Shiva’s Damru — The Sound of Creation

The hand of Lord Shiva holding the damru, surrounded by falling jata. Original pen and ink drawing, signed, framed and ready to hang.

The drawing shows a single hand holding the damru, and nothing above the wrist.

Fingers curl around the waist of the drum where the two cones meet. A rudraksha strand circles the forearm. The cords that tension the drumheads are drawn one by one, crossing the body of the damru in a lattice, and the striker beads hang loose beside it with the tasselled cord falling away below.

Around the hand, jata. Locks of matted hair fall from the top of the frame and sweep across to the right, drawn as thousands of individual strokes that thicken into shadow where the mass gathers and thin to almost nothing at the ends. They take up more of the sheet than the drum does, and they are the reason the drawing has movement in it. The hair reads as though it is still travelling.

The right side of the paper is left almost entirely bare. A few light diagonal marks suggest air, and then nothing. That emptiness is deliberate: it gives the drum somewhere to sound into.

As with the first drawing in this series, the figure is cropped rather than shown. The hand and the instrument are enough. In the tradition, the damru is the drum whose beat begins creation, and drawing only the hand that holds it says more about the rest than a full figure could.

Tone is built entirely by hand through hatching and cross-hatching, one line at a time, in ink, with no shading, no wash and no correction possible.

Suited to a puja room, a meditation or yoga space, a study, or an entrance hall. Being tonal rather than coloured, it sits against any wall colour, and it hangs particularly well beside the other drawings in the series.

Original pen and ink on artist-grade paper. Signed by the artist. Supplied mounted and framed under glass with a certificate of authenticity. One of a kind — no reproductions of this drawing are sold.

Specifications
Subject: Shiva’s Damru — The Sound of Creation
Medium: Pen and ink on paper
Type: Original, one of a kind
Size: 29.6 × 42 cm (unframed)
Orientation: Vertical (Portrait)
Framing: Mounted, framed under glass, ready to hang
Signed: Yes, by Aditya Kumar
Dispatch: 3–5 working days with tracking