FROM COTTON FLOWER TO CLOTH : LAL-VAAKH PAINTED ON PASHMINA CLOTH BY ARTIST MASOOD HUSSAIN

                                          

FROM   COTTON FLOWER TO CLOTH :  LAL-VAAKH  PAINTED ON PASHMINA CLOTH BY ARTIST MASOOD HUSSAIN 

Vaakh in Kashmiri 

“Lall ba draayas kapas poshi sazchiyi

Kaed ta dhoonei karnam yetchie lath

Tuyi yeli kharnam zaviji tuye 

Vovir vaana gayam alaainz lath

Dhoeb yeli chhaavnas dhoebi kaeni pyathai 

Saz ta saaban mazchnam yetchie

Sietch yeli firnam hanie hanie kaatchie

Adha lall me praavim param gath”  

Translation 

(I, Lalla, set forth into the world,

hoping to bloom like a cotton flower.

But the cleaner and the carder struck me with harsh blows.

Spun into fine thread, I was stretched upon the weaver’s loom.

Then the washerman beat me upon the stone

and scoured me again and again with soap.

At last, when the tailor cut me, piece by piece,

only then did I attain the highest state.)

Commentary on the Vaakh

Lalla Ded’s image of cotton passing through carding, spinning, weaving, washing and cutting is a profound allegory of spiritual transformation. Read through Kashmir Śaiva Tantra, the Vaakh describes the progressive removal of contraction, Mala ( impurities ), which conceals the innate freedom of consciousness. The seeker is not acquiring divinity from outside. She is being stripped of everything that prevents recognition of what she already is. A particularly relevant Śiva Sūtra is 3.28: “Dānam ātmajñānam”, true giving is knowledge of the Self. Lalla’s cotton must surrender every earlier form before it can become something fit for a higher purpose. Tantra similarly understands Sādhana as the disciplined refinement of body, breath, mind and awareness until limited individuality yields to Śiva consciousness. Vedānta reads the same process as the erosion of Avidyā, ignorance, and Ahaṃkāra, ego consciousness. The carder’s blows are discrimination, Viveka; the loom is disciplined concentration; the washerman’s stone is repeated purification; and the tailor’s cutting is the final severance of false identification with name and form. Lalla’s “highest state”, therefore, is not reward after suffering. It is recognition after refinement. What is destroyed is not the Self, but everything mistakenly taken to be the Self.

Commentary on the Painting 

The artist transforms Lalla Ded’s metaphor of cotton into a powerful visual meditation on spiritual refinement. The loom occupies the centre like a sacred field of Sādhana, spiritual discipline. Its multitude of vertical threads suggests consciousness passing through restraint, tension and ordered transformation. Cotton is no longer merely material. It becomes the individual self undergoing purification before attaining its subtler form.

The subdued earth colours, ochres, browns, faded gold and touches of blue create an atmosphere at once ancient and contemplative. The surrounding manuscript fragments suggest inherited memory and scriptural tradition, while the luminous gold around the loom introduces the presence of Prakāśa, the self revealing light of consciousness in Kashmir Śaivism. Blue, appearing within the structure, evokes depth, interiority and the infinite. Tantrically, the loom may be read as the field of Śakti, where apparently separate strands are drawn into unity. Each thread retains its individuality yet participates in a larger pattern, recalling the Śaiva vision in which multiplicity is not separate from Śiva.

The painting thus gives visual form to Lalla’s spiritual insight. The blows, stretching, washing and cutting of cotton become stages in the removal of Mala, impurity. The finished fabric signifies Pratyabhijñā, recognition. Nothing new is created. Consciousness simply recognises its own original freedom.

Behind the taut warp of the loom, the silhouette of Lal Ded appears veiled yet luminous. She is the cotton flower that set forth to bloom, now stretched into thread, enduring beating and spinning. Her calm profile transforms craft into pilgrimage, from raw blossom to refined cloth, from embodied self to liberated consciousness.

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.