Batik Paintings about Music and Dance

"In Indian tradition dance was...a divine dimension of the man\'s act... The dancer...sublimated his own self...and united with the supreme Self... The ancient Indian mind...had unique reverence for dance... it conceived its gods as dancers discovering in dance the accomplishment of their assigned functions, ranging from creation to annihilation, and the divine grace - an essential attribute of gods... The tradition...acclaims Shiva as both, the first exponent of dance and the first linguist... Vishnu...is revered as the \'Adi-nratya-guru\' along with Shiva and Kali... Dance has been classified under four categories...secular; ritual; abstract; and, interpretive... India\'s art imagery and sacred architecture found...in dance its most natural and intimate idiom..."

"Mysticism is the inherent desire to seek oneness with the ultimate reality... the sense organs provide the only window to perceive this supreme state of being... This state is non-material, just like music is... the first musical instrument was the human body itself, and the first created music, the human voice... In mysticism, everything is vibration... all material forms made up of vibrations... The drum, through its rhythms, replicates these vibrations... the beating together of cymbals is said to signify the symbolic union of opposites... an activity which is necessary to maintain the harmony of the dynamic universe... the flute... gives forth a clear, pure and simple sound... both intensely melancholy and entrancingly sprightly... The sacredness and reverence for the flute can be gauged form the fact that it is often deified as an extension of Krishna\'s own beauty"