Jesus the "Light of the World"

Jesus offering the Light (Arathi) Oil on Canvas. 2004 Collection of the Artist.

Light is the symbol probably most common to all religious traditions. Here are some typical texts:


Bhagavad Gita
God brightens the world with his light,
He alone moves as the inner controller of all…
The Great Being without flaw, one and indivisible
Pure, the Light of lights….
His shining illumining the whole world.

The splendour in the sun, which bathes the whole world in light,
The splendour in the moon and in the fire –
Know that it is all from me.
Thus too I penetrate the earth,
and sustain all things with my vigour…
I will set you free from evil, have no fear.

The Holy Quran
Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth.
His light can be compared to a niche
that enshrines a lamp…
It is lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither eastern nor western.
Its very oil would almost shine forth,
though no fire touched it.
Light upon light;
Allah guides to his light whom he will.

Granth Sahib
In every heart there is light;
That light art thou.
By the light that is God himself
is every soul illumined.

Or, to return to the Hebrew tradition (Psalms):
Your word is a lamp to my feet,
a light to my path....
Let your face shine on your servant.

The Lord is my light,
my light and my salvation.

Thus, the illumining presence of God is a key part of this light symbolism. The darkness may threaten, but all its dangers are dispersed when the devotee is assured of the divine presence. ‘A lamp for my feet’ is an image that especially resonates with the everyday experience of a village Indian Christian. Recalling words from scripture will be a daily source of guidance and encouragement, and - especially for those socially oppressed - a source of newly confident self-identity.

Then, in more ‘sophisticated’ traditions of India, light will more likely refer to the soul’s inner illumining, the dawning of a heightened consciousness, a transformed vision that is to become the means of transformed life. Christ’s followers too have often expressed their faith in such terms, especially those who have been touched by one or other Christian Ashram. And invariably, in worship aiming to be more indigenous and culturally responsive, the opening act will be the lighting of the central lamp. As the Alternative CSI Liturgy puts it:
‘As the lamp is lit, may the flame of God’s loving presence
spring up in our hearts
and transform us by the knowledge of his glory’.

Jesus washing the feet of Peter.

a. Light Jeus at the last supper. ( Oil on Canvas, part of the series on John’s Gospel, published by Art India as "And the Word was made Flesh". Painting in the collection of Sneha Sadan, Pune.)
First we have quite a small painting. A lamp at the centre is framed by the face and hands of Christ, and these reflect the light of the lamp so strongly, they seem to be equally part of the light itself. ‘God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness”, made his light shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4: 6). Or, in the words of Jesus according to John: ‘I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).

The second is in some ways a similar picture. On the eve of his ultimate self-offering Jesus acts out the central point of his new Way (Jn. 13:1-16) - self-giving love is all. ‘Loving his disciples even unto the end’, he washed the feet of his own disciples - those who in the eyes of any other belief-system should be washing their Guru’s feet. Peter is, as usual, at the centre, as it was he who was most defiantly resistant to such turning upside-down of the Guru-follower relationship.

The whole scene is contained within the flame of an Indian lamp. Inner illumining, enhanced consciousness, new birth - for Jesus and his followers all such ‘enlightening’ is intended to lead to self-effacing commitment to the well-being of others. We note the royal purple of Peter’s robe and the renouncer’s saffron worn by the foot-washing Jesus.

Jesus the Lord: Central face of the Trinity

b. Trinity/Trimurti (Mandala Trimurti, Collage with gouache. 1973. In the collection of Missio in Aachen)
The experience of one God as a community of love between Father, Son and Spirit, in mainstream Christian faith has been seen as a key to ‘transforming vision’. Yet, few doctrines have baffled as much as the doctrine of three-in-One. In Muslim tradition, for instance, any reference to Jesus as ‘Son of God’, one within a Trinity, has usually been anathema, blasphemously making a human being equal with the Creator who is absolutely One, and is incomparably other than all his creation. From the Fathers of early Christian centuries onwards, three-in-oneness has been seen as the key to the perfection God’s inner life; the key also to human communion with divine Being and experience of divine life.

Catholic theological encounter with Hindu philosophical thought led the more mystical and metaphysical (Upadhyay, Abhishiktananda, Pierre Johanns, R.V.de Smet and others) to find there important new insights for their trinitarian faith. For, while in Hindu religious experience there have been so many ‘names and forms’ (for divine beings too), the ultimate oneness of all things, all beings, there has also been given crucial revelatory import.
An early Vedic text, for example, says: ‘The seers call by many names that which is one’. And later: ‘By their words the sages impart manifold forms to that Bird which is one’. In the complex iconography of later Hindu faith, we find a three-faced image, a Tri-murti, expressing three-in-oneness. Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer are all found within One (usually in fact Vishnu).

It was mostly at an earlier stage that Jyoti expressed this three-in-one form in his imagery. The one we show here is a mandala, a circular symbolic focus for meditation. Jyoti writes: The face in profile on the left represents the Father, with his hand raised in the ‘Do not fear’ mudra. The central figure is Jesus, the Lord who is most manifest to our vision. In Hindu tradition this would be Isvara. The mudra is that of teacher, similar to the gesture indicating the Word that we find in Christian icons. Two fingers point upwards, two fingers, along with the thumb, folded across the hand. In traditional iconography index and ring fingers represent the two natures of Christ, human and divine.

The face in profile on the right is feminine. The ‘Energy’ in Hindu tradition, here she is divine Wisdom (sophia), the Presence (shekinah), the divine Spirit animating all. (This was how Fr Bede understood the image). Her gesture is that of Dhyana, pointing to the meditation by which we enter into a new consciousness, or - sometimes in western tradition - pointing to Beauty and Perfection.

The three faces are encircled by a folk-Indian Kolama pattern, rather like Celtic knot-forms. Some may see the burning bush here; others the crown of thorns. In fact what Moses saw - and where he heard the ‘I am that I am’ - was probably a thorn-bush.

There was, too, a more subtle form of threeness: within the fulness that is God, there is a one-in-threeness of ‘being-consciousness-bliss’ (sat-chit-ananda). Some Indian theologians saw close similarities here with Christian faith in Father, Son and Spirit.

Jesus knocking at the Door of the Heart.

c. Door (Jesus the Door,Oil on Canvas.1992.Part of the series on the Seven Acts of Mercy. In the collection of the Missions Prokura sj, Nuerenberg)
Of the numerous other key texts in John by which Jesus identifies his distinctive being, one says: ‘I am the Door’. This is very similar to his saying, ‘I am the Way’. In the first case the door is the entrance to the sheep-fold. Not only is he the Good Shepherd guiding, leading the faithful. The fourth Gospel’s vision of Christian discipleship (a vision so beloved of many earlier Indian Christian thinkers) is not just of faithful following; it is a sharing in his love, an entering into his very life, his mind, his spirit. ‘I no longer call you servants; you are friends (for you know my mind)’. He is the Door, the Way, through which they pass in intimacy and mutual love.

Muslim Sufi mystics - with their dancing, their sense of God as the Door around which they turn in dance, through which they pass in the harmony of mystic love - made a great impression on large numbers of Hindu people over a thousand years ago. A Darveshi (the once denigratory ‘whirling dervisher’ refers to these ecstatic dancers) literally means a Door-person, one who through the whirling dance passed through the door.

Jyoti here attempts to convey the mystery of Christ as both coming through a door (the door from eternity to our world) and inviting those who would enter into relationship with him to pass through this door, to discover with him the true meaning and goal of life here on earth.

The Risen Christ as the Dancer.

"He who Steps Over--The Tandavan" (Oil on Canvas 1975. Published by Art India, Pune, as "And the Word Became Flesh". In the collection of the Missions Prokura sj, Nuerenberg)

The theme of Jesus the Dancer can be related both to the Suffering Lord on the Cross, surrounded by the flames of his agony, but also to the Risen Lord, who steps over the sleepers, who lie near his tomb. In fact the theme of the dance, which is one of Liberation, is to be understood as the symbol of the Divine Life that conquers all forms of suffering and death. In the art of the middle ages, we find the depiction of the "Dance of Death", but hidden under this dance of suffering, and human mortality, is the promise of life beyond death.

Dancer on the Cross

Dancing Jesus on the Cross. (Oil on Canvas. Part of a series of Stations of the Cross. Published by Art India as "Meditations on the Way of the Cross". 1978. With the Missions Procura sj, Neuremberg)
In a very different painting, while Jesus is fire-enclosed, there is a serenely languid ecstasy. The surrounding flames seem hardly to touch the delicately strong body of the risen Jesus. The fiery colours are there, but almost like bright autumnal leaves falling away from as much as leaping up to engulf this sinuous figure. Deep shades of blue break through, and though the figure is suspended, as though still crucified, yet he dances - caught between heaven’s bliss and earth’s fiery struggles. He is clearly one who ‘has overcome the world’, to use John’s language. His very Indian dhoti is hitched up for the dance, his face looks down but shows, as does his whole body, only calm and confident acceptance of the divine path of suffering. The whole portrayal of Jesus here closely reflects the perspective of the fourth evangelist, John, so beloved by many earlier ‘Indian Christian theologians’. At the same time, we see the serene lasya dance of India’s Nataraj, in striking contrast to his fierce tandava. In no faith are God’s ways mono-chromatic.

Dancer with a drum

Woodcut of the Dancer, Ps.29.56. From the Psalm Series (1978.Published in "The Holy Waters", Indian Psalm Meditations. Asian Trading Corporation, Banglaore, 1984)

Because you love the burning-grounds,
I have made one of my heart,
that you may dance therein your eternal dance.

The dancer here carries a round-bodied (earth-like?) drum under one arm, the other flung up in order to beat his heavenly rhythm. He is, as usual, poised on one toe, balanced between earth and heaven even in the midst of the storm.