Pradakshina

Pradakshina is the circumambulation of a sacred image or shrine, performed in a clockwise direction (the literal meaning is 'keeping the sacred object on your right'. The right side of the body is considered more auspicious in Hindu culture). It is a symbolic act indicating that the deity is the centre of the worshipper's life, and being.

Rajasthani Painting

Detail from a Rajasthani miniature painting currently on display in the exhibition Garden and Cosmos, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment. The generally small scale of the medieval pictures has led secondly to an etymological confusion of the term with minuteness and to its application to small paintings especially portrait miniatures, which did however grow from the same tradition and at least initially use similar techniques.

Ramananda Bandopadhyay