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Author: Vincent A. Smith

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Vincent Arthur, 1848-1920.

Art of India / Vincent A. Smith. -- [New ed.]

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-84484-806-5

1. Art, Indic. 2. Art, Sinhalese. I. Smith, Vincent Arthur, 1848-1920.

History of fine art in India and Ceylon. II. Title.

N7301.S5 2011

709.54--dc23

2011028282

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ISBN: 978-1-78310-783-4

Vincent A. Smith

Art of India

Contents

India and its Art

The Mauryan Period

The Early Period

Architecture

Sculpture

The Kushan, Later Satavahna, and Ikshvaku Periods

Mathura

Amaravati

The Gupta Period

The Medieval Period in the North of India

Architecture: Cave-Temples and Temples

Sculpture: Medieval and Modern Objects

Painting: The Early Schools (Ajanta Caves)

The Medieval Period in the South of India

Architecture

Sculpture and Bronzes

Foreign Influences: the Early and Medieval Periods

The Islamic Period

The Indo-Islamic Styles of Architecture

The Indo-Islamic Decorative and Minor Arts

Coins, Gems, and Seals

Calligraphy and Decorative Reliefs

Lattices

Inlay and Mosaic

Tiles

The Indo-Islamic Styles of Painting

Gujarati Painting

Mughal Painting

Rajput Painting

Indian Paintings of the Twentieth Century

Glossary

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Maha-Janaka Jataka: Three of the queen’s maids respond to the unexpected news that the king plans to renounce his worldly goods and leave their mistress, late 6th century C.E., late Gupta period. Detail of a fresco. Ajanta caves (Cave I), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.

India and its Art

In discussing Indian studies I am forced to acknowledge considerable diffidence arising from a survey of the huge bulk of material to be dealt with. In the face of this complexity I find myself inclined to rely on evidence that is subjective and therefore more or less unscientific, in which personal experience and interpretation is increasingly stressed. In speaking of India, a country that in its wide extent offers more beauty to the eyes than many others in the world, a descriptive vein may well be excused. India is multiple; neither geographically, ethnologically, nor culturally can it be considered a unity. This being so, I am led to suspect that the India of many writers is more imagination than fact, existing rather in pictorial expression than in reality.

The appeal of the pictorial, rising from a craving for colour and movement, is general among the generations of the present, continually chaffing against narrowed horizons and an experience bounded by economical necessity. There is magic to be found anywhere between Cancer and Capricorn. There the demands of necessity would seem to be more easily fulfilled and life to run more rhythmically, in the train of the tropic alternation of the seasons. There, bread is to be gathered directly from the rich lap of the earth. There, colour fills the day with its wealth, leaping to the eye, like the sudden glow of fruit and flower caught by the sunlight, or of kaleidoscopic crowds in narrow streets. To enter a tropic town is to enter, as in a dream, the life of a dead century.

The movement is not without parallels, and the pictorial and interpretational play a great part in its exposition; there is, indeed, something of the Pre-Raphaelite about it. The materialism of today is to be checked by Indian spirituality. Arts and crafts are to flourish everywhere, centred upon the social organization of the village. India is to arise from the ashes of India. It might be claimed, therefore, that there could be no better time than the present for the publication of a survey of Indian Fine Arts, that the credit and loss of the exchange between the occidental and the oriental may be appraised. Indeed this nationalisation of the subject has been set forth at length by certain authors. It is, however, in contradistinction to the spirit of true criticism and full appreciation. The opposition of Eastern spirituality to Western materialism is a generalisation without support, while the postulation of a metaphysical basis for any art is equally as sterile, and in fact as inconsequential, as the postulation of the existence of eternal, immutable classical standards. Art cannot be localised, at least if the humanities upon which our culture is based have any meaning, and geographical differences should be no bar to appreciation, but rather an added attraction in these days, when for most of us our voyages of discovery do not exceed the bounds of the local time-table. It is, however, unfortunate that in the minds of many people the East has a certain romantic but quite indefinite lure about it, which accentuates the unusual and leads to the substitution of curiosity for appreciation.

Modern painting and sculpture provide a definite line of advance and logical precepts to an extent that almost makes academicians of many of the younger school. This process is directly comparable to that of the modern scientific method; modern art is indeed the result of methodical, aesthetic research. From the painting of Manet to that of Cézanne and the men of today, the story can only be told in terms of intellectual adventure and aesthetic discovery. The effect of the personal vision of the creators of modern art has been a widening of the circle of aesthetic interest and a revaluation of things unknown or unconsidered: Chinese painting and sculpture, Gothic sculpture, archaic Greek sculpture, African sculpture, the harmony of fine carpets, the virility of primitive design, and not least among these, Indian Art in all its branches. In the face of these riches, once despised and rejected, the dogmas of the past generations with all their complacency, intolerance, and ignorance seem wilful in their restriction and impoverishment of life.

So vital and so well founded is this movement that I would choose, as the theme of a review of Indian Art, aesthetic discovery rather than archaeological discovery, and for support I would rely upon the word of living artists whose creative vision and fellow appreciation provides the basis of a criticism of greater precision than archaeological logic or the ulterior ends and confused categories of evidence of those who would carry the discussion beyond the proper field of art. I cannot believe it is necessary or even desirable to prelude the vision of a work of art with many words. Nor can I accept as sound criticism a discourse which shifts the foundations of a true understanding of art from the visual into the literary or historical or metaphysical. I can but deplore the twisting awry of aesthetic criticism and appreciation to local and temporary ends, whatever the circumstances.

In 1897 Gauguin wrote, ‘Ayez toujours devant vous les Persans, les Cambodgiens et un peu d’Égyptiens.’ (Always keep before you the Persians, Cambodians, and Egyptians.) One wonders what he would have written if he had known of the frescoes at Ajanta with their magnificent surety of line and delicately rendered plasticity. The placing of castes of Indian sculpture from the late medieval period on exhibition in the Trocadero in Paris may be taken as the first step towards the Western appreciation of Indian Art.

On 28 February 1910 the following declaration appeared in The Times above the signatures of thirteen distinguished artists and critics:

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.

The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Bodhisattva of compassion), late 6th century C.E., late Gupta period. Detail of a fresco. Ajanta caves (cave I), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.

Vessantara Jataka: Pavilion scene in the Palace of Prince Vessantara and his wife Princess Madri, 5th-6th century C.E., late Gupta period. Detail of a fresco. Ajanta caves (cave XVII), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.

A Representation of the Miracle of Sravasti: to silence the sceptics who did not believe in him, the Buddha miraculously manifests himself into a thousand different forms, 6th century C.E., late Gupta period. Detail of a fresco. Ajanta caves (Cave II), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.

This declaration was directly caused by a paper read before the Royal Society of Arts by Sir George Birdwood, the chronicler of Indian industrial arts. As a matter of fact, all that was then said had already appeared in print thirty years before, but the moment was not then ripe for the acceptance of the challenge. Birdwood can in no way be accused of lack of sympathy with Indian life or things Indian. A stylistic analysis of the crafts of modern India is illuminating with regard to one’s attitude to the country itself, for one is forced to acknowledge the predominance of the Islamic and especially of the Persian culture of the Mughal court. Except in their everyday household form, pottery and metalwork are purely Islamic. Textiles, especially prints and brocades, are very largely Persian in design, although the Indian strength of imagination and purity of colour are evident. Certain forms of textiles are, however, purely Indian, the darn-stitch Phulkaris of the northwest and certain tied-and-dyed and warp-dyed forms. Only in jewellery has the Indian tradition been wholly preserved, in the beadwork of the villages as well as in the enamels of Jaipur. Birdwood’s love of all this delicate and colourful craftsmanship, and of the complex, changeful life of which it is a part, is expressed in many passages from his pen of very great beauty. The arts of Ancient and Medieval India were outside his field, and his criticism of them is not deeply considered and purely personal.

In his paper before the Royal Society of Arts he stated with regard to a certain Javanese seated Buddha that this ‘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.’ This attack, however, may be considered as being equally directed against the loose verbiage of those critics of Indian art to whom the ideal content of an object is of greater importance than its form, than against Indian art itself.

Gautama Buddha sitting under a pipal tree in the Dharmachakra Parvartana Mudra and the crowned Maitreya seated under the asoka tree, 5th-6th century C.E., late Gupta period. Detail of a fresco above the doorway. Ajanta caves (Cave XVII), near Aurangabad, Maharashtra.

An earlier statement in the official handbook to the India Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum offers a more definite criticism. “The monstrous shapes of the Puranic deities are unsuitable for the higher forms of artistic representation: and this is possibly why sculpture and painting are unknown, as fine arts, in India ... How completely their figure-sculpture fails in true art is seen at once when they attempt to produce it on a natural and heroic scale, and it is only because their ivory and stone figures of men and animals are on so minute a scale that they excite admiration.” Here it must be noticed the subject under discussion is modern Indian ivory-carving. In his Handbook of Sculpture, Professor Westmacott dismissed Indian art in one paragraph, forming his judgement, apparently, from the steel engravings and lithographs of the two or three books that were all that was then accessible.

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 that can make them useful for the student, they offer very curious subjects of inquiry 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 combinations of human and brute forms, repulsive from their ugliness and outrageous defiance of rule and even possibility.

In the opinion of Dr. Anderson, author of the catalogue of sculpture at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, Indian sculptors ‘have never risen ... beyond the most feeble mediocrity’, although he acclaims the Orissa temple sculptures as ‘extremely pleasing pieces of art’. A more guarded opinion is that of Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke, who while giving Indian art a good place among the arts of the world, would not place it in the first rank, except for its ‘eminent suitability to its country and people.’

Such were the opinions current among scholars at the end of the nineteenth century, concerning an art already accepted by artists and acclaimed by its influence upon the work of such men as Rodin, Degas, and Maillol.

The popularization of Indian art has been mainly the work of Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy and E. B. Havell. To a certain extent their methods of exposition agree, the vein being interpretational, with a stressing of the literary. For Dr. Coomaraswamy ‘all that India can offer to the world proceeds from her philosophy’, a state of ‘mental concentration’ (yoga) on the part of the artist and the enactment of a certain amount of ritual being postulated as the source of the ‘spirituality’ of Indian art. The weakness of this attitude lies in its interweaving of distinct lines of criticism, form being dressed out in the purely literary with the consequent confusion of aesthetic appreciation with religious and other impulses. It is also historically ill-founded, for the sentiment and philosophy out of which the web is spun are the products of medieval India, as an examination of the texts quoted will show; many of the southern authorities quoted can only be classed as modern. The increasingly hieratic art of medieval and modern India, especially in the south, is doubtless closely knit with this literary tradition. But the literary tradition is not the source of the art, for iconography presupposes icons. The technical formulae of the sastras resulted in a standardization of production in spite of which genius, which knows no bonds, asserted itself. The bronze Nataraja loaned by Lord Ampthill to South Kensington is supreme among a hundred examples of mere hack-work. The bones of the literary formulae too often remain bones; here they are clothed with life, and beauty of form is achieved.

The miracle is a perennial one and world-wide; we marvel at the hand and eye that shaped this wonder. However, it is evident that many such images are not aesthetically worth the metal they are cast in. Their function as objects of worship is an entirely different matter. To insist on the necessity of burdening the mind with a host of symbolical and psychological adjuncts prior to appreciation is to obstruct the vision. Research literary or historical may aid vision, but cannot be substituted for it. Aesthetic vision is, of course, distinct from the practical vision of everyday life. Those who indulge in it are entirely absorbed in apprehending the relation of forms and colour to one another, as they cohere within the object. Intensity and detachment from the merely superficial and additional are essential to it. This rigid detachment may at any moment be broken by interest in all sorts of ‘quasi-biological feelings’ and irrelevant queries: but then the vision ceases to be critical and becomes merely curious.

Lingaraj Temple with one hundred and fifty smaller shrines, 11th century C.E., Keshari dynasty/Somavamsi dynasty. Red sandstone. Bhubaneswar, Orissa.

A further element is apparent in the recent discussion of Indian art. Aesthetically we are not at all concerned with the sub-continent that is known as India or its peoples, but our curiosity must be strong as to its past and future. The pageantry of Indian history is as glorious as that of any country in the world. Artistically it falls into two main periods, the first of which, ending with the Muslim conquest, is an epic in itself. This period discloses the development of a great art. From the vividly pictorial, strictly popular sculpture of the Early Period, based on a living tradition, increased skill and wider vision lead to the classic art of the Gupta century. Henceforward it is evident that a literary tradition has come into being which may rightly be designated medieval. The art of the great cave-temples gives place to the art of the temple-cities of Bhubaneswar and Khajuraho, where the literary tradition crystallizes into the iconographical forms of the sastras.

In the south an imposing architecture is found to survive up to the end of the seventeenth century, and the art of casting in bronze produces great works of art, few of which can, however, be dated in the last century. It is necessary to discriminate, and to acknowledge decadence and poor craftsmanship. Having taken its place among the arts of the world, Indian art belongs to the world. The future of art in India is another matter, chiefly concerning educationalists.

Traditions have died and the symbols that embodied them have died with them, but regret for the out-worn creed is ineffectual. New traditions and new symbols are surely in the making. Proteus and Triton have become empty names, but the sea remains. Nothing is lost but a dream, or rather the means of expressing a dream.

Indian religious history must be unfolded against a background of primitive conflict and superstition. The Vedas, in spite of their antiquity, cannot be accepted as the sole source of religious thought in India, or as anything but a critical and highly selective representation of this unvoiced and necessarily formless background. This relationship between Hinduism and the primitive, between the formulated philosophy of the schools and the worship and propitiation born of the vague fears and desires of masses, is present throughout the history of India, both religious and political. The Atharva Veda was not known to the early Buddhist writers but its practices and beliefs cannot be separated from the more altruistic and poetical polytheism of the less popular, more orthodox (but not more ancient) collections. In the same way the powers and manifestations of the puranas and epics are not necessarily modern because they do not appear in the Veda; in a sense they are more ancient, being native to the soil. Vedic thaumaturgy and theosophy were never the faith of India. The countless mother goddesses and village guardians of the South lie closer to the real heart of Indian religion, a numberless pantheon, superficially identified with Hinduism but radically distinct and unchanged.

Khajuraho Group of Monuments (detail of the Vishvanath Temple with amatory sculptures), 1020, Chandella Dynasty. Sandstone. Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh.

Among these lesser gods that keep their place on the fringes of the orthodox are to be found spirits of the earth and of the mountain; the Four Guardians Gods of the Quarters with Vessavana-Kuvera at their head; Gandharvas, heavenly musicians; Nagas, the snake-people who have their world beneath the waters of streams, but who sometimes are identified with the tree spirits; and Garudas, half men, half birds who are the deadly foes of the Nagas. These diminished godlings must be regarded as the last remnant of a whole host of forgotten powers, once mighty and to be placated, each in its own place. Strange beings of another sphere, they could not wholly be passed over either by Hindu or Buddhist. Vessavana-Kuvera appears on one of the pillars of the Bharhut railing, as does also Sirima Devata (goddess of fortune). The latter also received acknowledgement at the hands of the compilers of the Satapatha Brahmana who were forced to invent a legend to account for her existence. In the Taittiriya Upanishad she is again fitly mentioned in company with the moon and the sun and the earth. At Sanchi, she is to be recognized exactly as she is still represented in painted and gilt marble at Jaipur, seated upon lotus, lustrated by two elephants.

The Maha-samaya Sutta describes a gathering of all the great gods to pay reverence to the Buddha in the Great Forest at Kapilavatthu. Dhatarattha, king of the East, Virulhaka, king of the South, Virupakkha, king of the West, and Kuvera, king of the North arrive with their Yaksha host and all their vassals. The Nagas come from Nabhasa, Vesali, Tacchaka, and Yamuna, among them Eravana. Their enemies, the twice-born Garudas, too, are there and also the Asuras, dwellers in the ocean. Fire, Earth, Air, and Water are present, and the Vedic gods, and lastly the powers of Mara (demon of temptation) who bids creation rejoice at his own defeat at the Buddha’s hands.

Another list of the same description, but possibly earlier, is to be found in the Atanatiya. Both lists are, patently, the outcome of a priestly attempt to bring these hundred and one strange spirits and godlings within the sphere of Buddhist teaching, by representing them as gathered in hosts at the Buddha’s feet. The group of Yakshas, Yakshinis, and Devatas carved upon the stone pillars of the stupa railing at Bharhut fulfil exactly the same function. They are manifestly earth-born and possess something of the delicate beauty of all forest creatures. They seem beneficent enough, but their manifestation here is admittedly chosen to serve Buddhist ends. Like all primitive powers, they are exacting in their demands and when neglected or provoked their anger is implacable and cruel. They are adorned with earthly jewels to represent the treasures they have in their gift, but are to be more closely identified with the trees under which they stand and the forest flowers they hold.

This cult of trees and tree spirits has a long history. In the sculptures of the early period (2nd-1st century B.C.E.) the Buddhas are represented only by symbols, among which are their distinctive trees. Gautama attained enlightenment seated beneath the Asvattha or pipal tree. In the Atharvaveda it is said that the gods of the third heaven are seated under the Asvattha and it may also be the ‘tree with fair foliage’ of the Rigveda under which Yama and the blessed are said to pass their time. In the Upanishads, the tree spirits have definitely materialized. They, like all things, are subject to rebirth. If the spirit leaves, the tree withers and dies, but the spirit is immortal. In the Jatakas, these tree spirits play a great part, being worshipped with perfumes, flowers, and food. They dwell in many kinds of trees but the banyan seems most popular. The scarlet-flowered silk-cotton tree and the sal tree as well as the pipal retain their sanctity today. The goddess of the sal is worshipped as giver of rain by the Oraons of Chota Nagpur, and in South Mirzapur the Korwas place the shrine of Dharti Mata under its branches. In the Jatakas more than once animal and even human sacrifices are spoken of in connexion with tree worship. Today the slaughter of roosters and goats is added to the more usual offering of flowers and sweetmeats, in extreme cases of propitiation.

The character and functions of these deities correspond closely to those of the mother goddesses of Southern India. Among these are Mariamma, goddess of smallpox, Kaliamma, of beasts and forest demons, Huliamma, a tiger goddess, Ghantalamma, who wears bells, and Mamillamma, she who sits beneath the mango tree.

However, it is usually made plain that these are but different names for the one great goddess. In Hindu hands, this female pantheon appears as the Ashta Sakti or eight female powers. But a more primitive group is that of the Sapta Kannigais or seven virgins, tutelary deities of temple tanks. In Mysore, too, a similar group of seven sister goddesses, vaguely identified with the Shivait mythology is found. However, they and all the mother goddesses are distinguished from the true gods of Hinduism by the fact that they are acknowledged to be local in their influence, warding off or inflicting calamities of various kinds, but strictly limited in their sphere of action. Still more limited are the powers of temple tanks, trees, and groves which periodically are alternately propitiated and exorcised, but are, as a whole, unsubstantial in personality and short lived.

It is against this complex background of creed and culture that Indian philosophy and Indian art, and all things Indian, must be viewed. Here lies philosophy, the origin of the lovely treatment of flower and fruit at the hands of Indian sculptors and painters, and also of the imagination that kindled their vision and gave such dynamic power to their designs.

Indian philosophy begins with Vedic speculations, or rather questionings as to existence and the creation. The unformulated philosophy of the Upanishads sprang from these and from it the pantheistic Vedanta system was evolved. As a foil to this existed from early times the atheistic Sankhya system, upon the reasoning of which Buddhism and Jainism were founded. At the root of everything lies adrishta (the unseen), that is, the acceptance of metensomatosis and a cycle of existences (samsara) modified only by action (karma). At the root is ignorance, avidya. From ignorance comes desire, which leads to action, so the wheel revolves within the wheel. The Vedanta doctrine derived from the Upanishads taught the absolute identity of the individual soul with the spirit of the universe ‘That is the Eternal in which space is woven and which is interwoven with it. ... There is no other seer, no other hearer, no other thinker, no other knower ...’ ‘From this identification of the mortal, limited self with the eternal and universal sum of all things arose the idea of the illusion (maya) of the world of sensual experience. Only when the illusion of experience ceases, as in dreamless sleep, can the lesser self reunite with the universal self. This implied duality is in fact itself an illusion. Desire and action are inherent in such an illusion and the consequence is samsara. But knowledge disperses the illusion. ‘Whoever knows this: ‘I am Brahma’, becomes the All. Even the gods are not able to prevent him from becoming it, for he becomes their Self.

The Sankhya system is atheistic and dualistic, admitting matter and the individual soul as eternal but essentially different. In the absoluteness of this division lies release. The soul, being removed from all matter, ceases to be conscious, and the bondage to pain (in which pleasure is included) is ended.

Both Buddhism and Jainism presuppose the existence of the Sankhya philosophy. But it is evident that the sixth century B.C., when both Gautama and Vardhamana lived and taught, was a period of extensive mental activity of an extremely sophisticated kind. The Brahmajala Sutta mentions Eternalists, Non-Eternalists, Semi-Eternalists, Fortuitous originists, and Survivalists, and also certain recluses and Brahmans who, as dialecticians, are typified as “eel wrigglers”. Buddhism is as much in revolt against this mental complexity as against the ritual complexity of the Brahman priest-craft. With regard to generalities its position is agnostic. The Three Marks of Impermanence, Pain, and Lack of Individuality must be considered as a practical summary of the characteristics of life. Upon these the doctrine of the Four Noble Truths, the essence of Buddhism, is founded: suffering exists; ignorance and desire are its causes; release is possible; the means are the Eight Points of Doctrine – right knowledge, right aspiration, right speech, right conduct, right living, right endeavour, right mindfulness, and right meditation. Throughout the teaching uncertain, empirical opinion (ditthi) is set apart from true wisdom (panna). Above all, the cultivation and regulation of the will is stressed in an entirely new way.

Jain god sculpture decorating the Kandariya Mahadeva Temple, c. 1050, Chandella Dynasty. Sandstone. Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh.

An entrance gate and a section of the railing of the Bharhut Stupa, 3rd-2nd century B.C.E., Maurya dynasty (Ashoka)/Sunga Dynasty. Red sandstone, railing height: 274.32 cm, pillar height: 216.40 cm. Indian Museum, Calcutta.

Lastly, as against the changing, foundationless illusions of the unregulated personal life in a universe that can only be described in terms of change, the Buddhist doctrine (dharma) is held out as being well-founded in time or rather in human experience. It is described as an ancient well-trodden path, a claim that paves the way to the conception of not one Buddha but many Buddhas. At Bharhut and Sanchi the seven Buddhas of the canon are all found, symbolized by their respective trees.

This doctrine of wise renunciation was preached by Gautama, a prince of the Sakya clan, who renounced his worldly heritage in pursuit of truth. Much of the adverse criticism which Buddhism has been subjected to has been due to a misunderstanding of nirvana, the goal of all Indian speculation. Buddhism has had a complex history. Divided into two main sects, that of the Theravada and that of the Mahayana, and changed beyond recognition, it exists no longer in the land of its origin. The Jain faith preached by Vardhamana, a contemporary and therefore rival of Gautama, still persists in India. He, too, was of the Kshattriya caste, and renouncing his birth-right, eventually attained Wisdom, appearing as the leader of the Nirgrantha ascetics. According to Jain tradition, Vardhamana, or Mahavira, as he came to be known, was the twenty-fourth of a series of jinas or conquerors of the world. Like Buddhism, the Jain faith opposes the exclusiveness of Hinduism by a claim to universality. Like Buddhism, it is founded upon the teaching and achievement of Right Faith, Right Knowledge, and Right Action. However, unlike Buddhism, asceticism is greatly stressed even to the point of voluntary death by the refusal of nourishment on the part of those who have attained the highest knowledge, the kevala jñâna. From an early date two Jain sects have existed, the Digambara, who regard nudity as indispensable to holiness, and the Svetambara or ‘white-clothed’, who do not. Besides these two bodies of ascetics, the faith is extended to a large body of laity, who are represented in the history of Indian art, by many sculptures dedicated in the Kushan era, and by the magnificent medieval temples at Mount Abu, Girnar, and Satrunjaya. Like the Buddhists, the Jains founded many monasteries. The worship of stupas was also included in their rites.

The cult of the Upanishads and its forest-dwelling adherents is described in the Agganna Sutta:

They making leaf-huts in woodland spots, meditated therein. Extinct for them the burning coal, vanished the smoke, fallen lies the pestle and mortar; gathering of an evening for the evening meal, they go down into the village and town and royal city, seeking food. When they have gotten food back again in their leaf-huts they meditate.

But from forest life and meditation many sank to a mendicant life on the outskirts of the towns and to being mere repeaters of the sacred books. Such were the Hindus of the Buddha’s day.

Modern Hinduism is divided into two main cults, Vaishnavism and Shaivism. From the point of view of Indian art the early period is almost entirely Buddhist, while the Gupta period, and the succeeding medieval period are Hindu, the sculpture of the latter period being radically based upon Hindu iconography.

Rudra, the storm god of the Vedas, is made known by many epithets. He is called Girisa, ‘lying on a mountain’, Kapardin, ‘wearer of tangled locks’, and Pasupatih, ‘lord of cattle’. When appeased he is known as Sambhu or Samkara, ‘the benevolent’, and as Shiva, ‘the auspicious’, but he remains lord of the powers of the universe and is to be feared as well as loved. Yet the element of bhakti, of personal adoration and willing self-surrender to the deity, is not wanting in the worship of the Great Lord as unfolded in the later Upanishads.

In a lesser aspect Shiva is ‘lord of spirits’ (bhutas) and his rites are connected with snake worship. In his worship the central object is the phallus. The Shiva linga does not seem to have been known to Patanjali, nor does it appear on the coins of Wema-Kadphises on the reverse of which the god is represented, holding the trident, with the bull, Nandi, in the background. In the Mahabharata, Shiva is represented as dwelling in the Himalaya with his hosts. His vehicle is the bull and his consort is variously known as Uma, Parvati, Durga, and Kali. Having completed the creation, he turned yogi and the phallus became his emblem.

The earliest lingas existing do not pre-date the Kushan period. They are of the kind known as Mukha-lingas with one or more faces at the top of the member. One of the earliest iconographical representations of the god is the Dakshinamurti (Guru-Shiva) in relief on one side of the Vishnu Temple at Deogarh which may be dated in the second half of the fifth century C.E.

The earliest historical records of Vaishnavism are the Besnagar Heliodora inscription and the Ghosundi inscription, both of the second century B.C.E. The former testifies to the erection of a Garuda pillar to Vasudeva, god of gods. Heliodora, who was the son of Diya and a native of Taxila, was ambassador from the Yavana Antialkidas to Bhagabhadra. He calls himself Bhagavata. The Ghosundi inscription witnesses to the erection of a hall of worship to Samkarshana and Vasudeva.

Vishnu is a Vedic deity and although he is represented by but few hymns, his personality is vividly portrayed. He measures all things with his three wide strides, the third passing beyond human discernment to the high places of the deity. This conception of the third step of Vishnu as the highest heaven and goal of all things, had obviously much to do with his elevation as the supreme being. In the Mahabharata this Supreme Being is addressed as Narayana, Vasudeva, and Vishnu.

Later Vishnu found a more intimate place in popular worship by means of his ten incarnations (avataras).

The earliest iconographical presentations of the god are two standing, four-armed figures, one on either side of the door-guardians of the Chandragupta Cave at Udayagiri (401 C.E.).

Unlike Buddhism and Jainism, the Hindu sects are not organized into Hindu definite congregations. Whatever the shrine be, one of the magnificent temples of Bhubaneswar or Khajuraho, or a red daubed stone by the roadside, the worship is individual. For certain ceremonial purposes the aid of priests is sought, and all the larger temples have their hosts of attendants. But there is never a congregation worshipping in unison. Architecturally speaking, the Hindu shrine is the dwelling-place of the god, although various pavilions or porches dedicated to the preparation of the offerings or to music and dancing stand before it.

The earliest structural Hindu shrines existing are the flat-roofed Gupta temples, square in plan with a veranda supported by four pillars, the doorway being elaborately carved. At Ajanta the cell in the centre of the back wall of the oblong, many pillared caves, is cut on exactly the same plan, the doorways corresponding very closely. The introduction of the linga shrine at Badami and Ellora eventually altered the plan radically by placing the shrine in the body of the hall as at Elephanta. The great medieval temples consist of high-towered shrines, each with its entrance pavilions.

Avalokitesvara seated between two tara and two donor figures, late 10th century or early 11th century C.E. Bronze alloy inlaid with silver and copper, height: 34.5 cm. Private collection, Kashmir.

As portrayed in the Brahmajala Sutta, primitive Buddhism gave no place to aesthetics; music, song, and dance were classed with sorcery and iconography, unprofitable to the wise. Manu and Chanakya also adopted this slighting attitude towards the arts. However, that is of little account, and Bharhut and Sanchi are not less fine because they are not supported by the argumentative analysis of the schoolmen. The art of the Early Period is a spontaneous growth, endued with native virility. Essentially narrative, it is vividly perceptive. The history of Indian art must be written in terms of the action of a literary, metaphysical mode of thought upon this naive, story-telling art, resulting in the formation of an immense and intricate iconography. Around this iconography has grown a still more abstruse, secondary literature, in which the least variation of detail is seized upon to sanction the subdivision and endless multiplication of types of icons.

Images are roughly divided into two classes, the fixed and the movable (achala and chala). They are likewise roughly described as standing (sthanaka), sitting (asana) or reclining (sayana). Also they may further be described in terms of the nature of the manifestation: as terrible (ugra) as is Vishnu in his man-lion incarnation, or pacific (santa). The images of Vishnu are further classified according to their natures as Yoga, Bhoga, and Vira, to be worshipped respectively according to the personal desires of the worshipper.

This classification of gods and devotees according to their innate natures refers directly to the classification by natures of the Sankhya philosophy, primeval matter being distinguished by the three properties (gunas) of light (sattva), mutation (rajas), and darkness (tamas). It is clear that the needs of the worshipper specify the type of the image worshipped. Complex manifestations, whose many attributes are symbolized by their many hands are considered Tamasic in character, and their worshippers of little understanding. To the wise, images of all kinds are equally superfluous.

Indian aesthetics must be regarded as being of late date, a supplement to aesthetics, the iconographical literature of the medieval period. Much of the Agamas is of great iconographical interest, but these late literary canons have no aesthetic light to shed, although they do indicate something of the religious, hieratical atmosphere which deadened artistic creation in the last period of medieval decadence. Indian aesthetics are based upon the conception of aesthetic value in terms of personal response or reproduction. This value is known as rasa, and when it is present the object is said to have rasa and the person to be rasika or appreciative. Rasa produces various moods in the rasika varying in kind according to the initial stimulus; from these moods emotions spring. The mechanics of this system is worked out in detail in the Dhanamjaya Dasarupa and the Visvanatha Sahitya Darpana. The whole system is based upon and illustrated by literature, and cannot be applied directly to sculpture and painting.