09.26.07
Untitled or perhaps sky
Franck André Jamme
I say sky. (1.)
I would like to write it, someday.
Upon really experiencing it, once and for all.
I would like to write it, someday.
Upon really experiencing it, once and for all.
(A scholar in Rajasthan, Udaipur, to be exact, provided most of the Shiva-linga on paper for this exhibition. He has been collecting them for almost forty years, is still searching for and finding them. A passion. We gained access to his treasure seven or eight years ago, in his little white house in the center of town, thanks to an old friend. Then, five years must have gone by while this gentleman slowly came around to our idea: to someday exhibit these unique works on this side of the world. It should also be noted that only a few months ago he sent us about thirty pieces, actually less than a tenth of what he had lovingly collected over all those years. What’s more, when we asked him if he would like his name to appear in the exhibition catalogue, he never replied. A discreet man, in fact rather guarded.)
They convey a lot, these pieces.
Placed one after the other on any surface, they suddenly create a rather clever and subtle and magical repetition.
A real kind of music
This series of "signs of god" as described by Andé Padoux, the great searcher by thought, language, and his equally essential and elegant ways, the author of that unforgettable book L'Énergie de la Parole (The energy of speech), in which I can’t help but wonder why contemporary specialists and amateurs of poetry have taken so little interest since it first appeared in 1980, (2.)
André Padoux, in a way our teacher, and a fine one at that, but we were never his student, because for that a knowledge of Sanskrit would have been required, which unfortunately was not the case, but we will always be grateful that he never smirked, quite to the contrary, at our research—however crude and marginal—in the field of abstract tantric drawings from Rajasthan, investigations actually almost solely based on information gathered from conversations with the practitioners themselves, the tantrika, as there really isn’t any literature or specific writing on the subject, the pages of Ajit Mookerjee and his students in their illustrated volumes not teaching us anything major about the precise meaning of these particular paintings,
this project in fact led under the seal of a vow not perhaps of pure secrecy but at least of extreme reserve, the lengthy pursuit of this study having come to us paradoxically from the brutal interruption of the very first steps of this quest, on the road between Delhi and Jaipur, in 1985, and the long absence that followed, then the green light to return to and continue the job that several years later provided us with an inspired being already well on in years, who, odder still, bore the same family name as our scholar, and in the same town,
green light then, but on the express condition that this work would be carried out in complete discretion, if not total confidentiality, this strange improvised counselor having first noted that with this accident on the road to Jaipur, we had most surely paid some sort of tribute though it was still a good idea to remain prudent,
just before making us clean our hands in a large bowl full of sand, then examining, at length, both the sand and our hands, and finally approving the pursuit of our task…
Fine. Things are different now. Though we might be just as lost, presently, in the meanderings of an endless sentence. Actually what we also wanted to propose was that these marks of Shiva, in the series we are concerned with here, are particularly varied. This small collection is, basically, composed of classical pieces: vertical ovoid shapes, for all intents and purposes monochromes. But also several more eccentric brothers and sisters: our Rajasthani adepts of the discipline appear to have sometimes taken a bit of liberty with the canon, artists that they theoretically aren’t, but are in spite of all, without realizing it:
Black sky constellated with bursting blue stars;
sky-mask bearing the hint of eyes, or of a mouth, or perhaps both;
indigo sky circled by a thread that sometimes changes color along the way;
sky-bird-king, as if mad, crowned, with very round eye and short white beak;
brown sky surrounded by a pink or red halo spread without the least concern.
And some reminders:
These Shiva-linga are only one of the designs within the abstract tantric vocabulary of Rajasthan, in all there appear to be about fifty, I mean fifty that appeal to our Western eyes accustomed as they are to contemporary or modern art.
Each of these symbols has its particular, fixed meaning. A spiral represents energy; blue, consciousness; an inverted black triangle, the goddess Kali, one of the avatars of Shakti, Shiva’s “companion”; etc.
Even if Indian aesthetes have always collected them, as beautiful as they appear to them, the sole purpose of these paintings is actually meditation, hence their entire vocabulary. They are also used for visualization. For example, you get up in the morning. Then, almost immediately: face-to-face with the thing, for several minutes. Until it has filled your mind, right to the top, until it has slowly eliminated everything else. Then you come back to the world, attend to your daily affairs. With the difference that, when you want to, you can instantly recall the image in your mind, and what’s more, you can re-create the entire world of this image, namely the image itself enriched by its constellation, in short all that it first precisely signified augmented by what it has produced, given rise to, released in us, as crystalline and operative as in the morning.
Or three more details, related to observation:
On paper, the blots, splatters, the patched holes, tears, the various anomalies appear to have been appreciated and used by our “painters” in an almost systematic fashion. A sign, in any case, of their plastic know-how, whether deliberate or not.
On some pieces three spots can be found, often clear, which symbolize the presence of the three guna (matter, energy, and essence), they themselves being the repetition of the three states of consciousness (creation, preservation, and destruction), the three prongs of Shiva’s trishula, his renowned trident.
At other times, under its own image, a second linga can be seen, quite small. Like a more practical resource for memorization, or the mother’s child. Which above all reminds us that the image is always destined to be reproduced, trotted out, both within us and on the support.
I continue to say sky.
Not without reason.
A simple reason.
Far from any perfect square, any rope taut to the point of breaking.
A kind of fluid reason.
Watery reason.
Since moreover, beside invisible and yet present (the most impressive) Shiva-linga, other entirely liquid ones exist, as André Padoux explains.
So, on this side of the world, directions on how to use these pieces, gradually. If not for meditation or visualization, at least for observation. But an intense observation. Which slowly dissolves into contemplation. Deep. Boundless.
Then one rises.
Step by step.
While this thought reappears, for the first time in a long while, in the bloom of youth, without ever having left me, and that Jean François Billeter (3.) has recently and suddenly rekindled:
Under the canopy that is a cloud, under the flowing cloud of passing time, which flows past, constantly, rarely golden, often leaden,
it seems to me that there are what one might call speeds, levels in the intensity of the energy that animates all human activity,
that we all decide to pass, from time to time, on the purely human and real and tangible staircase, from the step of the man in man to that of the sky in man,
upon the chance encounter with love, a shock, a fascination, ecstasy of course, even if by chance, miraculous conversations, the contemplation too of any artwork—these authentic little tigers, for example, these Shiva-linga on paper.
Refrain: from the step of man to that of the sky.
—Translated by Michael Tweed, December 2005.
1. The French word ciel here could also be translated as "heaven," but in the Oriental sense of Heaven and Earth. However, in Tibetan Buddhism and certain texts of Kashmiri Shivaism we also find reference to the sky as a symbol for the essential openness and emptiness of our nondual nature. [translator's note]
2. Published by Soleil Noir (it has since been republished, in 1994 by Fata Morgana).
3. When I read and reread, I don't know how many times, his luminous Leçons sur Tchouang-tseu (Lessons on Chuang Tzu; Éditions Allia, Paris, 2002).
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Linga
The sign of Shiva
Before time existed, the two great gods, Brahma and Vishnu, were arguing over their supremacy: which of them would rule the universe that was still to be. They were then interrupted, for there suddenly appeared a gigantic pillar of fire glowing supernaturally through the utter darkness of the cosmic night. Overwhelmed by this vision, the two gods tried to discover the origin and the end of this glowing column. Brahma, the divine swan, flew upwards but could not find its apex; Vishnu, who is also the boar, saviour of the world, dived down to find its nether end. But neither could find their quarry. The pillar was without beginning and without end, and when the gods came back exhausted from their quest they beheld within this infinite burning axis the god Shiva shining gloriously. The pillar was the linga, a cosmic column of fire, a devouring as well as a creative cosmic fire, illuminating the worlds, the self-revelatory form of the all-powerful god.
In the sacred language of India, Sanskrit, linga means sign, or mark: that which characterizes a living being, or anything—gender, for instance, be it masculine or feminine. It is also that which proves the concrete existence of something as well as demonstrates a subtle or transcending presence. Thus Shiva, symbolized by the linga, is both visible and subtly all-pervading, perceptible and above all possible perception. In practice, for the Indian (or, rather, the Hindu) consciousness, the linga is par excellence the mark of the God. It is the iconic form of Shiva, set up in the innermost sanctuary of every Shiva temple, as well as the mark of the God’s invisible omnipresence. There is a play of the visible and the invisible, of presence and transcendence. There is also a play of sex and of the ascetic transcending of all sexual activity, a transcending however where the power of sex fuels the fiery ardor of asceticism, which it eventually transforms by burning it. This being so, one may perhaps understand better how such apparently simple, non-figurative, forms as those of the lingas that we see here, collected by a Rajasthani scholar, are able to symbolize or evoke the pure immensity of the godhead as well as the variegated diversity of the cosmos.
The myths of Shiva throw light not only upon this apparent formal contradiction, but also, more fundamentally, upon the contradictory aspects of this supreme deity. Though, in Shaiva texts, linga may denote any type of cult image, of whatever shape or substance, the image to be found in the inner sanctuary—the garbhagrha, the womb-chamber—of the Shiva temples is usually in the shape of a pillar with a rounded top. This linga is in fact originally an erect phallus in its full creative power, a fact many deny because they do not want to see the human and divine essentiality of sex however obvious this fact may be: it is both proven by the myths of Shiva and clearly visible in the phallic aspect of the oldest lingas (and even of modern ones). So essentially active and powerful is this divine penis that, in Shiva temples, water is constantly being poured upon it so as to cool it and thus avoid either an uncontrollable creative spurt or a destructive overflow. Like Shiva, this erect phallus is contradictory, since it symbolizes also the inner ascetically purified ascent of semen whose retention tends not towards sexual creative activity but towards salvation.
Shiva, indeed, once severed his linga. When he came to the Deodar forest as a naked ascetic, the wives of the Rishis, the Vedic seer-poets, who saw him were driven mad with passion when seeing his linga. He then pulled it out and threw it on the ground, where it entered and vanished from sight; but then everything existing in the world also disappeared, being burnt by the linga. This castration however was not destructive, for the linga, pervading the whole world, filled it with its power and thus restored it to its previous condition.
The supreme godhead whose actions are thus mythically described is also, fundamentally, above all action: invisible, pure, immaculate, void of all characteristics. This explains why one of the “forms” (murti) of Shiva ritually worshipped can be without any visible concrete form: being mere space, void, kha in Sanskrit. This word denotes the empty space in the center of the hub of a wheel: the central hole surrounded by the spokes, which is understood as symbolizing the central radiating void whence all creation arises. This being so, a linga is still used in ritual worship as the icon of this aspect of the godhead, but a linga “made of space,” that is, without any concrete material form. Such is for instance the akasalinga, the “linga of space” in the Shiva temple of Chidambaram, in South India, where, in the dark cellar, nothing is to be seen. The place is void of all images, the God being present in his highest, supreme, therefore wholly invisible aspect.
But the lingas collected over years by our scholar—these abstract oval shapes—are they not something else? Not really. Formally, indeed, they remind one of the svayambhulingas, the “self-existing” lingas, so called since they are believed to have appeared spontaneously, though they are born from a caprice of nature for they are egg-shaped stones, formed and brought to a fine polish by the currents that are to be found in the bed of a sacred river where the God is believed to have somehow left his trace in the matricial waters that bear these divine eggs in their fecund flow. Even if such stones are but modest epiphanies, they are nevertheless manifestations of the almighty, all-powerful God. They are even considered his most eminent epiphanies since they are not man-made, but born from the spontaneous creative power of the God. It is to such non-figurative symbols that the oval colored patches on paper that we see here somehow refer, since here too the devotee’s gaze finds a sign or a trace of his god: he can imagine him as being present and worship him. He will worship all the better since these painted lingas are not as elementary as they may seem at first glance. Here, for instance, a clearer blue outline suggests an expansive form. Elsewhere, red or blue streaks emanate like flames out of a burning core. In two or three cases, we may detect or sense the lineaments of a face: these are therefore so-called mukhalingas, lingas bearing the face (mukha) of the God—his eyes, and his mouth, the source of his Revelation. We may detect also in a few cases the presence of a small clearer or darker circle: the bindu, the primordial drop or dot, that is, into which the divine Power gathers itself before creating the universe.
This being so, these painted lingas are evidently not works of art. They are devotional or cult images mentally evoked and experienced before being painted. Such images can be of different sorts. According to an authoritative Tantric treatise of the tenth century, a linga can be made of stone, of gems, of pearls, of flowers, of some fluid (in a vessel), of a painted fabric, or of perfumed substances. It is therefore not necessarily phallic in appearance, nor even column-shaped or made of an erected stone. The best linga, says this treatise, is the one made of an incised human skull—Shiva, one knows, is originally linked to destruction and death. But what do the lingas we see here, drawn and painted on paper, abstractedly, austerely, evoke by their colors? Are these the colors of the manifested universe? This is all the more possible since, in Sanskrit, a frequent expression to denote the diversity of the created world is “the blue, and the other [colors].” Or are they colored visions of the absolute? Or do they evoke the dark ground of that absolute, of that which transcends everything visible, and which is held captive in these oval shapes, being both present and absent? “Near, but difficult to grasp, the God,” to quote Hölderlin. The Indians would also say this, since for them the various aspects of the divine are felt as both physically near and metaphysically far. Who better than Shiva, “the Pleasant”—a fearsome pleasant—can be both very near to and infinitely far from his devotees?
If these lingas were meant for ritual use, we may well wonder how they could be used in ritual worship during which the cult icon is normally to be bathed or sprinkled with water, something that cannot be done to an image painted on paper. The ancient Tantric ritual treatises found a solution however: a mirror is to be placed near the image, which is thus reflected on it, and this reflected image is then adorned with flowers, anointed or bathed. Though merely reflected, the deity is nonetheless present. What, however, is the universe but a mere reflection in the mirror of the divine energy of the multitudinous scintillation of the deity? Shiva reflected in Shakti. Such is the nature of the divine play of creation: a multitudinous diversity of forms and colors but grounded in the supremely invisible. This is what these small images can evoke to those who know how to meditate, grasp, them mentally or simply use them as supports for worship. Artless, modest, in appearance as they may seem, these lingas can induce a vision of the infinite.
—André Padoux
André Padoux is Honorary Director of the Shivaist Tantric Researches at the French National Center of Scientific Research.