blog@Yantrajaal

 Adi Sankara's Shivastakam is a widely known and frequently recited hymn to Bhagwan Shiv. Howeve, I have noted that while the first seven shloks are remarkably similar across multiple sources, the eighth one is often different. What is even more distressing is that while the first seven have a beautiful rhyme and metre, the eighth one -- in almost all cases -- breaks the rhyme and displays a strongly discordant note. I believe that this is accidental. Since Sankara's Shivastakam was passed down as an oral tradition, it is quite likely that the eighth shlok was lost in transmission and different authors at different locations plugged it with their own creativity. Which is why, I as a follower and ardent admirer of Sankara, had tried my hand to create a shlok that I felt would have been similar to the other seven. This shloka first appeared in the First Edition of my book, the Road to Psingularity where I had been exploring the convergence of Vedanta, genetics and computer progra...

 

Folklore celebrates Shivaratri as the marriage of Lord Shiva with Parvati, the daughter of the Himalayan mountains. The consummation of this marriage is viewed in learned circles as the Yoga, or union, of Shiva with his Shakti. Of the Purusha with his Prakriti. Shiva is the Potential energy of the universe and Shakti is its manifestation in Kinetic form. From Sankara to Vivekananda, adepts have likened Shiva to the Ocean and Shakti to the waves that rise from it and settle back. But then again there is another perspective! Shiva is not a God, not even a god, in the traditional dualistic perspective of a devotee and the object of devotion. Shiva is a quality, the quality of "good", as understood in the phrase, "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram" -- the triad of the the True, the Good and the Beautiful. Truth is viewed as function of rational analysis as in the search for the truth. This is the way of the West -- of Egypt, Greece, the Renaissance and modernity. This has...

I had stumbled across Devajyoti Ray when I was looking for images that could be converted into stereograms -- apparently jumbled images that contain within them, other hidden images that get revealed "suddenly" when one stares at for some time. Usually these hidden images are common household objects but I was trying to use, and conceal, realistic photographs of human beings and the difficulty was that the complexity of these images was too high for the stereogram to be effective. I thought that images with sharp edges and flat colours would be easier to handle but the trouble was that most images that met this requirement were rather cartoonish and not realistic enough. My search ended when I came across Devajyoti Ray's wonderful paintings and even though the stereograms never worked out the way I had thought they would, I was delighted to discover that in my serendipity I had discovered a something that was truly wonderful. In an earlier post , I had expressed my ad...

This image represents a cloud of ideas, or rather words, that appear in my book, The Road to pSingularity. Click on the image to get a bigger view and understand how you can also build images of your own

While I do appreciate abstract art -- particularly shapes and colours that please the eye -- I do not always agree with the statement that "if you are looking for meaning in art, then you are barking up the wrong tree". Shapes, patterns and colours are nice but they are even nicer if they can communicate something that you recognise and can identify with. I came across these paintings by Devajyoti Ray at the website of Galerie ArtEterne and was very impressed by both the form and the content.