Studies in Indian Art c7.s1.6

c7.s1.6

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.