The Divine Creativity: The Mythical Paradigm and Lord Visvakarma

The Divine Creativity: 

The Mythical Paradigm and Lord Visvakarma

To some it may seem disingenuous and essentially primitive, yet one notices increas-

ingly many endorsing the belief that theories of creativity derive from cultures’ creation 

myths (Sinclair, 1971). Various cultures and traditions have brought into focus varying 

images, myths, metaphors and notions of creativeness and the processes underlying it. 

For instance, the religious tradition of India associates creativity with spiritual realiza-

tion and the creative process is considered to be spiritual, synthetic, and conforming. It 

is a means of suggesting or recreating a vision, however fleeting, of a divine truth; and 

regards art as a means of experiencing a state of bliss akin to the state of ananda or

jivan mukti (release in life.) The image of dancing Siva, Nataraja, is the supreme sym-

bol of all aspects of life as much as dance itself which represents the synthesis of all as-

pects of creative activity (Vatsyayan, 1968). The Chinese view of cosmic creation has 

been described as “an ongoing progress—a developing, an unfolding” (Sinclair, 1971, 

p.83). In contrast, Judaic and Greek views of cosmic creation involve “an abrupt pro-

duction of the universe—by an uncreated being who brings order to the formless void” 

(Sinclair, 1971, p.84). Further support to the creation myth-creativity belief is offered 

by Ben-Amos (1986, p.60): “In some African cultures—the artist at work is viewed as 

enacting or recreating the origin myth.” The Dogon weaver, who draws threads from

the spindles of a loom, is symbolically identified with Nommo, a primordial being, who 

wove together four elements to make the universe. Thus, “the cosmogony,” writes Eli-

ade (1963, p.32), “is the explanatory model for every creative situation; whatever man 

does is in some way a repetition of the pre-eminent ‘deed,’ the archetypal gesture of the 

Creator God, the Creation of the World.” In summary, concludes Lubart (1990, p.43), 

the hypothesis that modern views of creativity stem from cultural creation myths seems 

plausible and deserve further research. However, unfortunately not many in the field of 

creativity take such myths, metaphors, parables, legends, stories, political rhetoric and 

poetic afflatus, tales, (verbal and written), images, similes or philosophical speculations 

which vehicle concepts, and are also goal-and context-sensitive, abundantly used in 

various texts, very seriously and generously. One would be greatly mistaken in judging 

them as naive or euphemism for primitivism, even though some from other cultures 

may find themselves at a loss in comprehending the terms, concepts and allusions 

which characterize other cultures. 

Elsewhere, in the perspective of cross-cultural creativity research, I (Raina, in press) 

have pleaded for fostering appreciation of other cultures, building relations among peo-

ple, generating a self reflecting consciousness, acquiring emphatic sensitivity to other 

cultures which requires immersing oneself in that culture’s world view in order to ob-

serve in oneself the effect of such an immersion. To understand myths and metaphors 

underlying creativity in various religions and cultures one should be armed with perse-

verance, and approach them with respect and acute sensitivity. Moreover, one should 

rid oneself of preconceived ideas and be prepared to receive, with an open and construc-

tive mind, the messages of another, a very different world. 

Since antiquity, in both Eastern and Western traditions, religion has inspired, funded or 

influenced the vast majority of great arts. Traditionally, art and religion has been 

 Lord Visvakarma’s name is variously spelled and different names given to him in the literature.

closely associated in all cultures; indeed Coomaraswamy (1956, p.62) has categorically 

declared: “Art is religion, religion is art, not related, but the same.” Certainly, the inter-

twined histories of art and religion make one wonder if the well-springs of creativity 

and spirituality can really be distinct. Various considerations support the thesis that re-

ligion and art, even if not interchangeable, are inseparable (Coleman, 1996). In various 

religions, particularly in non-Western settings, gods of originality are worshipped and 

creative individuals are praised. For example, creative architectural geniuses among 

West African Hausa are admired and emulated by builders (Saad, 1985). In the Benin 

culture, the deity, Olokun, god of inspiration and idealism, is revered (Ben-Amos, 

1986). Hindu religion provides a comprehensive though complex explanation for the 

existence of a god of creativity that forms the subject for explanation in this paper. 

Hindu religion, though one of the oldest among those surviving from furthermost antiq-

uity, not only retains its freshness to this day, but gains a new impulse as its beliefs and 

myths concur with contemporary discoveries and scientific theories resting upon them; 

a most complex religion, with its three hundred thousand gods and goddesses, and yet 

simple in its monistic approach to the supreme essence of divinity; a religion one would 

be tempted to term ‘childish,’ after a superficial glance at its mythology, but which nev-

ertheless is, in its deeper approach to the problems of knowledge, of ethics and of cos-

mogony, the very expression of wisdom (Vitsaxis, 1977). Hinduism has constantly pro-

claimed ancient truth to the world from the depths of the centuries, through complex 

myths and symbols which to a great extent form its essence. “It fascinates men of our 

time who discover with every passing day truths, hidden within its symbols, that are 

confirmed with modern science and ideas which contemporary thoughts is merely be-

ginning to comprehend, as in the radiance of some future dawn” (Vitsaxis, 1977, p.11). 

They contain as much as one’s mind or soul is able to absorb; small or big, yet always 

important. “The deep underlying symbolism, important though it may be, and the pro-

found mystical philosophy, however satisfying it may seem to the intellectual, are only 

secondary manifestations of a mythopoeic tradition unique in the world for its richness 

and continuity” (Basham 1977, p.10). More than mythology, Hindu mythology is a liv-

ing religion. 

The religion of the Hindus, strictly speaking is monotheism. They worship God—the 

Supreme Being or the ‘First Cause’—in unity and express their conceptions of the Di-

vine Being and his attributes in the most awful and sublime terms. God, thus adored, is 

called Brahma : the One Eternal Mind; the self existing incomprehensible Spirit. The 

Supreme Being is in its quintessence in a state of both absolute serenity and calm as 

well as overflowing creative activity. It is birth and death; light and darkness. Every-

thing is the maya of that Unique Being ‘the illusion maker’ of which we ourselves are 

infinitesimal parts, cosubstantial with it, as are all created beings, as the rays of the sun 

are cosubstantial with the Sun itself. The will of God, that the world should exist and 

continue, is personified; and his creative and preservative powers appear in Brahma and 

Vishnu, Siva is the emblem of his destructive energy; not, however, of absolute annihi-

lation, but rather of reproduction in another form. In mythology, therefore, this triad 

represents the almighty powers of creation, preservation and destruction. Creativity for 

Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (in Raina, 1993)—the high priest of creativity that is 

marked with authenticity—is the process of continuity—of Brahma, Vishnu and 

Maheshwara (Siva), working in tandem of creating, maintaining and destroying to cre-

ate. Interestingly, of Brahma, the deity’s creative energy, less appears to have been said and sung, than comparatively of the other coequal members of the triad. The act of crea-

tion is past; the creative power of the deity has no immediate interference in the con-

tinuance or cessation of material existence, or in the other words with the preservation 

or destruction of the universe (Moor, 1968, p.5). But that is a different story. 

The Hindus hold that the Supreme Being can only be conceived in the abstract by the 

intellectually or spiritually gifted, and the masses, for their worship, require deities with 

forms and sentiments; and for their benefit certain aspects of this Supreme Being are 

personified into deities. Practically, every aspect of life has been deified and the pan-

theon enriched by animism, ancestor worship and idol imagination (Thomas, n.d.). 

Idolatry is also permitted because of the essentially pantheistic nature of Advaita, the 

predominating school of Hindu philosophy. Hinduism also recognises that many people 

need a god they can feel close to, a god they can picture in their minds and worship. 

But each of them, for most Hindus, is simply one facet of the Supreme. Beyond these 

many gods there is really only the One. 

According to Hindu tradition, all the arts and crafts are of divine origin, having being 

revealed and handed down to certain individuals by “the miraculous genius” (Zimmer, 

1962, p.3) Lord Visvakarma—the creative archetypal power. The Primordial Creator 

and Supreme Patron of Arts, Crafts, Science and Creativity is Lord Visvakarma

(Sharma, 1989). He is at once the Great Architect of the Universe, Spirit of the Creative 

Process, and a symbol of Total Centered Consciousness. He is also known as Vis-

vakarmaya: Creative Power of the Whole Universe. The obvious meaning of the word 

Visvakarman is “all-maker” (visva means ‘all’ and karman means ‘maker’) Visvakarma

the “All Creating” thought to be the Vulcan of the Greeks and Romans (Wilkins, 1882), 

appears as an independent Hindu deity as early as last book of Rig-Veda. Later in the 

Brahmans he is “expressly identified with the creator Prajapati” (Hastings, 1960, III, 

606,b). As the highest of the gods, he is synonymous with Brahma of the Hindu trinity, 

said to have originated in the primeval waters, as the Golden Germ, the World Womb-

Egg (Hiranyagarbha) containing all the other gods in the world. Like Brahma, Vis-

vakarma, the Creator, is one of the many names which may be applied to almost any of 

the gods at the will of the worshipper. Wise and mighty in act, Visvakarma orders all 

things, and men desire the attainment of good in the world where “he, the One Being, 

dwells beyond the seven Rishis” (sages). He is the maker of the region Sutala, whereby 

his will, as in the greek Elysion, “neither mental nor bodily pains, nor fatigue, nor wea-

riness, nor discomfiture, nor diseases afflict the inhabitance” (in Cox, 1870 p.166). In 

the two hymns in the Rig-Veda he is described as “the one all-seeing god, who, when 

producing heaven and earth, blows them forth (or shapes them) with his arms and 

wings; the father, generator, disposer, who knows all worlds, gives the gods their 

names, and is beyond the comprehension of mortals.” In the Mahabharata I.2592, con-

sequent on the development made by the Hindus in the arts of civilization, Visvakarma

is described as “the Lord of the arts, executor of the thousand handicrafts, the carpenter 

of the gods, the fashioner of all ornaments, the most eminent of artisans on whose craft 

men subsist and whom, as a great and immortal god, they continually worship.” He re-

vealed the fourth Upaveda (class of writings subordinate to the Vedas) in various trea-

tises on sixty-four mechanical arts, for the improvement of such as exercise them; and 

he is inspector of all manual labors and mechanical arts. His name is of some celebrity 

in mythological legends. Visvakarma, the Maker of All, is said to have built the homes 

of Brahma and Yama, the underwater palace of Varuna, the celestial Chariot, Pushpaka, and the first claypot or kalasa which was used to collect the amrit, the ambrosia that 

emerged at the time of the churning of the ocean. In Visvakarma’s name, a number of 

manuals on architecture and sculpture, such as the Visvakarma prakasha, have been 

written and compiled from memory by succeeding generation of artists. The Chandella 

inscription of Dhangadeva found at Khajuraho records the construction of a Siva temple 

which was built by the architect Chhichchha who was “as versatile as Visvakarma” in 

knowledge. Even in the historical inscriptions the reference to Visvakarma building the 

temples of Khajuraho resounds in metaphors similar to that of the Shivpurana, though it 

must be remembered that the association of artists with Visvakarma, the divine architect 

was popular at that time (Punja, 1992 p. 133). 

In the contemporary pantheon of Hinduism, Brahama as Lord Visvakarma who was ini-

tially worshipped on the same level as the other two of the triad, evolved in the course 

of centuries into a somewhat unilateral and, therefore, lesser god and for all practical 

purposes stands on a somewhat lower level than the two other members of the triad, and 

his worshippers have become steadily fewer in number. The goddess Saraswati, also 

said to possess creative power of imagination and invention is generally regarded 

throughout India as his Shakti or female counterpart. Images of Brahma are placed in 

the temples of other gods but he has not many temples, or rites, exclusively dedicated to 

him.

Considered to be the son of the Vasuprabhasa and his wife, Yogasiddha, according to 

one tradition, Visvakarma had five faces, ten hands and from each of the face he begot a 

son. Like their father, each of the sons was extraordinarily talented and versatile in all 

fields and because of their stature, they were also awarded the title of Maharishi (great 

sage or saint) (Sharma, 1989). Each of the five sons gave rise to a major artistic lineage, 

and theoretically any artist can trace his mythical descent to one of them. The five sons 

of Visvakarma are claimed to have been the first blacksmith, the first carpenter, the first 

founder, the first mason, the first goldsmith, variously and the succeeding generation of 

the craftsmen are supposed to be their progeny. Roberts (1909, p.11) quotes a passage 

from the Vedas: 

Manu was a blacksmith and author of the Rig Veda. Maya was a carpenter 

and author of Yajur Veda. Twashtak was a brass caster and author of 

Sama Veda. Shilpi was a mason-architect and author of the Atharvana 

Veda. And Vishvagna was a goldsmith and author of the Pranava Veda. 

Visvakarma represents an active creative power, and for this reason he is often depicted 

in red—the color red being related to creative force, passion and activity in ancient 

texts. According to another tradition as Shukla (1957, p. 184) explains : “He has four 

heads in reference to the four quarters of his yajna or sacrifice, is full of Kamana or de-

sire and creation: ‘I shall be many’ (sodkamayat aha bahusya prajayeyam)” declared 

the god of creativity. Analysis of some myths around Panchabrahma (Visvakarma) de-

scribing his various creative powers and traits is available in Singh (1968). 

No images of this god are now made, but since all Visvakarma artisans have ritualized 

their tools, each artisan worship them and one day in the year is specially set apart for 

this purpose. “Visvakarma becomes the symbol of Hindu creativity and his anniversary 

the regeneration of a lost glory” (Kumar, 1988, p.207). The carpenter bows down to his 

hammer, saw, etc.; the student to his books; the bricklayer to his trowel; the peasant to his plough; the potter his wheel; the blacksmith his hammer and bellows; and the 

weaver his shuttle; the clerk his pen. Soldiers and warlike tribes worship their weapons. 

The Indian crafts man, as Mulk Raj Anand (1957) has noticed, was well versed in the 

subtleties of the higher religion of philosophy, and believing in a Supreme God brought 

his faith in a philosophically defined Divinity and his inheritance of myth to bear upon 

the sacred task of rendering explicit the implications of the Cosmic Life. In order to sus-

tain his vocation on the secure foundations of religion and to give it an exalted place in 

the scheme of Hindu social life, he traced his descent of his caste from Visvakarma. The 

Visvakarmas who may be called Silpa Brahmans or Visvabrahmans are “the reflected 

forms of Visvakarman”(Gnanananda, 1981, p.10). They repeat in the world the works 

of their great mythological ancestor. Every artist or poet has a share in the divine artistic 

power and intuition (Pratibha), and is himself a human representative of the Divine Ar-

chitect (Visvakarma), the creator (Brahma, Prajapati) (Baumer, 1985). The same con-

tention is reflected in Rabindranath Tagore (1988, p.30) who quotes the Upanishad: 

“This deity who is manifesting himself in the activities of the universe always dwells in 

the heart of man as the supreme soul. Those who realize him through the immediate 

perception of the heart attain immortality.” In the Visvakarma ideology, Lord Vis-

vakarman is an image of the cosmos composed of a male and female constituent part. 

The Visvakarma craftsman, being His worldly counterpart, is thus also an image of the 

cosmos. Subsequent to this idea, the crafts are seen as a transcendent act of destruction 

and creation similar to that process of the heavenly Visvakarman” (Brouwer, 1995, 

p.33). Maduro (1976) who did, with psychoanalytic expertise and anthropological per-

spective, a penetrating study of the nature and genesis of creativity in the painters of 

Nathdwara, in Rajasthan, India, through the use of life histories, dreams, projective tests 

and other sources of psychological data, found that at his best, the artist identifies with 

and internalizes the psychic functions and values associated with the personality of

Lord Visvakarma, his mythical ancestor from whom artistic unity, diversity and creative 

energy are derived. “During the ritual of artistic creation, the artist says he feels the liv-

ing presence of the god, and he experiences himself in his work as if he were an instru-

ment of divine communication between the archetypal forces at work in him and the 

needs and values of his collectivity. He accepts the mythical paradigm in which the an-

cestor god first taught the artists how to plan and create. This acceptance lends certainty 

and psychological coherence to his everyday life and work by explaining the origins of 

what is known to exist. Man does now what the gods did originally. Artists create now 

as they were taught to in primordial, sacred time” (Maduro, 1976, p.74). Almost similar 

findings were obtained in the study (Brouwer, 1991, 1995) restricted to those groups of 

artisans in Karnataka state in India who present themselves to the outside world as the 

Visvakarma caste. This is reflected in the process which underlies creativity among the 

Visvakarmas, the artisans. The process of creativity for those artisans moves between 

the two poles of integration and disintegration. The stage of transformation of substance 

shows an interaction accompanied by the sound of the hammer (dammaru), thus activat-

ing the cyclical rhythm of the cosmos. The Visvakarma artisan, who has the knowledge 

of the intrinsic coherence of the universe, realizes this. Because of his knowledge, he 

himself has to be identified with the cosmos. In the rituals connected with the sacrifice, 

the Visvakarma artisan is seen as repeating the sacrifice of his mythological ancestor, 

Visvakarma. He himself is the Vishvakarma of the universe that is his workshop, while 

Visvakarma is invoked in the kalasas (ornamental water-vessel; jar; pitcher; vase) used 

in the rituals. In the workshop, the cosmic drama of integration and disintegration takes place, and at its center stands the Visvakarma as sacrificer and ritualist. The Vis-

vakarma becomes the universe himself. In the world view of the Visvakarmas, the two 

poles of cosmic life are Kali (goddess shakti) and Siva. The result of the drama is a 

product which is a symbolic representation of the world (Brouwer, 1995, pp. 173–173). 

During a phase of the creative process, the Nathdwara artists remove themselves sym-

bolically from the normal world by burning incense to Visvakarma, praying for inspira-

tion from his patron (Ishta Deva), and assumes a posture conducive to the reception of 

ideas and impulses from within. 

The Lord’s assertion: ‘I shall be many,’ we understand, is of great psychic significance 

to the creative artists of Nathdwara, who have cited to Maduro folk versions of this pas-

sage. The implications are profound and refer to the multifaceted nature of Visvakarma

as an important living self symbol of the creative unconscious mind. The god’s words 

imply that in oneness and unity there is yet endless diversity, duality, nuances, and 

artistic variation. Rabindranath Tagore (1988, p.31) has expressed it more philosoph

cally: 

i-

He is Visvakarma; that is, in a multiplicity of forms and forces lies his 

outward manifestation in nature; but his inner manifestation in our soul is 

that which exists in unity. Our pursuit of truth in the domain of nature 

therefore is through analysis and the gradual methods of science, but our 

apprehension of truth in our soul is immediate and through direct intuition. 

We cannot attain the supreme soul by successive additions of knowledge 

acquired bit by bit even through all eternity, because he is one, he is not 

made up of parts; we can only know him as heart of our hearts and soul of 

our soul; we can only know him in the love and joy we feel when we give 

up our self and stand before him face to face. 

Artists have generally talked at length about the significance of Visvakarma. We are 

told the more creative a painter is, the more he says he feels ordained to live out person-

ally the myth of Visvakarma. Further, “Indian folk culture provides Visvakarma, a posi-

tive ego ideal which “captures” a projection of the father archetype and is then intro-

jected (or, in a sense, reintrojected). This introjection corresponds to the ritual identifi-

cation with the creative power of the deity and provides one of the many culturally pat-

terned (activated) intrapsychic complexes through which the creative instinct may be 

filtered" (p.137). Mulk Raj Anand (1957, p.94–95) whose understanding of Indian arts 

is deep and insightful has made a perceptive observation: 

Like most other myths consciously invented to make abstruse philosophi-

cal theories interesting and easily intelligible to those for whom, as I have 

constantly said, it is much easier to love than to know, this myth has very 

far-reaching consequences. The Indian craftsmen, whether the most so-

phisticated priest-artists or simple manual workers, were enabled by this 

picturesque story to comprehend that since the Supreme God in the form

of Visvakarma, the artist-craftsman of heaven, was the founder of the arts 

and bequeathed His knowledge to His first five human artisan-sons (the 

ancestors of all succeeding craftsmen). Divine skill had been preserved in-

tact in their families and cast through the laws of heredity. And the fact 

that the Supreme God was generally understood not only to be the first 

practitioner of the crafts, but also the ideal practitioner, the ideal crafts man, crystallizing Absolute Beauty, Absolute Rhythm, Absolute Propor-

tion in Himself and in His work, supplied the artisans a model to live up 

to, and raised the pursuit of their art above the eccentricity of particular 

individual and limited ideas of beauty to an acknowledged universal ideal 

of perfection which is philosophically and aesthetically one of the broad-

est and the most comprehensive view of order that the human mind in all 

countries and among all nations has been able to evolve and formulate 

when strained to its utmost resources. With all the simplicity of his faith 

the Indian artisan sought thus, through the Divine Visvakarma, to gain, if 

he could, one little glimpse of the inmost essence of all things, he strove to 

suggest some vaguest hints of Reality, so that he himself and yearning 

humanity might in some small way be helped to overcome the obstacles 

presented by their finitude in the way of the realization of the Infinite. 

In another context, I (Raina, 1996) have pleaded that within the amazing diversity and 

cultural pluralism that characterizes our contemporary societies, where Visvakarma

manifests himself in various activity in a multiplicity of forms and forces, it becomes 

imperative to adopt a perspective which frees us from remaining chained to a single sta-

tion point and help erase the boundaries rather than to stress them. This has definite im-

plications for the consciousness we may adopt as creativity researchers to explore cul-

tural and sub-cultural perspectives which underlie myths and metaphors as they relate to 

theories of creativity. That will make our pilgrimage in search of Lord Visvakarma

really meaningful and rewarding. 

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