The picture is based on a poem about the legendary “The Dove Book” From Old Russian legends. The poem begins with an epic introduction, in which it is narrated that in the city of Jerusalem, at the time of King David, a huge book fell out of a celestial cloud, locked with seven seals, which contained all the secrets of Being: “Ay, near the Mount of Tabot... to the white stone of electrum… the Dove Book fell”. The people began to call it “The Dove Book”, symbolizing the descent of the Holy Spirit. N.K. Roerich depicted two pairs of pigeons on the sides of a temple rising to the clouds, and the book, in the form of the outstretched wings of a large bird lying on the ground.

“What is the origin of the light? Why the sun shines? Where did winds come from? Where did thunder come from? Where did tsars come from?” – So the Russian spiritual poem explains our ancestors’ vision of the creation of the world. That is why “The Dove Book” is also called “The Deep Book” – for the depth of its wisdom. N.K. Roerich traced the runic signs on the open sheets of the Book of Life, worshiped by kings of the earth who came with their suites. These human groups – individual worlds or peoples – are considered as huge stones, stones of faith that lay at the base of life.

In the first quarter of the last century, the story of “The Dove Book” was very popular. Famous poets and writers: Konstantin Balmont, Boris Zaitsev, Nikolay Zabolotsky, Mikhail Prishvin resorted to it. The latter, in his essay entitled “The Invisible Church” tells us through the mouth of an ancient old woman that the chronicle of the city of Kitezh – “the heavenly Jerusalem” – “was sewn… into the Dove Book. That book weighing one and a half pood, locked with screws, lies between Nizhny and Kozmodemyansk. None of the common people have seen that book”. According to the legend, it is hidden deep underground.