Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.119

v2.c76.119

Painting, the Citra, goes to the very core of the universe, its creation, maintenence and also destruction. Citra is wonder and it is through this ‘Wonder’ that we can conceive of the Saṁsāra. If there is no wonder, (where there is an element of doubt and the doubt, being the child of ignorance, absence of true Knowledge, is characterstic of Saṁsāra) and knowledge dawns, it leads to emancipation, the Mokṣa, the Release from this Sansāra, which is nothing but full of sufferings. This basic truth of the life Divine and the knowledge Supreme, has been very brilliantly brought out in the pages of the Aparājita-pracchā (cf. the quotation in the Citra. Lakṣ. pp.4-5). It says : All this three-fold world, the complete universe, both animate and inanimate, has arisen from the root of the Citra. Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Maheśa and all other gods, men, nāgas, the sun, the moon, the earth, the trees, the thickets, creepers and other plants, the manifold species of animals, svedaja, jarāyuja, etc., etc.—all the 84 lacs of jīvayonis are an outcome of the miracle of the Citra. The whole earth in its geographical foundation—mountains, oceans, continents—is a result of the Citra. Innumerable colours are Citra. Human body, its limbs, sub-limbs,—as well as the different organs, are Citra like the different channels of waters. For those initiated in the wisdom of knowledge of Brahma, all this universe is nothing but a reflection of that Supreme Soul; like that of the moon in the water. Day and night, time and space, seasons and years, yugas and kalpas—the whole existence from the primeval creation is nothing but a play of the Citra. It is like juggler’s play full of curiosities, wonder and amusements. Needless to multiply the play of the Citra, the Aparājitapracchā very beautifully summarizes: