It was right here first. The primary sound of creation from the place life begins, ‘Aum’ is a deeply highly effective sound or a mantra. The phrase is deeply embedded in Indian spirituality, philosophy, language, and even tradition. In ‘The Journey of Aum’ artist Kalpana Palkhiwala has chosen to undertake a frightening process by trying to depict Aum—visually and throughout language and tradition.
The guide—in black and white—is as a lot private as it’s philosophical. “From childhood to this present day, Aum has been a relentless,’’ she writes within the guide. “It was a syllable sound coming into my ears. Nevertheless, it was solely after 33 years, post-retirement that I took up my brush and pencil and made an effort to place Aum on paper.”
The guide, in a approach, is her life’s work. “On the age of sixty, I lastly gave life to Aum that lay deep in my unconscious for a few years.”
Depicting this sound throughout languages, whether or not it’s within the curvy Hindi with the crescent moon with a dot arched delicately or as trianka, triyanka or triratna which is likely one of the oldest types of Aum in Buddhism, Palkhiwala takes the reader on a journey of the phrase that was there earlier than there was a phrase.
There’s additionally Aum in Grantha, which has been derived from the Pali script within the third century CE and went by means of many transformations earlier than it reached the fashionable type utilized in Tamil and Malayalam. Within the guide, Palkhiwala reveals Aum with vegetation and motifs which are present in South Indian temples. “Taking a look at its unfold, I searched the language of a spread of Asian international locations and located it in all places. It’s assimilated in folks’s lives, their cultures and their way of life. It embodies divine vitality,” she writes.
The guide is an try and depict simply how deeply enmeshed Aum is in language tradition and life. She additionally contains Siddham, the Brahmic script which is derived from the Gupta script within the late sixth century CE in addition to Kashmiri, Tibetan, Lepcha and Thai. Palkhiwala additionally tries to root the sound in tradition. So, her Aum in Maithili is adorned with nature and flowers as it’s within the Madhubani artwork that comes from this area. And in Odiya, she has chosen to make use of the spokes of the well-known Konark temple devoted to the solar.
Her works make the reader increase their horizons as they see Aum written throughout languages, every intricately sketched.
Ebook: The Journey of Aum
Creator: Kalpana Palkhiwala
Worth: Rs 700
Pages: 150
Writer: Zen Opus
