KUNTUNKANTAN'S DESIGNS AS AMPLIFIYING THE EVOCATIVE POWER OF THE CIRCLE


The design of the Adinkra symbol called Kuntunkantan represents significantly those qualities of Adinkra that make many of its designs uniquely suited for mediation. By meditation I refer to a process whereby the mind focuses on a particular subject to the exclusion of everything else. This subject could be an idea or a form which could appeal to any of the five senses or to more than one at the same time. This form could be a visual image, a smell, a sound, the feel or taste of something or even a feeling. This process of concentration facilitates a range of mental processes. One of them is that is facilitating the coordination of ideas already present in the mind in more effective than if the effort were carried out purely by ratiocinative effort working directly on the ideas themselves. It is a also claimed that the process could lead to an entry into levels of awareness that are not normally accessible to consciousness but which exist as the root of consciousness. These levels are understood to be inaccessible on account of their being blocked by normal activity of consciousness. The meditation exercise stops this activity and enables the untrammelled character of the mind to manifest itself.

The design of this particular Adinkra symbol makes it clear why Adinkra symbols are uniquely suited to meditation. In speaking of being uniquely suited to meditation, I am not describing Adinkra symbols as the best of all possible or extant symbols for meditation. I am arguing that Adinkra symbols demonstrate a unique of design motifs, which, on account of relationships between shapes, colours and the human visual perception and cognition, are particularly helpful as a means of concentrating the mind on a particular form, or even a subject which that from is understood to represent. Adinkra symbols are distinctive developments of particular shapes and colours which are particularly useful for this purpose and the usefulness of which is demonstrated by their recurrence and extensive and elaborate use in various cultures as symbol systems. This use is particularly striking in those cultures which have developed the discipline of meditation to high levels, such as the religious cultures of Hinduism and Buddhism.

The particular motifs in the Adinkra symbol of Kuntunkantan which represent its value as a contemplative aid and which evoke similar values in other Adinkra designs using similar or different motifs, are the use of circles, in this case circles of equal size, the organisation of the circles in terms of a concentric formation and the use of stark primary colours, in this example of Kuntunkantan, black and white.

The intersection of all four circles at one centre pulls the eye towards that centre, while the integration of the circles round a central point enables the gaze to hold both the central point and the radius and circumference of all for circles at once. The structuring of the gaze through the design of the symbol enables the eye to perceive at the same time, the integration of unity-the centre-through multiplicity-the four distinct but intersecting/conjoined circles. It also enables the structure to be seen simultaneously in terms of a dynamic movement from a multiplicity-the four circles-to a unity-the centre they all share. The development of dialectic of unity to multiplicity and back again, evokes possibilities of conceiving the symbol in terms of ideational or conceptual possibilities of various kinds where such a correlative movement between the multiple and the unitary is foregrounded.

The Buddhist iconographic form of the Mandala of the Two Realms, for example, develops a similar dialectic, but does this through the use of two images placed side by side, while the Adinkra design achieves this through the use of one image. The Buddhist image, however, is elaborated at much greater detail than the Adinkra symbol, but the question of elaboration of the symbol could be developed in relation to Adinkra in terms of individual taste. Its stark simplicity is central to its evocative power and its value as an instrument that liberates the associative powers of a person reflecting on it.

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