Do you know what is this mask? What religion it comes from? (Hinduism, buddhism or some else?). What God does it depict, if any?
I found like some random picture on the Internet without any information about it, and it got me curious what is it. It clearly is in style of far east religions, but I cannot say anything more about it. Seems hinduistic to me, but perhaps some more extravagant thai buddhist temples could be in similar style. Or perhaps it is some modern work without any particular meaning except for artistic vision?
Just tried it. Google image search does not yield an image with the same object, but if everyone here uploads the image we will all find the same image as an exact match
This style is typically found in Far Eastern Hinduism - judging by the winged headgear, it might be Indonesian in origin. Its certainly not Indian (we go for a more humanistic representation) or Thai (they always add a tapered single pointed fitting headgear). Might represent Hanuman - the winged half ape/ half man son of the wind God Pavan. Hanuman is devoted to Lord Ram, his consort Sita and brother Lakshman (thus always represented with small images of them in his heart/ mind). Since Hanuman is an accomplished yogi, his third eye/ mind is represented as all - seeing.
Good luck on your quest!
Thank you very much
This seems very likely. I’ve googled Hanuman and his ape face very much resembles one on this mask. It is interesting because like two days ago I’ve read about Hanuman first time in my life in a book on brahmacarya (chastity), and he was praised there very much by Swami Sivananda as a perfect example of brahmacarin yogi.
This mask interest me because I’ve never seen a more accurate representation of a psychedelic state of mind in sculpture. I’m interested if such way of seeing reality, like depicted on this mask, can be seen by using just meditation practices, or if the esthethics of pure meditation states is different than entheogenic induced.
It is interesting to me because I’m curious how much ancient religions (hinduism included) were using entheogens to get their spiritual wisdom, and such art can perhaps give a little clue.
It is interesting because in buddhism the statues of Buddha for example look much more “normal”, like regular perception. While this is clearly very psychedelic, with all this all-seeing eyes, third eye, faces emerging from faces, geometrical symmetry, divine shapes etc.
Some scholars think that Soma was a psychedelic brew used by Hindu mystics to elevate their states of consciousness. Religious symbols like the one on this mask for me personally suggest that this could be the case.
Here is for example work of Alex Grey, probably most famous psychedelic artist in the world, making so called “vision art”. The all-seeing eye motiff is very related to psychedelic visions:
My line of thinking (which isn’t real science, just my private observations), is such: meditative states induce less "fractalish/all-seeing-eyes/super visionary vision oriented states than entheogenic substances. Buddhist meditation is much more oriented towards purity and simplicity which is resembled in buddhist art as well. So by seeing what symbols are used by some religions, it gives me some indication of where did they seek their knowledge, what was their techniques. But of course I could be totally wrong.
But the fact that Buddhism is very much about soberity (5th precept), and just pure meditation practice to explore deeper states of consciousness, and the fact that Buddhist representations are much less “trippy” to me suggest that some hinduist yogis were actually using psychedelics, and buddhist ones didn’t. Or perhaps hindu yogis were using meditation technieques that weren’t so much related to simplicity and non-grapsing as buddhist ones, but were developed to explore strange visions as well and then be depicted in sacral art, hence the differences in style.
Epilogue to the mask inquiry - It reminded me of masks from Bali so I did some searching back in December when the question was posted.
Mask images then began following me around the Internet - and still do all these weeks later! Perhaps b/c I normally do no online “shopping” the algorithms ran with the input of interest in masks. Lol.
~ Screenshot of an ad that showed up again a couple of days ago ~
Just now noticing your explanatory post behind your curiosity about the mask; you’d enjoy tracking down previous explorations of related topics on the forum.
Do searches for terms such as LSD, hallucinogens, mushrooms and hallucinations. And be sure to read this post:
