of Ashoka." Based on the materials of the Ashoka inscriptions, two concepts that are key in the political and geographical concepts of that time are distinguished, namely, the opposite "here" (hida, Skt. iha) and "outskirts" (anta). The report offered an analysis of the contexts in which these concepts are used, which allows us to bring some clarity to the understanding of these terms, as well as to take a different look at the problem of borders and the complex amorphous structure of the Mauryan state.

The conference was concluded with the report of E. Y. Vanina (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "The Mughal Empire (XVI-early XVIII centuries): territory, power, belonging", which considered the territorial structure of the Mughal Empire, which initially largely corresponded to the models of the Golden Horde and Timur's power, when the sovereign, officially proclaimed the lord of all the lands he conquered, In reality, he ruled only the domain, the rest of the lands annexed to the empire remained semi-independent feudal possessions associated with the imperial center by paying tribute and the participation of the local elite in the military campaigns of the padishah. The influence of such a structure of the empire on its future fate, the attempts of the Mughal emperors to move away from such a structure, and the results of these attempts were analyzed.

In total, 23 reports were read at the conference and fruitful discussions were held on the issues raised in them. Based on the results of the conference, a collection of articles is planned to be published. For the next conference of the project group, the organizers chose the theme "Hula and praise under the sky of South Asia".

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