Sagittarius - Hayagriva, The Lord of Cosmic Consciousness

17 September 2024, coloured pencils and photo work

In Indian temples one finds depictions of beings with human bodies and the head of an animal. They embody various sublime aspects of wisdom that can only be revealed when there is a deeper understanding.

The horse-headed god Hayagriva, an avatar of Vishnu, is a symbol of cosmic wisdom. It is said that Hayagriva returned the divine wisdom of the Vedas to the creator Brahma when the latter lost them due to arrogance. Humility is needed to attain and maintain wisdom.

The symbol of the horse’s head contains the hints to meditate on our head as the head of a white horse and to chant sacred sound formulas. HA is the sound of the Ajna centre, YA is the sound of the head centre - HAYA. By meditating on the light in the head and connecting the brow centre with the head centre with a radiant white glow, this meditation can expand our consciousness and reveal to us all science and wisdom from within. It is considered particularly auspicious to worship Hayagriva in this way each Thursday and in the month of Sagittarius.

To construct the image, I used a photo of a stone relief depicting a meditating Hayagriva in a Japanese temple. Over this I placed two images of the centre of our galaxy, the Galactic Centre which is in Sagittarius. With the help of the photo of the head of a Hayagriva statue in Rajahmundry, South India, I created the Hayagriva figure in the milky white colour associated with Hayagriva.

The upper part of the picture shows a detail of a zodiacal representation with Sagittarius above Hayagriva's crown.