Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c74.s9.2

v2.c74.s9.2

In nearly all the phases of Indian art the Rasa (or impassioned feeling) has played a very prominent role. The Indian belief is that the supreme being is Rasa-svarupa (cf. the Indian theory of Rasa-Brahma-Vāda रसो वै स:). Again image-worship, for which icons used to be made of the manifold materials with manifold symbols, to be worthy of desired end, has to be done in a manner of an accomplished art, *viz.* dance and drama where there is an identification of the spectator with the Naṭa, the actor. A similar identification is essential between the worshipper and the worshipped. This is possible only through the arousing of rasas, the aestheticism, in art. The sculptural monuments in our possession do corroborate this dictum and there we find a number of different ‘Rasas’ which the artists endeavoured to dwell upon in their dry stones and metals. Brindavana’s observations (vide I. I. p. xv), in this connection are worth quoting: ‘The images were so wrought by the Indian artist as to manifest one or more of these Rasas by their pose and appearance. The artists believed that when the mind, feeling and temperament of a devotee would come in an identical line with those of the worshipped, the realization of one’s prayer could only then be expected. Thus they furnished various images expressing not one but a variety of Rasas just according to the needs of the worshipper. Nor should we carelessly err in assuming that an image conveys one single feeling in its pose. As in a man, so in an image may be discernable a mixed feeling, the result of an interaction of multiple feelings, either of similar type or even of opposing types. As an illustration the expression of love and sublimity is regularly to be noticed in the images of Hara-Gaurī or Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa, more particularly in the Anantaśayyā group. The feeling of laugther but without repugnance or sarcasm may easily be excited in us as we look at the pot-bellied image of Gaṇeśa, dancing with his elephant nose or of Kubera, the god of wealth.....The mood of anger together with the sympathetic protection (varabhaya) has been emphatically expressed in most of the Tāntrika images which as a rule, represent the energetic principles of the universe. In them more vividly than in others, may be witnessed a mingled feeling of fear, wrath, repugnance, wonder and sportiveness. Indeed, it ought to be plainly said that without a trained eye in this directon, it is as impossible to appreciate the remarkable success attained by the Indian artists in the composition of those images as it may be to estimate rightly all the standing monuments of Ancient Indian Culture’.