Sacred Art & Iconography
Adi Shankaracharya (Raja Ravi Varma and Ravi Varma Press, Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation)
Lithograph, Raja Ravi Varma and the Ravi Varma Press, circa 1904, Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation (Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy collection)
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A lithograph print of a painting by the Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma and the Ravi Varma Press, circa 1904, showing Adi Shankara at its focal point, dressed in red, surrounded by his four principal disciples. The composition illustrates his founding of four monastic centers, or mathas, across India to preserve and transmit Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Held today in the Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy collection at the Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation, Bengaluru, India.
Facts
Subject Matter
Devotional FunctionThe Ravi Varma Press was a pioneer of mass-produced chromolithography in India, and prints like this one were made specifically to be affordable enough for ordinary households to place before a home shrine; the press is widely credited with standardizing what a given religious figure looked like in Hindu popular devotion far beyond what temple sculpture or manuscript painting alone could reach. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Depicts
The painting's directly named and focal subject per the holding foundation's own record, shown teaching his four principal disciples, matching Wikipedia's independent use of the same image as its own portrait of him.
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