This contemporary painting – oil on canvas, represents the
semi-abstract forms of Shiva and Parvati and
Vishnu in his symbolic
form as conch. The entire anatomy and even the dimensions of the
Shiva’s face have been abstracted. Whatever is visible is merely his
form as Rudra – a column of fire which seems to burst from his deep
fiery red lips and channelling through his nose and across the
eye-junction explodes, first as fire taking his forehead’s form and
then into infinite expanse of impenetrable smoke surging into endless
innumerable waves – his hair, which nothing but questions send back.
In this diffusion of forms, colours and every distinction it is only
the determination to destroy, a few ‘whys’ as also some vague
assurance that surface as the gesture of some hands into which the
abyssal darkness seems to sometimes shape.
Now the ‘tripunda’ mark is more meaningful. The third eye emerged on
the forehead has swung it into the space where a wheel of fire with no
length or breadth but only the motion, rotating to measure out
everything, over-rides all three cosmic zones that the ‘tripunda’ mark
symbolises. A humanised face but awful eyes more like those of a
fierce lion – seen sometimes in the iconography of Vishnu’s Narsimha
incarnation, and the identically fierce third eye, make his form as
Rudra more accomplished. Not merely as the Ultimate Destroyer even in
Shaivite myths Shiva had such Raudra – wrathful, form on some other
occasions too. When his consort Sati, insulted by her own father
Daksha Prajapati, immolated herself in the fire of her father’s Yajna,
Shiva’s Raudra-rupa – wrathful form, emerged and he commanded his Gana
Virabhadra to destroy the Yajna and those holding it or participating
in it.
Parvati, who symbolises ‘Prakriti’ – the formal nature, has been
represented as one partly reflecting Shiva’s mood and partly fearing
his wrath and destructive hands. That mood of Shiva reflects in the
red which constitutes her head and in her third eye, and her
apprehension, in dead yellow with which her face has been conceived,
and in the form of her normal eye where fear lurks. As Parvati is
Shiva’s other half, she has like him an abstracted manifestation – a
partially abstract and partially manifest form. It is different with
Vishnu. When the cosmos has been destroyed, Vishnu also perishes
though to re-emerge. After millions of years of the divine act of
destruction followed by the Great Deluge Vishnu re-appears as a child
floating on the surface of abyssal waters not knowing who he is, where
he is, and what for he is. This state of Vishnu’s ignorance, or rather
non-being, that texts and other sources represent in his child-form,
the artist of this rare piece has visualised as ‘conch’ – one of the
Vishnu’s essential attributes, and hence his identity, representing
Vishnu but neither his physical form nor his knowing mind.
This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.
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