Chelsea Clinton called him “the most beautiful man” she had ever met after she saw an exhibition of his paintings. Atal Behari Vajpayee, Pramukh Swami Maharaj and Srichand Hinduja have his paintings in their collection. Corporate giants like Citibank, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Progetti International have commisioned his works of art. Cindy Crawford has unveiled one his paintings. Major TV channels like BBC, CNN and Star Plus have featured his interviews. I am talking about Sadhak Shivanand Saraswati, the famous spiritual painter from India, who has painted on wide ranging subjects like the Vedas, Tantra, Zen, Buddhism, Jainism and Sufism, and continues to make huge ripples in the art world.
Born as Udayraj Gadnis, he had a spiritual calling in 1991 to express his inner self through painting. "I took shishya diksha in Benares and experienced life as a disciple, learning the dynamics of the Vedas, puranas, the Upanishads, Sufi passion and Buddhist compassion," he said.
In 1994, Udayraj had a vision in a trance – he saw himself wandering a beautiful forest which had a huge ancient well with a white-scented flowering tree growing by its side. After a search lasting two years, he went to Old Goa, where he found himself lost in a forest.
“I lost my way and suddenly slipped on the edge of an ancient well and white scented flowers fell in abundance,” he said nostalgically. The joy of discovering this site sent him into a trance for three and a half days, and when he woke up he decided to build a Shiva temple on that very spot. On 5 March 2000, he opened the Divya Mahadeva Temple, the first temple to be built in Old Goa in 450 years, and a Raj Gurukulum (an indigenous school based on the guru-shishya tradition). Along with the birth of the temple, which has been built without walls and without using glass or plastic, the creator too was reborn. On this day, Gadnis decided to become spiritual seeker and took the new name of Sadhak Shivaanand Saraswati.
“I can’t just pick up the brush and paint,” he confided, when I met him at the house of his London agent, Namrata Patel. “It is a meditation for me. I have to contemplate and acquire the vision. Then I have to choose the right moment after a long period of purification and introspection before I can begin a single stroke.”
Shivanand commands an unusual respect in the art world. Art connoisseurs and top interior designers wait patiently for his canvasses, and people who have bought his works have even been known to change their interiors to feel the painting in totality. With the wholesome knowledge of Sanskrit and Persian, the impact he has made over the past six years on the contemporary painting scene in India, qualified him to be honoured in 1993 by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) with the Yuva Ratna Award, and last year, by the Rotary International Club Bomaby with the 'Young Achiever's Award.
His latest work is a series of oil paintings on canvas depicting Bhaktamara Stotra, the poetic composition by Acharya Sri Manatunga Surisvarji (144 AD, 244 AD) on Shree Adinath, the first Jain Tirthankar, was on display for a week at the Nehru Centre Art Gallery from March 21. The Kanakia Art Foundation is promoting the show as one by "the sage of Indian contemporary art".
“India has not given a single school of contemporary painting to the world,” he said. “And the answer lies in Tantra, which is the true Indian art form that the World needs.”
He believes that the spiritual Art movement which he founded is the Eastern contribution to the world, in comparision with great art movements - the Renaissance, Abstract, Cubism, etc., which came from the West.
As always, he impressed me with his enthusiasm and depth of feeling for his art. He is planning a major exhibition in October 2002 and May 2003 in London. After showering me with gifts and books, his parting words to me were, “The ‘British air’ has not even touched you Rameshji. I have seen so many of my people change…but your warmth reassures me that we Indians still have a heart of Gold.”
What could be wrong with the ‘British air’, I wondered. Perhaps it smells of fish and chips. Shiva-Shiva!