Creation of the Universe - Part 18

ANALOGY OF PAINTING AND CREATION

Swami Vidyaranya was known as Madhava before He became  sanyasi. Before His sannyasa, He wrote many books. Madhava, it appears, did the Gayatri purascharana a number of times to have a darshan of Devi so that he could be freed from financial stress. 

After completing several purascharanas, he heard a voice: "You shall not have darshan of me in this birth". 

He became frustrated and gave up the purascharana. He got initiated into sannyasa and went away.

Immediately the Devi appeared before him. "What was that for which you were thinking of me"?

He replied, "How is it that You now give me darshan, when You had said that You will not give me darshan in this birth". 

She said, "This sannyas is another birth that you have taken. That is why I have come." 

"But anyhow, I don't want anything. I have taken to sannyas and I want nothing. You can go". 

"No, I will not go", Devi said, it seems, "When I come, I must always give and go". 

"But I cannot ask for anything as my needs are no more", said Vidyaranya who was Madhava before his sannyas.

The Devi said, "As you want nothing, you shall have everything". And she vanished.

He became omniscient in His knowledge. There is no subject on which Vidyaranya has not written. 

Panchadasi is a comprehensive text of Advaita Vedanta written by Sri Swami Vidyaranya who is regarded highly as a great scholar in Advaita philosophy after Jagadguru Sri Sankaracharya. 

The Sixth Chapter in Panchadasi  is called Chitradipa. This is a very important chapter of the Panchadasi and very long, which lays practically the foundation for the whole philosophy of Vedanta. Philosophically.

Here are few verses from the chapter titled chitradeepa ( Light of Analogy of Painted picture) which we will learn and understand from now onwards. 

Yathā citra paṭe dṛṣṭam avasthānāṁ catuṣṭayam, para mātmani vijñeyaṁ tathā’vasthā catuṣṭayam (1).

The creation of the world is a process, something like the process involved in the painting of a picture. There are four stages in painting a picture; similarly, there are four stages in creation. This is the comparison between a painting and creation, which is illustrated here.

Yathā dhauto ghaṭṭi taśca lāñchito rañjitaḥ paṭaḥ, cidantar yāmī sūtrātmā virāṭ cātmā tather yate (2).

PURE CANVASS

The first stage in painting a picture is to have a cloth, a canvas.

Important-Though the picture has borders/ outer limits of canvas, for the purpose of learning the actual teachings of this chapter, the canvas referred to in this verse has to be construed as pure canvas without any beginning and without any end.

PURE CANVASS STIFFENED WITH STARCH 

The second stage is to stiffen it with starch, because a piece of cloth with holes between the interwoven threads would not be suitable for the purpose of painting. The cloth has to become thick and impervious to the ink. For that purpose, the cloth is stiffened with a smearing of suitable starch. This is the second stage in painting. 

The pure canvass as shown in the first diagram  has been been stiffened by starch for making it suitable for painting.

OUTLINE OF AN OBJECT IS MADE ON THE STIFFENED CANVASS

In the third stage in painting, the artist draws a pencil sketch or a light sketch in some form on this stiffened canvas, which is barely visible and indistinctly cognisable as to its real features. 

We have some idea as to what is coming up when we have a perception of this faint outline that the artist has drawn on the canvas. This is the third stage.

THE OUTLINE MADE IS INKED AND FULL  PAINTING IS DONE OF THE OBJECT

The fourth stage is the fair copy. The lines that have been drawn are filled with ink in different colors as would be necessary to present the requisite picturesque scene. The variety, the beauty and the attraction of the picture is in the manner of the spreading of the ink in the requisite proportion. This is the fourth stage in painting, and then the painting is complete.

In the next post, we will  try and learn the 4 phases shown above with the 4 stages in the process of creation and then later on, draw a comparison of learning with this analogy of painting with evolution of creation which we learnt in sankhya yoga earlier.

Love.