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Kali, represented in her destructive<br />
aspect as Chamunda, detail from an<br />
album painting. Kangra, c. 18th<br />
century. Gouache on paper.<br />
78<br />
single impulse, their wrathful appearance can agitate the eye and<br />
transport the spectator to a supernatural world. From an aesthetic<br />
point of view they suggest a flight from reality and an awareness<br />
of a profoundly different world: the poignant, restless and<br />
aggressive. These images unveil reality so that it is stripped bare,<br />
and have the same mind-altering capability to induce extraordinary<br />
experience which arouses intense inward states of rich<br />
spiritual content. Their most characteristic feature is that they are<br />
images which seem to have sprung from a non-rational source but<br />
nevertheless have a rational basis within defined limits. For<br />
example, Chinnamasta, the beheaded goddess, holds her severed<br />
head; apart from its symbolic meaning, the dismemberment of her<br />
body ought not to be confused with actual distortion: the image is<br />
not dissociated from its meaning, which underlies and generates<br />
the image; where dislocation appears it is to heighten visual<br />
impact.
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