Agnieszka Staszczyk, Creation and Consecration of Divine Images in Hindu Art [Tworzenie i konsekracja boskich przedstawień w sztuce hinduistycznej], Wydawnictwo Neriton, Warszawa 2007.
This book is based on selected chapters of the Vishnudharmottarapurana (Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa), the Sanskrit literary work composed over centuries, mainly between 450 and 650 AD. This purana is a kind of encyclopaedia for worshipers of Vishnu (one of the main gods of the Hindu pantheon) and the Third Book contains an artistic treatise. This work is fundamental to the understanding of Indian art and explains, among others, the technical rules of painting and sculpture. It describes the process of creating divine images and explicates their significance in temple worship. The analysis presented in the book focuses on the Trimurti image - the One or Whole with Three Forms - a threesome deity embodying Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva who respectively personify the creation of the world, its maintenance and its destruction. The fragment of the treatise discussed here focuses on the process of making religious representations that are destined to be objects of worship. Thus, their form must be prepared according to some strict rules. They contain canons of colours, iconometry, general rules for creating images, ways of composing and representing different figures, the preparation of paint and ground colour, etc. The main part of the treatise is an iconographic description of the Trimurti image. Bearing in mind the religious character of the Vishnudharmottarapurana, we shall understand this image as a symbolic representation, since its iconographic description is mainly a pretence to introduce theological contents. Finally, the book deals with the ceremony of consecration of the images. This ceremony is a final step of the image-making process and aims to transfer the god into an image, so a picture or a sculpture could become a sacral object. The analysis of selected fragments of the Vishnudharmottarapurana is supplemented with a translation of the Sanskrit original, as well as with iconometric, iconographic and botanical tables.
Key words: Hindu art, Trimurti, Vishnudharmottarapurana, Sanskrit texts on iconography, rules for the creation of divine representations, consecration ceremonies