Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.305

c7.305

Târanâth's allusion to the inferiority of the Hindu artists points to some of the esoteric influences in later Hinduism which have contributed to the neglect and contempt into which Indian fine art, especially sculpture, has now fallen. I have before suggested the probability that Sankaracharya, the great Hindu reformer and the apostle of the Vedanta, who lived in the eighth century, was, if not an iconoclast, like the followers of Islam, as much opposed in principle to image-worship as the early Vedic philosophers, though tolerating it as a spiritual help for the ignorant masses.