The word “Puja” has sometimes been misinterpreted, by European writers, as “prayer”. Others have understood it correctly to mean “adoration”. Indic deities are adored, with incense, water, milk, flowers and through music and dance. The purpose of the philosophic path is for us to be able to see the truth beyond. To lose our egos and our concerns in the material world. To rise up in awareness, to see the beauty of all that there is around us, to see that all is divine and therefore divinely beautiful…to lose ourselves in adoration of that beauty.
There are no gods in the early philosophic vision of India. There are deities: deities who are the personifications of concepts and qualities. These qualities are within us and by looking upon the deities brought to us in art, by meditating upon these, we awaken those fine qualities. When we are filled by that grace, there is no space left for base desires and pain: we have become that deity.
What survives today of the early art of India is only a small fraction of what would have been created. Yet it consists of such vast numbers of monuments and sculpture that it staggers the mind. The corpus is gigantic and spread to every corner of the subcontinent.
Each sublime work of art which survives is a mirror, to show us the best qualities within us. It is an opportunity to gain peace even in the midst of the turbulent world around us.
Benoy K Behl is a film-maker, art-historian and photographer who is known for his tireless and prolific output of work over the past 44 years. He has taken over 53,000 photographs of Asian monuments and art heritage and made 145 documentaries which are regularly screened at major cultural institutions worldwide. His photographic exhibitions have been warmly received in 74 countries around the world.
