Debdulal Dutta Roy — Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

Drawing is the journey from the outer layer to the inner core of the human mind. In describing Pychic experience, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother gave importance to three layers of consciousness - the outer, inner and inner core. The outer layer is composed of individual percepts. Inner layer can be understood by one’s feeling about the object and the inner core includes some qualities transmitted through heredity. The inner core attributes are eternal. The objective of this study was to examine the outer, inner and inner core layers of consciousness of the tribal children in Tripura by developing a picture drawing test. Data was collected from 50 tribal children of grades III and IV living in the remote villages of Tripura wherein hit and run guerrilla attacks were common. Children were asked to draw any picture on the given sheet of paper as nicely as possible. A set of attributes was conceptualized to study various outer (missing important parts, anomalies), inner (vividness, orderliness, complexity) and the inner core (harmony with environment, cleanliness, aesthetic) layers of consciousness. A binary type scoring category was developed to assess these attributes of the drawings and scoring was done by judges who were psychologists with experience in children art. The judges’ scores were converted into T-scores. The three layers were positively correlated with each other in a significant manner. Results revealed no gross distortion in the three layers of consciousness. The inner layer was more prominent than the outer and inner core layers. Results provide a new paradigm to study postulates of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on consciousness.

Email the author: �"Dr. Debdulal Dutta Roy" <dduttaroy@yahoo.com>