A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c7: Chapter I. Introduction
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c7
- Language
- English
Contents
- c7.s1 Bibliographical Note — 1 part
Chapter I. Introduction
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The title of this book may reasonably suggest two criticisms—one, that the implied distinction between Fine Art and the Industrial or Applied Arts is unreal; the other, that, according to well-known authorities, Fine Art does not exist in India.
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The admission may be freely made that no absolute line of demarcation can be drawn between Fine Art and the Industrial Arts in any country, and further, that in India such distinction as really exists tends to be obscured more often than in other lands. Nevertheless, in the greater part of this book I have not experienced much practical difficulty in drawing the line. The guiding idea in my mind has been to discriminate between work showing creative power in a greater or lesser degree and that which is merely the outcome of skilled hereditary craftsmanship; or more briefly, to distinguish the productions of the artist from those of the artisan.
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In the Muhammadan decorative designs treated in Chapter XIII the distinction usually vanishes, and strict logic might demand the exclusion of such works. But most readers would feel that a book on Indian Art which refused to take notice of the beautiful decoration of the Mughal period was incomplete, and it is practically impossible to ignore the subject. It is, however, true that nearly all the Muhammadan decorative work can be reproduced perfectly by sufficiently skilled artisans to any extent desired, whereas a copy of a work of genuine Fine Art is never quite equal to the original. Perhaps the copying test might be accepted as the criterion to distinguish between Fine Art and Industrial Art; but, without insisting on the application of any precise formula, I am convinced that there is a real distinction between the two things, and that, even in India, it can be demarcated with sufficient precision in both Sculpture and Painting, the two arts which form my main subject.
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Tradition is a factor of such commanding power in Indian art, as, indeed, in all Indian institutions, that it is peculiarly difficult to feel assured that a given sculpture or painting in India is rightly classed as an example of Fine Art and not merely as a product of the skilled craftsman's workshop. All that can be done is to select the works that on the face of them display creative power, more or less. The bronze images of the Dancing Śiva (Natarāja) discussed in Chapter VII, Sections 6 B and 7 B, offer an excellent illustration of the way in which the distinction may be drawn. All of them are constructed to an authorized pattern prescribed by written rule and sketched in traditional outline drawings, but within the limits so laid down the artistic treatment may vary infinitely. The best examples are unquestionably works of art, while the worst are merely the trade products of coppersmiths executing the orders of customers.
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So much explanation may be enough to indicate the principles on which the discrimination between Fine Art and the Industrial Arts has been attempted. In carrying out those principles I have sought for the best examples, calling expert opinion to the aid of my personal preference so far as possible. It only remains to add that no book of reasonable dimensions could include along with Fine Art all those industries which Goethe called the 'half-arts'. Readers specially interested in the charming art industries of India will find ample information on the subject in the works of Sir George Birdwood, Sir George Watt, and many other authors. But the task of writing a history and criticism of Indian Fine Art is now undertaken for the first time.
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The question of the propriety of discriminating between Fine Art and the Industrial Arts is of no interest if it be true, as affirmed by authors of repute, that India does not now possess, and never has possessed, anything deserving the name of Fine Art. Sir George Birdwood, the eminent authority on the Industrial Arts, emphatically declares that 'sculpture and painting are unknown as fine arts in India'. That opinion, expressed thirty years ago, has been reaffirmed recently by the declaration that during a life-long experience he has not found in India any examples of 'this "Fine Art", the unfettered and impassioned realization of the ideals kindled within us by the things without us'. A photograph of the Java Buddha (*post*, Chap. VII, Sec. 8), exhibited at the Royal Society of Arts as a favourable specimen of Indian religious fine art, drew from Sir George Birdwood the criticism that 'the senseless similitude, by its immemorial fixed pose, is nothing more than an uninspired brazen image, vacuously squinting down its nose to its thumbs, knees, and toes. A boiled suet pudding would serve equally well as a symbol of passionate purity and serenity of soul.'¹
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¹ *Industrial Arts of India* (1880), p. 125: *J. Roy. Soc. of Arts*, Feb. 4, 1910. The 'brazen' image is *really* stone.
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The vigour of Sir George Birdwood's language makes it almost superfluous to quote other more or less equivalent expressions of opinion by recognized authorities. But, desiring to face squarely the issue thus raised and to put the case against Indian art with absolute frankness, I cite two more authors. Dr. Anderson, who was for years in charge of the extensive Calcutta collections, came to the conclusion concerning sculpture that 'the artists of India have never risen in this section of art beyond the most feeble mediocrity'.² Professor Westmacott, author of the well-known *Handbook of Sculpture*, disposes of the subject by the observations that—
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² *Catalogue of Archaeol. Coll., I. M., Calcutta* (1883), Part i, p. 175. But Dr. Anderson subsequently (ibid., ii. 221) expressed a much more favourable opinion of Orissan decorative sculptures as being 'extremely pleasing pieces of art'.
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'There is no temptation to dwell at length on the sculpture of Hindustan. It affords no assistance in tracing the history of art, and its debased quality deprives it of all interest as a phase of Fine Art, the point of view from which it would have to be considered. It must be admitted, however, that the works existing have sufficient character to stamp their nationality, and although they possess no properties
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that can make them useful for the student, they offer very curious subjects of enquiry to the scholar and archaeologist. The sculptures found in various parts of India, at Ellora, Elephanta, and other places, are of a strictly symbolical or mythological character. They usually consist of monstrous combinations of human and brute forms, repulsive from their ugliness and outrageous defiance of rule and even possibility.’¹
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¹ *Handbook of Sculpture* (Edinburgh, 1864), p. 51.
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Like sentiments, which might be collected from many other writers of authority on the history of art, are still widely accepted throughout Europe, and even in India by natives of the country educated on European lines.
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But a change of opinion is in progress. Indian art is only one manifestation of Asiatic art, and European critics are slowly learning to admit that in Asia genuine art, quite independent of the Hellenic tradition, has existed for ages and still lives.
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‘New worlds of art,’ Mr. Fry writes, have been revealed, and ‘a vast mass of new aesthetic experience lies open’.² ‘It used to happen,’ said Goethe, ‘and still happens to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries—to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.’³
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² ‘Oriental Art’ (*Quart. Rev.*, Jan. 1910).
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³ *The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe*, transl. Bailey Saunders (1893), No. 116.
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Not many years have elapsed since Europe began to ‘suspect any merit’ in Japanese art. Now, the stage of ‘gratifying discoveries’ in that domain has been reached, while the equally strange arts of China and Persia have begun to receive their share of recognition. ‘The European mind,’ to quote Mr. Fry again, has been ‘gradually prepared to accept the methods of Oriental design, and with that preparation has come an immense increase in its accessibility.’ Numerous exhibitions and the discourses of many recent critics, English and foreign, have established firmly the claims of Japanese, Chinese, and Persian art to serious consideration on its aesthetic merits, and not merely as raw material for the lucubrations of the ‘scholar and archaeologist’.
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The turn of Indian art has been a little slower in coming, but the writings of Mr. Havell, Dr. Coomaraswamy, Mr. Marshall, and other students have already done something to compel public attention to the subject, and to discredit the attitude of mere contempt expressed in the extracts from the works of older authors quoted above.
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Before proceeding to argue more fully the case on behalf of Indian Fine Art, I hasten to make the admission that the hostile critics were justified in large measure by the miserable quality of the material at their command. There can be no doubt that most of the everyday modern attempts at art to be seen on Indian buildings are contemptible, and that nearly all the reproductions to be found in the older and still current books on Hindu mythology are undeserving of attention as representations of works of art.
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But recent research has opened up rich stores of material immensely superior in quality, while modern scientific facilities render possible and easy the presentation of fairly adequate reproductions. The claims of Indian art must be judged upon the new evidence thus called, and if the illustrations to this book at all fulfil their purpose they will establish directly and without argument the long-continued existence of Fine Art in India and Ceylon. Critics are invited to shift their point of view and to make an effort to appreciate whatever of good there may be in Indian art, as they have already done for that of other Asiatic schools.
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The magnitude of the change of opinion now in progress may be estimated from the language of the protest signed by thirteen aesthetic experts and published in the *Times* on February 28, 1910, as a counterblast to Sir George Birdwood's outburst at the Royal Society of Arts¹:—
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¹ The signatories are (1) Fred. Brown, (2) Walter Crane, (3) George Frampton, (4) Laurence Housman, (5) E. Lantéri, (6) W. R. Lethaby, (7) Halsey Ricardo, (8) T. W. Rolleston, (9) W. Rothenstein, (10) George W. Russell (A. E.), (11) W. Reynolds Stephens, (12) Charles Waldstein, and (13) Emery Walker.
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'We the undersigned artists, critics, and students of art ... find in the best art of India a lofty and adequate expression of the religious emotion of the people and of their deepest thoughts on the subject of the divine. We recognize in the Buddha type of sacred figure one of the great artistic inspirations of the world. We hold that the existence of a distinct, a potent, and a living tradition of art is a possession of priceless value to the Indian people, and one which they, and all who admire and respect their achievements in this field, ought to guard with the utmost reverence and love. While opposed to the mechanical stereotyping of particular traditional forms, we consider that it is only in organic development from the national art of the past that the path of true progress is to be found. Confident that we here speak for a very large body of qualified European opinion, we wish to assure our brother craftsmen and students in India that the school of national art in that country, which is still showing its vitality and its capacity for the interpretation of Indian life and thought, will never fail to command our admiration and sympathy so long as it remains true to itself. We trust that, while not disdaining to accept whatever can be wholesomely assimilated from foreign sources, it will jealously preserve the individual character which is an outgrowth of the history and physical conditions of the country, as well as of those ancient and profound religious conceptions which are the glory of India and of all the Eastern world.'
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The sentiments thus expressed have my general concurrence and, while unable to accept extreme views as to the superiority of Hindu art, I am convinced that India has produced at various periods not a few works of Fine Art in both Sculpture and Painting, which are entitled to take high rank on their aesthetic merits, and not merely as historical documents or archaeological curiosities.
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The term 'Indian' is ambiguous. In a geographical sense all art produced on Indian soil is Indian. That use of the term, however, is unfruitful and fallacious. Much of the art work produced on Indian soil is of alien origin, and should be considered historically as a local development of the styles of certain foreign schools. Most people in England, if they think of Indian art at all, probably think first of the luxurious buildings and decorations executed for the lavish Mughal court during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But, except in the geographical sense, most of the Mughal art is no more Indian than is Government House, Calcutta. The Tāj and Government House are alike in so far as both were built by the hands of Indian masons for foreign masters to foreign designs. The architect of the Tāj, as we shall see in Chapter XII, was either a Venetian or a Turk. Nobody pretends that he was an Indian, and the whole composition, although, like Government House, erected by Indian workmen, is essentially foreign, that is to say, Persian. All the characteristically Muslim art in India is equally alien, modelled on styles prevalent in Mecca, Isfahan, or Constantinople, and not evolved from Indian types. The Indo-Muhammadan art of the Mughal period is substantially Persian, and on rigorous logical principles should be discussed in an appendix to a treatise on Persian art, rather than as a branch of the art of India.
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Hindu art, including Jain and Buddhist in that comprehensive term, is the real Indian art. We can trace its development by the testimony of existing remains from the third century before Christ, and are assured that it had gone through a long process of unrecorded evolution for ages previous to the date of the earliest extant monument. The considerable intrinsic merits of Indo-Persian Muhammadan art being generally recognized, the controversy concerning the claims of India to possess real Fine Art must be concerned with the Hindu art discussed in Chapters II to XI of this work.
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The high achievement of the semi-foreign sculptors of Asoka's reign and of the best artists of the Gandhāran school is so deeply tinged by foreign influences that it may be left out of consideration in this connexion. In sculpture the artistic success of India should be judged from her performance during those periods when elements of foreign origin were a negligible quantity. It is difficult to understand how any unprejudiced critic can refuse the name of fine art to the best sculpture of Sāñchī, Bharhut, Mathurā, the Gupta period, and other categories of early date illustrated in the following pages. The widest divergence of opinion relates to the vast mass of sculptures executed from the seventh century to the present day, and grouped together as Mediaeval and Modern in the seventh chapter.
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The sentiments of the older critics are expressed in the passage from Professor Westmacott's *Handbook* quoted above; those of the new school, as enunciated by Mr. Havell, credit the same sculptures with 'a depth and spirituality which never entered into the soul of Greece', with sublime imagination and the loftiest idealism.
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Who is right? Answers to that question presumably will continue to differ. So much, perhaps, may be conceded by all parties, that the newer criticism has succeeded in proving that the history of Indian sculpture after the third century of the Christian era is not uniformly 'written in decay', and that mediaeval art at its best possesses qualities entitling it to respectful consideration on artistic grounds. Opportunities for further discussion of the aesthetic merits of the mediaeval work will occur in subsequent chapters.
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In painting, including drawing, it is little short of unreasonable to affirm that India has produced no works of fine art. The frescoes of Ajaṇṭā and Sīgiriya bear eloquent testimony to the contrary, and expert opinion fully recognizes the high qualities of the Indo-Persian school, which, in some of its branches, includes distinctly Indian or Hindu elements. The *Rāgmālā*, or 'musical mode', pictures especially, while largely Persian in technique, are purely Indian in sentiment and often of remarkable beauty.
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The brilliant success attained by Hindu art, both plastic and pictorial, in the treatment of plant motives and the representation of indigenous animals is unsurpassed, and amply attested by many of the illustrations in this book.
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Most of my readers, perhaps, will find no difficulty in accepting the proposition that India has produced numerous works of creative fine art in both sculpture and painting, worthy of study as such, and not merely on account of their historical and antiquarian interest.
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Hindu sculpture is commonly reproached for the faults of ignoring anatomical detail in the representation of the human form, and modelling the body and limbs with a rounded, unnaturally smooth surface. It is true that the Indian sculptor, as a rule, and particularly in the mediaeval period, does not attempt to model realistically all muscular details. But his omission to do so is not due to incapacity. Dr. Coomaraswamy has shown conclusively that it is intentional and essential to the Hindu ideal as prescribed by the scriptures. The capacity of Hindu artists for correct modelling is demonstrated by their successful treatment of hands, which in many cases is admirably expressive. Numerous proofs of this statement will be found in the illustrations. The Indian generalized treatment of the body and limbs is not such a violent departure from the facts of nature as might be supposed by a European critic, because the Hindu body is ordinarily much more smooth and rounded than that of Europeans. If the reader will compare the Toluvila Buddha with the Sinhalese native seated beside the image in the same posture, as seen in the photograph (Chap. III), it will be apparent that the conventional generalization has not to be carried very far.
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Another familiar and more serious depreciatory criticism is based on the frequent introduction into Hindu art of monstrous and impossible forms, often grotesque, and not rarely hideous. To my mind it appears impossible to defend the representation of such forms on artistic grounds. The spirited Polonnāruwa bronzes of the dancing Siva (Chap. VII, § 7 B) are grievously marred as works of art by the hideous extra arm brought across the chest. The symbolical significance of additional arms, heads, and so forth to a devout worshipper is not to the purpose. But the defenders of such monstrosities as being legitimate in art allege the emotional and intellectual value of the symbolism as the one reason for tolerating their presence. The argument is fallacious in mixing up two totally distinct things—edification and art—and, if accepted, would justify the description of crude woodcuts in old Bibles as works of art. Dr. Coomaraswamy quotes with approval the following rhetorical passage from the writings of Lafcadio Hearn, the enthusiastic admirer of things Japanese:—
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'Perhaps to uninitiated eyes,' Hearn writes, 'these many-headed, many-handed gods at first may seem—as they seem always in the sight of Christian bigotry—only
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monstrous. But when the knowledge of their meaning comes to one who feels the divine in all religions, then they will be found to make appeal to the higher aestheticism, to the sense of moral beauty, with a force never to be divined by minds knowing nothing of the Orient and its thought . . . as they multiply before research, they vary and change: less multiform, less complex, less elusive the moving of waters, than the visions of this Oriental faith . . . The stranger, peering into its deeps, finds himself, as in the tale of Undine, contemplating a flood in whose every surge rises and vanishes a face—weird or beautiful or terrible—a most ancient shoreless sea of forms incomprehensibly interchanging and intermingling, but symbolizing the protean magic of that infinite unknown that shapes and reshapes for ever all cosmic being.’
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I do not profess to understand the ‘higher aestheticism’, and am thoroughly convinced that sculpture and painting which sacrifice aesthetic essentials to symbolism in so far abandon their claims to be regarded as works of art. A composition including misshapen, monstrous, unbalanced forms may still in virtue of its quality as a whole compel the admission of its right to a place, even to a high place, in the kingdom of art, but if it succeeds in doing so, the success is won in despite not in virtue of the inartistic conceptions which deface it.
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It would be futile to attempt to fix in a scale of precedence the relative rank of the art of India as compared with that of other countries in Asia, not to speak of Europe. Each has its merits and defects. So much may be affirmed with confidence, that Indian art does not deserve all the scorn heaped upon it by Professor Westmacott or all the praise lavished upon it by Mr. Havell. Truth, as usual, lies somewhere between the extremes. Sir C. Purdon Clarke was not far wrong when he wrote: ‘I, whilst giving Indian art a good place among the arts of the world, do not place it in the first rank, except for its eminent suitability to its country and people.’¹
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¹ *J. I. A. I.*, 1890, p. 526.
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The judgement of M. Le Bon, that Indian art is distinguished by ‘striking originality’, may, I think, be accepted. Notwithstanding the endless diversity of races, creeds, customs, and languages, India as a whole has a character of her own which is reflected in her art. A peculiar people necessarily produces a peculiar and essentially original art. India, of course, has borrowed many things from abroad during the long course of the ages, but it is a trite observation, easily proved by many instances, that she always so transmutes her borrowings as to make them her own. Such transmutation is equivalent to originality.
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The originality of Indian art is, perhaps, most conspicuous in architecture, a subject treated only cursorily in these pages. No evidence apparently exists to suggest the foreign origin of any of the main types of Indian buildings prior to the Muhammadan conquest. The effect of that conquest upon architecture was lasting because the Muhammadan government endured for centuries and set the fashion to its subjects. But all the old Hindu styles seem to be indigenous, evolved ultimately from wooden and bamboo structures, with brick as an intermediate stage. The forms of column and capital, borrowed from Persia freely, and from Greece to a more limited extent, were always used merely as decorative details of buildings, which continued to be essentially Indian in plan and elevation.
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Sculpture, too, if the semi-foreign styles of Asoka's reign and the Gandhāran region be excluded, owes little to foreign models. The strong effort continued for several centuries on the north-western frontier to acclimatize Greek forms and technique failed in the end, and the alien style was swamped by the native. The lineal descendants of the Gandhāra school must be sought in the Far East, not in India. Greek artistic canons and rules of proportion never succeeded in making headway against the strong current of ancient Indian tradition. Hindu sculpture, whatever may be thought of its intrinsic quality, continued to be Indian on the whole, guided by Indian not Greek principles. The foreign influences, Assyrian, Persian, or Greek, had merely superficial effect, chiefly traceable in decorative details.
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The fragmentary nature of the record of painting makes it more difficult to judge how far the Indian forms of that art are original. We may suspect foreign, and especially Persian, elements in the art of Ajaṇṭā and Sigiriya, but suspicion is far removed from proof, and proof is lacking. The close relation between the sculptures and the paintings of the Western Caves supports the view that the paintings are indigenous, but no definite conclusion can be formulated because materials for tracing the antecedents of the early Indian and Ceylonese paintings do not apparently exist. Perhaps detailed study of the recent discoveries in Chinese Turkistan may throw more light on the obscure question of the origin of Indian painting.
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Indian art, on the whole, is the slave of religious tradition, and it is this undeniable fact which gives plausibility to the thesis that India is destitute of fine art. Works of fine art in that country may be considered as by-products of religious emotion, the creations of men whose genius was strong enough to mould traditional forms into an expression of itself. Art for its own sake did not, and does not now, interest the Hindu. The enormous mass of Indian literature, whether in Sanskrit or any other language, does not contain, I believe, a single treatise on the aesthetics of plastic and pictorial art, and thus presents a marked contrast to the literature of China, which is rich in ancient works dealing with aesthetic criticism. A few pages written by Abūl Fazl, a Muhammadan author of the sixteenth century, dealing with the introduction of Indo-Persian painting by Akbar, and some confused notes on Buddhist image-makers by Tāranāth, a Tibetan historian of the seventeenth century, constitute the whole of India's contributions to the literature of art. The Hindu *Śilpa-śāstras* are primarily codes of ritual rules, supposed to be revelations from heaven, designed to ensure the construction of buildings with due regard to religious and astrological requirements, and to prevent irreverent representations of the gods. Their use as guides to aesthetically correct construction and composition is secondary and incidental. The Hindus always present an aesthetic principle in the guise of a religious precept.
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But, although nearly all Indian art is religious, it is a mistake to suppose that style was dependent on creed. Fergusson's classical *History of Indian Architecture* is grievously marred by the erroneous assumption that distinct Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu styles existed. Style, which M. Le Bon regards as an affair of race, is more conveniently considered as a function of time and place, varying according to the date and locality of the work. There is no such thing, for example, as a Jain style of architecture. The *stūpas* of the Jains were indistinguishable in form from those of the Buddhists, and a Jain curvilinear steeple is identical in outline with that of a Brahmanical temple. Works of art, including architecture, should be classified with regard to their age and geographical position, not according to the creed for the service of which they were designed. The arrangement of the following chapters is based on that principle, a small exception being made in the case of the monotonous mediaeval Jain sculptures, which for convenience are treated together without distinction of age and place.
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The varying practical requirements of the cult of each religion, of course, had an effect on the nature of the buildings required for particular purposes. For instance, the church or 'chaitya-hall' was of use to Buddhists only, and consequently is a purely Buddhist form. But any given church would be built in the style of its age and country. Similarly each religion had its own fashion of representing deities, but a Buddhist Bodhisattva, say, of the twelfth century would be modelled in the same style as a Brahmanist Vishṇu from the same region.
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The connexion between art and religion in India being so close, and the references to the three principal Indian religions—Buddhism, Jainism, and Brahmanical Hinduism—being necessarily frequent in the course of this work, readers not versed in the history and peculiarities of Indian religions may welcome a few words of explanation concerning them in their relation to art. The last-named religion—Hinduism—really is the oldest of the three, sending down some of its roots into the Vedas, while others penetrate deeply into hidden strata of aboriginal belief. Historically, both Buddhism and Jainism, which, as systems known to us, both date from 500 B. C. in round numbers, may be regarded as offshoots or sects of Hinduism. The earliest monuments of art, however, happen to be Buddhist, and so Buddhism has the first claim to our attention.
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Gautama, the Sage of the Sakyas, the founder of historical Buddhism, as a philosopher accepted the current Indian ideas concerning rebirth, laying special stress upon the miseries inseparable from the continuance of the chain of existence. As a moralist he taught a system of lofty ethics. His teaching, doctrinal and ethical, was entrusted to an Order of begging friars and nuns, which developed quickly into a highly organized and powerful Society or Church, full of missionary zeal, whose operations extended in due course as far west as Epirus and Cyrene, and as far east as Japan. From the third century before to the fourth century after Christ Buddhism was the predominant, although never the sole, Indian religion, in possession of enormous influence exercised by a disciplined hierarchy and supported by the immense wealth of innumerable monastic foundations.
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Those institutions, comparable in riches and dignity with the greatest abbeys of mediaeval Christendom, became active centres of learning and art, enlisting the services of artists of all kinds for the worthy decoration of the sacred buildings and the celebration of worship with becoming splendour.
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The most prominent external feature of the Buddhist cult being the veneration of relics, multitudes of domed cupolas (variously called *stūpas*, *dāgabas*, *chortens*, or ‘topes’) were erected for the safe custody of the relics, and surrounded with accessory structures upon which all the resources of art were lavished without stint. The monasteries and churches, whether excavated in the rock or structural, were equally ornate. All classes of Buddhist buildings have yielded a rich harvest of works of art.
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In early times Buddhist artists abstained deliberately from attempting to model or depict the likeness of the founder of their religion, but about the beginning of the Christian era his effigy was brought into common use, and soon became the leading feature of Buddhist decoration. The later Buddhism of the ‘Great Vehicle’ kind, which delighted in the multiplication of countless images, differed fundamentally in many ways from the earlier or ‘Little Vehicle’ schools.¹ But all schools alike agreed in venerating the memory of Gautama, the Buddha, or Enlightened One. The personal enthusiastic devotion thus roused converted a system of cold philosophical and ethical doctrine into a religion cherished with passionate fervour. The greater part of the remains of Buddhist art is the work of votaries of the ‘Great Vehicle’, and is mainly concerned with the expression of devotion to the person of Buddha, to his Law, and to his Church. The development and diffusion of that art were effected by the monastic Order.
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¹ ‘Vehicle’ (Skr. *yāna*, Gk. ὄχημα) originally meant a boat or raft to carry the worshipper across the sea of phenomenal existence to the haven of salvation, variously figured as *nirvāṇa*, *moksha*, &c. The word also meant a cart.
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The philosophical doctrines of Gautama might be thought to involve inevitably a religion of unhappy gloom and despairing pessimism as cheerless as the austerest form of Calvinism. But in practice they never had that effect, nor have they now in Burma, where the Buddhist population is reputed to be the happiest people upon earth. It would take too long to explain the why and the wherefore, but the fact is certain. Every scene in the relief sculptures of Bharhut or Sāñchī and in the paintings of Ajaṇṭā is full of the joy of life, and proves that the Buddhist Indians of the olden time knew the preciousness of happiness. Popular Buddhism then, as now, was not exactly the same thing as the Buddhism of the scriptures. The worship of the Yaksha sprites, the Nāga water-spirits, and their female consorts, played in ancient Indian Buddhism a part similar to that played by the worship of the Nats in Burma at this day. For the full understanding of Indian Buddhism the works of art are authorities as important and essential as the writings.
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The cognate and yet fundamentally distinct religion of the Jains may be more briefly dismissed.² The saint named Mahāvīra occupies in Jain estimation a position similar to that which Gautama Buddha holds among the Buddhists, and was contemporary with him for some years. Mahāvīra, however, does not seem to have exercised personal magnetism equal to that of his rival. Jain veneration is still shared by Mahāvīra with his predecessors, whereas Buddhists have long ceased to trouble themselves about the 'former Buddhas'. Like the Buddhists, the Jains had a monastic organization, but it never attained power equal to that of the Buddhist Order. The Jains, who still number considerably more than a million in India, belong for the most part to the mercantile castes and reside chiefly in Rājputāna and the Western provinces. Their religion has thus shown more tenacious vitality within the limits of India than Buddhism, which died out in the land of its birth many centuries ago. On the other hand, the Jains have exhibited little missionary zeal, and their creed never made any considerable conquests outside of India. In the early centuries of the Christian era they were far more influential than they are now, and in the South their religion appears to have been at one time, perhaps even predominant. In ancient times they venerated relics and erected *stūpas* for their custody exactly in the same way as the Buddhists did, and we know accurately from the Mathurā relief sculptures what their *stūpas* were like, but, so far as I am aware, no monument of that class now standing has been recognized as Jain.
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² Jain, not the Sanskrit ‘Jaina’, is the vernacular and English form of the word.
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In the domain of art the most notable achievements of the Jains are the exquisite marble temples of Mount Ābū, built in the local 'Gūjarāt' style. The Jain temples in Mysore are almost equally ornate in a different fashion. Illustrations of both will be found on subsequent pages. A peculiarity of Jain architecture is the massing of an enormous crowd of temples into a confined space, as at Palitāna in Kāthiāwār and other places. The individual buildings are in the style of their age and locality. Jain figure-sculpture is enslaved by ritual tradition so completely as to leave hardly any scope to the genius of the individual artist, and is much the same at all times and places. It would, consequently, be difficult to specify even one Jain image as obviously deserving to rank as a work of creative fine art. The gigantic colossi of Sravana Belgola and Kanara are, perhaps, the most artistic specimens of Jain sculpture. The extant Jain statues, being usually those dedicated by members of the Digambara sect, who affected nudity, are naked and unashamed. The Jain monastic institutions, although not indifferent to learning, never became centres of art-teaching like those of their Buddhist rivals.
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Hinduism, from one point of view the religion and from another the complex social system taught and regulated by the Brahman caste, is of immemorial antiquity. Ever in a state of incessant movement and change, like the ocean it yet remains the same, ready and able to engulf the creeds, customs, and rituals of weaker systems. Buddhism and Jainism, both heretic sects as regarded from the orthodox Brahman standpoint, struggled against their destiny for long ages and in the end succumbed. The beginning of the marked Hindu revival may be dated in the fourth century after Christ. From that time until the closing years of the twelfth century, when the fierce Muslim raiders quenched in blood the light of Buddhism in its last Magadhan stronghold, the teaching of the Brahmans steadily gained ground, so that Buddhism in its later stages became almost indistinguishable from Hinduism, more especially in its Saiva form.
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Brahmanical Hindus, having no use for *stūpas* and churches, did not erect buildings of those classes. Each Hindu goes to a temple on his own account, and makes his offering for himself, not 'for the welfare and happiness of all beings', as in the Buddhist formula. There may be a vast crowd round and in a Hindu temple, but there never is a congregation worshipping in unison. Hinduism knows no founder, and recognizes no dominating human personality like Gautama Buddha, or even Mahāvīra. The Hindu, although obliged to utilize the services of Brahmans for ceremonial purposes, deals with his gods directly, not through any prophet.
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Hence Hindu sacred buildings (and only sacred edifices have survived from ancient times) are all temples, and the decorative art of those temples concerns itself with the gods, not at all with men. The human sympathy evoked by the veneration offered to a great human teacher is wanting, and the art expressive of the worshipper's devotion loses all touch with the facts of this mortal life.
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It would be easy to extend this introductory essay by the discussion of many topics which have been left unnoticed, but it is better to allow the illustrations in the following chapters to speak for themselves and gradually effect their purpose of eliciting an instructed opinion on the meaning and value of Fine Art in India and Ceylon. During the last few years Indian-born students have become keenly alive to the interest of the ancient political history of the land of their birth, and have proved their capacity for scientific historical research. Perhaps this book may do something to arouse like interest in the story and achievements of Indian art, and may induce my Indian readers to agree with the London artists whose eloquent protest has been quoted, that 'the existence of a distinct, a potent, and a living tradition of art is a priceless possession to the Indian people, and one which they, and all who admire and respect their achievements in this field, ought to guard with the utmost reverence and love'.
Bibliographical Note
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Maindron, Maurice—*L'Art Indien* (8vo, 314 pp., Paris, 1898), a small, wretchedly illustrated handbook, is the only work professing to deal with Indian Art as a whole. It essays to treat of architecture and the industrial arts, as well as painting and sculpture. Le Bon, Gustave—*Les Monuments de l'Inde* (large 4to, Paris, 1893) is a splendidly illustrated work, containing acute general criticism. The novel views on the subject are voiced by Havell, E. B.—*Indian Sculpture and Painting* (large 8vo, London, Murray, 1908), a well-written polemical work of great interest, with illustrations of remarkable excellence; *Essays on Indian Art, Industry, and Education* (Madras, Natesan & Co., N. D., ? 1909), reprinted from sundry magazines; and by Coomaraswamy, Dr. A. K.—in numerous scattered essays and pamphlets, which include *The Aims of Indian Art* and *The Influence of Greek on Indian Art* (both issued from Essex House Press, 1908). The same author's valuable treatise, *Mediaeval Sinhalese Art* (4to, Essex House Press, 1908), includes some general criticism. Fergusson's works and other special treatises will be cited in subsequent chapters.