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Studies in Indian Art c7: I. An Approach

Studies in Indian Art c7

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Contents

I. An Approach

1. Alphabet of Indian Art Symbolism

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Indian art representing life through the ages speaks an eloquent language of vast and varied symbolism. Art in India is not factual record of life in various forms, but from the outset it was intended to become a vehicle of the forms of thought, which enriched culture, religion, philosophy and literature. In India art has been employed to convey through its symbolical language—the ideas of the mind. Human speech has a limited appeal, but the language of art presents a universal approach to ideas. It was an open book for all, speaking a language which was the outcome of spiritual experience of ideas, or in other words, of religion. The feeling of art was dictated by man's devotional approach to such experience. This was the higher purpose of art; higher only in the sense that its theme was of a sublime world, not that art was in any way the preserve of the select few only, and inaccessible to the masses of people, or deliberately kept back from them.

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It was realised that art had a mission and a purpose which must be expressed through forms, whose appeal was irresistible and meaning unmistakable. Such language was devised in the form of symbols which played such an important part in Indian art. The symbols sometimes occupy the centre of the picture in the form of the images of divine beings, saints and seers who themselves typify certain great ideas accepted as truth through ages by a devout humanity. The symbols also served the purpose of decoration, adornment and space-filling. Even here, they have their values and are linked to a predominant common purpose, namely, expression of ideas through an aesthetic medium, with a charm that enhances their appeal and in a manner that contributes to the enrichment of the outer forms of life in relation to the inner growth of the mind.

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In the Vedic period forms of thought and of art were taking shape. It was the period of land settlement. Vast unmapped horizons stretched before man's vision, and the mind was grappling in all its fresh vigour and joy to understand nature, and to evolve an alphabet adequate for expressing that experience in tangible word and form. Such is the nature of Vedic art conception. Everywhere it is a new world of symbols. Forms of deities are in the making. Ideas surge, are understood, analysed, clarified, and robed in tangible imagery, half revealed and half concealed. As the Vedic seer put it: "The daughters of Heaven are neither fully nude nor fully robed." Similar is the case with the symbols of Vedic thought. Sometimes there are distinct indications of meanings firmly grasped; at others there is something which eludes from expression; at others there are only dim intimations of thought and part glimpses of reality.

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The gods and goddesses flit across like the sons and daughters of Heaven and Earth, those Eternal Parents. Spirits presiding over forests and trees, brooks and ponds, spring up into existence as symbols of ideas in the animistic consciousness and the earth-bound feeling of the primitive settlers of the soil. These deities crystalised as time elapsed and as later influences and ramifications of thought were captured and cast into forms as gods and goddesses of the Brahmanical pantheon. A figure of Vishnu in the Vedio period is only a thought form, a conglomerate of several ideas not yet cast distinctly. The idea was of the whole world, not yet pinned to a particular form. We find it as a mirror of the myth of the solar god at one place; at another of the human soul passing through birth and death in relation to the physical form in which it is embodied. The germs of the legend of Vishnu assuming a dwarfish form (Vāmana) and later on cosmic one (Virāṭ) are present in the Rigveda. We find it in an honest attempt to give expression to an idea of how the macrocosm (Brahmāṇḍa) and the microcosm (Piṇḍa) are related to each other, the one reflecting the working of its counter-part, and the two being essentially similar in their nature and purpose. It is like the point expanding into its circumference, or the child growing into the stature of its parent, or the human mind outgrowing its petty limitations evolving into the cosmic consciousness, or the seed developing into a mighty tree. The pattern of Vāmana and Vishnu is symbol of thought and suits all the above phenomena, being the motif par excellence of the relationship of the microcosm and macrocosm found in nature.

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The Devas and the Asuras engaged in an eternal conflict represent another symbol of Vedic thought. As Dr. Coomaraswamy interpreted it: "The Angles and the Titans represent the heavenly powers of light and the subterranean forces of darkness." They are also spoken of as denizens of a non-human world, e.g. Garuḍas representing solar light of the ethereal regions, and Nāgas the crawling forces of the dark under-world.

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All religions and arts flourishing on the Indian soil have accepted these motifs as vehicle of valuable religious ideas. Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism together with their sects of Hinayāna and Mahāyāna, Digambara and Śvetāmbara, Śaiva and Vaishṇava, as well as hundreds of subsidiary cults—all pay homage to these motifs without which none of them would be able to exist. Such mythology was the life-breath of these religious systems, which vitalised and inspired them and explained adequately all that they wanted to convey, of the moral and the spiritual worlds. Myths are indispensable to religion and life. Without myths and legends, Indian art and literature would hardly be able to stand. It is necessary that myths should be properly understood. They should be approached from the point of view of those for whom they were meant. For the critique of pure reason, myths are like meaningless chaff, but from the scientific point of view, where science represents an attempt to understand human thought in that proper environment of time and space when the myths were cast, myths and legends have great value and represent in a real manner the language that gives access to the creative activity and minds of men in the sphere of art, religion and literature.

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Myths originate in the hearts of men, that fertile soil which receives, assimilates and recreates all the diverse reactions and influences. Myths are more real in moulding the lives of men than other worldly things. So far as Indian religions are concerned, no factual accounts of the lives of particular prophets and saints were tolerated until they had been transformed into myths, this transformations being in accordance with certain laws on a cosmic model.

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Buddha, for example, is born as the son of Māyādevī, not as nature would have it, but through the right side of the womb of his mother. As a new-born babe, it would not cry, but walk the Seven Steps, and be washed not with ordinary water, but with two miraculous streams issuing from the ground under the influence of the two Nāga kings, Nanda and Upananda. The two streams of hot and cold water conform to the two world forces of peace and activity, rest and motion, *Soma* and *Agni* in Vedic language. At every stage in the life of the Enlightened One, the myths impart to it its devout religious character. If we wish to understand the religious life of the Buddha, and not merely Gautama the Man, the myths and legends hold the key. Their meanings alone reveal to us the rich treasures of Buddhistic thought as symbolised in the life of the Master.

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The ancient myth of the conflict between the gods and the demons assumes new forms in the life of the Buddha. The victory over Māra, the Genius of Evil, is only the new commentary of an old motif. Unless we have understood the spiritual significance of the *Daivāsuram* and the related mysteries of Yogic *samādhi* and contemplation, the victory of the Enlightened One over the forces of passion and darkness does not reveal its true secret to our understanding. We miss its true significance in the making of the Buddha, who had become awakened or obtained perfect enlightenment, for whom the coveted portals of wisdom had been flung open, and who marching as a spiritual pilgrim from stage to stage had attained the end of journey and a triumph which could not be shaken by any later upheavals. The Buddha of real value for the Buddhists was not the prince walking the streets of Kapilavastu in flesh and blood, but the Buddha who had attained his spiritual rebirth in an ideal world. The Supramundanist thinkers of Buddhism (*Lokottaravādins*) perfected this conception of the Buddha slowly working in accordance with the accepted traditional motifs.

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The picture is equally true for the Jainas and the Hindus, Mahāvīra represented in his victory over the serpent symbolising death, and Kṛṣṇa defeating the all-consuming poisonous fumes of a deadly serpent and dancing over its hoods and wresting from its clutches the Lotuses—these are motifs in the same tradition symbolising a common pattern of thought. A systematic study of these mythical and legendary lives of the founders of religions reveals the axis of their spiritual make-up. There would be many details which are merely excrescences, but one can not miss the grain in the chaff.

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The supreme problem of Indian art, which in all stages was linked with religion, therefore relates to the right interpretation of symbols. The myths could not be represented except through symbols e.g. the cosmic Aśvattha, or World-Tree, the Ash Tree of Existence, the Yggdrasil of Nordic mythology, whose root is up in heaven and whose branches are spread down below, which lives through past, present and future; or the Kalpa-Vṛiksha and the Kalpalatā, the Wish-fulfilling Tree and Wish-fulfilling Creeper, which are but the symbols of the mind, under which each individual takes his seat and rushes through life; or the Pūrṇa Ghaṭa, the Full Vase, which is verily the human body which contains everything and which overflows with plenty so long as there are waters of life in it; or the Kāmadhenu, the Wish-fulfilling Cow of plenty symbolising word or Speech; or Samudra, the Milky Ocean of human aspirations, the deep Sea of all potentialities, which the Devas and the Asuras tried with combined effort to churn and produce the Fourteen Jewels of idealised possessions that human beings desire, most coveted of them all being Amṛita, the Immortal Drink, which bestows eternal life and youth on mortal beings; or Svastika, a dynamic pattern whose four arms rotate round a focal point and generate the life-force; or Chakra, the Wheel which represents Time, the one-wheeled chariot of the sun, and also all the attributes of things, the various Dharmas that distinguish all created things;

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or the Aṣṭa-maṅgalika-chihna, the Eight Auspicious Signs; or the Chaturdaśa Svapna, the Fourteen Lucky Dreams, each constituting an imago of thought to symbolise some phenomenon either of the cosmos or of the individual's life. These with many more constitute alphabet of Indian symbolism representing religious ideas through art. With the march of civilisation when the contents of both life and mind become more elaborate in succeeding generations, the symbols also multiplied and sometimes changed their form. New themes were attempted by the side of old ones; e.g. the number of Mother Goddesses together with their forms and names was an ever evolving conception. The sports of Rādhā and Kṛiṣhṇa were perfected as the arche-type of love symbolism in all its nuances, imbued with hot passion and the fire of the Indian wind and the Indian sky, but always true to its spiritual background and being vitalised by it. Rādhā as the human soul passes through all experiences in her quest for union with the Divine Puruṣha symbolised by Kṛiṣhṇa. As Dr. Coōmaraswamy interprets it: "In the Vaiṣhṇava devotional approach and its poetry human love is conceived as the means and symbol of all union. Lovers represented are always Rādhā and Kṛiṣhṇa, typifying the eternal motif of Man and Woman and revealing in every day events their heavenly image.

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The whole land of Rādhā and Kṛiṣhṇa is the land of our own experience where Beauty and Love are sublimated and transformed into the purest divine experience of the heart of the human soul". (Rajput Painting). In the words of Grierson: "The young Kṛiṣhṇa represented to the Vaiṣhṇavas the Supreme Deity, the Creator, from whom all Creation was but a sportive emanation, and full of love, passing the love of a father, to his devotees. Rādhā on the other hand was the human soul, led by religion to offer not of her own, but her own, whole-self to God. That religion taught just as our Christian doctors teach, the necessity of our entire self-surrender to God which it adorned, and so, too, imaged that devotion by human love. But the Christians chose filial love as the model of the soul's devotion, and parental love as that of the Creator's for his creatures. India took a different interpretation. The soul's devotion to the deity is pictured by Rādhā's self-abandonment to her beloved Kṛiṣhṇa and all the hot blood of oriental passion is encouraged to pour forth one mighty flood of praise and prayer to the Infinite Creator, who waits with loving outstretched arms to receive the worshipper into his bosom and to convey him safely to an eternal rest across the seemingly shoreless Ocean of Existence. This passion is that of a child of nature.... I am persuaded that no indecent thought entered their minds when they wrote these burning words." (Introduction to the Satsaiya of Bihari, 1896, p.

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8). As language of symbolism Rādhā and Kṛiṣhṇa almost occupy the entire field of the medieval Indian religious poetry and the pictorial arts of the Rajasthani and Pahari schools. Art, religion and symbolism are all inter-related. The one serves the needs of the other, justifying its own purpose by imparting richness to life and fostering creative activity in different fields. A true history of Indian art is rooted in a sympathetic approach to the language of its symbolism. Indian art was conceived not to serve an intellectual purpose but to fulfil a spiritual urge and to meet the religious needs of the people in a very real sense.

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Religion provided food for the soul. It opened the gates of human heart for a tide-like flow of human emotions. Religion also provided zest to life and gave to it its most valuable motive-forces. Inspired by Religion, art retained its purity. It was utilitarian from the worldly point of view, but was worshipped for its own sake, i.e. for the sake of a higher spiritual purpose. Its function was not to please the eye, but to satisfy the spirit. There was no compromise on this vital point. Although portraits also received some attention in the Hindu paintings of Rajasthan and Kangra, but portraiture was a very small part of the total creative activity of these schools. They gain their excellence not as perfect portraits, but as figures in which the factual treatment of the human body is the least part. It is the emphasis on the symbolic character of the scene which gives to the paintings their true value. Indian art, except for the brief interlude of Mughal art, did not interest itself in portraiture. In the words of the Śukranīti, portrait painting is unheavenly (asvargiya). At another time, viz. in the Gandhara school of the North-West, the artists were working with consciousness of the human element in art, the figures being conceived as true to human anatomy rather than as the idealised products of the mind. It was the fatal weakness of Gandhara art that it conceived the Buddha in terms of the human body rather than in terms of the ideal Yogī. The more it succeeds in its anatomical representation, the poorer it becomes on the spiritual side. No human figure, as it is, carries with it any attention unless it undergoes a spiritual transformation. To the extent that the image seeks direct representation, it becomes weakened in its symbolism.

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Indian art does not seek to create men and women true to life, but types true to the mind. They are like alphabets to convey ideas which can be handled as distinctly as ordinary letters. The Yakshas and Yakshīs, the Nāgas and Nāgīs, and a host of other Water and Tree Spirits representing the symbols of fertility, have been handled by the Indian artists with amazing mastery and clarity as vehicles of cult ideas, which no human language could possibly have conveyed with such effectiveness and charm. Their language is elevated to the rank of a universal code which becomes intelligible with least possible effort. Thus Indian art with its extensive repertoire of decorative and iconographic motifs constitutes a virtual dictionary of India's religious thought in its varied systems conceived with extraordinary richness and beauty. The Indian soul rejoices at the sight of symbols in art, and clings to them also in religion and poetry. The pleasure of looking at a purely factual subject is limited and of short duration, where as the symbols grow in meaning according to the capacity of the mind and heart of the devoted on-looker.

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The problem of symbols should be approached with sympathy and understanding. Each symbol should be studied in its proper perspective in relation to the earlier motifs of thought and those which followed it. Chronological solutions based on art-objects being assigned to their proper sequence in time are good in so far as they go, but that is not all. We should co-relate art-forms to the ideas of which art was an expression in each period. The language of art-symbols throws light on the history of thought—a very important purpose of art studies, provided the work is undertaken in a strictly scientific manner keeping as close to objective facts as we do for chronological problems. It will then be found that religion and philosophy provide a commentary not only to the increased understanding of art-history, but of its genesis and purpose.

2. Lalita Kalā

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Whatever be the heights of metaphysical and moral thought attained by a people, the measure of their greatness is more truly reflected in those formal elements of culture which are comprehended in the term art. Art is primarily concerned with the cultivation of beauty through the physical medium. The physical object of art is only a symbol that evokes an experience, as it were, of an aesthetic shock, and thereby it connects us with the vast substratum of pleasure which in Indian aesthetics is called *Rasa*. The material world when properly transformed into terms of the beautiful leads to an experience of *Rasa*. An uncarved stone is only a rough primitive block, but it conceals within itself the potentiality of peerless beauty. The artist only makes that beauty manifest at a particular point and transforms the rough unhewn piece into a symbol that radiates joy and beauty. Man's worship of art consists in the creation around himself of numberless symbols and expressions of this kind which purport to manifest one or more aspects of the great storehouse of beauty that is in nature.

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Pericles warned the citizens of Athens when its sense-bound art was at its height in these words: "We support art but with a certain restraint and we support science without becoming unmanly." In the golden age of Indian art, that is the Gupta period when Indian art had outgrown its craft traditions and really became fine art—*Lalita Kalā* as the poet called it—Kālidāsa gave utterance to a similar ideal of Indian aesthetics: "Na Rūpam Pāpavṛttaye". "Beauty ofcourse is our ideal, but not sin." It is true that men and women in the Gupta Age cultivated beauty as a religious cult. Both in the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa and in the Bṛhatsaṃhitā of Varāhamihira we find mention of *Rūpasattra*, i.e. Beauty-culture, and the reference certainly relates to the popular passion for beautiful form in the Gupta Age. As Kālidāsa puts it: "O Pārvatī, the common belief that beauty is not for sin, seems to be unexceptionable" (Kumāra-Sambhava, V. 36). This was the ideal followed in the domain of art and life. The Māra-conquering Buddha represents the spiritual truth of the Gupta Age, and the vitality of its culture derives its force from the ideal of the Higher Wisdom (*Anuttara Jñāna*) to which reference is found in many inscriptions on the pedestals of Buddha images.

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Indian art presents a long panorama, extending from the Ṛigvedic period to the close of the 18th century. As observed by Giedion in his *Space Time and Architecture*: "History is not a compilation of facts but an insight into a moving process of life." A true and close-up study of Indian art must lead to an insight into the moving process of life that unfolded itself under the Indian sky during the successive ages. Art has preserved in visual documentation the discoveries of thought and the impact of mind on the world around as manifested during the long course of our history. The Vedic period, initiating the great march of Indian culture on its onward path, is truly the period of ‘land taking’. Not only in a physical sense when this nation got settled on the land, but in the region of thought also it was an age of Path-finders, the Pathikrit Rishis, who chartered unknown domains of the mind and created eternal motifs of thought that formulate and explain the cosmic processes as applicable equally to the life of the individual and the much bigger entity of the world. A clear inventory of the Vedic motifs remains a desideratum and the work should be carried out comprehensively from the viewpoint of art history. Dr. Coomaraswamy offered brilliant expositions of some of these great symbols of thought and life, which also were virtually the symbols of art.

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The study of symbols is not only fascinating, but also essential for a clear appraisal of the significance of Indian art motifs. The Pūrṇa-Kumbha (Full Vase), Kalpavriksha (Wish Fulfilling Tree), Kāmadhenu (Cow of Plenty), Svastika, Chakra, Sūrya, Nāga-Garuḍa and the Daivāsuram are some of the great motifs that have been clearly formulated in the Vedas, and throughout our art history they serve as the vehicles of thought and of decoration. They constitute the basic vocabulary of Indian art and literature.

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The Pūrṇa-Kumbha or Full Vase is pre-eminently a Vedic motif. It is referred to as the over-flowing Full Vase (Pūrṇo asyā Kalaśaḥ) and as filled with all the pair of opposites that constitute life in its dual aspect of Being and Becoming (Sat-Asat), Masculine and Feminine (Stri-Purāṇ), Childhood and Age, Immortality and Death and all the virtues that the gods have created and all the vices that Asuras love. In vedic thought the human body itself is such a Full Vase (Pūrṇa-Kalaśaḥ), and there is no other more charming symbol created in nature than the human body. As saith an Upanishadic passage: "Of all the forms that were created the human form was the most perfect" (Purusho vāva bata sukritaḥ). This Pūrṇa-Kumbha appears as a symbol of Indian art in a great variety of forms (Fig. 1a, 1b, 1c & 1d).

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The Kalpa-Vriksha or the Wish-Fulfilling Tree is another charming symbol. As a tree or a creeper it sometimes originates from the navel or mouth of a Yaksha, or grows naturally and then sends its endless offshoots into scrolls or arabesques of intricate design. According to the Vedic thought, the human mind—Kalpa—is the source from which all thoughts, either disciplined or uncontrolled (Samkalpa-Vikalpa) emanate. Mind is the virtual Thought Tree, the Kalpa-Vriksha, under which each one of us stands according to nature's life-scheme. The intricate foliage of this tree or creeper comprises our endless desires and passions that envelope our lives (Fig. 4: a, b, c & d).

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Of the great Vedic motifs, the one relating to the eternal conflict of good and evil known as the Daivāsuram, constitutes the most forceful and varied symbol for the flow of religious thought and the manifestation of art forms. All our gods and goddesses that enter into deadly combats with demoniac forces, the Buddha that vanquishes Māra the genius of evil, the Yogi Śiva that triumphs over Kāma the god of love, are all but standing commentaries to explain the dominant motif of Daivāsuram. Originally formulated in the Ṛigveda, it subsequently underwent endless transformation, but remained throughout the outstanding metaphysical motif of Indian religious thought and art expressing it.

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Fig. 1. (a) Sarnath

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Fig. 1. (c) Amaravati

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Fig. 1. (b) Mathura

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Fig. 2. (a) Śrī-Lakṣamī (Front view)

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Fig. 1. (d) Pūrṇa-ghaṭa Anurādhapur

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Fig. 2. (b) (back View)

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There is an immense richness of Vedic motifs; a full study of them with subsequent history would be regarded as a capital contribution to the exposition of Indian literature and art. Actual art remains of the Vedic period are still unknown. It seems unlikely that they would ever be forthcoming for the Vedic thought revelled in Deva-śilpa, the divine or cosmic forms. Like the life of a child waiting to manifest itself in specialized formal elements, the whole cosmic life is beautiful to the Vedic seer. He finds beauty in the golden goddess of dawn with a golden mien, moving in her golden chariot across the sky and sprinkling immortality with her golden fingered hands. The aesthetic reaction of the Vedic poet is available to us in a number of beauty denoting words, as if appearing just fresh from the mould. They are reminiscent of the Vedic aesthetics, and we are indebted to Dr. Oldenberg for a very illuminating study of those expressions. However, the thesis could be much further extended and each word or motif could be studied with respect to its evolution in classical Sanskrit literature up to the time of Kālidāsa and Bāṇabhaṭṭa.

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The two goddesses Śrī and Lakshmī, Beauty and Prosperity, are spoken of as the twin mistresses of the soul (Śrīscha Lakshmīścha Patnyau), the two benign influences that nurture an individual in his domestic and social setting. This conception was later on developed as the goddess Padma-Śrī in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, or the figurine of Gaja-Lakshmī (Fig. 8) and Śrī-Lakshmī (Fig. 2 a & 2 b) which begin to appear in the art of Bharhut, Sanchi, the Orissa Caves and elsewhere, and survive throughout as beautiful and significant motifs of Indian art. As a motif it received universal homage from the Buddhists, the Hindus and Jains. Like many other Tree and Water motifs the Śrī-Lakshmī conception was rooted in the soil, and is a product of the earthbound sense of life permeating the early Indian art (Fig. ib.).

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The main problem of the Indus Valley art is an investigation of its historical connections with the ancient art of Western Asia on the one hand and its subsequent links with the historical art of India herself. The Mother-Goddess and the Yogi-Śiva offer clear pointers to Indian affinities, and similarly are the decorative motifs, the geometrical and floral patterns linked to historical survivals, and it seems highly improbable that an art of such vital growth which flourished on the Indian soil from the Sutlej to the Arabian Sea for a thousand years should have vanished without leaving a trail for its successors. Of its survivals we have as yet only dim intimations, but the subject does not seem to have been properly broached as yet. Recently my attention was drawn to the ring-stones of haematite found at Taxila (Fig. 6), Mathura, Kosam, Ahichchhatra, Bhita, Rajghat, Pataliputra and elsewhere. They represent a mother-goddess with alternating tree and animal motifs unconnected with any other objects of the historical period. A seal from Rajghat of the same material shows a bull with a crib before it similar to the Indus Valley unicorn and crib. It also bears a Brahmi inscription which I have not been able to decipher. It seems to be an important bit of evidence, a unique relic, but an isolated link in the chain of evidence that might be required to shed light on this obscure problem.

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Round parasol on the head of a free standing colossal Bodhisattva image. Mathura, Ist Century A. D. Now in Sarnath Museum.

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Fig. 3.

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(a)

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(b)

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(c)

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(d)

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Fig. 4. Kalpalatā motif producing ornaments and cloths (Bharhut)

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Fig. 5. Egyptian life motif. Ankh

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Fig. 6. Ring-stone showing Mother Goddess, Taxila

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Fig. 7. The Vaijayant symbol

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The time from about the 8th century B.C. to the rise of Mauryan imperialism is the *Mahā-Janapada* period of Indian history. It is the period of the Gṛihyasūtras and of Pāṇini, of the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. In this period people began to cast off the shackles of their tribal associations and became settled on the land in organized village communities. Two outstanding features of our cultural life in the Janapada age are to be particularly noted. The first relates to the full and unfettered freedom of association enjoyed by each group according to its needs, giving rise to a variety of corporate organizations, some well knit like the *Saṅgha* or *Śreṇī* and others only loosely bound like the *Vrāta* or associations of warlike bands. But the second feature is really important for our present purpose. With the people settled quietly on the land, pursuing the avocation of the plough, there emerged factors which led to the cultivation of arts and crafts as an imperative social need and economic function. There were groups of people which formed part of the village economy but could not wholly depend on the land. For them it was necessary to discover new ways of earning a livelihood and this was the origin of an exciting variety of *Śilpas* (crafts). The whole Janapada society, as if it were a team awoke to activity and threw itself into handicrafts. Any work done by hand, any occupation of manual skill, any activity requiring the use of mind with manual cleverness was called *Śilpa*. Yāska tells us: "Proficiency in the professions appertaining to the life of a village bestows on an individual special distinction" (*Jānapadishu vidyāto purushaviśesho bhavati*). An intensive cultivation of crafts was the hall mark of this age; the invention of a large number of appliances or skilful contrivances called *Yantras*, useful for agricultural and domestic life was a distinguishing feature of the civilization in this period, which is referred to by Manu as *Mahā-Yantra-pravartanam*. The distinction between fine art and crafts did not exist at that time. Pāṇini's definition of *Śilpa* includes dancers, musicians, instrumentalists (playing on *madduka* and *jharjhara*), and also barbers and carpenters. The material about the *Śilpas* in the *Jātakas* is to be viewed in this light.

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New professions were being discovered and organized, each one looked upon with due regard as fulfilling a necessary social and economic need. The barber, carpenter, washerman, dyer, dancer, singer, gardener, mason, blacksmith, painter, snake-charmer, goatherd, potter, florist, weaver, tailor, arrow maker, wrestler and a host of other workers, constituted the rich pattern of the *Śilpas* in the Janapada society. It was essentially a *Śilpa*-culture integrated with the village economy.

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The net contribution of this period was the emergence and crystalization of motifs and patterns of architecture and decoration in tangible form. Wood formed the principal medium of carving and for architectural purposes: the carpenter and the wood worker are referred to with greater esteem than the stone mason. The gateways and the railings executed in the Sunga period derived their ancestry from this earlier age. It was an art of wood transferred to stone.

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A second feature of the Janapada period art was the outburst of an immense number of symbols—*lakshaṇas* as seen on the punch-marked coins. Indeed for about another five hundred years, the vogue of symbols became conspicuous in Indian art. A study of the coin symbols with a view to their art history yet remains an unwritten chapter, but must prove of interest in assessing the full significance and value of many decorative patterns of Indian art.

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But the most outstanding problem of this period is the investigation of the foreign contacts that India established with the Persia of Darius on the west, with the Sakas of Sākadvīpa in Central Asia settled near the *Kumuda* mountain (The Koumedia of Herodotos) beyond the Oxus and the Yucchis or the *Rishikas* of Central Asia. The evidence of Mahābhārata is positive about these early contacts. *Sakandhu* and *Karkandhu* of the grammatical literature in the *Vārtikas* of Kātyayana (4th century B.C.) point to the knowledge of the country of the Sakas and of the Karkas or the Karkians both of whom are referred to in the inscription of Darius in the 5th century B.C. A definite flow of Western Asian motifs towards India seems to be predicated as a result of these contacts. The Assyrian passion for colossal animal forms, the Lion and the Bull, and the Babylonian repeat motif as seen in the representation of the Palm Tree, are clearly reflected in the decorative motifs of Bharhut and Sanchi. The winged and fabulous animals that we usually associate with the Sakas already appear in early Buddhist art. We know of another motif on the punch-marked coins and in sculpture viz. a triangle-surmounted standard. It appears to me to be the 'Standard' symbol or *Vaijayantī* (Fig. 7), the *Indrayaṣṭi* referred to in the Mahābhārata and said to be a banner raised in honour of Indra to mark the weal and prosperity of the whole Janapada. It has an obvious resemblance with the Life motif, Ankh (Fig. 5), that is first found in Egypt and then transmitted to other countries in Western Asia. The tradition of the Epic relating to the architect Maya executing the Assembly Hall of Yudhishṭhira after the pattern of the *Viśvakarmā Sabhā* can be explained only against a wider background of art extending beyond the borders of India. It cannot however be forgotten that whatever the extent of foreign exchanges in the realm of art may have been, the background of thought on which these were engrafted was essentially Indian. The symbolism of the Lion capital could hardly have been conceived except against the background of the religion of the *Dharmachakra* which once surmounted it.

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The art of the Sunga period is an art of folk inspiration, a documentation of popular life and cult beliefs, it is dominated by an abandon and freedom peculiar to sylvan deities, the Yakshas and the Nāgarājas. There is in it no urban tension or sophistication, nor is the moral severity of the Buddha's religion impressed on its countenance. The figure of the Yogī Buddha is, so to say, unwanted in that art; the Buddha permeates it only as an influence.

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The tension of the Buddha image would not accord with an art feeling of such universal consciousness. The Yakshas stand out pre-eminent in their own right; they are not yet the puny subordinated and accessory attendant figures that they become in Kushana art. The problem of Sunga art apart from its proper stylistic evaluation, concerns itself mainly with the detailed investigation of all the art forms and decorative motifs with special reference to their folk symbolism, their exposition from literary sources, specially the *Jātakas*, the Epics and the Jaina canons, and the restoration of their technical names. Much useful work was done in this line by Dr. Coomaraswamy in his essays on early Indian iconography and on ancient Indian architecture dealing with cities, city-gates and palaces. But there is still a vast amount of material in the Jaina sources, specially rich in this respect is the text called the *Rayāpaseniya*, in which we find an account of an ancient stūpa of the mythical Alkappa city, which seems to be a detailed, eyewitness description of one of the ancient Jaina stupas of Mathura built at the Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā site in the 2nd century B.C. The terminology is extremely rich and the account of the *Padmavara Vedikā*, the Lotus Railing round the stūpa with the voluptuous female figures carved on the pillars is exceptionally true to facts taken from actual architecture. This study, I am glad to say, has been undertaken by my friend, Dr. Moti Chandra, with remarkable results.

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The Kushana art continues further the same indigenous tradition of folk inspiration of the joy arising from the life of the senses and the pulsating buoyancy of open air feminine sports and pastimes, but their emphasis is increasingly human and the centre is shifting towards an urban civilization. The emergence of the Buddha image is the supreme gift of Kushana art. The image is not an abrupt or disruptive phenomenon; it rather stands integrated to the preceding religious processes and is an outcome of the movement laying emphasis on personal devotion to a deity or person of divine rank, counted supreme amongst other godlings. The colossal free standing Buddha and Bodhisattva images cannot be separated from the preceding Parkham Yaksha types. The problem of the origin of the Buddha image had been furnished with an answer in its stylistic bearings long ago by Dr. Coomaraswamy. The key, however, to the priority of the chronological position between the schools of Mathura and Gandhara rests with archaeology and that key is still not forthcoming. The existence of temples of Bhagavan Vāsudeva in the time of Sodasa is however an established fact of archaeology and this at any rate preceded the known images of the Buddha.

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The Buddha image introduced a revolutionary change in Indian sculpture and architecture. The images of gods and goddesses began to be executed in increasing numbers according to the dictates of an expanding pantheon. With the main attention focussed on the image, the railing receded into the background, and in the Gupta period the railing was absorbed or assimilated in the pattern of the raised platform or temple plinth, the *Jagat-pitha*, such as we find at Devagarh in which upright pillars with male and female figures carved on them illustrating scenes from Krishna's life and the Rāmāyana were fixed against a masonry wall.

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The flat-roofed temple of the early Gupta shrines with its modest cella (*garbha-griha*) is derived in its architectural pattern from the simple *Gandhakutis* of the Kushana period. These were constructed for the colossal free standing images of the Buddha by erecting three vertical plain slabs on the three sides and covering them with a flat slab which was carved on its inside with the same decorative patterns and symbols as were seen on the parasol or *chhatra* (Fig. 3). In fact, square parasol slabs of this carved pattern have been recently discovered at Mathura showing clear devices and grooves for erecting the upright slabs (Fig. 9). Subsequently with the addition of a porch and a sikhara in the Gupta period the architectural pattern of the Hindu temple emerged completely and fully equipped for its further development.

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During the Gupta period, Indian sculpture, painting, drama and music witnessed an all round efflorescence. The tremendous outburst of creative activity on a national scale, engulfing the country from Mirapur Khas in Sindh to Dalparbatiya on the Brahmaputra in Assam, established for the first time a national style of art distinguished by common characteristics and activating from numerous centres. There is as yet no adequate study which can be said to do justice to Gupta art comprising its rich sculpture, architecture, painting, terracottas, beads, pottery, and details of ornamentation, decorative motifs, styles of hairdressing and fashions in costumes and fabrics as they were developed in the age of Kālidāsa and Bāṇabhaṭṭa. A sumptuous volume like the Sanchi topas will have to be undertaken to present the material with suitable reproductions, and to interpret it in terms of the contemporary literary evidence. For no other period of Indian history is the cultural material so rich and so amply documented in its literature and art specimens as for the Gupta Age. We have, for example, reference to the various styles of hair, as Alaka also called Valibhṛit keśa (frizzled locks), Bhramaraka (Bee coiffure), Līlā-mayūra Keśapāśa (Peacock-feather style), the honey-comb style, the sīmanta parting of the hair and its decoration with a forehead jewel known as the chaṭula tilakamaṇi.

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Fig. 8 Jaina. Āyāgapaṭṭa with svastika and mīna-mithuna etc. motifs. Mathura. 1st Century A.D.

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Fig. 9. Square parasol and flat top of the Gandha-Kuṭī (Mathura)

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The art motifs in the works of Kālidāsa besides offering a rich field of study put us into possession of evidence about the date of the poet. For example, Kālidāsa refers for the first time to the motif of the two river goddesses Gaṅgā and Yamunā carved on the temple doorways in human form and attending on the deity (mūrte cha Gaṅgā-Yamune *tadānīm sachāmare devamāsevishātām* (Fig. 11). This agrees with the evidence of the Vishṇudharmottara Purāṇa stating that the river-goddesses should be shown standing on their respective vehicles with legs bent at knee and holding Full Vases in their hands¹.

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¹ सरितां सशरीरणां वाहनानि प्रदर्शयेत् । पूर्णकुम्भकराः कार्यस्तथा नमितजानवः ॥ —*Vishnudharmottara* 3-42-51

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Fig. 10. Gaja-Lakshmī (Sanchi)

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Fig. 11. Temple doorway showing Gaṅgā & Yamunā (Devagarh)

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Another typical Gupta feature is the reference to the conch and lotus symbols *Sankha-Padma-nidhis* carved on the jambs of doorways. According to the *Vishnudharmottara*, the two jewels, the lotus and the conch, should be shown in their natural form (*Sankha-Padmau nidhi kāryau svarūpau*), and this is confirmed by Kālidāsa saying that the house of the exiled Yaksha in *Alakā* was painted with the figures of the conch and the lotus (*Dvāropānte likhitavajñushau Sankha-Padmau*). This feature is clearly seen in Gupta art, on the flanking posts of the three niches in the walls of the Devagarh temple and on certain other pilasters of the Gupta period in Mathura art. The following additional references indicate the chronological bearings of Kālidāsa with the culture of the Gupta period: The goddess Kali holding a skull, the seven Divine Mothers (*Mātaraḥ*); Kārttikeya riding a peacock (*mayūra-pṛishṭhāśayī Guha*), Vishnu sleeping on Śesha (*Śeshaśāyī Vishnu*) (Fig. 12); Vishnu seated on the coils of a serpent (*Bhogi-bhogāsanāsīna Vishnu*), as the one in the image on the lintel (*lalāṭa-bimba*) of the Devagarh temple; Rāvaṇa lifting Kailāsa; the dwarf attendants of Vishnu partly in human and partly in their natural form (*jalajāsi-gadaśārṅga-chakra-lāñchhita mūrtibhiḥ*, Raghuvamsa); the halo resembling a full-blown lotus (*padmātapatra chḥāyā-maṇḍala*) as contrasted with the plain halo of the Kushana period with only a margin of scallops, etc. A more detailed study of all the motifs and elements of decoration mentioned by the poet and seen in art and painting is likely to render the picture of corelationships even more complete. The lotus halo of the Buddha, Vishnu and Tirthankara images of the Gupta period are well-known. According to the *Brihatsamhita* the halo should be covered with a pattern of geese with feathers treated in conventionalized scrolls, adorned with pearl festoons (*muktāphalopachita-pralamba-mālāvila*) and these features are corroborated by the actual specimens.

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Fig. 12. Śeshaśāyī Vishnu on the lintel of the Devagarh Temple.

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The cultural history of the Gupta Age stretched itself into the 7th century. The *Kādambarī* and the *Harshacharita* of Bāṇa written in the time of Harsha provide us with art evidence about iconography, ornamentation, drapery, decorative motifs, furniture, utensils, trappings of horses and elephants, etc., which is extremely valuable for an understanding of the material culture of the transitional period between the Gupta and the medieval epochs. The importance of the *Harshacharita* as a cultural treatise cannot be over-estimated. I have recently come across references there to two kinds of foreign imported textiles, firstly *Stavaraka* manufactured in Iran and exported on one side to India and on the other to Arabia where it finds mention in the description of the raiments of the Houries in Paradise; and secondly to a textile of Central Asian origin called *Pringa* which was a kind of damask silk of one colour. The many coloured striped drapery of Ajanta is referred to as *Indrayudhambara* the cloth resembling the rainbow; the tie and dye process is also mentioned. This varied material has to be properly presented and interpreted in the light of the actual evidence from art.

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The problem of Indian art terminology is a very vast one for which the available material is extremely rich. It is embodied in specialized texts like the *Vishṇudharmottara*, the *Chitrasūtra* part of it, the *Mānsāra*, or the *Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra*, etc. The stray references in the Pali, Sanskrit and Prakrit literature amplify it. Dr. Coomaraswamy in his *Indian Architectural Terms* made a beginning with this study. Mr. Sivaramamurti at one time contributed fairly extensive articles on the art references in the various classical *Kavyas*. Dr. Moti Chandra has bagged a rich harvest of such terms in his amply documented papers relating to Indian costumes, coiffure and cosmetics from the Vedic period to the Gupta Age. I am drawing specific attention to them for the reason that the terms which have been clearly identified and assessed therein should now be adopted and introduced in our art books. The restoration of Indian art terminology is the condition precedent for the proper understanding of Indian art motifs, patterns and forms. The specialized texts are awaiting authoritative editing, even the *Vishṇudharmottara* chapters on iconography and the *Chitrasūtra* chapters on painting require fresh examination, and these studies are bound to remain incomplete unless correlated with actual examples. The *Vishṇudharmottara* refers to Bahirava with round eyes (*vṛitta-lochana*) protruding teeth (*daṁshṭra-karāla vadana*) and broad nostrils (*puḷḷa-nāsāpuṭa*). In a terracotta image of Bhairava the Śiva temple at Ahichchhatra I found these three features holding good. In the case of the Sun images, Varāhamihira refers to his girdle as *avyanga* (*Brihatsaṁhitā* Ch. 58.47) and the same is mentioned in the *Vishṇudharmottara* as *yaviyanga* (Ch. 67,3), which are only attempts to render into Sanskrit the Parsi girdle called *aivyaonhan*. We have before us a great quantity of terminological material to be evaluated and cleared up.

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A third fruitful source of art terminology is the oral tradition. If properly tapped, much useful material could be got out of it. It is illustrated by the list of *Some Art and Archaeological Terms* published by me in the *Museums Journal*, and in a much more convincing way in Dr. Moti Chandra's work *The Technique of Mogul Painting*, in which several hundreds of painting terms were obtained from Ustad Ram Prasad at Banaras who was the last surviving painter of the Mogul schools in that city.

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A typological study and classification of Indian clay figurines might be mentioned as another possible source of cultural material unsurpassed even by sculpture for its range and variety. The clay figurines present as it were an inventory of the types of men and women in the several walks of society in a particular period.

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We find among them types not only of gods and goddesses but kings and courtiers, domestic servants, warriors and palace attendants, monks and nuns, horse-riders and elephant keepers, hunters and gamesmen, dwarfs and acrobatic figures etc. The toy figurines mostly provide material relating to the children's art in ancient India and this line of approach should also be explored further.

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The study and interpretation of Indian art is pregnant with great possibilities for our coming cultural renaissance. As a nation the Indians were once the citizens of a beautiful world of forms. The last two centuries disenfranchised us from that heritage and tradition. An inroad of exotic forms affected all spheres of Indian life and our own motifs and forms of painting, sculpture, decorative designs, architecture, furniture, dress, even our flowers, perfumes, household utensils, music, dance and drama, etc., suffered heavily, retreating under the fire of aggressive European vogues and fashions. India's struggle for *Sva-rājya* can only be interpreted as a struggle of her soul to rehabilitate herself in her own forms of life and culture. *Svarājya* must mean a cultural rebirth. With the dawn of Independence the destiny of Indian culture must be fulfilled once again and the national soul must reassert itself. In the words of the Rigveda, the old and the new generations have to enkindle the flame of knowledge and culture. Potent signs of the coming revival are visible on all sides. Much depends on the people's will to attain their cultural rehabilitation. The *Dharmachakra* has become our natural symbol through a prophetic decision of rare wisdom. The *Dharmachakra* must be understood by a modern mind as the wheel of culture. This *Dharmachakra* must revolve steadily both in space and time, imparting a new tone, quality and richness to life's manifold manifestations under the Indian sky. May the Goddess of Beauty lead to this fulfilment.

3. Viśvakarmā

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'Mighty in mind and power is Viśvakarmā, Maker, Disposer and most lofty Presence', Viśvakarmā represents the highest image (*paramāsamdṛik*). According to Meister Eckhart, "Any thing known or born is an image". Thus the world of Name and Form is the image of Viśvakarmā. It is his lofty Presence, his apparition, that was once concealed in the highest heaven and has now become manifest as the immanent world of names and forms. The visible objects which Viśvakarmā is creating constitute This All (*idam sarvam*), i.e., the totality of all images which we grasp through the mind and senses. Viśvakarmā in his undifferentiated form, i.e., in principium (*agre*) contains within Him all that has become known or born later on. Each image or icon is a symbol of the divine supreme reality, and is the manifest form of that which existed in the mind of the creator. There is an Original Model (*pratirūpa*) which unfolds itself in diverse forms (*rūpam rūpam pratirūpo babhūva*, *Ṛigveda* VI. 47. 18). What the original model (*pratirūpa*) is we do not know; or else we know it through the forms in which it is imaged. To see Him, which is the same as to understand Him, we must find Him out in every figure of which He was the original. The model is archetypal for all casts, figures and images. Viśvakarmā is that Archetype (*prathamachchhada*).

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