Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c5.27

c5.27

The meaning (*artha*) belongs to the region of the unmanifest (*amūrta*) and the form (*rūpa*) to the manifest (*mūrta*). Both are the two aspects of Divine Viṣṇu. The one called a higher (*arūpa = paramarūpa*) and the other a lower (*viśvarūpa = mūrtarūpa*, *Viṣṇu P.* 6. 7. 54). The whole cosmos with its created objects is governed by the higher principle of meaning, defined as *Bhāvanā*, i.e. the emotions, feelings and sentiments in the hearts of men. Such emotions exist at three levels, viz. (1) a cosmic transcendental meaning (*Brahma-bhāvanā*); (2) the feelings and emotions of the highest gods upto human beings and lower beings (*Karma-bhāvanā*), which is the same as ‘life’ or culture; (3) a union of the above two (*Ubhaya-bhāvanā*), in which divine knowledge (*Brahma*) and human activity (*Karma*) are revealed, as in Rāma, Kṛṣṇa, Buddha, Mahāvīra.