History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c47.110

v2.c47.110

According to Codrington Messrs. Havell and Coomaraswamy believe that "to the Indian mind this expression of the idealism of body and soul or of the longing of the soul for God seemed perfectly natural and that in carving or contemplating erotic motifs, no merely physical sensual image was intended or received. My knowledge of Indian thought is insufficient to allow me to judge of the correctness of this view. An element of wantonness does undoubtedly assert itself in art more boldly at some period of social culture than at others, and we must envisage certain aspects of mediaeval carving as a part of the *tantric* attitude which was characteristic of Indian religious philosophy between the 10th and 12th centuries."¹