METAPHORS ON FORM OF PAINTING: THE CASE OF CITRALAKSHANA OF NAGNAJIT

Pooja Kaul, PhD Candidate, Center for Exact Humanities, IIIT-Hyderabad, 2012

This paper focuses its attention to a specific story of the origin of painting as given in an ancient Indian
text on Art, and more specifically Painting, called the Citralaksana of Nagnajit. The available version of
this text is now part of the Tibetan Tanjur, which remains one among the oldest sources for Indian
Sanskrit texts such as the one that is referred here, that are now extant in any of the Indian writings.
This story is narrated in the third of the 4 treatises on Art in the Tanjur, which is the Citralaksanam. I
have referred to its translation as available in the book by Ashok Chatterjee Shastri and published by the
Asiatic Society in 1987.
So, coming back to the narrative that concerns me here:
The story goes like this
In the days of yore, there was a king in this world. He was the sustainer of earth, conversant with1
dharma devoted to truth, endowed with intelligence, fame and brilliance. He was named Bhayajit.
In the rule of this most perfect king who excelled in virtues, the subjects had a span of life for one
hundred thousand years. They were free from physical and mental diseases. They did not kill. There was
no premature death. His reign was very favourable in all aspects, good crop and nutrition, good
climate, good relations and everyone in the kingdom was alert and dutiful.
While such peace and prosperity prevailed in the kingdom, the king would engage in penance and from
Lokapitamah (Brahma) had obtained manifold of boons.
His reign became unconquerable by the enemies even with heavenly weapons. He had an excellent
command on all the Sastras (weapons).
To this illustrious and most generously and divinely endowed ruler, approached a weeping Brahmin
who was extremely afflicted The King asked him why he was weeping. To which the Brahmin replied
that During your rule there had been no premature death in this country. And he tells the king that it
must be that he rules now with unrighteousness because such a surprising incident has occurred. His
youthful and beautiful son has been taken away by untimely death. And he pleads and questions the
king for this inexplicable death of his son, who is the Vanshaj or preserver of the Brahmins race, and
that the king should make his son to return.

Narrative quoted from the translation as in An Old Text of Indian Art: the Citralaksana by Ashok Chatterjee
Shastri, published from The Siatic Society, Calcutta, 1987

Bhayajit made up his mind to pull the Brahmins son back and with him goes to see Yama (the god of
death). There he explains the situation again and respectfully asks of Yama to return the Brahmins son
who may have been taken away by an insensible messenger, as there surely has to be a mistake.
Yama in turn responds by saying Where is my power to take away or leave any being out of my own
accord. It is certain that they are brought under my control by virtue of their own deeds. Any living
being reaching my abode cannot go back. The son of Brahmin has been taken away by all powerful
time. And thus he refuses to return the Brahmins son. But Bhayajit keeps insisting and Yama keeps
declining and soon excited with passion they were engaged in a big fight. They both struck each other
with all their divine weapons and armies. And when the duel reached climactic dangers, fear went
surging through all gods and beings everywhere around. Seeing this situation of torment and panic in
the entire earth, Brahma himself along with the gods came to the scene of the war.
Both Bhayajit and Yama bowed down before the august presence of Brahma and related the whole tale
to Him. Brahma after hearing both sides spoke, Oh Lord of deaththe fault is not yours. The King, the
follower of Truth is not to be blamed. Time is also not at fault, but guilt rests with Karma (deeds).
And explains that in consequence of good and bad deeds done in previous births the child was born in
human form and met his death quickly. And tells Bhayajit that his labour will bear fruit as he has paid
reverence to the Brahmin. Then he commands him for the welfare of all the people, you are to paint
this son of the Brahmin in his likeness with all the colours according to his shape. So the king with a
view of reviving the son of the Brahmin painted him. Brahma took that painting and endowed it with
life.
Following this Brahma congratulates the King Bhayajit for having conquered the messengers of Yama.
Yama in turn feels dejected, seeing which Brahma again instructs the King not to give into pride or
repugnancy. The Gods and Brahmins should be shown special respect and never means to caste blame
should be adopted. This pleases all.
Brahma turns again to the king and tells him that the term nagna refers to the Pretas. As you have
overpowered him by force, you should be famous in the world by the appellation of Nagnajit, the
conqueror of the naked.
And Brahma also informs him that As you have drawn up the painting of this son of the Brahmin you
should be known as the first inventor of painting in this world.
What follows is that later the king seeks Brahma again to understand the course of picture painting and
its characteristics, the rules for measurement of painting and how these principles originate. And
Brahma responds to all his queries. But that tale would make for the subject of another paper.
Formal look at the story
My attention for today goes to this much of the story of the first painting according to this old text on
Indian art. So how and why is it that I am looking at this story? My first intuition to engage with
aesthetics was to look into the operational sense of art. Many provocations like Coomaraswamys

intuitions on Indian art as being ideal in the mathematical sense, like Nature, not in appearance, but in
operationi, for instance, have inspired me to look at art everywhere beyond its objective appearance.
My intuitions about art are growingly formal ones. Ones that question what is the Form of Painting.
It pushes me to see Painting as a whole Act that is complete only in the coupling of making and
viewing. This Act is the common human phenomenon from where any painting comes about.
Subjects, isms, regions, time-periods and so on, are categories that have to do with the content of
Painting and my search is into its Form. The formation that is Painting is operationally consistent and
thus same for all at the plane before it enters or becomes any such categories. It is this commonality
that I wish to arrive at and assess in all its formal detail.
Among the three large directions that complete a Painting, which are 1. Creation/Artists work, 2. The
Artwork/Object of art and 3. The Spectator, the paper here is an engagement with the first direction
or moment of the existence of painting. It concerns itself with what happens at the stage of Creation
and how the painting comes about at all.
It has been visualized by certain scholars so that the work of Art is such a Transformation of Nature out
there, which is consistent and a same content gets carried through your mind and imagination and
through the instrument of the body to Artwork. But what is the nature of this sameness? The story of
Nagnajit hints at a primary loss which needs to be compensated.
Even if we look at the creative process for ourselves, we would find that visual perception and the
following act of cognition and memory building and so on, do not directly translate in their apparent
continuous and logical form into the internal activity of imagination and the following Act of the
artwork.
Clearly, a lot happens between viewing of reality with your sense perceptions as the logical continuity of
the spatio-temporally existing smells, sights, touch, sounds and tastes that it appears to be, and the
discontinuous visions or flashes, the largely indiscernible mass that is at the plane of Imagination which
may instigate creative action.
Too much may condition what form of art is brought out as well, because at the plane of imagination
itself, this decision for the affordable Action cannot be made just yet. Affordances of the active body, its
habits and even memory of familiar representations could affect ones intuitive choice of the work that
will be the Art.
To see this whole 3-fold Act of painting, each one seen as a happening, always in formation rather than
as subjective processes or objectified things which could be read as if crystallized in space or time, or
ignored for inconsistency allows for a refreshing take on the formal readings on Art. It is with this kind
of a lens that I visit this story of the first painting in the Citralakshana.
What does the story really encapsulate? How does the first painting come about?

A perfected being who is fearless (Bhayajit) chases a disembodied being in the realm of the Pretas
where only forms exist and from where they cannot return to their bodies again and thus remain
inactive or dormant and away from the spatio-temporal existence of the rest of the world (prithviloka or
Kritiloka). And after waging a war to chase a re-embodiment most fearlessly against the god of death,
the ultimate god is compelled to resolve the feud by means of creation of a painting such that all realms
are satisfied.
And consequently the Title of Nagnajit or victor over disembodied or denuded beings is bestowed upon
the fearless king who is the Inventor of the first Painting.
What are these nagnas if we could think of them as metaphors of the disembodied beings, (Forms
denuded of their content) that go behind the silver screen of our active perceptual, cognitive and
experiential realms to a trans-temporal realm beyond spatial arrangements and continuities in time,
then this story itself becomes a beautifully poetic rendition of the ontology of Painting as a process, a
chase after the Form to bring out a new embodiment.
An Act of Painting is this chase after Form, the content is forever new. There is immense resistance and
conflict where the disembodied form is to be brought back embodied again.
It is not a transformation nor expression of a same image or a static crystallized form that has just
travelled back and forth, but a reformation because our phenomenal system is hardwired for loss of
content and removal of the form to trans-temporal realms.
In the story of Citralaskana, Brahma instructs the King to paint the brahmins son in his likeness with
colours according to his shape. The paint and colours are already new content being composed instead
of flesh and bones to embody the brahmins boy. Yet it is not that the boy is released as was from
Yamas abode.
The trans-temporal realm can be visualized as the Paraloka where beings exist without any gunas
(colour, shape, material and all other qualities that enable perception and experience of them) but stay
dormant till they are chased after in imagination, and even so they cannot be born same again but only
reincarnate, on the way picking up forever new content. The narrative here is significant in all its detail
to contribute to a dynamic rather than static formation of painting, or even any art-form. It only
indicates that visual artistic formations are chases to embody experience that is now lost in time and
space. The brahmins boy does not exist anymore to public experience and will not even be returned
immediately in the body that he lived in and as.
The procedure to bring the same boy back to life involves a new fight and a new putting together of
shapes and colours and pigments and surfaces, that need to be learnt from a teacher residing beyond
experience as well. It is that the realms of memory, imagination and consequently material form need to
be brought together in Action.
Each patch and pigment and hand gesture rendering a painting, cumulatively follows this chase, and
participating in the struggle that is re-embodiment in this way, results in painting that allows

experiencing again forms that were lost to memory and the other masses of trans-temporality beyond
experience. The process of Painting is this chase and this war waged against the nagnas and its only
resolution is in the creative action.
i

Cited in A.K.Coomaraswamy, The Transformation of Nature in Art, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1934.