Oftentimes, we come across something in nature that takes our breath away, or something that captivates our heart and mind. While most people in general try to enjoy these natural wonders, rarely do they think about the one behind these beautiful creations. The Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Kṛṣna, has created this world with such minute attention to each and every detail with His unlimited potencies. And in doing so, He has left His fingerprints in the whole creation. How to perceive His artistry in all of His creations, and trace His fingerprints back to the Supreme Lord? We’ll delve into that in this article.
KṚṢNA AND THE SUBTLE COLORS OF CREATION
When in all of creation there is this incredible beauty and splendor that leaves us in awe, and makes us question whether there’s any intelligence behind all this apparent creation. Even though most people feel it in themselves of a superior power, still people deny the existence of god being engrossed in worldly charms. In whatever there is that is in nature, like the different species of life, the mountains , the seas, the lakes, the flowers, the trees, the stars, the planets, things that are both far below the land and far above it, there’s the artistry of the Supreme Lord. Why look outside, even in our own bodies we can see it in action. See how we have all the varieties of senses and sense organs, how we are able to touch and feel different aspects of the world around us, and how varied these emotions that we feel are. The Lord has directed His Prakṛiti in such a way that it all looks magical to us.
In all of these creations in nature, we can perceive His artistry. Nobody in this world or the other can match the infinite artistry of the Lord. Any artist who creates or has created anything in this world is just trying to mimic Lord Kṛṣna’s artistry in one way or another. They are all seeking God in their pursuits, knowingly or unknowingly. Just like an artist mixes the primary colors to create more colors to paint, the Supreme Lord also utilizes the subtle colors for his creation. These primary colors of creation are the three modes of material nature namely, the mode of goodness or sattva-guna, the mode of passion or Rajo-guna, and the mode of ignorance or tamo guna.
Srīla Prabhupada himself has compared these modes with the primary colors; mode of goodness with yellow color, mode of passion with red color, and mode of ignorance with blue color. Just as the primary colors forms all other colors, the living entities themselves are a mix of these modes of material natures.
Lord Kṛṣna has thus combined these modes of material nature with remarkable expertise to create His creations. When one observes the nature of these creations, they can see all these modes in play. For example, when we see a beautiful lake with beautiful fishes swimming nonchalantly, we get mesmerised by its beauty. Or take for an example, a valley which is filled with lush green grass, and a gentle stream of river, just see how artistic it is. In the above examples, we can see how beautiful these creations are, yet the brilliance lies in the level of complexity in each of these creations.
If we are to stop and think for a moment, we can realize this complexity in nature. If we take these natural components apart individually, the different components of nature like the mountains, soil, trees or the animals that make up everything are in different levels of consciousness or gunās. Having less intelligence and realisations they are in the mode of ignorance, they are actually suffering and they themselves are unable to realize it and do anything about it. Yet this same suffering when we view it altogether looks so charming to our senses. Such is the artistry of the Lord, and He has done it so well that even with the modes like ignorance, and passion present in it, the beauty of it is completely unparalleled.
Coming back to human life, we can see the same thing, we are all a mixture of different gunās, having different likes and dislikes in the world, and we chase after many things and spend our life in vain trying to satisfy our own senses that eventually drags us to our doom. A man is tempted by a woman and a woman by a man and both falls in love with their external features that they fail to see what their true nature is. Shri Shankarachārya puts it beautifully in Bhaja Govindam verse 3:
Nārī stanabhara nābhīdeśaṃ
dṛśhṭvā mā gā mohāveśam
etanmāṃsa vasādi vikāraṃ
manasi vichintayā vāraṃ vāram
Do not get drowned in delusion, infatuated with passion and lusty desires, by seeing a woman’s raised breasts and navel. These are nothing but a modification of flesh and fat, and the like. Do not fail to remember this again and again in your mind.
And about the men, Rukninī devi states in SrīmadBhāgavatam (10.45.60):
tvak-śmaśru-roma-nakha-keśa-pinaddham antar
māṁsāsthi-rakta-kṛmi-viṭ-kapha-pitta-vātam
jīvac-chavaṁ bhajati kānta-matir vimūḍhā
yā te padābja-makarandam ajighratī strī
A woman who fails to relish the fragrance of the honey of Your Lotus Feet becomes totally befooled, and thus she accepts as her husband or lover a living corpse covered with skin, whiskers, nails, head-hair and body-hair and filled with flesh, bones, blood, parasites, feces, mucus, bile and air.
Such is the material life affected by the three modes of material nature, having been tempted and burdened with family lives we are all suffering mercilessly, yet given a choice to end it all, we are all so engrossed and chained by our lives that we would still choose to cling to our sufferings. And in the end when death comes knocking at our doors we are still afraid to leave, we still want to enjoy a little more before we go. Thus a lifetime is wasted without realising who we are, and what all these things around us are, or what our relationship to the god is. And we are again born in some other place in some other form, repeating endlessly this cycle of life and death.
Yet some people who have realised this vagueness of material life, the devotees of the Lord, who with the help of an authorised spiritual master, surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord and engage in the service of the lord. And in doing so, they perceive his artistry in the whole creation. Such people eventually attain the abode of the Supreme Personality of godhead Srī Kṛṣna and gets free from material entanglement forever.
KṚṢNA AND BALARĀMA MASTERS THE SIXTY-FOUR ARTS
To further explain the artistry employed by the Lord in this creation, we need to see what all arts He knows and how He applies it in His creations. This can be found out by knowing His pastimes as a kid. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Srī Kṛṣna and Balarāma during Their childhood days as a part of acquiring knowledge, went to study under Sāndīpani Maharshī’s tutelage as part of the guru- kula sampradāya. Even though they themselves are the original source of all knowledge and arts, to set an example to all of humanity on how to receive knowledge from a proper authority, they went to learn from Sāndīpani Maharshṛīs ashram. There they acquired different types of knowledge, including the sixty-four arts we often hear about in the puranās and stories.
The Lord had learned all these sixty-four arts within as many days itself, hearing the slokas recited just once, they completed learning the arts in sixty-four days itself. Such was the concentration of the Lord in learning and memorizing. And what all were these sixty-four arts? They are as follows;
(1)singing; (2) playing on musical instruments; (3) dancing; (4) drama ; (5) painting; (6) painting the face and body with colored unguents and cosmetics; (7) preparing auspicious designs on the floor with rice and flowers; (8) making a bed of flowers; (9) coloring one’s teeth, clothes and limbs; (10) inlaying a floor with
jewels; (11) covering a bed; (12) ringing water pots;; (13) splashing with water; (14) mixing colors; (15) preparing wreaths; (16) setting a helmet on the head;
(17) putting on apparel in a dressing room; (18) decorating the earlobe; (19) applying aromatics; (20) decorating with jewelry; (21) jugglery; (22) the art of disguise; (23) sleight of hand; (24) preparing varieties of salad, bread, cake and other delicious food; (25) preparing palatable drinks and tinging draughts with red color; (26) needlework and weaving; (27) making puppets dance by manipulating thin threads; (28) playing on a lute and a small x-shaped drum; (29) making and solving riddles; (30) uttering statements difficult for others to answer; (31) reciting books; (32) enacting short plays and writing anecdotes.
A more detailed image of the 64 kala’s can be found at: https://ignitionindeed.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/img_2189.jpg
(33) Solving enigmatic verses; (34) making a bow from a strip of cloth and a stick; (35) spinning with a spindle; (36) carpentry; (37) architecture; (38) testing silver and jewels; (39) metallurgy; (40) tinging jewels with various colors; (41) mineralogy; (42) herbal medicine; (43) the art of training and engaging rams, cocks and quails in fighting; (44) knowledge of how to train male and female parrots to speak and to answer the questions of human beings; (45) healing a person with ointments; (46) hairdressing; (47) telling what is written in a book without seeing it, and telling what is hidden in another’s fist; (48) fabricating barbarous or foreign sophistry;
(49) knowledge of provincial dialects; (50) knowledge of how to build toy carts with flowers; (51) composing magic squares, arrangements of numbers adding up to the same total in all directions; (52) the use of amulets; (53) conversation; ( 54) composing verses mentally; (55) designing a literary work or a medical remedy; (56) building shrines; (57) lexicography and the knowledge of poetic meters; (58) disguising one kind of cloth to look like another; (59) knowledge of various forms of gambling; (60) playing dice; (61) playing with children’s toys; (62) enforcing discipline by mystic power; (63) gaining victory; and (64) awakening one’s master with music at dawn.
HOW LORD KṚṢNA APPLIES HIS ART IN THE ENTIRE COSMOS
Thus, each of these peculiar arts was learned by Sri Kṛṣna and Balarāma. Looking at these arts one may wonder about the peculiar arts being learned and its necessity. But the greatness lies in its magnitude. Not only did they just master them, but they mastered it to an infinite degree, and then applied it to the whole of their creations. Unlike a regular artist whose creation is bound to only a limited time and space, His creations are unlimited in magnitude, they are not bound by time and space, but exist eternally. They are rapidly getting improved, new and new material creations arise and fall and again newer ones arise from them. There’s no end to His creativity, the whole world is His canvas.
Taking a deeper look into a few of the arts the Lord has learned, we can have a proper grasp at the Lord’s artistry. Singing, for example, all the different kinds of songs that have ever been sung comes from Him. The Lord himself is a great singer and because of His empowerment to the artists they have the ability to create and sing various melodies with their voices. All the musical elements have emanated from Him, the different ragas for example, has been said to be produced from the 172 sounds that originated when Lord Narasimha took his first step from the pillar of Ahobilam, where the Lord descended to protect Bhakta Prahlāda. These 172 sounds are said to be the basic tenets of the 172 classical ragās. Of these only 52 melakarta ragās exist today and it is said that even these 52 rāgās cannot be mastered by any one. Such is the loftiness of the Lord.
Now the second art, playing on musical instruments, the Lord is always seen carrying a flute with Him all the time. And when He plays his flute, it is said that all those who heard it stopped whatever they were doing and completely gets absorbed in His venunāda. The gopīs stopped whatever work they were doing and rushed towards His side in Vrindāvan, the birds and animals also listened to it attentively and started dancing around Him. Whoever heard the melody they got completely unaware of their body and surroundings and fixed their hearts in Him only. Now, not only does He play music on his flute, but He utilizes His creations as His musical instruments. The chirping of birds, the sounds you hear within a conch shell, the oceans, the voice of singers etc. can be interpreted as His playing musical instruments.
Another art learned by the Lord is dancing, which we have accounts of Kṛṣna performing during His leelas. The most popular instance being kāliyamardana or Krṣna dancing on the vicious Kāliya’s hoods. Dancing, and jumping on the thousand hooded serpent, all the while evading his countless poisonous fangs from the different hoods altogether. He danced so expertly on the slippery surface of the serpent’s hood in the Yamuna river, that all the demi- gods came to see His dance in the skies. They did pushpavrishti on Him and by playing different instruments and singing His glories made His dance all the more magnificent. Likewise, during his time, Chaitanya Mahāprabhu also traveled from place to place chanting and dancing the glories of the Lord along with His companions and the other living entities. In the absolute realm, the Lord also makes the living entities dance to His tune, the day and night, the seasons, everything waxes and wanes according to a fixed rhythm and in that also we can perceive His eternal dance steps.
Considering the next art, that is drama, we can see the whole world with its changes, and dichotomies as the stage, and we are all the performers in His drama. Whatever is going on in all the world is directed by His will alone, nothing happens without His knowledge, and even when people think it is themselves that is the doer, they are only mistaken to think so. Lord Kṛṣna says in the Bhagavat gīta (2.47):
karmany-evadhikaras te ma phaleshu kadachana
ma karma-phala-hetur bhur ma te sango ’stvakarmani
You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.
Going back to the next art, that is painting, the whole world with its myriad of colors is a depiction of His painting abilities. Whenever we see the sky, filled with different colors on different occasions, the various patterns and color palette on a butterfly, or on the bodies of different animals, the pictures of far-off planets and nebulas in the vast and emptiness of the space, we can realize that creative aspect of the Lord. How vividly each and every life form has been created in this universe, from the smallest organism to the largest living being, we can perceive this artistry. As for paintings on the bodies of people is concerned , Lord Kṛṣna gives different colors to different people , we can see a mix colors or racial features in different parts of the world, even within these races, individual variations with regards to skin and beauty exists .
Thus, innumerable examples can be given to showcase the creative artistry of the Lord. For ordinary beings like us, our intelligence is not enough to narrate all His glories. An advanced devotee of the Lord sees Him in each and every atom. It is said in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (CC Madhya 8.274):
sthāvara-jaṅgama dekhe, nā dekhe tāra mūrti
sarvatra haya nija iṣṭa-deva-sphūrti
“The mahā-bhāgavata, the advanced devotee, certainly sees everything mobile and immobile, but he does not exactly see their forms. Rather, everywhere he immediately sees manifest, the form of the Supreme Lord.”
Hence, we can only consider the world as it is as His art gallery, and try to perceive all of this creation as His masterpieces. By seeing this artistry, whenever we are feasting our eyes upon this creation, we can immediately recognize Lord Kṛṣna in each and every aspect of that creation. And in doing so, we are tracing back the fingerprint of the God to the God Himself.
Lecture link: https://www.instagram.com/tv/COfmatEHiJP/
Written by: Bhakta Vishnu, based on a lecture of H.G Tattvavit Prabhu
