Temples, Tirthankaras and the structure of the Jain world.
This work brings several strands of Jain visual tradition together within one large composition sacred figures, temple architecture, pilgrimage imagery and cosmological diagrams.
The left side is populated by Tirthankaras and shrine-like structures, while the right opens into a more diagrammatic world of pathways, realms and circular cosmological forms. Together, they create the sense of a complete sacred landscape rather than a single scene.
What makes the painting especially interesting is the way devotion and geography meet: the spiritual world is not shown as an abstract idea, but as something that can be mapped, travelled through and contemplated.
It is the kind of work that rewards slow looking, because every section functions almost like a painting within the larger painting.
Hand-painted on cotton.
Limited work, made on order.