Indian Sculpture c6.s1.5

c6.s1.5

Similar to the symbol in early classical art (p. 25), the image from the religious point of view need not be—and frequently is not—born from within the creative genius, and it is not as a maker of images that the mediæval Indian craftsman realises his entire artistic experience. This refers mainly to the most popular types of images. The innumerable mediæval images of Buddha, Viṣṇu, Umā-maheśvara and others are scarcely more than figured yantras. But where the craftsman, himself a yogin, works at the image, the yantra no longer stands midway between devotion and the goal itself; it leaves with him its knowledge, while its mechanism disappears, and he sets forth the image from the all-filling presence of his samādhi.