Painting Deities with Srila Prabhupada
“One day Srila Prabhupada asked me to paint a set of Radha-Krishna Deities that he was sending to Hamburg to have installed. When I informed him I was not an artist and didn’t feel I could do it, he said that he would show me what to do. So he told me to find a special black, white and red paint, and that evening we sat Them on his small desk and Srila Prabhupada personally painted the Deities and instructed me at the same time. I sat in front of him, and as time seemed to disappear, the lovely forms of the Lords slowly became manifest through the painting. After we were finished, I immediately went to my room and wrote what he had explained. He said that the painting of Radha and Krishna Deities is called Anga-Raga. Anga means ‘body’ and Raga means ‘painting of.’ So Radharani holds her fingers in a mudra. Mudras can also be used by the Spiritual Master when he is preaching, and different mudras have special meanings. And Srila Prabhupada held up his fingers just as Srimati Radharani’s were—with forefinger and thumb together. Srila Prabhupada often used that ‘mudra’ when he made a specific point.”
– Excerpted from “Yamuna Devi: A Life of Unalloyed Devotion”