Chitravali

Chitravali series implements the Vedic concept of Dhyana Shloka into a workbook.

It has been a practice since time immemorial to visualize and meditate on, within one’s mind, the minutest details of the object of worship. From the meditating on any Devta (Deity) or reciting or reading any sacred texts like Bhagavad Gita a sincere student always meditates on the Dhyana Shloka of it, before the actual learning starts.

Chitravali activity book designs are centered around the similar concept. First, presenting and learning through the de facto natural language of the visuals (pictures). Since ancient times, the humans have always expressed and communicated with visuals. Be it petroglyph type of rock art to cave paintings of prehistoric times or temples and statues carved out of solid rocks. The communication happened flawlessly with visuals, without any language barriers.

In context with the traditional Indian language learning system, there are four levels of knowing a language, Shravan (listening), Bhasan (speech), Pathan (reading), and Lekhan (writing). Of which Shravan and Bhasan are of more importance. A child naturally acquires the first two levels by simply hearing the conversation around, from the Mother (tongue!) and family members and then trying to mimic and respond to it. It is not limited to babies grasping the language during infant years. It used to be and still is the standard method of learning even for serious studies of Veda, by hearing it in particular meters (chanda) across the designated learning places such as Sanskrit Pathshala and Gurukulam.

Later comes the levels of Pathan and Lekhan. In today’s fast paced world, usually a child is introduced to reading and writing too early. So we have combined the natural way of visual learning to reading and coloring for the popular Dhyana Shloka that kids already know. This approach will retain their interest in learning the meaning of shloka by visualizing the key terms.

So here is a sample Chitravali for the Dhyana Shloka of Lord Sri Vishnu,

शान्ताकारं भुजगशयनं पद्मनाभं सुरेशं
विश्वाधारं गगनसदृशं मेघवर्णं शुभाङ्गम् ।
लक्ष्मीकान्तं कमलनयनं योगिभिर्ध्यानगम्यं
वन्दे विष्णुं भवभयहरं सर्वलोकैकनाथम् ॥