Studies in Indian Art c7.s3.1

c7.s3.1

'Mighty in mind and power is Viśvakarmā, Maker, Disposer and most lofty Presence', Viśvakarmā represents the highest image (*paramāsamdṛik*). According to Meister Eckhart, "Any thing known or born is an image". Thus the world of Name and Form is the image of Viśvakarmā. It is his lofty Presence, his apparition, that was once concealed in the highest heaven and has now become manifest as the immanent world of names and forms. The visible objects which Viśvakarmā is creating constitute This All (*idam sarvam*), i.e., the totality of all images which we grasp through the mind and senses. Viśvakarmā in his undifferentiated form, i.e., in principium (*agre*) contains within Him all that has become known or born later on. Each image or icon is a symbol of the divine supreme reality, and is the manifest form of that which existed in the mind of the creator. There is an Original Model (*pratirūpa*) which unfolds itself in diverse forms (*rūpam rūpam pratirūpo babhūva*, *Ṛigveda* VI. 47. 18). What the original model (*pratirūpa*) is we do not know; or else we know it through the forms in which it is imaged. To see Him, which is the same as to understand Him, we must find Him out in every figure of which He was the original. The model is archetypal for all casts, figures and images. Viśvakarmā is that Archetype (*prathamachchhada*).