The first attempt wasn’t turning out too well, so I asked them to start over again.
This time I watched the sculptors finish all the Deities except the one of Srila Prabhupada.
Enchanted, I felt I could see right through the white and black marble to the finished Deities inside.Ī few months later, after a short visit to our clay modeling workshop in Bengal, I returned to Jaipur. The two brothers were being carved in Their characteristic shapes, and just for fun the sculptors had put Them together the way They would appear on the altar, with Balarama’s elbow raised up to lean on Krishna’s shoulder and Krishna’s arms positioned to hold His flute. A small deviation in the rules can remain as long as the Deity has the proper mood.Īfter instructing the sculptor on the few changes I wanted made, I saw two rough chunks of marble–one white and the other black–that were to become the Deities of Balarama and Krishna. There are also strict rules about proportion, but they are secondary. I was trying to stick to the old tradition, where the image is considered beautiful only when it reflects the meditative mood of the sculptor and evokes that same mood in the onlooker. Indian sculptors have their own tradition, but much of it has been spoiled by years of catering to modern tastes. The two that were almost finished were good, and I suggested only a few small changes–a slight enlargement of the eyes and a change in the cheek structure. My first look at the Deities was inspiring. When I arrived in Jaipur, the sculptor let me stay at his home along with the twenty-five members of his household–three generations–all of whom helped with the carving. I was in Mayapur, in what is now West Bengal, when I received a letter from His Holiness Gurudasa Swami asking me to go to Jaipur to see how the carving of the twelve Deities for the Krishna-Balarama Temple was coming along. Lo and behold, the truck with Krishna and Balarama had pulled in! I rose, dressed, and went outside to see what was going on. All the peacocks in Vrndavana seemed to be trumpeting their piercing cries, producing waves of sound that swept across miles of holy land to the other side of town, echoing back and forth. By baradraja-dasa | Full size image 2 Spirit From Stone–The Story of the Krishna-Balarama Deities of VrndavanaĪbout two A.M.
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