☀️ 𝓓epicting 𝓣he 𝓓ivine ☀️

Buddha

Dhyani Buddha, Ajanta

''The figure of the Buddha achieves the expression of the infinite in a finite image,... the illimitable calm of Nirvana in a human form and visage.''

(Sri Aurobindo - Indian Art )

''The suffering of the world is there, but it fades into a bliss of spiritual peace or ecstasy beyond the sorrow line. Buddha's teaching laid heavy stress on the sorrow and impermanence of things, but the Buddhist Nir- vana won by the heroic spirit of moral self-conquest and calm wisdom is a state of ineffable calm and joy, open not only to a few like the Christian heavens, but to all, and very different from the blank cessation which is the mechanical release of our pain and struggle, the sorry Nirvana of the Western pessimist, the materialist's brute flat end of all things. Even illusionism preached, not a gospel of sorrow, but the final unreality of joy and grief and the whole world-existence. It admits the practical validity of life and allows its values to those who dwell in the Ignorance. And like all Indian asceticism it places before man the possibility of a great effort, a luminous concentration of knowledge, a mighty urge of the will by which he can rise to an absolute peace or an absolute bliss. A not ignoble pessimism there has been about man's normal life as it is, a profound sense of its imperfection, a disgust of its futile obscurity, smallness and ignorance; but an unconquerable optimism as regards his spiritual possibility was the other side of this mood.''

[Sri Aurobindo - A Defence of Indian Culture]

Bodhisattva Padmapani, cave 1 Ajanta