Indian Sculpture c6.s1.4

c6.s1.4

If meditation, irrespective of the system that it serves, in all its stages, could be embedded in the form to which myths and images had lent their names in earlier centuries, bhakti (devotion), though in need of an image, had not been able to become the substance of an adequate artistic form as far as images of divinities are concerned (see, however, p. 120). As far as images are intermediaries, they obey strict rules which make them fit for this purpose. As yantras they belong to an ‘applied art,’ where value is not connected with artistic quality; it lies in the service which they render to the devotee during pūjā.