Hindu Medicine c5.s2.20

c5.s2.20

“ static ” pictures that they are to be understood in the light of the sacred texts and their doctrines, this is especially characteristic of the “ dynamic ” representations, that is, of the geometrical cult pictures which are nothing but instruments through which to realize religious contents. “ We may say,” thus Zimmer summarized his theory in his last lecture course at Columbia University, “ that a yantra is an instrument designed to curb the psychic forces by concentrating them on a pattern, and in such a way that this pattern becomes reproduced by the worshiper’s visualizing power. It is a machine to stimulate inner visualizations, meditations, and experiences. The given pattern may suggest a static vision of the divinity to be worshiped, the superhuman presence to be realized, or it may develop a series of visualizations growing and unfolding from each other as the links or steps of a process.” ¹⁰