Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c7.74

v1.c7.74

It may well be said that images are to the Hindu worshipper what diagrams are to the geometrician. To the latter, an ill-drawn free-hand circle serves the same purpose in his demonstration as a neat compass-drawn circle. Similarly, to the Hindu even an ill-shaped image, but one made according to the directions given in his *śāstras* serves the same object as a very artistically executed image, provided it is made in strict conformity with *śāstraic* rules. Hindu worshippers of images ignore beauty passively; and this negligence of artistic merit on their part has tended to make the sculptor very often a careless worker.