Rajput Painting, Being an Account of the Hindu Paintings of Rajasthan and the Panjab Himalayas from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century v2.c19.589

v2.c19.589

This work may be compared with Plate xlv, as representing Pahāṛī art at its best in both cases. The former work expresses a primarily poetic mysticism, characteristic of Vaiṣṇava devotion; the present example is intellectual rather than devotional, and reflects the more austere and philosophic aspects of Śaiva mythology. In both cases the two divergent aspects of the Brahman, the pairs of opposites, Being and Becoming, Puruṣa and Prakṛti are represented. With deep psychologic insight, the symbols of Being and Becoming are represented as respectively male and female—in the former work as Kṛshṇa and Rādhā—here as Mahādeva and Śakti. Here the silent Liṅgam within the shrine is Eternal Rest: Kālī as the essential principle of impermanence, whom even kings may not avoid, is Eternal Work.