The Dance of Shiva · 2 of 14

Hindu View of Art: Historical

of Indian culture were in process of determination in the mental struggle of the 'dwellers in the forest/ The language of the Upanishads combines austerity with passion, but this passion is the exaltation of mental effort, remote from the common life of men in the world. Only here and there we find glimpses of the later fusion of lyric and religious experience, when, for example, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the bliss of atman-intuition, or the intuition of the Self, is compared with the happiness of earthly lovers in self -forgetting dalliance. In general, the Upani- shads are too much preoccupied with deeper speculations to ex- hibit a conscious art, or to discuss the art of their times; in this age there is no explicit ^Esthetic. When, however, we consider the Indian way of regarding the Vedas as a whole, we shall find implicit in the word 'srut? a very important doctrine; that the Veda is eternal, the sacred books are its temporal expression, they have been 'heard/ This is not a theory of 'revelation' in the ordinary sense, since the audition depends on the qualification of the hearer, not on the will and active manifestation of a god. But it is on all fours with the later Hindu view which treats the practice of art as a form of yoga, and identifies aesthetic emotion with that felt when the self perceives the Self. In Pali Buddhism generally, an enthusiasm for the truth, unsurpassed even in the Upanishads, is combined with monastic institutionalism and a rather violent polemic against the joys of the world. Beauty and personal love are not merely evanes- cent, but are snares to be avoided at all costs; and it is clearly indicated that the Early Buddhist ^Esthetic is strictly hedonistic. The indications of this point of view are summed up in the fol- lowing pages of the Visuddhi Magga: "Living beings on account of their love and devotion to the sensations excited by forms and the other objects of sense, give high honour to painters, musicians, perfumers, cooks, elixir-prescribing physicians, and other like persons who furnish us with objects of sense/' In the Upanishads on the one hand, and in the teachings of Buddha on the other, the deepest problems of life were pene- trated; the mists of the Vedic dawn had melted in the fire of austerity (tapas), and life lay open to man's inspection as a thing of which the secret mechanism was no more mysterious. We can scarcely exaggerate the sense of triumph with which the doctrines of the Atman or Self and the gospel of Buddha per- meated Indian society. The immediate result of the acceptance of these views appeared in an organized and deliberate endeavour to create a form of society adapted for the fulfilment of the purposes of life as seen in the light of the new philosophies. To the ideal of the saint in retirement was very soon added that of the man who remains in the world and yet acquires or possesses the highest wisdom — "It w T as with works that Janaka and others came unto adeptship" (Gitd, iii. 20). There was now also evolved the doctrine of union by action (karma-yoga) set forth in the Bhagavad Gtta, as leading even the citizen on the path of sal- vation. The emergence of a definitely Brahmanical rather than a Buddhist scheme of life is to be attributed to the fact that the practical energies of Buddhists were largely absorbed within the limits of its monasticism; the Buddhists in the main regard Nir- vana not merely as the ultimate, but as the sole object of life. But the Brahmans never forgot that this life is the field alike of Pursuit and Return. Their scheme of life is set forth at great length in the Sutra literature, the Dharma Sdstras and the Epics (in general, 4th — 1st centuries B. c). This literature yields sufficient material for an elucidation of the orthodox view of art. But notwithstanding the breadth of the fourfold plan, we find in this literature the same hedonistic -^Esthetic and puritanical applications as are characteristic of Pali Buddhism. Thus, Manu forbids the householder to dance or sing or play on musical instruments, and reckons architects, actors and singers amongst the unworthy men who should not be invited to the ceremony of offerings to the dead. Even Chanakya, though he tolerates musicians and actors, classes them with courtesans. The hedonistic theory still prevailed. In later times the 'defence' of any art, such as poetry or drama, was characteristically based on the fact that it could contribute to the achievement of all or any of the Four Aims of Life, v Meanwhile the stimulus of discovered truth led not only to this austere formulation of a scheme of life (typically in Manu), but also to the development of yoga as a practice for the attain- ment of the desired end; and in this development an almost equal part was taken by Brahmans and Buddhists (typically in Patan- jali and Nagarjuna). We shall digress here, and partially anticipate, to discuss briefly HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL the important part once played in Indian thought by the concept of Art as Yoga, a subject sufficient in itself for a whole volume. It will be remembered that the purpose of Yoga is mental concentration, carried so far as the overlooking of all distinction between the subject and the object of contempla- tion; a means of achieving harmony or unity of consciousness. It was soon recognized that the concentration of the artist was of this very nature; and we find such texts as Sukracharya's: "Let the imager establish images in temples by meditation on the deities who are the objects of his devotion. For the successful achievement of this yoga the lineaments of the image are described in books to be dwelt upon in detail. In no other way, not even by direct and immediate vision of an actual object, is it possible to be so absorbed in contemplation, as thus in the making of images." The manner in which even the lesser crafts constitute a practice (acharya) analogous to that of (samprajnata) yoga is indicated incidentally by Sankaracharya in the commentary on the Brahma Stitra, 3, 2, 10. The subject of discussion is the distinction of swoon from waking; in swoon the senses no longer perceive their objects. Sankaracharya remarks, "True, the arrow-maker per- ceives nothing beyond his work when he is buried in it; but he has nevertheless consciousness and control over his body, both of which are absent in the fainting person/' The arrow-maker seems to have afforded, indeed, a proverbial instance of single- minded attention, as we read in the Bhagavata Purana. "I have learned concentration from the maker of arrows." A connection between dream and art is recognized in a passage oiXhtAgni Purana, 1 - where the imager is instructed, on the night before beginning his work, and after ceremonial purification, to pray, "O thou Lord of all the gods, teach me in dreams how to carry out all the work I have in my mind." Here again we see an anticipation of modern views, which associate myth and dream and art as essentially similar and representing the dramatisation of man's innermost hopes and fears. The practise of visualisation, referred to by Sukracharya, is identical in worship and in art. The worshipper recites the 1 Agni Purana, ch. xliii. Cf. Patanjali, Yoga Suira, 1, 38. For the theory of dreams see also Katha Upanishad, v. 8, and Brihaddranyaka Upanishad, iv. 3, 9-14 and 16-18. ' dhyana mantram describing the deity, and forms a corresponding mental picture, and it is then to this imagined form that his prayers are addressed and the offerings are made. The artist follows identical prescriptions, but proceeds to represent the mental picture in a visible and objective form, by drawing or modelling. Thus, to take an example from Buddhist sources i 1 The artist (sadhaka, mantrin, or yogin, as he is variously — and significantly — called), after ceremonial purification, is to proceed to a solitary place. There he is to perform the "Sevenfold Office," beginning with the invocation of the hosts of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and the offering to them of real or imaginary flowers. Then he must realize in thought the four infinite moods of friendliness, compassion, sympathy, and impartiality. Then he must meditate upon the emptiness (sunyatd) or non-existence of all things, for "by the fire of the idea of the abyss, it is said, there are destroyed beyond recovery the five factors" of ego- consciousness. 2 Then only should he invoke the desired divinity by the utterance of the appropriate seed-word (bija) and should identify himself completely with the divinity to be represented. Then finally on pronouncing the dhyana mantram, in which the attributes are defined, the divinity appears visibly, "like a reflec- tion," or "as in a dream" and this brilliant image is the artist's model. This ritual is perhaps unduly elaborated, but in essentials it shows a clear understanding of the psychology of the imagina- tion. These essentials are the setting aside the transformations of the thinking principle 3 ; self-identification with the object of 1 Condensed from Foucher. Iconographie Bouddhique, 11, 8-11. 2 Similar views are met with again and again in modern aesthetic. Goethe perceived that he who attains to the vision of beauty is from himself set free: Riciotto Canudo remarks that the secret of all art is self- f orgetfulness: and Laurence Binyon that "we too should make ourselves empty, that the great soul of the universe may fill us with its breath (Ideas of Design in East and West, Atlantic Monthly, 1913). 3 Wagner speaks of " an internal sense which becomes clear and active when all the others, directed outward, sleep or dream" (Combarieu, Music, its Laws and Evolution, p. 63). That God is the actual theme of all art is suggested by Sankaracharya in the commentary on the Brahma Sutra, i, i, 20-21. where he indicates the Brahman as the real theme of secular as well as spiritual songs: and according to Behmen, "It is nought indeed but thine own hearing and willing that do hinder thee, so that thou dost not see and hear God (Dialogues on the Supersensual Life.) the work; 1 and vividness of the final image. 2 There are abundant literary parallels for this conception of art as yoga. Thus Valmiki, although he was already familiar with the story of Rama, before composing his own Ramayana sought to realize it more profoundly, and "seating himself with his face towards the East 2 and sipping water according to rule (i. e. cere- monial purification), he set himself to yoga-contemplation of his theme. By virtue of his yoga-power he clearly saw before him Rama, Lakshmana and Sita, and Dasaratha, together with his wives, in his kingdom laughing, talking, acting and moving as if in real life ... by yoga-power that righteous one beheld all that had come to pass, and all that was to come to pass in the future, like a nelli fruit 3 on the palm of his hand. And having truly seen all by virtue of his concentration, the generous sage began the setting forth of the history of Rama."" * Notice here particularly that the work of art is completed before the work of transcription or representation is begun. 5 "The mind of the sage," says Chuang Tzu, "being in repose, be- comes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation." Croce is entirely correct when he speaks of "the artist, who never makes a stroke with his brush without having previously seen it with his imagination" and remarks that the externalisation of a work of art "implies a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing certain visions, intuitions, or representations to be lost." 6 1 Cf. the phrase "Devam bhutvd, devam yajet" : to worship the god become the god. That which remains for us object, remains unknown. 2 He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments," said Blake, "and in stronger and better light than his perishing mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.'* 3 Phyllanthus emblica, the round fruit of which is about the size of an ordinary marble. The simile is a common Indian formula for clear insight. 4 Ramdyana, Balakandam. 5 Cf. Coomaraswamy and Duggirala, The Mirror of Gesture, Introduc- tion, p. 3. So Vasubandhu speaks of the poet as seeing the world, like a jujube fruit, lying within the hollow of his hands (V dsavadatta, invo- cation.) "It seems to me/' William Morris wrote, "that no hour of the day passes that the whole world does not show itself to me": and Mag- nusson records of him, referring to Sigurd the Volsung and other poems, that "in each case the subject matter had taken such a clearly definite shape in his mind, as he told me, that it only remained to write it down." 6 Croce, Aesthetic, pp. 162, 168. HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL It should be understood that yoga ('union') is not merely a mental exercise or a religious discipline, but the most practical preparation for any undertaking whatever. Hanuman, for ex- ample, before searching the Asoka grove for Slta, "prayed to the gods and ranged the forest in imagination till be found her"; then only did he spring from the walls of Lanka, like an arrow from a bow, and enter the grove in the flesh. Throughout the East, wherever Hindu or Buddhist thought have deeply pene- trated, it is firmly believed that all knowledge is directly accessible to the concentred and 'one-pointed' mind, without the direct intervention of the senses. Probably all inventors, artists and mathematicians are more or less aware of this as a matter of personal experience. In the language of psycho-analysis, this concentration preparatory to undertaking a specific task is "the willed introversion of a creative mind, which, retreating before its own problem and inwardly collecting its forces, dips at least for a moment into the source of life, in order there to wrest a little more strength from the mother for the completion of its work," and the result of this reunion is "a fountain of youth and new fertility." 1 We have spoken so far of yoga, but for the artist this was rather a means than an end. Just as in Mediaeval Europe, so too, and perhaps even more conspicuously in India, the impulse to iconolatry derived from the spirit of adoration — the loving and passionate devotion to a personal divinity, which we know as bhakti. Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutra, mentions the Lord only as one amongst other suitable objects of contemplation, and without the use of any image being implied; but the purpose of the lover is precisely to establish a personal relation with the Beloved, and the plastic symbol is created for this end. A purely ab- stract philosophy or a psychology like that of Early Bud- dhism does not demand aesthetic expression; it was the spirit of worship which built upon the foundations of Buddhist and Vedantic thought the mansions of Indian religion, which shelter all those whom purely intellectual formulae could not satisfy — the children of this world who will not hurry along the path of Release, and the mystics who find a foretaste of freedom in the love of every cloud in the sky and flower at their feet. 1 Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious, pp. 330, 336. Figure a. Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. Buddhist bronze. Ceylon, 8th Century. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This was indeed a return to superstition, or at any rate to duality; but what in this world is not a dream and a superstition? — certainly not the atoms of science. And for all those who are not yet idealists there are, as there must be, idols provided. The superstitions of Hinduism, like those of Christianity, accom- lished more for the hearts of men than those of modern material- ism. It may well be doubted if art and idolatry, idolatry and art, are not inseparable. 1 Let us observe here that the purpose of the imager was neither self-expression nor the realisation of beauty. He did not choose his own problems, but like the Gothic sculptor, obeyed a hieratic canon. 2 He did not regard his own or his fellows' work from the standpoint of connoisseurship or aestheticism — not, that is to say, from the standpoint of the philosopher, or aesthete, but from that of a pious artisan. To him the theme was all in all, and if there is beauty in his work, this did not arise from aesthetic intention, 3 but from a state of mind which found unconscious expression. In every epoch of great and creative art we observe an identical phe- nomenon — the artist is preoccupied with his theme. It is only in looking backward, and as philosophers rather than artists — or if we are also artists, a rare combination, then with the philosophic and not the aesthetic side of our minds — that we perceive that the quality of beauty in a work of art is really quite independent of its theme. Then we are apt to forget that beauty has never been reached except through the necessity that was felt to deal with the particular subject. We sit down to paint a beautiful picture, or stand up to dance, and having nothing in us that we feel must be said and said clearly at all costs, we are surprised that the result is insipid and lacks conviction; the subject may be 1 " The lineaments of images," says Sukracharya, "are determined by the relation which subsists between the adorer and the Adored." Cf. the Saiva invocation "Thou that dost take the forms imagined by thy wor- shippers." 2 We cannot assert this too strongly of orthodox or classic (sastrlya) Hindu art. Rajput painting is more romantic, but even there the theme is pre-determined in literature, and the pictures, though they are not illustrations in the representative sense of the word, are pictures for verses just as much as the Ajanta paintings or the reliefs of Borobodur. 3 w Even the misshapen image of a god," says Sukracharya, " is to be preferred to the image of a man, however charming": in full accord with our modern view, that prefers conviction to prettiness. lovely, the dancer may be ravishing, but the picture and the dance are not rasavant. The theory of beauty is a matter for philosoph- ers, and artists strive to demonstrate it at their own risk. The Indian imager was concerned with his own problem. It is in- teresting to see the kind of man he was expected to be. According to one of the Silpa Sastras "The Silpan (artificer) should under- stand the Atharva Veda, the thirty-two Silpa Sastras, and the Vedic mantras by which the deities are invoked. He should be one who wears a sacred thread, a necklace of holy beads, and a ring of kusa grass on his finger; delighting in the worship of God, faithful to his wife, avoiding strange women, piously acquiring a knowledge of various sciences, such a one is indeed a crafts- , man." 1 Elsewhere it is said "the painter must be a good man, no sluggard, not given to anger; holy, learned, self-controlled, devout and charitable, such should be his character." 2 It is added that he should work in solitude, or when another artist is present, never before a layman. In this connection it is very important to realize that the artisan or artist possessed an assured status in the form of a life contract, or rather an hereditary office. He was trained from childhood as his father's disciple, and followed his father's calling as a matter of course. He was member of a guild, and the guilds were recognized, and protected by the king. The artificer was also protected from competition and undercutting; it is said: "That any other than a Silpan should build temples, towns, seaports, tanks or wells, is comparable to the sin of murder." 3 This was guild socialism in a non-competitive society.* The earliest impulses of Indian art appears to have been more or less practical and secular, and it is perhaps to this fact that we may partly trace the distrust of art exhibited by the early hedo- 1 From a Tamil version of a Silpa Sastra, quoted by Kearns, Indian Antiquary, vol. v., 1876. 2 Griinwedel, Mythologie des Buddhismus, p. 192. Cf. Cezanne, " I have never permitted anyone to watch me while I work. I refuse to do anything before anyone" (quoted W. H. Wright. Modem Painting, p. 152). 3 Kearns, loc. cit. 4 The Sociology is discussed more fully in Sir George Birdwood's Indttstrial Arts of India, and Sva s and my Mediaeval Sinhalese Art and The Indian Craftsman. nists. On the other hand, the dominant motifs governing its evolution from the third century B.C. onwards, and up to the close of the eighteenth century, are devotion (bhakti) and reunion (yoga). Neither of these is peculiar to India, but they exhibit there a peculiar character which leaves its mark on every- thing Hindu or Buddhist. Let us now follow these traces in a very summary reference to actual documents. I have discussed in another chapter the beginnings of Buddhist art. 1 It is in the southern primitives at AmaravatI and Anura- dhapura rather than in the semi-Roman figures of the North-west that we can best observe the development of an art that is distinctively Indian. This is the main stream; and it is these types from which the suave and gracious forms of Gupta sculp- ture derive, and these in turn became the models of all Buddhist art in China. In India proper, they grow more and more rnouvemente, more dramatic and vigorous, in the classic art of Elura and Elephanta, Mamallapuram and Ceylon, and form the basis of the immense developments of colonial Buddhist and Hindu art in Java and Cambodia. Gupta and classic painting are preserved at Ajanta. The tender humanism and the profound nature sympathies which are so conspicuous in the painting of Ajanta and the sculpture of Mamallapuram are recognizable equally in the work of poets like Asvaghosha and Arya Sura and dramatists like Kalidasa. Asvaghosha says of Prince Siddhartha that one day as he was riding in the country "he saw a piece of land being ploughed, with the path of the plough broken like waves of the water And regarding the men as they ploughed, their faces soiled by the dust, scorched by the sun, and chafed by the wind, and their cattle bewildered by the burden of drawing, the All-noble One felt the uttermost compassion; and alighting from the back of his horse, he passed slowly over the earth, overcome with sorrow — pondering the birth and destruction proceeding in the world, he grieved." Nor can anything be more poignant than Santi Deva's expression of his sense of the eternal movement and unsubstantiality of life — "Who is a kinsman, and who a 1 The beginnings of Hindu art also go back to the second or third century B. C, but apart from a few coins, little or nothing has been pre- served of earlier date than the third or fourth century A. D. friend, and unto whom?" The literature of love is no less remarkable. We recognize here, just as in the painting and sculpture, what is eternal in all art, and universal — impassioned vision based on understanding, correlated with cloudless thought and devoid of sentimentality. There is every reason to believe too that this was the time of highest attainment in music. Lastly, this was a time of progress in the field of pure science, especially mathematics and astronomy. From the fourth to the end of the eighth century we must regard as the golden age of Indian civilization. This was the period of Wei and T'ang in China; Eastern Asia represented then to all intents and purposes the civilization of the world. After the ninth or tenth century there is a general, though cer- tainly not universal, decline in orthodox art, of which the formulae were rapidly stereotyped in their main outlines, and rendered florid in their detail. Classical Sanskrit literature also came to an end in a forest of elaborate embroidery. But great forces (sometimes grouped under the designation of the Pau- ranic Renaissance) had long been at work preparing the way for the emergence of the old cults of Siva and Vishnu in forms which gave renewed inspiration to art — sculpture and poetry in the South, and poetry and painting in the North. In these devotional faiths was completed the cycle of Indian spiritual evolution from pure philosophy to pure mysticism, from knowl- edge to love. The inner and outer life were finally unified — a development entirely analogous to that of Zen Buddhism in the Far East. The transparency of life so clearly expressed in the paintings of Ajanta is indicated with a renewed emphasis — above all in the Radha-Krishna cults — and in all the Northern Vaish- nava poetry and painting — the tradition in which Rabindranath Tagore is the latest singer, and of which the theory is plainly set forth in his song: Not my way of salvation, to surrender the world! Rather for me the taste of Infinite Freedom While yet I am bound by a thousand bonds to the wheel . . . In each glory of sound and sight and scent I shall find Thy infinite joy abiding: My passion shall burn as the flame of salvation, The flower of my love shall become the ripe fruit of devotion. Krishna disguised as a milkmaid. Rajput Painting, 17th Century. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. But such a theory is now rather a survival of all that was uni- versal in Indian religion, rather than a new point of departure. The current ^Esthetic of 'educated* India — a product of a wide miscomprehension of Western culture and a general surrender to Noncomformist ethics — is again realistic and hedonistic, and perhaps for the first time illustrative, personal, and sentimental. HINDU VIEW OF ART: