By Dorian Valorn
Look at the heart on a chakra chart. You may find a green disc, a pink stone, or both colours beside the same label. Now look at a translation of Pūrṇānanda’s Sanskrit account. Its heart lotus shines like the red bandhūka flower. Twelve letters sit on its petals, and a smoky region lies inside. Each colour belongs to something in the picture. The familiar red-to-violet chart belongs to a later history, when Western writers and practitioners began assigning spectrum colours to the centres. Pūrṇānanda, verse 22, translated by Arthur Avalon · Kurt Leland’s history of the Western chakra system
The Rajasthan scroll · How to read a lotus · How the rainbow took shape · How the lexicon uses color · Reading a chart today
The Rajasthan scroll
In the Rajasthan scroll described in the British Museum’s Tantra exhibition guide, a golden channel runs beside the spine. Follow it upward, and the image gives you a series of things to notice. Kundalini coils at the base of the spine. Deities occupy lotuses along the ascent. At the heart, the guide identifies Shiva; at the crown, it identifies Shiva and Shakti together. Beyond the last chakra, the ascent reaches what the guide calls the supreme void, a state of liberation. British Museum exhibition guide, pp. 42–44
The scroll is dated 1800–20. The exhibition showed a reproduction credited to the National Museum in New Delhi. The guide describes the original as a seven-part scroll. That number describes the object's structure. The guide’s fourteen numbered details include a coiled serpent, a fish, other symbols, and chakras. Its Sanskrit inscriptions indicate that the scroll served as a manual for yogic practice, possibly for a courtly patron. The gold line lets the eye follow an ascent whose destination lies beyond the sequence of bodily centres. British Museum exhibition guide, pp. 42–44
Another Rajasthan image gives the eye a different place to rest. In Chakras of the Subtle Body, an 1823 folio from the Nath Charit attributed to Bulaki, the figure stands upright with his gaze turned inward. Hindu deities and Nath adepts sit in lotus positions along his central axis. The Smithsonian’s commentary links the image to yogic disciplines, including breath and posture. This separate work is held by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust. Where the scroll draws your eye along a route, the painted folio lets you take in the practitioner and the lotuses together. Smithsonian exhibition commentary and object credit
How to read a lotus
The Sanskrit word cakra means wheel. In the works above, a lotus lets the artist show a centre and several things happening within it. Pūrṇānanda’s Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa, commonly dated to the sixteenth century and translated into English by Arthur Avalon, describes six centres and also discusses the crown lotus. Its heart passage offers an especially clear example. It describes the lotus's colour, the letters' colour, and the smoky colour of the region inside. Asking for “the heart colour” would flatten several details into a single swatch. Avalon’s translation, verse 22 and summary of verses 22–27
The number also depends on the text or practice. The Smithsonian exhibition glossary notes that chakra counts vary between traditions. A chart that says “seven” is giving you one arrangement, and its visual vocabulary tells you what the maker wanted the reader to follow. The Rajasthan scroll and the Sanskrit text are useful comparisons because each keeps its own imagery and purpose in view. Smithsonian, Yoga: The Art of Transformation, glossary
How the rainbow took shape
A spectrum gives each centre a colour that is easy to recall in sequence. In his history of the Western chakra system, Kurt Leland traces spectrum-order assignments to colour-healing circles in the twentieth century, including work in the 1930s. He cites Ken Dychtwald’s 1977 work as a later example of the rainbow colours aligning with psychological qualities. That reconstruction gives the sequence a history in print. The earliest complete spectrum chart remains uncertain on the sources examined here. Leland’s Quest article · Leland’s account of the 1930s and 1977
Gland correspondences have their own documentary trail. In The Soul and Its Mechanism, Alice Bailey printed a seven-centre table in 1930 that paired the throat with the thyroid and the heart with the thymus. The table shows what Bailey taught. It predates Leland's later synthesis, and its columns pair centres with glands. A chart that puts colour, temperament and glands into the same row brings several kinds of correspondence together. Alice Bailey, chapter VI, p. 120 · Leland’s historical account
How the lexicon uses colour
In the German crystal lexicon excerpts used for this article, colour helps the reader choose a stone. The illustration also highlights points at the hands, knees, and feet. The editorial transcription leaves room for several colours at some centres. Read the following as the palette of this particular guide. Deutsches Mineralienmuseum catalog record for Gutzmann’s lexicon
| Center | Colours described in the Rosolith transcription |
|---|---|
| Root | Red |
| Sacral | Orange |
| Solar plexus | Yellow or gold |
| Heart | Green and pink |
| Throat | Lighter blues |
| Brow | Darker blues |
| Crown | Violet and dark blue, with white and gold examples |
Green and pink at the heart offer a small clue to how the book works. A row can be a palette for choosing an object. The red lotus in Pūrṇānanda’s text invites a different kind of attention: where the colour sits, what the petals read, and what lies within. The scroll asks the eye to keep moving along a channel. Each source gives the reader a different task.
The lexicon also shows how a chart can become something you wear. On page 29, the book offers a questionnaire for a personalised chakra necklace and discusses disc- and olive-shaped bead necklaces in the same section. The questionnaire lets the reader make a personal selection, and the necklace carries that choice into daily life. This is a documented example of how the guide puts its correspondences to work.
The Rajasthan scroll follows a yogic ascent. The lexicon offers colours for choosing stones within its account of crystal practice.
Reading a chart today
When you come across a chart, try reading its caption before its colours. Look for a named text, tradition, author or date. Then follow one centre through the image. If there is a lotus, see whether the colour belongs to a petal, a letter or a figure. If a stone sits beside the label, consider what the author asks you to do with it.
For a personal practice, you might set a pink stone beside a notebook and use it to remember a question about care or affection. You can date that choice and add a sentence of your own. The next time you see a green heart on a chart, you’ll have a better question than which colour is right. What did the person who made this image want you to notice?
References
- British Museum (2020). Tantra: Enlightenment to Revolution, exhibition guide, pp. 42–44.
- Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, “Chakras of the Subtle Body” and Yoga: The Art of Transformation, glossary.
- Pūrṇānanda. Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa, Arthur Avalon’s English translation (1919). Verse 22 and summary of verses 22–27.
- Alice Bailey (1930). The Soul and Its Mechanism, chapter VI, p. 120.
- Kurt Leland. “The Rainbow Body: How the Western Chakra System Came to Be”, Quest, first published 2017. Author’s summary of his historical research.
- Gerhard Gutzmann. Das große Lexikon der Heilsteine, Düfte und Kräuter, pp. 14–17, as recorded in the Rosolith Editorial Pack and supplied draft, and photographed p. 29 for the necklace questionnaire. The photographed edition remains unconfirmed. Deutsches Mineralienmuseum catalog record.
