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Studies in Indian Art c7.s2: 2. Lalita Kalā

Studies in Indian Art c7.s2

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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.

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