The Development of Hindu Iconography c13.71.3

c13.71.3

but it should never be forgotten that they were not being made for art connoisseurs' criticism, their primary purpose being to serve as so many aids to the religious efforts (*sādhanā*) of the innumerable devotees (*bhaktas*) and not as drawing-room or museum specimens to be judged chiefly for their artistic merits or demerits. Rao himself says, ‘Like all art, the Indian icono-plastic art also has to be judged from the standpoint of its motive. To those who cannot appreciate this motive, the very ideal of the art remains hidden and inexplicable.’ These rules, therefore, facilitated to a very great extent the work of the image-maker and helped immensely the development of the icono-plastic art in this country. There are good and indifferent artists in every country and in different periods the artistic activities of its inhabitants seem for various reasons to reach a very high level or in other times sink down to a low one; but to make these injunctions mainly responsible for the latter condition is not scientifically correct. We should never minimise the very common advice to be met with in such compilations that the *śilpin*, though he should closely follow the rules, must try to make the image as beautiful as possible, for have not the gods a special liking for beautiful images (*ābhirūpyācca vimbānām devaḥ sännidhyamṛcchati*)?