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DEVI

36”X 27” , K3 Pigment Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

An image of Devi arises from the night around us and slowly changes over centuries, turning the sky into daylight. Hidden behind flickering flames, the memories of her as the dark ferocious one have endured. She is the mother of the tribe, alive and awake in the caves of deep forests, as she is also, a newer more approachable goddess, floating amongst the clouds. She changed, as her people did, gazing skyward towards new gods, escaping the impulse of nature. They had now set about to control it. In their process of burning forests to farm and dividing land to fence, they dressed her in silk with bangles and turmeric, hoping to awaken her maternal side. With the glow of a forest fire behind her, the blood taking Kali, was now also the milk giving Gauri. And still her true worshipers sacrificed ram and rooster to rewild their mother. She, who has the power to create life by destroying it. For them there is no terror or solitude in her presence. Still, through marriage and maternity, the goddess harmonized nature with spirit. Suddenly surrounded by male gods she was – the female force that powers and animates. The energy with which Brahma creates the world, her husband Shiva tries to renounce while her brother Vishnu protects. As her larger family unfolded, paving a path away from the jungle, the Devi remained true to all her forms - wild, free, powerful and replete with uncontrollable energy. She is the life – defender, lover, creator, and finally the destroyer.

KANYA KUMARI

36”X 27” , K3 Pigment Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

A coast named after its protector. An adolescent girl warrior who fought, holding a sad and broken heart. For she was to marry a god, who never arrived. Still, this is not a story of unrequited love but of a trick played by the gods and the misunderstanding that saved the land from a demon. A demon, who had prayed for and had received a strange boon - an eternal life that could only be ended by an unmarried juvenile girl. The gods had to prepare for this chink in his armour. The demon Banasura who was also the ruler turned crueller as he did powerful, in that dark way, in which, evil feeds itself. He watched gleefully as the ocean took more and more and the gods watched quietly for they had set his defeat in motion - the Devi was born as a human child. As a young girl, unknowing of her real form and purpose, she preoccupied herself with her desire to marry Shiva, who was her husband in her goddess form. But the gods knew if the marriage took place she would no longer be able to fight the demon. For her destiny to realize itself she needed to be unmarried and they needed the strong, wild and powerful side that could be angered. When Shiva delightfully accepted her proposal of marriage, the gods acted swiftly. They created an artificial barrier by informing them of the one and only auspicious time for their wedding. An impossible hour far too early in the morning - warning the girl that her groom would have to make his way from his remote icy cave, high in the distant Himalayas to her home in the warm and sunny coasts of Tamil Nadu. Shiva, an enthusiastic groom, had left immediately, planning on a fast overnight journey that would have brought him to her in time. While the bride in her girlish joy, primed for the wedding, large amounts of food was cooked and a lavish ceremony was prepared. As the night wore on he travelled, but around midnight, the gods turned into roosters and called into the night, like it was morning already. Shiva, thinking he had missed the auspicious time for the wedding, returned sadly into the mountains. While the gods let the bride believe that she had been humiliated and jilted at the altar. In her pain and grief, she tore the celebrations down. She threw the food away and broke her bangles - all turning into the hued sands of Kanyakumari. A magical spot where the different waters merge, making the numerous coloured beaches from remote soils. Crying herself into the waters she slowly gained composure and receded into herself. A self-inflicted penance not understanding what had happened to her. In that sinking tranquillity of pain, a proud Banasura tried to lure and approach Kumari. The infuriated girl slayed him at once. A surprised and now dying demon realised that the young woman before him was the Devi herself. In those moments before his death he prayed for her to absolve him of his sins. Some say, having fulfilled her destiny, she returned to her goddess self and was reunited with Shiva. Others believe that the Kanya form of the Devi continues to stand guard, at that unique sharp tip of the peninsula. Where the outstretched horizon is the home to a setting and rising sun, a waxing and waning moon - where she fights the ocean forever in her eternal youth.

SIVAKAMI

36”X 27” , K3 Pigment Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Still wearing her crown, (for she was born a princess), and holding a lotus, an unusually opulent version of Parvati, is here in her most beautiful form – Sivakami, the one Shiva desires. As the wind awakens, she stands calm and still watching her husband begin the Thandav, a dance so powerful it creates and destroys the universe. She is the only one who can draw him, through anger or moaning, through Thandav or Thapas. Shiva, a god capable of great passion, had locked himself away from the world, after losing his first wife Sati. Sivakami through her beauty and her mind made him open his eyes to her, bringing him back into samsara – into life, love and their very unique family. She is nature – Prakriti, returning Purusha from his mind into reality. She is as calm as he is animated - a reversal of roles. The usual business of things holds the male as the passive force of the universe and the female as the active one. As Sivakami and Natraja, Parvati and Shiva, take the other one’s place.

GAURI

36”X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Cost - 20,000 RS / 250 USD

The quintessential mother goddess of Indian mythology, wanted a child that she could call her own. Shiva, her husband (the god of destruction), didn’t see the purpose behind it. Children as a legacy, was a preoccupation for mortals – not for immortals like them. Gauri did not see children as legacy at all, but as life itself. They famously made love for a thousand years - a union that aided all of creation, but it didn’t result in a child for them. Gauri, although completely in love, was now aware that she would need to make one on her own.

While Shiva was away, she carved a perfect little boy out of turmeric, that she had rubbed from her own body. Breathing life into him she had brought Ganesha from the image behind her eyes to before them. He was entirely Gauri’s creation, and like all of nature – made from her soil. Shifting rather abruptly from the poetic to the prosaic, shortly after being created by a goddess, the child was to stand guard while she bathed. The diligent new son did so with complete conviction to the task at hand. So, when a strange little boy out of nowhere, denied Shiva entry into his own abode, the God of destruction with very little patience, decapitated Ganesha in anger. Gauri was horrified and appalled at what Shiva had done. He had killed her only child, and now, she (changing into Kali), was going to destroy all of creation. Brahma, the god of creation ran in its defence. Stopping the goddess, he pleaded with her to reconsider. And so she did - the world would be spared, only if the child was brought back to life, and was always worshiped first before any other god. Shiva now, less angry and more sympathetic, sent Brahma out with orders to bring back the head of the first creature he crossed, laying facing north. Brahma returned with the head of an elephant. Breathing new life into him, Shiva placed it on Ganesha’s body. In another version, it was Indra’s elephant. Either ways, unique and irreversible the elephant headed scribe was created. The birth of a new god willed into being by Gauri the mother goddess.

KAMAKSHI

36” X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Without desire all of creation loses its fragrance and the god of desire himself was enchanting. In Kama’s hands the sugarcane bow and flowered arrows are merely mischievous. And he paid with his life for playing with these wonderful weapons of desire. When he took aim, their effects were limited to passion, a trap that one falls into. In Kamakshi’s hands, desire is expansive. A landscape to walk in, eyes wide open, a choice that feels like destiny. A desire for the world and the pleasure of being part of it.

In sunshine and starlight, laughter and pain it grows, changing how we feel, what we see and the taste of everything we touch. Red is no longer alarming and blood changes meaning. In Draupadi’s hands it is revenge, in Kali’s it is destruction, and in Kamakshi’s, it is life. We are not hunted but adored by the flowered archer. For some she is a fertile womb, a cleft in a rock that bleeds, marking the coming of monsoon. A season for desire, wisdom and experience - only a life well lived can know.

Lakshmi & Sarasvati

44”X 27” , K3 Pigment Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Fortune and Knowledge don’t always go together, for they are wanted so differently. Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune, arrives and departs as she likes. Changing lives on a whim, she is more desired than enjoyed. Nervous gods and humans wait anxiously for her to favour them, and she, completely aware of her agency, has a light hearted and joyful spirit only the opulent can have. A maker of kings and the giver of wealth Lakshmi forever dazzles.

Saraswati on the other hand, like knowledge is very hard to come by let alone acquire. But unlike Lakshmi, when she arrives she stays. She can’t be spent but can only be earned. Deep and evasive, and solid as a rock she is also a hidden and lost river she fills the world with art, music & knowledge. In unison they give the world texture and colour, filling our universe with everything we so desire.

ARDHANARISHVARI

36”X 27” , K3 Pigment on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/5 + 2 artist prints

What we perceive as opposites are elements of a fusion. Here, the wrenching of a conflict – masculine and feminine come to rest as a union. Of Purasha (the mind) and Prakriti (Nature), of fire and water, of wind and soil, of the mind and body, and ultimately of male and female, giving way to a synthesis, exalted as the root and womb of all creation.

Parvati and Shiva come together and in their eyes we perceive that liquid fire – a loop of eternity that links them both in a union like no other, and one that precedes all others.

PRAKRITI

36”X 27” , K3 Pigment Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

The animals show us where she is, by simply being who they are – the tame are in the world of men, the wild are with the Goddess. Through their eyes, she regards us from a distance, and instantly we know – she is Prakriti. Nature is feminine and she is the Primal One - unwitnessed and unperceived, a reality we come upon, a part of creation not destined for everyone. In that stillness we feel the loneliness of our species. But in her gaze we are rescued - and seen as part of all creation.

KAVERI

36”X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Some say he was a king and some say a sage, either way, Kavera had prayed for a daughter who would save them all. In her father’s mind she had appeared as an answer. After a long penance, Kaveri arrived as a boon given by Shiva, destined to bring life to the cursed land – plagued by a demon’s evil eye. A rainless eternity, a drought striking the very womb of the monsoons. A once fertile soil had cracked dry and turned to stone. Her destiny of becoming a river, healing the earth, by quenching its thirst, was still to come. The river goddess was first a woman. Compassion and justice flowed through her veins, and the need to do the right thing made her fearless.Brought up by a sage, she found herself more often in isolation and deep meditation. And that was how the sage Agastya saw her first. They married soon and even before starting their life together, fate in its mischievous way had begun to bend her path towards her destiny - making her demand of her husband to never be separated from him for any prolonged period of time. Here again, many versions of the story appear as tributaries, but all coming to the same end. To not be separated, Agastya turns Kaveri into water and keeps her in the chalice he carries with him everywhere. But their moment of separation arrives, when he takes her in his vessel to an almost barren lake and rests her on the banks while he steps in for a bath. In one version, to remain close she toppled the vessel from within, pouring herself out and magically turning into the gushing, glorious and powerful river Kaveri. While others say it was Ganesha who appeared as a cow or a little boy who toppled the vessel for her. In any event, it ends with a separation from the one she loved to fulfill her greater destiny. Demon and drought disappeared and the land laughed again. It’s a haunting image but it’s one that persists - Agastya would sometimes find his wife Kaveri on the other side of the river she became. As a goddess, looking at him, and never crossing over, they would stay motionless in each other’s gaze.

RADHA 36” X 31” , K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks - 1/10 + 2 artist prints

With muted tones, controlled shading and the blotting out of any light the artist wants us to appreciate the implicit: the power of love. We are to engage with the goddess with comprehension, and joy. And the concept of the Whole is put before us at all times. So here is Radha, childhood friend and lover of Krishna, in a fuller form as Earth Mother – slightly paunchy, full breasted, a milky cow by her side. It is a voluptuous image, inherently and powerfully erotic. The faint outline of a peacock feather is the only sign of Krishna. But the focus is Radha. Radha is woman in her entirety – lover, friend, sister, daughter, mother. She is also a wife but not Krishna’s. The power and purity of her love is such that it transcends both social requirements and human frailties such as marriage or jealousy. Radha is complete unto herself. And the love that radiates from her is equally complete. It is, in fact, a celebration – in this case, of Krishna, asking nothing from him, not marriage nor fidelity. It is love that is spiritually and physically full: unconditional,eternal and liberating.

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KALI

36”X 27” K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks - 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Both suddenly and eternally she appears, as Adya - The Primal One A tornado made of all the elements at once, the angry goddess with unbound hair, from the oldest of forests - arrives with her wild justice. A justice beyond right or wrong, she is both the darkness and the light. Quenching her blood thirst through sacrifices, and entertaining her with glorious and wild dances around colossal fires, her worshipers generate an immense energy – that reaches the heaves in all its turbulence. Kali has no interest in a dull and devoted believer. Her true worshipers are in nature themselves, and strong enough to understand what the authority of the wild means. A cosmic force that has little to do with our selfish morality, badly disguising benefit and greed. A goddess who can’t be bought or flattered, looks to be appeased and celebrated by the brave and the aware. The ones who know that her justice is not built for them, and understand the complex meandering river that moves away from us back into the forest. Towards a breathing and alive darkness that one is never lost in. For the trees and animals there are not lost, and we can ask them assent to know and be known. For she is Yoga – Nidra, unwitnessed nature and unperceived reality and here we come upon a part of creation, not destined for us. And in that stillness, a raging goddess, never consumed by herself, runs past us, naked as she hunts.

LAKSHMI

36”X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

In a cosmos of affluent Asuras and entitled Devas, Lakshmi moves. Paying little attention to their eternal combat, she chooses. She is the goddess of wealth, and like wealth, she is more desired than enjoyed. Her attention moves as she gazes over our small lives, with our slight victories and failures, only too aware of how little would survive us. From the ground, she had once risen, but only noticed in the skies, when her dazzle was in full bloom. We were made to understand, that this is how she always was - linked with our every swollen and unsatisfied desire. But, she reminds us of an earlier time, when she was a child, growing into a woman in her home, underneath the earth, hidden in the early hymns of the Vedas. A long age of both innocence and awareness, when Asura meant a divine being, still uncoloured by a later moral turn their stories took, spinning them into simplistic caricatures of demons and villains. An age of her childhood, fathered, not just by one, but three Asuras. Varuna – the ocean, Puloman – the earth and Bhrigu – the teacher. Sharing her heritage, with glorious asuras – Balli, Virochana. An age of innocence that changed as did she, only coming into herself as she moved away from home. Suddenly, capturing our attention, she arrived in the world of the gods. Astonishing the heavens with her glamour, she chose to sit beside a thrilled and bewildered Indra. Still, she remained restless and uncertain. Surly, she thought, the heavens must have someone more worthy of her. Lakshmi changes lives on a whim, leaving a trail of uncertainty. Nervous gods and humans, unaware of whom she will favor next. Indra suffered in his insecurity, never able to truly enjoy her, eternally balanced on a shaky throne. She seemed to have appeared with no particular reason and now might leave just as mysteriously. Tormented by the knowledge that he was king and his kingdom was heaven because of her. Proving him right, her journey continued, till she finally met Vishnu. The one God who could love, appreciate and revel in her and her choices that made them the queen and king of heaven.

PARVATI

36” X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

The image of Parvati covering her face with a lotus is the story behind the Lingam and the Yoni. A lipped disk shaped form – the Yoni (the emblem of the Devi) with the phallic Lingam (the presence of the God Shiva). The couple would come to be known and symbolized for their thousand years of lovemaking.

In that era of pleasure, the walls of the glacier (their home in the mountains) thawed and Shiva’s tapas was released into the world – rivers into the plains and life into the dry soil. Their union would be symbolic and would come to represent fertility, generative and creative power at every cosmic level. In their cave of copulation though, nothing mattered to them. Greater responsibilities as gods were consumed by their lust for each other. This disregard for the rest of existence only seemed to be problematic when they received unexpected guests, and Rishis at that. These sages of deep thought and meditation are often proud men, welcomed with reverence wherever they roam. Impatient, arrogant and in fits of fury are known to curse both humans and gods. Arriving at Shiva and Parvati’s abode, they walked right in on the couple making love. Parvati, was shy and giggled as she covered her face with a lotus, because Shiva would not stop making love to her. The Rishies were appalled and angry, and cursed the couple that they would from then on, be known and represented by the Lingam and Yoni. A curse that made little difference to anyone and the idea of shame receded into the horizon along with the irate and sanctimonious Rishis.

SHAKTI

K3 Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks - 1/10 + 2 artist prints

Shakti is power in its most elemental form. She is the female force that powers and animates the male. If Brahma is creator of the universe, Durga is the manifestation of his creative energy. Shakti is the source of the strength of the gods. The new world of male gods not being able to hold the force of her pagan strength, divided her into three. To Vishnu she comes as Lakshmi, to Shiva as Parvati and to Brahma as Saraswati.

Yet here she is, relaxed and languorous, playing with her weapons as if they were instruments. It is a lyrical, balmy composition, lush with feminine details. The artist wants to remind us that it is, indeed, in this soft, unassuming form that such potent power is to be found. We are reminded that soft is not weak. The only visual cue expressing potency is the colour red, a character by itself in this series. It is the colour of menstrual blood, of life itself. Without this feminine life giving force the gods are impotent.

Thus one of the most potent and fundamental symbols of Hindu philosophy – the Shiva Lingam – male and female sexual energy joined – the source of all life.

HALDI MUKHI - DURGA

36” X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

As Haldi Mukhi (the yellow faced one), Durga comes to us, exhausted and tired of her relentless life. Here she is Uma and Parvati – the mountain princess, and our abode becomes her paternal home. She visits every autumn, and we pamper her with the fruit of our harvest. As feasts are prepared, her children run outside to play with the other young ones from the village. Watching them leave, she relaxes and we start to apply turmeric all over her body. Forgetting her innumerable duties, the warrior mother transforms into the daughter. Eating dessert for lunch, she turns back into the spoiled little princess of the Himalayas. She watches us dance and fill the air with the sweetest of scents, singing songs that act as a record of her complaints. A meditating husband, while she has to take care of the world in general, bringing up her own children, creating food in the icy peaks of the Himalayas, warring, nurturing, enabling all of creation… The list seems to go on. Life of a goddess is strenuous and we listen to the adorable young, yellow faced immortal tell us of her life.

RAJESHWARI

36” X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/5 + 2 artist prints

Not just a virgin mother, but an independent one. A kumari matha. Mythology is filled with attempts made by male devas and assuras who tried to capture her. Dying or suffering consequences, they learnt, that nature will not be ruled by culture and the attempt, would lead to life lessons wrapped up in punishments. The mother goddess of all creation, she who holds the whip and the sugarcane. Punishment and Reward. Arranging rivers, along the valleys, she watched us take our first steps into her world, where everything had arrived before us. She regarded us from a distance, through the eyes of animals, (all wild at the time), as she held in her womb, the three Gods who were to come. Brahma the god of creation, Vishnu the god of protection and Shiva the god of destruction - the son most protective of her. In a world where volcanoes turn fire into stone, she taught us how to control it. Now, she is present in every temple – the Garbhagriha , the womb chamber, in which - sits the idol. Sometimes, even giving birth to herself. In the forest and the sea, in every seed and flower, the goddess of creation weaves life into a complex fabric. She is (Prakriti), and the mother of all nature and culture An old goddess, from an old world, before life as we know it. She held the sun, and the moon, as he lured the ocean into an eternal tidal dance. There was no need to find reason, or enlightenment, inspiration or joy. The bare fact of being, was enough in itself. She belongs to a world before us. A world before the Gods.

GRAMADEVI

36” X 27”

K3 Pigment Print on Archival Paper

Limited Edition Exclusive Digital Artworks- 1/10 + 2 artist prints

A head sitting upright on the ground, under a tree, outside, at the edge of a village. Her eyes appear through a coat of vermillion. Her body, (underground we assume), is the village - with its houses, fields and pastures, and her fertility, keeping them abundant. With no temple or priest, the goddess is only tended to by the women. A sisterhood that celebrates their mother every day. She is not universal, but local, she is specific and personal. She is yours and she is mine and she lives outside our village. But once a year she comes undone, for her forests have been burnt, to sow again, her weeds uprooted and body fenced up and owned. Wild and hungry she demands blood, and the village rushes to ease, quenching her thirst she is made whole again. Feasts are cooked and sacrifices made to replenish her wildness. Gestures repeated year after year to make her strong and blossom. An apology for killing her forest, and gratitude, for the gift she has given. A process by which we rewild our mother year after year after year.

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