Literature written and published by Prof. Kirti Trivedi, a pioneer in the field of research related to Indian Thoughts and Traditions, is of great relevance to this project. Prof. Kirti’s work ranges from Exploring Ways of Asian Design, graphic designs of ancient manuscripts, the ancient Indian Design Process and a detailed investigation into ancient form detailing techniques like parametric and fractals.
The Indian Design Process In the Western design tradition, the object evolved from an exploration of the physical: the materials, the forming processes and their possibilities, and the utilitarian physical function. In contrast, in the Eastern Asian tradition, the object emerged as a result of Giving Form to Ideas [34] [38]. The Asian Design deals with giving form to formless, expressing the essence, creating hierarchy of space and measure to establish importance of different components using techniques like grids and mapping, creating the form by a fixed procedural system, and finally allowing variety in expression even while having a rigid procedure using techniques like parametrisation. The traditional Indian Design Process seeks to give Form to abstract Formless ideas. Prof. Kirti discusses the step-by-step procedure of the process as is shown in Figure 19. An abstract idea is given a meaning, and that meaning is assigned to basic shapes and symbols. These shapes then act as metaphors, holding multiple layers of meaning, and become the building blocks for creation of the form [36]. The abstract concepts can be realised in various forms, and are used as building blocks to express various notions and ideas, such as unity, nature of time, origin of the Cosmos and so on. The quality of visualisation is judged by the effectiveness of the meaning expression, as in, if the initial abstract concept is clearly being represented.
The visualization process according to Vastustra Upanishad
Figure 19: Traditional Design Process
The Talamana System
Prof. Kirti discusses the importance of the ancient Talamana system, a system of grids and proportions that used to dictate visual compositions, particularly iconography. This system gives rise to many useful grids, such as the one shown in Figure 77, which can be used to explain basic concepts like component hierarchy and pre-sentation. The different locations on the grid system determine the hierarchy of information. When used as a grid for composing scenes, different beings have different importance irrespective of their physical size, just dependant on the position in the grid.
The Talamana system is a hierarchical measurement system. A similar system in the contemporary scenario would help design effective communication, in which information elements have to be placed in a given space according to hierarchical meaning or effective communication according to their size and position [35] [37]. Prof. Kirti maps these steps as-
1. Realising a strong communication message first. The abstract concepts should be clear in the mind of the artist.
2. Removing details that don’t contribute to the meaning. Every remaining detail should be there to communicate some meaning.
3. Generating forms using set procedures and recursive methods (which when executed with even tiny changes result in totally different and visually rich results), by:
(a) Giving a basic form to the essence, the idea, by removing ambiguity and isolating meaning
(b) Executing the complexity of the full growth following processes that replicate the procedures in nature, like parametric and fractals.
(c) This constant variation of the same principles without exact repetition gives non-repetitive art. Set frameworks for form generation exist to create visualisations with similar essence, and the parametric variation creates individual uniqueness.
Figure 20: Grid Hierarchies arising from Talamana System
The traditional Asian designs were manifested beautifully using set principles and only traditional tools. Modern tools can leverage those principles even further [30].
Study of Manuscripts
"Roopartha: Form and Meaning in Indian Visual Culture" takes a look at manuscript designs, such as the Jain manuscripts. Jain Kalpasutra/manuscripts, as shown in Figure 21 can teach principles like horizontal graphic design and lettering. The borders establish the context of work, and different letterforms with varying boldness and font weights represent information hierarchy. Technical works had specially designed formats to best bring out the information.
Figure 21: A Jain Manuscript
The Devanagari script manuscripts included multiple-level texts like main text, commentary, footnotes, and references. New grids emerged to have space separators and attention directing devices. Apart from manuscripts, Islamic influence on literature also led to stunning book designs, with elaborate embellishments and border decorations.
Parametrics and Fractals
Once the basic form is in place, it has to be detailed to bring out the uniqueness in the design. Form results from following mathematical procedures, where the surface is filled with a density of details. Complexity is achieved through recursive (repetitive) procedures. Shapes can contain smaller replicas of themselves as a method of detailing. Prof. Kirti discusses various such procedures like parametrisation, fractals and shape transitions.
Fractals are patterns that are invariant when scaled, self-similar, recursive and are used for space filling [33] [27]. The discussion begins with looking at the fractal patterns in nature, where mountains are not smooth cones and barks are not cylinders. Nature expresses many irregular and fragmented patterns with different levels of complexity as one zoom in. These techniques make their way into ancient architecture, especially in Hindu temples, where complexity can be seen as increasing, both in plans and elevations, along with the motifs (Figure 22).
Detailing can also happen using shape transitions. In Hindu temples, circles are derived through successive faceting of a square. There are different ways of achieving circles, such as rotating squares (Figure 23). Both shapes represent different abstract concepts, and the temple in turn represents the cosmos as a whole. These concepts can be a great visual tool to teach form and shape transitions.
Figure 22: Fractals in Hindu Temples
Figure 23: Transition of squares to circles
Figure 24: Alice Boner’s Analysis of Narasimha Avatar
Fractal procedures which were employed in early architecture can be a great tool for detailing contemporary forms as well. Paramerics also ensures constant newness, the desire to always make something new. This is achieved by frameworks and procedures with parametric variation. These recursive processes when followed result in creation of rich forms that wouldn’t be possible intuitively.
