Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.192

c7.192

While the Greeks made the perfect human body the highest ideal for an artist, there has been always in Indian thought a deep-rooted objection to anthropomorphic representations of the Divine. The Aryans in the early Vedic times built no temples, and image-worship had no place in their ritual. The Hindu *Sastras* hold that it is unlucky to have any representation of a human figure within the precincts of a temple. The substitution of a plain stone emblem for a statue as the principal object of worship for most of the followers of Siva in the present day is probably an instance of this feeling, and may date from the time of the great Hindu reformer of the eighth century, Sankaracharya.¹