Indian Art: Forms, Concerns, and Development in Historical Perspective (History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization) 8121509041, 9788121509046

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The volumes of the PROJECT ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE IN INDIAN CIVILIZATION aim at discovering the main aspects of India’s heritage

and present them in an interrelated way. These volumes, in spite of their unitary look, recognise

the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The Project is not being executed by a single group of

thinkers and writers who are methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their

commitments. In fact contributions are made by different scholars with different ideological

persuasions and methodological approaches. The Project is marked by what may be called

‘methodological pluralism’. In spite of its primary historical character, this Project, both in its conceptualization and execution, has been shaped by many scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is for the first time that an endeavour of such a unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization like India.

This volume offers essays by some of the most eminent art historians of India. The subjects range from Gandhara to Kerala, classical to folk

arts and ancient times to the place of traditional arts in the world of today. Each essay is an authoratative work by an expert in the field. Although they cover a wide range, the

contributions share an interest in the artist, and

the social and philosophical context of his work. The proceedings of the seminar, distinguished by

lively discussions, have been transcribed and included here. The exchanges between scholars,

as recorded here, and the essays presented, contain fresh insights and much new material. There are assessments here of work done, and

pointers towards the direction in which the volume of art history in India might lie. Tite volume with its fifteen papers and index is a source book of great value to interested scholars of fine arts and general readers alike.

Indian Art: Forms, Concerns and Development in Historical Perspective

Other Books in the PHISPC Series

History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization General Editor & Project Director D.P. Chattopadhyaya Volume I Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

The Dawn and Development of Indian Civilization The Dawn of Indian Civilization (up to c. 600 Bc)

Volume Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

II

Life, Thought and Culture in India (ap 300-1100) Life, Thought and Culture in India (ab 300-1000)

Volume

III

Life, Thought and Culture in India (from c. 600 Bc to c. AD 300)

India’s Interaction with South East Asia Puranas, History and Itihasa

Systems of Vedanta Origin and Development of the Vaisesika System A Social History of India in the First Millennium ab Purva Mimamsa from an Interdisciplinary Point of View

Part 1

G.G. Pande G.C. Pande G.C. Pande

Vidya Niwas Misra

K.S. Murty R. Balasubramanian A.L. Thakur B.D. Chattopadhyaya K.T. Pandurangi

Development of Philosophy, Science and Technology in India and Neighbouring Civilizations A. Rahman History of Indian Science, Technology and Culture

(AD 1000-1800) Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

India’s Interaction with China, Central and West Asia Development of Nyaya Philosophy and its Social Context

Philosophical Concepts relevant to Science in Indian Tradition

A. Rahman

Sibajiban Bhattacharyya Pranab Kumar Sen

Volume Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

IV

Fundamental Indian Ideas of Physics, Chemistry, Life Sciences and Medicine B.V. Subbarayappa Chemistry and Chemical Techniques in India Life Sciences and Medicine in India up to 17th Century B.V. Subbarayappa B.V. Subbarayappa Indian Perspective in the Physical World

Volume Part 1

V

Agriculture in India A History of Agriculture in India

Lallanji Gopal & V.C. Srivastava

Volume Part 1

VI

Culture, Language, Literature and Arts

Fine Arts in Historical Perspective with Reference to the Culture of India History of Aesthetics in India

Part 2

Part 4 Part 5

Indian Art: Forms, Concerns and Development in Historical Perspective Regional Language and Literature Architecture in India

Volume VII Part 1 Part 2

The Rise of New Polity and Life in Villages and Towns Social History of Medieval India Religious Systems of India

Part 3*

(Under plan) S.S. Barlingay & D.P. Chattopadhyaya B.N. Goswamy U.R. Ananthamurthy M.A. Dhaky

J.S. Grewal Ramakant Angiras &

Sukha Ranjan Saha Volume Part 1

VIII

Part 2

Economic History of India Economic History of India from the Early 13th

Irfan Habib

to 17th Century Economic History of India from the 18th

B.B. Chaudhuri

to 20th Century Volume Part 1 Part 2

IX

Colonial Period Medicine in India: Modern Period Gender Studies in Indian Tradition

Part 3

A Military History of India Down

Volume X Part 1 Part 2

Towards Independence

Part 3 *Present Volume

OP. Jaggi

Bharati Ray & the Centuries

Philosophy from 18th to 20th Century Colonial Development, Education and Social Awareness up to 2000 History of Science in India from 16th to 20th Century

Bhuvan Chandel S.N. Prasad

Daya Krishna S. Gopal & Ravinder Kumar C.K. Raju

History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization General Editor D.P. Chattopadhyaya

Volume VI Part 3

Indian Art:

Forms, Concerns and Development in Historical Perspective

edited by B.N. Goswamy in association with Kavita Singh

Munshiram

Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture

Co-published and distributed by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 54 Rani Jhansi Road, New Delhi 110 055

Publication of this Volume and much of the research it represents has been made possible by continuing grants from the Government of India which has supported multidisciplinary exploration of the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture.

Views expressed in the PHISPC publications are entirely of the concerned author/authors and do not represent the views of the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture.

ISBN 81-215-0904-1 First published 2000 © 2000, Centre for Studies in Civilization

All rights reserved, including those of translations into other languages. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. Typeset, printed and published by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., Post Box 5715, 54 Rani Jhansi Road, New Delhi 110 055.

Centre for Studies in Civilizations

Governing Board Shri Krishan Kant

Member, Patron

Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya

Member, Chairman

Professor G.C. Pande

Member

Professor Daya Krishna

Member

Dr Arjun Sengupta

Member

Professor V. Ramalingaswamy

Member

Professor Yash Pal

Member

Professor V.R. Mehta

Member

Dr S. Bazaz

Member

Professor Ravinder Kumar

Member, Treasurer

Professor Bhuvan Chandel

Member, Member Secretary

Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/indianartformscoO006unse

Contents Foreword

D.P. Chattopadhyaya General Introduction

Xi

D.P. Chattopadhyaya Introduction B.N. Goswamy Contributors

de

XXV

Indian Art and its History: Some Questions, Some Considerations D.P. CHATTOPADHYAYA

Breaking Free: Notes on ‘The Cycle of Life’, A Painting by Ganga Devi of Mithila

25

35

JYOTINDRA JAIN

Art and Religion: A Study of Relations in Early India R.N. Misra

oy

Yoga and Art: An Indian Approach BETTINA BAUMER

Tag

Art and Eroticism: Going beyond the Erotic at Khajuraho

mi

DEVANGANA DESAI The Buddhist Art of Bactria and Gandhara

Ty

LoutA NEHRU Norms of Excellence: Bronzes of the Pallava and Cola Periods

isp)

R. NAGASWAMY

The Hoysala Artists (c. 1100-1336) S. SETTAR

181

Vil

Contents

Art and Ritual: Wood Carvings of Eastern India

205

KALYAN KUMAR DASGUPTA

10.

Iconographic Programme and Political Imagery in Early Medieval Tamilakam: The Rajasimhesvara and the Rajarajesvara R. CHAMPAKALAKSHMI

PAN

ie

Teyyam: Ritual Performing Art of Northern Kerala BALAN NAMBIAR

1B

Artist and Society: The Oriya Painter-Craftsman and His Social Setting DINANATH PATHY

Pfs)

Making of a Visual Language: Thoughts on Mughal Painting GULAMMOHAMMED SHEIKH

299.

13:

14.

265

The Content of the Form: Stylistic Difference and

Narrative Choices in Bengali Pata Paintings

341

Kavita SINGH

ES:

The Limits of Individuality: The Case of Pandit Seu of Guler B.N. GoswamMy

Index

Vili

361

379

Foreword Aesthetically speaking, words like aditi (infinite), paramatma (supreme self) and anubhava (feeling or experience) are both intriguing and elusive. “Intriguing”, because they rouse some expectation in us, expecting something reasonably definite, finite (diti) and concrete (murta). “Elusive”,

because in the absence of something concrete and formed the concepts like aditi and anubhava sound too philosophical to be used in the context of different forms of art. Formation or creation of art is intended to express what is not easily expressible in and through words, colours, brush-strokes,

and other mediums like rock, clay and wood which infuse rasa into words, impart meaning into them and make express through them what is not ordinarily there. Only the poet (kavi) or silpi (artist) can achieve this “mira-

cle”. Similar “miraculous” powers are attributed to the sculptor, painter, patua, and wood-carver. From out of a slab of stone the sculptor can carve out a lively figure or expressive image which was not there before. Similar skill and imagination are found also in other types or artists. The task of imagination is to express or create what is not there. To express, reproduce

or represent what is already there hardly constitute a work of art. Only few photographs, for example, can raise their work to the level of art.

Artistic creation is not to be attributed only to imagination. Any and every imagination is obviously not artistic. Some conception, however vague

or inarticular it may be to start with, must be there in the aesthetic consciousness of the artist. By his skill, practice and above all, genius (pratibha) the artist gives concrete form to the spirit of beauty which inspires him. Briefly speaking, this is how through human creativity that

classless and boundless infinity gets beautiful and finite forms, aesthetic spirit is given a beautiful body. If rupa is not nameable, no art (Silpa) is possible. Both painting and palace, for example, may be artworks. But “how”

can be answered only through their objective (visaya) and subjective (visay/)

details. In art subject/man tries to express his consciousness of beauty intending some or other object. In the “primitive” forms of art the sensible and the transcendental, the sacred and the profane, the material and the formal,

substantially overlap, if not are indistinguishably fused. In the context of arts the use of words like “modern” and “primitive”, if not sufficiently clarified, is misleading rather than enlightening. Art work may be on plain floor, mud

wall, paper, canvas

and many

other things. What

is most ix

Foreword

important is its conceptualization in the artist’s mind. Thematization and externalization are secondary or tertiary acts/steps. Since the tradition and social milieu of the artist remain sunken in the depth of the artist’s psyche, his works betray their marks. Professor B.N. Goswamy and his fellow art theoreticians have presented us an excellent book which is sure to evoke interest and inquiry, appreciative and critical, among the connoisseurs and the general readers. D.P. CHATTOPADHYAYA

Calcutta 20 November 1999

General Introduction

It is understandable that man, shaped by Nature, would like to know Na-

ture. The human ways of knowing Nature are evidently diverse, theoretical and practical, scientific and technological, artistic and spiritual. This diversity has, on scrutiny, been found to be neither exhaustive nor exclusive. The complexity of physical nature,

life-world and, particularly, hu-

man mind is so enormous that it is futile to follow a single method for comprehending all the aspects of the world in which we are situated. One need not feet bewildered by the variety and complexity of the worldly phenomena. After all, both from traditional wisdom and our daily ~ experience, we know that our own nature is not quite alien to the structure of the world. Positively speaking, the elements and forces that are out there in the world are also present in our body-mind complex, enabling us to adjust ourselves to our environment. Not only the natural conditions but also the social conditions of life have instructive similarities between them. This is not to under-rate in any way the difference between the human ways of life all over the world. It is partly due to the variation in climatic conditions and partly due to the distinctness of production-related tradition, history and culture. Three broad approaches are discernible in the works on historiography of civilization, comprising science and technology, art and architecture, social sciences ‘and institutions. Firstly, some writers are primarily interested discovering the general laws which govern all civilizations spread over different continents. They tend to underplay what they call the noisy local events of the external world and peculiarities of different languages,

literatures and histories. Their accent is on the unity of Nature, the unity of science and the unity of mankind. The second group of writers, unlike the generalist or transcendentalist ones, attach primary importance to the dis-

tinctiveness of every culture. To these writers human freedom and creativity are extremely important and basic in character. Social institutions and the cultural articulations of human consciousness, they argue, are bound to be expressive of the concerned people’s consciousness. By implication they tend to reject concepts like archetypal consciousness, universal mind and providential history. There is a third group of writers who offer a composite picture of civilizations, drawing elements both from their local as well xi

General Introduction

as common characteristics. Every culture has its local roots and peculiarities. At the sametime, it is pointed out that due to demographic migration and immigration over the centuries an element of compositeness emerges almost in every culture. When due to a natural calamity or political exigencies people move from one part of the world to another, they carry with them, among other things, their language, cultural inheritance and their

ways of living. In the light of the above facts, it is not at all surprising that comparative anthropologists and philologists are intrigued by the striking similarity between different language families and the rites, rituals and myths of

different peoples. Speculative philosophers of history, heavily relying on the findings of epigraphy, ethnography, archaeology and theology, try to show in very general terms that the particulars and universals of culture are ‘essentially’ or ‘secretly’ interrelated. The spiritual aspects of culture like dance and music, beliefs pertaining to life, death and duties, on analy-

sis, are found to be mediated by the material forms of life like weather forecasting, food production, urbanization and invention of script. The tran-

sition from the oral culture to the written one was made possible because of the mastery of symbols and rules of measurement. Speech precedes grammar, poetry prosody. All these show how the ‘matters’ and ‘forms’ of life are so subtly interwoven.

U

The PHISPC publications on History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, in spite of its unitary look do recognize the differences

between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. It is not a work of a single author. Nor is it being executed by a group of thinkers and writers who are methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their commitments. In conceiving the Project we have interacted with, and been influenced by, the writings and views of many Indian and non-Indian thinkers. The attempted unity of this Project lies in its aim and inspiration. We have in India many scholarly works written by Indians on different aspects of our civilization and culture. Right from the pre-Christian era to our own time, India has drawn the attention of various countries of Asia, Europe

and Africa. Some of these writings are objective and informative and many others are based on insufficient information and hearsay, and therefore not

quite reliable, but they have their own value. Quality and view-points keep on changing not only because of the adequacy and inadequacy of evidence but also, and perhaps more so, because of the bias and prejudice, religious Xil

General Introduction

and political conviction, of the writers. Besides, it is to be remembered that history, like Nature, is not an open

book to be read alike by all. The past is mainly enclosed and only partially disclosed. History is; therefore, partly objective to ‘real’ and largely a matter of construction. This is one of the reasons why some historians themselves think that it is a form of literature or art. However, it does not mean

that historical construction is ‘anarchic’ and arbitrary. Certainly, imagination plays an important role in it. But its character is basically dependent upon the questions which the historian raises and wants to understand or answer in terms of the ideas and actions of human beings in the past ages. In a way, history, somewhat like the natural sciences, is engaged in answering questions and in exploring relationships of cause and effect between events and developments across time. While in the natural sciences, the scientist poses questions about nature in the form of hypotheses, expecting to elicit authoritative answers

to such questions, the historian studies the past, partly for the sake of understanding it for own sake and partly also for the light which the past throws upon the present, and the possibilities which it opens up for moulding the future. But the difference between the two approaches must not be lost sight of. The scientist is primarily interested in discovering laws and framing theories, in terms of which different events and processes can be connected and anticipated. His interest in the conditions or circumstances attending the concerned events is secondary. Therefore, scientific laws turn out to be basically abstract and easily expressible in terms of mathematical language. In contrast, the historian’s main interest centres round the specific events, human ideas and actions, not general laws. So, the historian,

unlike the scientist, is obliged to pay primary attention to the circumstances of the events he wants

to study. Consequently, history, like most other

humanistic disciplines, is concrete and particularist. This is not to deny obvious truth that historical events and processes consisting of human ideas and actions show some trend or other and weave some pattern or other. If these trends and patterns were not there at all in history, the study of history as a branch of knowledge would not have been profitable or instructive. But one must recognize that historical trends and patterns, unlike scientific laws and theories, are not general purported to be universal in their scope.

Il The aim of this Project is to discover the main aspects of Indian culture and present them in an interrelated way. Since our culture has influenced, and has been influenced by, the neighbouring cultures of West Asia, Central xiil

General Introduction

Asia, East Asia and South-East Asia, attempts have been made here to trace

and study these influences in their mutuality. It is well known that during the last three centuries, European presence, both political and cultural, in India has been very widespread. In many volumes of the Project considerable attention has been paid to Europe and through Europe and to other parts of the world. For the purpose of a comprehensive cultural study of India, the existing political boundaries of the South Asia of today are more of a hindrance than help. Cultures, like languages, often transcend the

bounds of changing political territories. If the inconstant political geography is not a reliable help to the understanding of the layered structure and spread of culture, a somewhat comparable problem is encountered in the area of historical periodization. Periodization or segmenting time is a very tricky affair. When exactly one period ends and another begins is not precisely ascertainable. The periods of history designated as ancient, medieval and modern are purely conventional and merely heuristic in character. The varying scopes of history, local, national and continental or universal, somewhat like the periods of

history, are unavoidably fuzzy and shifting. Amidst all these difficulties, the volume-wise details have been planned and worked out by the editors in consultation with the Project Director and the General Editor. I believe that the editors of different volumes have also profited from the relations and suggestions of the contributors of individual chapters in planning the volumes. Another aspect of Indian history which the volume editors and contributors of the Project have carefully dealt with is the distinction and relation between civilization and culture. The material conditions which substantially shaped Indian civilization have been discussed in detail. From agriculture and industry to metallurgy and technology, from physics and chemical practices to the life sciences and different systems of medicines— all the branches of knowledge and skill which directly affect human life— form the heart of this Project. Since the periods covered by the PHISPC are extensive—prehistory, proto-history, early history, medieval history and modern history of India—we do not claim to have gone into all the relevant material conditions of human life. We had to be selective. Therefore,

one should not be surprised if one finds that only some material aspects of Indian civilization have received our pointed attention, while the rest have been dealt with in principle or only alluded to. One of the main aims of the Project has been to spell out the first principles of the philosophy of different schools, both pro-Vedic and anti-Vedic. The basic ideas of Buddhism, Jainism and Islam have been given their due

importance. The special position accorded to philosophy is to be understood partly in terms of its proclaimed unifying character and partly it is to X1V

General Introduction

be explained in terms of the fact that different philosophical systems represent alternative world-views, cultural perspectives, their conflict and mutual assimilation. Most of the voliime editors and at their instance the concerned contributors have followed a middle path between the extremes of narrativism and theoreticism. The underlying idea has been this: if in the process of working out a comprehensive Project like this every contributor attempts to narrate all those interesting things that he has in the back of his mind, the enterprise is likely to prove unmanageable. If, on the other hand, particular details lose their particularity and interesting character. Therefore, depending on the nature of the problem of discourse, most of the writers have tried to reconcile in their presentation, the specificity of narrativism

and the generality of theoretical orientation. This is a conscious editorial decision. Because, in the absence of a theory, however inarticulate it may be, the factual details not only meaningful but also interesting and enjoyable. Another editorial decision which deserves spelling out is the necessity or avoidability of duplication of the same theme in different volumes or even in the same volume. Certainly, this Project is not an assortment of several volumes. Nor is any volume intended to be a miscellany. This Project has been designed with a definite end in view and has structure of its own. The character of the structure has admittedly been influenced by the variety of the themes accommodated within it. Again it must be understood that the complexity of structure is rooted in the aimed integrality of the Project itself. IV

Long and in-depth editorial discussion has led us to several unanimous conclusion. Firstly, our Project is going to be unique, unrivalled and discursive in its attempt to integrate different forms of science, technology, philosophy and culture. Its comprehensive scope, continuous character and accent on culture distinguish it from the works of such Indian authors as P.C. Ray, B.N. Seal, Binoy Kumar Sarkar and S.N. Sen and also from such

Euro-American writers as Lynn Thorndike, George Sarton and Joseph Needham. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to suggest that it is for the first time that an endeavour of so comprehensive a character, in its explora-

tion of the social, philosophical and cultural characteristics of a distinctive world civilization—that of India—has been attempted in the domain of scholarship. Secondly, we try to show the linkages between different branches of learning as different modes of experience in an organic manner and withXV

General Introduction

out resorting to a kind of reductionism, materialistic or spiritualistic. The internal dialectics of organicism without reductionism allows fuzziness, discontinuity and discreteness within limits. Thirdly, positively speaking, different modes of human experience— scientific, artistic, etc., have their own

individuality, not necessarily

autonomy. Since all these modes are modification and articulation cf human experience, these are bound to have between them some finely graded commonness. At the sametime, it has been recognized that reflection on different areas of experience and investigation brings to light new insights and findings. Growth of knowledge requires humans, in general, and scholars, in particular, to identify the distinctness of different branches of learn-

ing.

Fourthly, to follow simultaneously the twin principles of: (a) individuality of human experience as a whole, and (b) individuality of diverse dis-

ciplines, are not at all an easy task. Overlap of themes and duplication of the terms of discourse become unavoidable at times. For example, in the context of Dharmasastra, the writer is bound to discuss the concept of value.

The same concept also figures in economic discourse and also occurs in a discussion on fine arts. The conscious editorial decision has been that, while

duplication should be kept to its minimum, for the sake of intended clarity of the themes under discussion, their reiteration must not be avoided at

high intellectual cost. Fifthly, the scholars working on the Project are drawn from widely different disciplines. They have brought to our notice an important fact that has clear relevance to our work. Many of our contemporary disciplines like economics and sociology did not exist, at least not in their present form,

just two centuries ago or so. For example, before the middle of nineteenth century, sociology as a distinct branch of knowledge was unknown. The term is said to have been coined first by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in 1838s. Obviously, this does not mean that the issues discussed in sociology were not there. Similarly, Adam Smith’s (1723-90) famous work

The Wealth of Nations is often referred to as the first authoritative statement of the principles of (what we now call) economics. Interestingly enough, the author was equally interested in ethics and jurisprudence. It is clear from history that the nature and scope of different disciplines undergo change, at times very radically, over time. For example,

in India by

‘arthasastra’ does not mean the science of economics as understood today. Besides the principles of economics the Arthasastra of ancient India discusses at length those of governance, diplomacy and military science. Sixthly, this brings us to the next editorial policy followed in the Project. We have tried to remain very conscious of what may be called indeterminancy or inexactness of translation. When a word or expression of one Xvi

General Introduction

language is translated into another, seems to be unavoidable. This is true Sanskrit-English and Sanskrit-Arabic, Hindi-Bengali. In recognition of the context-relative character of meaning

some loss of meaning or exactitude not only in the bilingual relations like but also in those of Hindi-Tamil and importance of language-bound and we have solicited from many learned

scholars, contributions, written in vernacular languages. In order to mini-

mize the miseffect of semantic inexactitude we have solicited translational help of that type of bilingual scholars who know both English and the concerned vernacular language, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Marathi.

Seventhly and finally, perhaps the place of technology as a branch of knowledge in the composite universe of science and art merits some elucidation. Technology has been conceived in very many ways, e.g., as autonomous, as ‘standing reserve’, as liberating or enlargemental, and alienative

or estrangemental force. The studies undertaken by the Project show that, in spite of its much emphasized mechanical and alienative characteristics, technology embodies a very useful mode of knowledge that is peculiar to man. The Greek root words of technology are techne (art) and logos (sci-

ence). This is the basic justification of recognizing technology as closely related to both epistemology, the discipline of valid knowledged, and axiology, the discipline of freedom and values. It is in this context that we are reminded of the definition of man as homo technikos. In Sanskrit, the word

closest to techne is kala which means any practical art, any mechanical or fine art. In the Indian tradition, in Saivatantra, for example, among the arts (kala) are counted dance, drama, music, architecture, metallurgy, knowl-

edge of dictionary, encyclopaedia and prosody. The closeness of the relation between arts and sciences, technology and other forms of knowledge are evident from these examples and was known to the ancient people. The human quest for knowledge involves the use of both head and hand. Without mind, the body is a corpse and the disembodied mind is a bare abstraction. Even for our appreciation of what is beautiful and the creation of what is valuable, we are required to exercise both our intellectual competence

and physical capacity. In a manner of speaking, one might rightly affirm that our psychosomatic structure is a functional connector between what we are and what we could be, between the physical and the beyond. To suppose that there is a clear-cut distinction between the physical world and the psychosomatic one amounts to denial of the possible emergence of higher logico-mathematical, musical and other capacities. The very availability of aesthetic experience and creation proves that the supposed distinction is somehow overcome by what may be called the bodily self or embodied mind.

XVil

General Introduction

V

The ways of classification of arts and sciences are neither universal nor permanent. In the Indian tradition, in the Rgveda, for example, vidyas (or sciences) are said to be four in number: (i) Trayi, the triple Veda; (ii) Anviksikt, logic and metaphysics; (iii) Danda-niti, science of governance; (iv) Vartta, practical arts such as agriculture, commerce, medicine, etc. Manu speaks of a fifth vidya, viz., Atma-vidya, knowledge of self or of spiritual truth. According to many others, vidya has fourteen divisions, viz., the four Vedas,

the six Vedangas, the Puranas, the Mimarnsa, Nyaya, and Dharma or law. At times, the four Upa-vedas are also recognized by some as vidya. Kalas are said to be 33 or even 64. In the classical tradition of India, the word Sastra has at times been

used as synonym of vidya. Vidya denotes instrument of teaching, manual or compendium of rules, religious or scientific treatise. The word sastra is usually found after the word referring to the subject of the book, e.g., DharmaSastra, Artha-sastra, Alamkara-sastra, and Moksa-sastra. Two other words

which have been frequently used to denote different branches of knowledge are jfiana and vijfana. While jnana means knowing, knowledge, especially the higher form of it; vijiana stands for the act of distinguishing or discerning, understanding, comprehending, and recognizing. It means worldly or profane knowledge as distinguished from jnana, knowledge of the divine. It must be said here that the division of knowledge is partly conventional and partly administrative or practical. It keeps on changing from culture to culture, from age to age. It is difficult to claim that the distinction

between jana and vijnana or that between science and art is universal. It is true that even before the advent of modern age, both in the East and the West, two basic aspects of sciences started gaining recognition. One is the specialized character of what we call scientific knowledge. The other is concept of trained skill which was brought close to scientific knowledge. In the medieval Europe, the expression ‘the seven liberal sciences’ has so often been used simultaneously with ‘the seven

liberal arts’, meaning thereby,

the group of studies by the trivium (Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric) and quadrivium (Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy).

It may be observed here, as has already been alluded to earlier, that the division between different branches of knowledge, between theory and practice, was not pushed to an extreme in the early ages. Praxis, for example, was recognized as the prime techne. The Greek word, technologia stood for systematic treatment, for example, of Grammar. Praxis is not the mere application of theoria, unified vision or integral outlook, but it also stands XVill

General Introduction

for the active impetus and base of knowledge. In India, one often uses the sterms prayukti-vidya and prayodyogika-vidya to emphasize the practical or applicative character of knowledge. Prayoga or application is both the test and base of knowledge. Doing is the best way of knowing and learning. That one and the same word may mean different ‘things’ or concepts in different cultures and thus create confusion has already been stated before. Two such words which in the context of this Project under discussion deserve special mention are dharma and itihasa. Ordinarily, dharma in Sanskrit-rooted languages is taken to be conceptual equivalent of the English word religion. But, while the meaning of religion is primarily theological, that of dharma seems to be manifold. Literally, dharma stands for that which is established or that which holds people steadfastly together. Its other meanings are law, rule, usage, practice, custom, ordinance and statute. Spir-

itual or moral merit, virtue, righteousness and good works are also denoted by it. Further, dharma stands for natural qualities like burning (of fire), liquidity (of water) and fragility (of glass). Thus one finds that meanings of dharma are of many types—legal, social, moral, religious or spiritual, and even ontological or physical. All these meanings of dharma have

received due attention of the writers in the relevant contexts of different volumes. This Project, being primarily historical as it is, has naturally paid seri-

ous attention to the different concepts of history—epic-mythic, artistic-narrative, scientific-causal, theoretical and ideological. Perhaps the point that must be mentioned first about history is that it is not a correct translation of the Sanskrit word itihasa. Etymologically, it means what really happened (iti-ha-asa). But, as we know, in the Indian tradition purana (legend, myth, tale, etc.), gatha (ballad), itivrtta (description of past occurrence, event, etc.),

akhyayika (short narrative) and vamsa-carita (genealogy) have been consciously accorded a very important place. Things started changing with the passage of time and particularly after the effective presence of Islamic culture in India. Islamic historians, because of their own cultural moorings and the influence of the Semitic and Graeco-Roman cultures on them, were

more particular about their facts, figures and dates than their Indian predecessors. Their aim to bring history close to statecraft, social conditions and the lives and teachings of the religious leaders imparted a mundane character to the branch of learning. The Europeans whose political appearance on the Indian scene became quite perceptible only towards the end of the eighteenth century brought in with them their own view of historiography in their cultural baggage. The impact of the Newtonian Revolution in the field of history was very faithfully worked out, among others, by David Hume (1711-76) in History of Great Britain from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688 (6 vols., 1754-62) and Edward Gibbon (1737-94) in xix

General Introduction

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (6 vols., 1776-88). Their emphasis on the principles of causality, datability and continuity/ linearity of historical events introduced the spirit of scientific revolution in European historiography. The introduction of English education in India and the exposure of the elites of the country to it largely account for the decline of the traditional concept of itihasa and the rise of the post-Newtonian scientific historiography. Gradually, Indian writers of our own history and

cultural heritage started using more and more European concepts and categories. This is not to suggest that the impact of the European historiography on Indian historians was entirely negative. On the contrary, it imparted an analytical and critical temper which motivated many Indian the contrary,

it imparted an analytical and critical temper which motivated many Indian historians of the nineteenth century to try to discover and represent our heritage in a new way. VI

The principles which have been followed for organizing the subjects of different volumes under this Project may be stated in this way. We have kept in view the main structures which are discernible in the decomposable composition of the world. The first structure may be described as physical and chemical. The second structure consists, broadly speaking, of biology, psychology and epistemology. The highest and the most abstract structure nests many substructures within it, for example, logic, mathematics and musical notes. It is well known that the substructures within each structure are interactive, i.e., not isolable. The more important point to be noted

in this connection is that the basic three structures of the world, viz., (a)

physico-chemical, (b) bio-psychological, and (c) logico-mathematical are all simultaneously open to upward and downward causation. In other words, while the physico-chemical structure can causally influence the biopsychological one and the latter can causally influence the most abstract logico-mathematical, the reverse process of causation is also operative in the world. In spite of its relative abstractness and durability, the logicomathematical world has its downward causal impact on our bio-psychological and epistemological processes and products. And the latter can also bring about change in the structures of the physical world and its chemical composition. Applied physics and bio-technology make the last point abundantly clear. Many philosophers, life-scientists, and social scientists highlight the

point that nature loves hierarchies. Herbert Simon, the economist and the management scientist, speaks of four steps of partial ordering of our world, namely, (i) chemical substances, (ii) living organisms, tissues and organs, XX

General Introduction

(iii) genes, chromosomes

and DNA,

and (iv) human

beings, the social

organizations, programmes and information process. All these views are in accord with the anti-reductionist character of our Project. Many biologists defend this approach by pointing out that certain characteristics of biological phenomena and process like unpredictability, randomness, uniqueness, magnitude of stochastic perturbations, complexity and emergence cannot be reduced without recourse to physical laws. The main subjects dealt with in different volumes of the Project are connected not only conceptually and synchronically but also historically or diachronically. For pressing practical reasons, however, we did not aim at presenting the prehistorical, proto-historical and historical past of India in a continuous or chronological manner. Besides, it has been shown in the

presentation of the PHISPC that the process of history is non-linear. And this process is to be understood in terms of human praxis and an absence of general laws in history. Another point which deserves special mention is that the editorial advisors have taken a conscious decision not to make this historical Project primarily political. We felt that this area of history has always been receiving extensive attention. Therefore, the customary discussion of dynastic rule and succession will not be found in a prominent way in this series. Instead, as said before, most of the available space has been given to social, scientific, philosophical and other cultural aspects of

Indian civilization. Having stated this, it must be admitted that our departure from con-

ventional style of writing Indian history is not total. We have followed an inarticulate framework of time in organizing and presenting the results of our studies. The first volume, together with its parts, deals with the prehistorical period to ap 300. The next two volumes, together with their parts,

deal with, among other things, the development of social and political institutions and philosophical and scientific ideas from AD 300 to the beginning of the eleventh century Ap. The next period with which this Project is concerned span from the twelfth century to the early part of the eighteenth century. The last three centuries constitute the fourth period covered by this Project. But, as said before, the definition of all these periods by their

very nature are inexact and merely indicative. Two other points must be mentioned before I conclude this General Introduction to the series. The history of some of the subjects like religion, language and literature, philosophy, science and technology cannot for

obvious reason be squeezed within the cramped space of the periodic

moulds. Attempts to do so result in thematic distortion. Therefore, the reader will often see the overflow of some ideas from one period to another. I have already drawn attention to this tricky and fuzzy and also the misleading aspects of the periodization of history, if pressed beyond a point. XX1

General Introduction

Secondly, strictly speaking, history knows no end. Every age rewrites its history. Every generation, beset with new issues, problems and questions, looks back to its history and reinterprets and renews its past. This shows why history is not only contemporaneous but also futural. Human life actually knows no separative wall between its past, present and future. Its cognitive enterprises, moral endeavours and practical activities are informed of the past, oriented by the present and addressed to the future. This process persists, consciously or unconsciously, wittingly or unwittingly. In the narrative of this Project, we have tried to represent this complex and fascinating story of Indian civilization. D.P. CHATTOPADHYAYA

Centre for Studies in Civilizations New Delhi

XXII

General Editor

Introduction The Seminar of which this volume constitutes the Proceedings was held as a part of the endeavour to develop different approaches to the writing of a History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, the extensive, ten-volume

project undertaken by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research under the direction of Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya. It was conceived as an art historians’ meet but one in which the scholars’ emphases would be different, issues would be raised as have a bearing on the understanding of matters outside the strict boundaries of art. The initial papers circulated to intending participants made stated this intention quite clearly. “The focus of the (then proposed) Seminar”, the note read, “is on the visual art of India, but its aim is not to examine them along conventional,

or simply chronological, lines: the endeavour is aimed at grasping and understanding enduring concerns and forms, and to place them in some kind of a historical perspective without necessarily using a linear method or established historical categories. While not everything can be covered within the format of a seminar like this, some issues that need to be ad-

dressed would strike one as obvious: the ‘necessity’ of art in Indian eyes, for instance; the relationship between art and society; the connections between the arts themselves; linkages between the ‘classical’, ‘folk’ and ‘tribal’ levels of art. These issues apart, themes like iconic and non-iconic approaches to art; the religious basis of art; art and eroticism; assimilation,

appropriation and adaptation; patronage; transmission; continuities and discontinuities, to name a few, should be figuring in the discussions.”

This precisely is what the distinguished group of scholars who met in February 1994, for this three-day Seminar in the exquisite ambience that the Sanskrit Pratishthan provides at Anandgram, set out to do: discussing and asking questions. There was some, but very little, straying from the focus. At the very beginning of the seminar, Ananda Coomaraswamy’s cautionary words, not too charitable to the community of Professors, in his

essay, “What is the Use of Art, Anyway”, were recalled. “We are familiar”, he had written, with the contemporary schools of thoughts about art. We have on the one hand, a very small, self-styled elite, which distinguishes

fine art from art as highly skilled manufacture, and values this fine art very highly, as a self-revelation or self-expression of the artist. This elite, accordingly bases its teaching of aesthetics upon style, and accordingly, makes the appreciation of art a matter of the manner rather than of the oan

Introduction

content, or true intention of the work. These are our Professor of Aesthet-

ics, and of the History of Art, who rejoice in the unintelligibility of art. At the same time they explain it psychologically, substituting the study of the man himself; for the study of the man’s art. And these leaders of the blind are gladly followed by a majority of modern artists, who are naturally flattered by the importance attached to personal genius. “On the other hand”, Coomaraswamy had gone on to say, “we have

the great body of plain men, who are not greatly interested in artistic personalities, and for whom art, as defined above, is a peculiarity rather than a necessity of life; and have in fact no use for art. And over against these, I continue, these two classes, we have a normal but forgotten view of art, that art is the making well or properly arranging anything whatever, that needs to be made or arranged, whether a statuette, an automobile, or a

garden.” Starting with this “normal but forgotten” view of art, and the questions that it leads to—why is it that man makes things well, how is it that

he makes them well, and what are the factors that make it possible for him to make things well—the scholars proceeded to say and question the things that are said and questioned in the papers included in the present volume. Predictably, not everything could be covered in these three days but what was said, as would be obvious from the contents, was highly engaging.

Particularly engaging were the discussions which followed the presentation of papers. A lightly edited version of these is also included here. In the end, an acknowledgement of kindness received. The stimula-

tion of mind that the seminar provided would not have been possible but for the imagination and the initiative of Professor D.P. Chattopadhyaya, and the support—rich and textured—that was provided by Professor Bhuvan Chandel and by the academic and administrative staff of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research under her leadership. To Mr. O.P. Jain and the staff of Sanskriti again the seminar owes much: to the delightful physical environment of the place, they added sensitively a touch

of warmth, an awareness of the needs of people as they engage and lose themselves in the search for answers. It was the efforts of my younger colleagues and students, especially Kavita Singh, Pooja Sood, Preet Bahadur and Shivdeep that made the seminar run as smoothly as it eventually did. Kavita Singh has been associated with me in working on the volume and was responsible for seeing it through many and difficult stages, going about this work with her usual energy and a sense of commitment. As I said, I am aware of all the kindness mentioned, and am grateful.

B.N. Goswamy

Chandigarh, Punjab 1 May 1999 Oa.

Contributors BetTINA BAumer is an Austrian Indologist. She is Research Director of Alice Boner Foundation, Varanasi. Her main areas of interest and research are

temple architecture of Orissa, Kashmir Saivism, agama, and Indian aesthetics. Her present address is B 1/159, Assi Ghat, Varanasi.

R. CHAMPAKALAKSHMI has taught history at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has researched among many on iconography of medieval Tamilnadu. Her present address is 37 Car Street, Saidapet, Chennai. D.P. CHaTTopaDHyayYa, a former professor of philosophy, is currently Director, Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, New Delhi. His areas of interest are history of science, philosophy, art and culture, in addition to philosophy. His present address is 25 Park Mansion, 57/A Park Street, Calcutta.

Late KALYAN Kumar Dascupta was Rani Bagisvari Professor of Indian art in Calcutta University and Vice-Chancellor of Kalyani University. His areas of interest were tribal history of ancient India and also wood carving in eastern India. He stayed at Mainak Flat no. 205, P 17/B Asutosh Chaudhury Avenue, Calcutta.

Devancana Desalis an art historian and General Editor of the World Heritage

Sites (UNESCO) Series. She has extensively worked on various aspects of ancient Indian art and architecture; including terracottas, Mother-goddess, temple art and architecture, and Hindu and Buddhist sculptures. Her present address is Shanti, 1/30, 19 Pedder Road, Mumbai.

B.N. Goswamy is Professor Emiritus of art history in the Department of Fine Arts, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

He is also Vice Chairman

of the

Sarabhai Foundation, Ahmedabad. He has published extensively in two areas: history of Indian painting and Persian documents consisting of landgrants given by the Mughals and Sikhs.

Jyorinpra JAIN is a scholar of Indian folk and tribal art. Presently, he is the Senior Director of Crafts Museum at Pragati Maidan, Bhairon Road, New Delhi.

R.N. Misra is a professor and at present Head, School of Studies in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Jiwaji University, Gwalior. Some of his areas of research are Yaksa cult, Dahala and Daksina Kosala, etc.,

especially on iconography.

XXV

Contributors

R. Nacaswam was Director of Archaeology, Government of Tamilnadu. Currently, he is National Consultant, Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. He has studied on folk arts and music, temple architecture, numismatics, and epigraphy of Tamilnadu. His present address is 22, 22nd Cross Street, Besant Nagar, Chennai.

BaLAn Nampiar is a painter, sculptor, enamellist, photographer and research scholar on the rural arts of Kerala. His present address is 1 Tenth Cross Road, Jayamahal Extension, Bangalore.

Louira Nexru is professor and Head of the Department of History of Art, National Museum Institute, New Delhi. Her areas of specialisation are early Indian art and art of western Central Asia from the Achaemenian to Kusana

period. DINANATH Patny is currently Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow, Nehru Memorial

Fund. He has researched on crafts and paintings of rural Orissa. His present address is E 49/1386, Bhimtangi Phase II, Bhuvaneswar.

S. SETTAR is a professor of history and archaeology. He has extensively published and edited a number of volumes on archaeology, and history of religion, philosophy and art in India. Recently he retired as the Chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research. His address is Manasollasa, Malamaddi, Cr. 7, Dharwad.

GULAMMOHAMMAD SHEIKH is a painter and writer. He has taught art history and painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. His present address is Niharika, near University Health Centre, Pratapgunj, Vadodara.

Kavita SINGH is an art historian who studied narrative paintings from Bengali

pata and Rajasthani phad painting and story telling tradition. Her current interests of research include nineteenth century painting in Punjab and

eighteenth century painting in Delhi. Her present address is B 29/B, Kailash Colony, New Delhi.

XXv1

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3

Indian Art and its History: Some Questions, Some Considerations D.P. Chattopadhyaya

I

Before one takes up the question of Indian art, perhaps it is expected of one to answer the general question whether a history of art is at all possible. The follow-up question is equally important: if it is possible, in what sense is it so. The relevance of the question is to be understood in this way. Art as a branch of knowledge stands disputed for a very long time, particularly from the days of Plato. The work of art is said to be twice removed from reality, reality as pure forms or ideas. The world of experience, the nature we perceive in and around us, is shadowy in character. Unlike

what is real, it is unstable or constantly changing. In the world of art the artist is engaged in copying or imitating the forms embedded in different objects of experience and of feeling. It is not surprising that many theorists of art such as Clive Bell are inclined to define art in terms of form or rupa. The forms hidden in nature are opaque copies of transcendental forms. The artist, as a dealer in doubly opaque forms of forms, twice removed from reality, is fated to fail in capturing the transcendental reality, the objects of pure contemplation. The latter, timeless and spaceless, the third world of Plato, is said to be available only in terms of cognitive contemplation, neither perception nor feeling. By loving reality the philosopher alone is believed to be eligible to grasp reality or the divine as what is most beautiful. Condemned to remain bogged by her vocation in mundane art-objects, the artist’s title to grasp beauty and to express it remain untenable. This traditional criticism of the limitation of art is not altogether 25

D.P. Chattopadhyaya absent in India. In terms of riipa what is ultimate or arupa, it has been

said, cannot be grasped. The Illimitable cannot be obtained within limits, the Indeterminate in terms of the determinate. Falling as it does on this side of the great divide, it is the Supreme

that cannot be perceived in

and through the forms of perception. We are condemned to remain content only with its inkling (abhasamatra). In Tagore’s poetic language, our song

cannot reach it, only the musical tune touches its feet or fringe. The possibility of art history has been discounted not only on the alleged ground of empirical inaccessibility but also on an additional ground, namely,

the irreversibility of time. Overcommitted to the unidirectionality of time, some science-minded thinkers are persuaded that history itself is a spurious discipline. And, therefore, the critic observes,

art history is doubly

so.

For example, during the age of enlightenment in Europe, Descartes, Newton and Kant were convinced that history is nothing but “sophistry and illusion”. The reason that they had at the back of their minds was a particular scientific conception of time and the related cosmology. This classical mechanistic criticism of history is evident even in Hegel who is otherwise pro-historically disposed. Those who are committed to the thesis of irreversibility of time find no good ground to believe that humans of the present can truthfully get back to the ideas, actions and institutions of individuals of past years and past centuries. Against this theoretical backdrop it is not at all surprising that Western thinkers like Kant and Hegel should be more interested in universal history rather than in history proper. In India, it is to be remembered that itihasa and history are not semantically synonymous words. The former includes Purana, itivrtta, akhyayika (tales), udaharana (illustrative stories), etc. That

history is not intended to be a descriptive picture of a unidirectional sequence of events and actions was clear to Indian chroniclers. Positively speaking, most of them in some form or other subscribed to the narrativist view of history in which physical time as understood in classical physics is not sought to be accommodated. Their narrative statements, sketchy in character, are not concretely sequential and leave gaps in between

to be filled in. by subsequently insertable statements. The cyclical (yuga-kalpa) view of time that was there in India had

several formulations. It was more in the nature of measuring a situational receptacle than an ontological entity in itself. Modern physics, particularly quantum cosmology, may reject the cyclical view of time but even then it may

be pointed

out that the latter, from

the artist’s point of view,

was definitely closer to the time-variegated forms of aesthetic experience. In the Puranas and akhyayikas, for example, there is no claim that the narrated events are pictures of reality. Rather they are idealized and mythologized reality: Frege’s reference to the truth-claiming picture of 26

Indian Art and its History: Some Questions, Some Considerations

the Cathedral of Cologne and Wittgenstein’s view of the picturesque truth of the elementary proposition are of no use in the art-context. It is instructive to recall that, in the history of Indian art, landscape, seascape, skyscape

and even portrait paintings do not figure in the way they do in European art-history. Even the statues of historical personalities like the Buddha are imagined and executed so differently at different times and places that idealization has proved a conscious way of capturing and portraying the beautiful. This attitude is the outcome of the realization that timeand space-bound reality need not be described but only symbolized or indirectly represented in art-works. These

forms

of art, with

their allegedly

ahistorical

realities, not

surprisingly, attracted severe strictures from Western

art-historians.

However,

of this or that

in India art has never been taboo on account

physics or metaphysics. Nor has the possibility of art-history been a very contentious subject.

U

Now I will indicate briefly be faced by art historians While Hegel concedes symbolic sensuousness and its content for appreciation what he calls “a bad and

the difficulty that has been faced and is to in India mindful of Hegel’s critique. that Indian art, wrapped up in abstraction, often seemingly sublime vastness, presents outsoaring its foreignness,' he is critical of untrue definiteness of form” evident in its

shapes, images of God, and idols. He heaps similar criticism upon

the

Chinese and the Egyptian art-forms. But his particular harshness towards Indian art is rooted in his metaphysics of the concrete Absolute which he sharply distinguishes from the alleged abstract Absoluteness (Brahman or Siinya) sustaining Indian art-forms. Hegel complains that because of the heavy intrusion of abstraction in art-forms in different mythological and epic themes the elements of conflict that one encounters are, on ultimate analysis, found to be “absurd” and purposeless. In this connection he specifically refers to the familiar Nala and Damayanti episode in the Mahabharata. The effect of absurdity is heightened by symbolism without any concrete content behind the concerned symbols.’ Indian art-forms convey no real content to Hegel. They are purely “problematic” to him. For the Indian artistic shapes and productions Hegel does not find it possible to have any foot-firm appreciation, still less clear-cut judgement.

Of these art-works, Hegel observes, “in themselves

alone these productions say nothing to us; they do not please us or satisfy us by their immediate appearance, but by themselves they encourage 27

D.P. Chattopadhyaya

us to advance beyond them to their meaning which is something wider and deeper than they are.”° Clearly Hegel is using the materials of Indian art-history as preliminaries to his project of a universal art-history. To him the Indian art-forms are somewhat

like the “nursery tales” which

please children,

“superficial” in content but managing to indicate at times some mediate meanings.

In brief, Indian

art is taken as the “meaningful

infancy”

of

universal art. Hegel excludes those nations “whose consciousness is obscure” from the purview of the philosophical history of the world because the end of the latter is to attain knowledge of the Idea in history, of the spirits of those nations which are conscious of their inward principle, that is, what they are, what their actions mean, and what their aim is. Judged by this criterion, India is found to be lacking in “real cultural progress”.

Until the nation possesses a written historical record of its own, representing the distinction between historical consciousness and its objective expressions, its claim to be historical seems unsustainable to Hegel. Legends, folk songs, traditions and poems are disregarded by Hegel as they do not bear the imprint of representational thinking or reflective awareness. True historical consciousness transmutes the thought elements of events, deeds and situations into a meaningful whole. Writing in the early nineteenth century Hegel finds no history of India of the last three-and-a-half thousand years and therefore the country fails to make any real cultural progress.* Hegel notes that there are some nations like China and India which have to their credit considerable theoretical knowledge but are incapable of applying the same in practice. In this connection he recalls Montesquieu’s view that a nation’s religions, its laws, its ethical life, the state of its knowledge, its art, its judiciary, its other aptitudes, and the nature by which it satisfies its needs, including

those of war and peace, are integrally related. Hegel is dismayed to find that although China invented gunpower, the Chinese people did not know how to use it. He is equally disappointed to observe that while India produces superb gems of poetry, she fails to make any corresponding advances in art, freedom and law. To him Indian religion appears incompatible with the spiritual freedom of Europeans. This lack of spiritual freedom explains the non-emergence of the political state in the obscure ethical life of a nation like India.° In support of his theory of the ahistority of nations such as India, Hegel offers another consideration. The nations of history may live nascently or merely survive as natural entities devoid of their inward cultural destiny. He finds three worlds representing three principles, spatially separable but coexisting on the same earth, viz., a Far Eastern principle, comprising

28

Indian Art and its History: Some Questions, Some Considerations

the Mongolian

(Chinese)

and the Indian

peoples; the second

world

consisting of the Mohammedan peoples, marked by arbitrary monotheism; and the Christian or the West European world characterized by profound spiritual self-awareness. Though India is said to have been one of the first nations to appear in history, in terms of civilizational content it is rated as a child by Hegel. The respectability of youth goes to West Asia and the high glory of the adult is preserved securely for Christian West Europe. The key principle of gradation between different stages of world history is of course freedom as understood by Hegel.° The well-known Hegelian stereotypes of history are hardly acceptable. Their significance consists mainly in colligating the historical details of the peoples living in an area of the earth under a single and largely forced conceptual canopy. In the process of philosophical colligation one feels that the historical peculiarities of the concerned peoples are either considerably belittled or completely ignored.

I]

The basic point to be remembered in the context of Hegel’s critique of the alleged ahistority of the Indian people is that their life-affirming attitude had never been in doubt. The Western misconception about the so-called other-worldliness of the Indian people and their collateral indifference to history rests on a monstrous misunderstanding. One has only to bear in mind that Platonic transcendentalism did not prove a hindrance in the way of Europe’s concern with worldly affairs, with life, politics, law and freedom. The Indian concepts of Brahman, Sinya, etc., are not even

remotely intended to negate the reality of this empirical world (samsara). The graded ontology both of the East and the West have succeeded in taking care of the rational demands of practical as well as theoretical life. Simply because some Indians spoke of the sublative nature of the spatio-temporal world (samsara), it is not to be taken as symbolic of their

underestimation of this-worldly life. The point may be clarified through the doctrine of the purusarthas, which explicate the cardinal aims of human life, viz., dharma, artha, kama, moksa. It is evident from this spectrum of

values that Indians have attached importance not only to dharma and moksa; equally important to them were artha and kama. Moreover, what is needed is demystification or clarification of popular misconceptions about these values. The development of art and different art-forms in India are closely related to the purusarthas explicated above. Indian art is not a mere cultural 29

D.P. Chattopadhyaya

or emotional pabulum. It is concerned with all aspects of life—material, hedonic, spiritual and even transcendental. It is in this context that one has to understand Sri Aurobindo’s spirited rebuttal of William Archer’s highly controversial book Is India Civilized?’ The main lines of Sri Aurobindo’s arguments consist in pointing out that the Vedas

and Upanisads

do not deny life but maintain

that

the world is the manifestation of the eternal Brahman. All that we see around us is Brahman. All is in the spirit and the spirit is not all. Important is Brahman. Life too is Brahman. The life-force is said to be the very basis of our existence. The life-spirit Vayu is the manifest Eternai, pratyaksam Brahman.

Simultaneously,

Sri Aurobindo

hastens

to add

that human

existence is not the highest of the whole; it has a level in it beyond the vital and the mental which accounts for its urge for moksa, spiritual self-realization. Sri Aurobindo is also perceptive enough not to concede that in Buddhism and Mayavada there is an element of transcendental “excess”. He points out its “necessity and value”. Our mind does not arrive at the totality of truth easily and by one embracing effort; an arduous search

is the condition of its finding. The mind opposes different sides of the truth to each other, follows each to its extreme possibility, treats it even

for a time as the sole truth, makes imperfect compromises, arrives by various adjustments and gropings nearer to the true relations. “The Indian mind follows this method.”® Sri Aurobindo carries forward this method to the realm of art and art-history. There too he finds that Archer’s criticism of Indian art is not only unsympathetic but also totally uninformed

and, what is worse,

arrogant. By and large he is in agreement with the well-known views on the subject expressed and argued so ably by E.B. Havell and Ananda Coomaraswamy. But he does not like to leave the task of defending Indian art to his two able contemporaries, for he has something of his own to highlight in that context. Both Havell and Sri Aurobindo are of the view that in an ancient civilization like India one cannot but have a very rich art-tradition. The failure of European art-critics like George Birdwood, Ruskin and Archer to appreciate it is to be traced to the formal and somewhat superficial cast of the European mind which was additionally baffled by the symbolic and transcendental character of the Indian genius. But there were writers like Laurence Binyon who could get to the depth beyond the symbolic surface which requires an intuitive and sympathetic approach. The religious motifs of Indian art, like those of many other ancient cultures, suggest at least two things: their interest in the transcendent and their ability to articulate the same in finite idioms to the sense-bound mind. The 30

Indian Art and its History: Some Questions, Some Considerations

modern mind, chained to fragmented provinces of life and the narrow specializations of knowledge, often fails to grasp the transcendent. This may be why the vastness and impersonality of much of Indian sculpture and architecture baffled Hegel, and did not strike any responsive chord in him; rather, these evoked

his criticism as noted

earlier.

V

My considerations in defence of the histority of Indian art clash with Sri Aurobindo’s own observations that the Indian mind’s sense of histority is somewhat “defective”. It seems that this view has been expressed against his deep academic acquaintance with European history and seeing it as the paradigm of histority. Here one must distinguish between three related concepts, viz., histority, temporality, datability. The naturalistic requirement of datability was often found to dominate European historiography. But history need not be necessarily related to times and places. To ostend times and places and persons of historical events and actions is, philosophically speaking, well-nigh impossible. That explains, at least in part, why the historian, out of her own native intuition or at the instance

of the historiographer, opts for generic concepts like action and event, in terms of which she weaves her historical thought. Sri Aurobindo’s unhappiness with the inadequate historical consciousness of the Indian mind may be related to his anti-mayavadi philosophical inclination. But it lends no support to the view defended by some Western critics that Indian ahistority is to be traced to the non-occurrence of any major belligerent actions like the wars of Marathon and Thermopylae. This is just not true. Before and after the Alexandrian invasion, north-west India had been invaded and conquered several times by the Persians, Scythians and Bactrians. For quite some time the Indus remained the frontier between the Indian and Persian empires. It is historically established that during the first and second millennia India experienced several major attacks from foreigners. War is no guarantee that it would generate and preserve historical consciousness in the psyche of a people. In the reflective and accommodative fold of Indian culture, military invaders have, in the course of time, been almost totally absorbed. This process of absorption, though silent, is efficacious. It shows that history need not always be a crowd of noisy actions.

This brings out the point mentioned

earlier, namely,

that historical time is to be distinguished from physical time which lends itself to the requirement of datability. What emerges out of the slender basis of datability is only chronology, an input of history, not history proper. oil

D.P. Chattopadhyaya

If the critic of Indian art-history expects a work like Vasari’s as his model, he is in for sure disappointment’ because anonymity, not publicity, is an insistent trait of the classical Indian art-work."” The names of the authors of outstanding works of art such as the sculptures of Sarnath and Sanchi, Buddha’s statues at Gandhara and Central Asia, the paintings of Ajanta and Ellora still are and perhaps will remain shrouded in mystery for ever. The non-availability of dates and names of many other literary and artistic works are bound to baffle us. But when we remember that many admirable art-traditions survived in racial memory, folk-songs and

different gharanas, our sense of historical disappointment may disappear altogether or at least be substantially diminished. Indian art-history is bound to be reflective because of its inner inspiration and not due to any external compulsion. Reflective history is no erasure of history proper. It is the transmutation of datable chronology and the colligation of the concerned events and actions under appropriate themes and concepts. Events viewed under concepts or predicables are logically bound to shed their proclaimed uniqueness or singularity. It is common historical knowledge that settled civilizations are more reflective in their approach to their own past. The same cannot be said of the races that have been on the move due to natural calamities or in search of fertile land, riches or new

habitat.

When Sri Aurobindo emphasizes the transcendental and spiritual characteristics of Indian art, Coomaraswamy, largely because of his scientific education

and thorough Western

exposure, tries to understand

it in its

salvageable historical perspectives without, however, denying the spiritual and transcendental orientation of Indian art. No believer in naturalism or realism in art-history, he emphasizes the importance of the artist’s genius in art-creation. Excess of naturalism tends to reduce the art connoisseur into a Philistine. He points out that while the key concept of Christian art is form, the corresponding concept in Indian art is genius, srsti-pratibha. This however, does not mean that Indian art is unworldly or otherworldly. Positively speaking, art-works can be and in fact have been

made practical, bringing them close to the people’s daily life. As Niharranjan Ray writes, “Indian art of any given time and space need not... be approached and attempted to be understood in terms of a mystical or esoteric or exclusively transcendental

meaning

or significance.

It is, by

and large, frankly naturalistic, which according to the interpretation of Aitareya Brahmana, means ‘in tune or harmony with nature’ and is based on observation and in-taking of life, on perceptual understanding of man and nature.”1! The Aitareya Brahmana is not naturalistic in any ordinary sense. It OZ.

Indian Art and its History: Some Questions, Some Considerations

is somewhat like Sri Aurobindo’s reference to pratyaksam Brahma. When nature is transcendentally informed, the resulting naturalism is quite different from the one in terms of which Ray wants to justify naturalistic interpretation of art. Like him, I also like to see art-works situated in nature, but nature here means both the inner and outer worlds of perception as backed up by the genius of the artist which draws its inspiration not necessarily from the world of perception. The middle term, the artist as a human

being, working between nature on the one hand and social

life at large on the other, has to be given due importance. Realistic psychology or phenomenology of art-works cannot be reduced to anything else. On this crucial point not only Ray but, at least at places, Coomaraswamy

before him, go wrong; the latter observes, that for the interpretation of art “nothing depends upon genius . . . [or] individual psychology but what is needed is experience common to all men of the time and place” in which the art in question is produced.” Art is neither sociology of arts (samaja-darpana) nor is it ideology of the same

(samaja-adarsa). It has its

autonomy.It has a distinct identity of its own which is not reducible to its attending socio-historical milieu. It retains situational, not abstract,

autonomy. Individuals sustain and are in turn sustained by the societal facts containing many dispositional and transcendental variables the value of which cannot be perceptively ostended or reduced to the concrete particulars of daily life. The creative residue is always there. REFERENCES 1.

G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics, tr., T.M. Knox, 2 vols. (Oxford, Clarendon

8.

Ibid., p. 180.

Press) 51975) ps2):

9.

Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, tr. A.B. Hinds, ed. and introduced by William Gaunt, 4 vols. (London,

2. Ibid., pp. 214-15. Ibid., pp. 308-09. G.W.F. Hegel, World History, tr. H.B. Nisbet, introduced by Duncan

Dent, 1970). 10.

A.K. Coomaraswamy,

Introduction

to Indian Art, ed. Mrs.

Coomaraswamy

Forbes (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 12-13.

Munshiram

Dona

Luisa

(New Delhi,

Manoharlal

Publishers,

Ibid., pp. 101-02.

1972), pp. 79-80. See also his History of Indian and Indonesian Art

Ibid., pp.

Manoharlal

Publishers,

Niharranjan

Ray, An Approach

(New 128-31.

Sri Aurobindo, Foundations of Indian Culture, Birth Centenary Library, vol. 14 (Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972).

iit.

Delhi,

Munshiram

1972).

to

Indian Art (Chandigarh, Panjab University, 1974), pp. 31-32. See also his Idea and Image in Indian

oo

D.P. Chattopadhyaya Art (New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1972).

view—different instructive

IW,

34

A.K. Coomaraswamy, Introduction, “On the Social History of Art”. For a different and perceptive

from both

Coomaraswamy’s

and Ray’s—it is

to peruse

E.H.

Gombrich, Meditations on a Hobby Horse

(London,

1971), pp. 86-94.

Phaidon

Press,

p Breaking Free: Notes on “The Cycle of Life’, A Painting by Ganga Devi of Mithila Jyotindra Jain

I

Mithila is one of those historic seats of Indian culture where ancient ritual practices have survived unhampered for centuries. Several traditions of women’s floor- and wall-painting were associated with these ritual practices and continued till recently in their orthodox form. When the Maithil Brahmans, Mahapatras and Kayasthas performed the samskaras, the rites of passage or consecration of the individual, the women of these communities

conventionally drew geometric diagrams known as arpana on mud-andcowdung-plastered floors, their fingers dipped in rice-paste. On the space thus ritually captured, a sacred installation of a pot or a plate was made. Marriages were consummated in the kohbar-ghar, the nuptial chamber which was adorned with symbolic wall-paintings imbued with magical implications (Fig. 1). Wall-paintings were also done near the gosain-ghar, the shrine of the family deity situated in a corner of the kitchen. On the sacred day of Durgastami (the eighth day of the goddess Durga), both the walls flanking

the kitchen door were richly painted with images of Durga astride her lion or tiger. On marriages and festivals, the outer walls of houses were embellished with decorative motifs and mythological scenes (Fig. 2). These ritual-bound traditions of floor-and-wall-paintings by women were still in vogue in the 1960s. As the surface for painting, paper was introduced in Mithila around then. Once the paintings descended from walls to scrolls, they became freer in expression, while facing a greater challenge. Several women

painters of Mithila, till then constrained by the limited

possibility of painting prescribed motifs on a fixed surface meant for a specific ritual occasion, began to exploit the great opportunity for individual =i,

Seay

lyotindra Jain

Ul

Yy, SPAR

BMS] a ws

= 83G0= 5A =

3 Ss

&

‘)

8.

brings on stage a bathing beauty in front of a royal audience. 4.

Erotic Sculpture’, in M.S. Nagaraja Rao, ed., Madhu: Recent Researches in Indian Archaeology and Art History,

Ihave dealt with the subject in detail

’ Felicitation Volume in Honour of Shri

in my book Erotic Sculpture of India: A

M.N. Deshpande (Delhi, Agam Kala

Socio-Cultural Study, sec. edn. (New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal

Prakashan, 1981).

Publishers, 1985); chapter VI deals particularly with the auspicious and protective functions of fertility figures. Also relevant is my article

‘Shades of Eroticism in Temple Art in

108

Devangana Desai, “Tantrism and

9. Mircea Eliade, op. cit., p. 250. 10.

S.N. Dasgupta and S.K. De, History of Sanskrit Literature (Calcutta, Calcutta

University Press, 1963), pp. 339-42.

Art and Eroticism: Going beyond the Erotic at Khajuraho 1

Ibid., p. 545; Ananda Coomaraswamy, The Transformation of Nature in Art (New Delhi, Munshiram

the problems arising out of the gap of about a hundred years between the Laksmana temple’s sculptural presentation of the theme in Ap 954,

Manofarlal Publishers,

1974), p. 53. Also see B.N. Goswamy, The Essence of Indian Art (San Fran-

and the poet Krsna Misra’s probable

staging of the play in the court of the Candella king Kirtivarman, in about AD 1060, in my article ‘Sculptural

cisco, Asian Art Museum, 1986).

1.

sy.

Cf. Epigraphica Indica, vol. I, pp. 13747.

Representation on the Laksmana

Michael Meister, ‘Juncture and

Temple of Khajuraho in the Light of the Prabodhacandrodaya’, in Journal of the National Centre for the Performing

Conjunction: Punning and Temple

Arts, vol. XI, 1982.

Architecture’, Artibus Asiae, 41, 1979.

Krsnamisra’s Prabodhacandrodaya,

Devangana Desai, ‘Placement and Significance of Erotic Sculptures at

Sanskrit text with English translation

Khajuraho’, in Michael Meister, ed.,

by S.K. Nambiar (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1971), I have discussed

Discourses on Siva, (Bombay, Vakils,

INS): 14.

Feffer & Simons, 1984).

109

+

ma O&A wera

atu lh