Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c10.s5.2

c10.s5.2

The Indian craftsman, indeed, conceives of his art not as the accumulated knowledge of ages, but as originating in the divine skill of Viśvakarma, and revealed by him. Beauty, rhythm, proportion, idea, have an absolute existence on an ideal plane, where all who seek may find. The reality of things exists in the mind, not in the detail of their appearance to the eye. This inward inspiration upon which the Indian artist is taught to rely, appearing like the still small voice of a god, that god was conceived of as Viśvakarma. He may be thought of as that part of Divinity which is conditioned by a special relation to artistic expression. In another way, again, he may be conceived of as the sum total of consciousness of individual craftsmen of all ages and places, composing a ‘group soul’ of a higher order of consciousness. These philosophical conceptions are not consciously present in the minds of modern craftsmen, but they are not foreign to Indian thought.