Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Dance of Shiva

ANANDA K.
COOMARASWAMV
#
/. The Dance of Shiva. Cosmic Dance of Nataraja. Brahmanical

bronze. South Indian. 12th century. Madras Museum.
*&.
.V
2. Shiva and Parvati on Mt. Kailasa. Brahmanical stone sculpture.

Elura, 8th century.
3. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. Buddhist bronze. Ceylon, 8th century.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
4- Deer, Mamallapuram. 8th century.
5. Elephants. Mamallapuram. 8th century,

6. Krishna disguised as a milkmaid. Rajput Painting, ijth century.
v**
^V«*N*y: * •<•&** ' '*.*'-%..

jr. below. Ajanta fresco: right, Bodhisattva: left, coronation. Buddhist
Painting of 6th or yth century.
8. right top. Brahmanical Temple at Badami, 8th century.
9. right bottom. Monkey family. Stone sculpture. Mamallapuram,

8th century.
WW***
rami
*****
v-^Jî^ «. 3<
/o. Seated Buddha, Gandhara. /if century, A.D.
ii. right top. Dryad, Sanchi. 2nd century, B.C.
12. right bottom. Lay worshippers at a Buddha Shrine. Amaravati.

2nd century, A.D.
* »j » '
^Sr^s Siiiii^lfll
IjiA
1*1
I to *
i $. Buddha in Samadhi. Stone sculpture, Ceylon. 2nd century, A.D.
14. Standing Bodhisattva. Stone sculpture, Ceylon. 2nd century, A.D.

i$. left. Standing Buddha. Stone sculpture, Ceylon.
2nd century, A.D.
16. below. Standing Buddha. Stone sculpture, Ceylon.

2nd Century, A.D.
iy. right. Standing images of Buddha. Stone sculpture.

2nd century, A.D. Amaravati.
WL
^**tc**j
i8. Nataraja Shiva temple at Uttatur, Trichinopoly Dist.
19. Sadashiva. Brahmanical stone sculpture, Elephanta. 8th century.

V**?
mski
fmmm
Ma
Wk
I
2o. Durga as Chandi slaying Mahisha. Brahmanical bronze. Java.
nth century.
^B
;/
'/i
21. Death of Hiranyakashipu. Brahmanical stone sculpture. Elura,

8th century.
22. Detail of a music party. Mughal, second half of 18th century.
\$. Dipak Raga. From a Rajput painting of about 1630. Author's
collection.
'% *. %
*:'»
/ . J
24. Todi Ragini (a musical mode). Rajput painting, 16th century.
25. Madhu-madhavi Ragini (a musical mode). "The sweet, sweet rum-

bling of thunder is heard." Rajput painting, 16th century). Mu-
seum of Fine Arts, Boston.
MMH MMMfl
r
26. left. Todi Ragini (a musical mode). Rajput painting, 18th century.
Calcutta School of Art.
27. above. A Hindu lady at her toilet. Rajput drawing, 18th century.
Fogg Museum, Cambridge.
28. below. Chand Bibi, called Chand Sultan. Defender of Ahmad-
nagar against Akbar, 1695. Rajput painting, 18th century. Col-
lection of Lady Herringham.
Hindu marriage. From a Mughal painting, about 1600.

29. right.
. i
1—1
'
•
'
1'
'
: •
^5^—^
^Sr^Sîtfli,-*i *tm&
g k -
y 'X I'ti 'J- .* . M_'jy ^Ws • <•
Vr.J
NHWwud^y » ."«#<U -^^y-r^-y.. 'rrr
<t! f^fsJ
#1
«l :2
«8> '
';"'
*#>
;
"
h
i:
30. Radha in her kitchen: Krishna at the window. Rajput painting.

18th century. Lahore Museum.
3/. right. The first of all Satis is Sati, the wife of Shiva, who fell dead
when she might no longer bear to hear her father's curses on
Shiva ... or she enters the fire. British Museum.
32. left. "Where each is both." Rock-cut sculpture. Brahmanical.
Elura. 8th century.
33. above. A School of Philosophy. Rajput painting, 18th century.

Author's collection.
34. One of the gates of Jaipur, (photograph by Mr. Thornton Oakley)
55- Laying a warp in Madura.
7 i^J**
t ..IF] Ji
! 1
k
y* s
1 1*
36. The Bathing Ghat at Benares.

The Dance of Shiva
.^•wv*-':
.<«
THE DANCE OF
SHIVA
Revised Edition
FOURTEEN
INDIAN ESSAYS
®
Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy
m
THE NOONDAY PRESS
A DIVISION OF FARRAR, STRAUS
AND GIROUX
NEW YORK
Copyright ©
1957 by The Noonday Press, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 56—12296
Manufactured in the United States of America
by H. Wolff, New York
Designed by Marshall Lee
This book, originally published by the

Sunwise Turn Press, was revised by the
author shortly before his death in 1947.
It is the only authorized edition now
in print.
THE DRAWING OF SHIVA ON THE TITLE PACE

BY NATHAN GLUCK
Tenth printing, 1972

CONTENTS
®
WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED TO HUMAN WELFARE?

HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL ; 22
HINDU VIEW OF ART: THEORY OF BEAUTY .*

55
THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE :

44
BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES .*
$4
THE DANCE OF SHIVA .' 66
INDIAN IMAGES WITH MANY ARMS .*

79
INDIAN MUSIC .*
85
STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN : 98
SAHAJA : I24
intellectual fraternity .'

1}$
cosmopolitan view of nietzsche .*

i40
young india .*
i49
individuality, autonomy and function .*

l68
notes : 772
The Dance of Shiva
WHAT HAS
INDIA CONTRIBUTED TO
HUMAN WELFARE?*
®
Each race contributes something essential to the world's

civilization in the course of own self-expression and self-
its
realization. The character built up in solving its own prob-

lems, in the experience of its own misfortunes, is itself a
gift which each offers to the world. The essential contribu-
tion of India, then, is simply her Indianness; her great
humiliation would be to substitute or to have substituted
for this own character (svabhava) a cosmopolitan veneer,
for then indeed she must come before the world empty-
handed.
If now we ask what is most distinctive in this essential
contribution, we must first make it clear that there cannot
be anything absolutely unique in the experience of any
be chiefly a matter of selection
race. Its peculiarities will
and emphasis, certainly not a difference in specific human-
ity. If we regard the world as a family of nations, then we
shall best understand the position of India which has
passed through many experiences and solved
prob- many
lems which younger races have hardly yet recognized.
* First published in the "Athenaeum," London, 1915.
4 : The Dance of Shiva
The heart and essence of the Indian experience is to be

found in a constant intuition of the unity of all life, and
the instinctive and ineradicable conviction that the recog-
nition of this unity is the highest good and the uttermost
freedom. All that India can offer to the world proceeds

from her philosophy. This philosophy is not, indeed, un-
known to others — it is equally the gospel of Jesus and of
Blake, Lao Tze, and Rumi —but nowhere else has it been
made the essential basis of sociology and education.
Every race must solve its own problems, and those of its
own day. I do not suggest that the ancient Indian solutions

of the special Indian problems, though its lessons may be
many and valuable, can be directly applied to modern con-
ditions. What I do suggest is that the Hindus grasped more
firmly than others the fundamental meaning and purpose
of and more deliberately than others organized society
life,
with a view to the attainment of the fruit of life; and this

organization was designed, not for the advantage of a sin-
gle class, but, to use a modern formula, to take from each
according to his capacity, and to give to each according to
his needs. How far the rishis succeeded in this aim may be
a matter of opinion. We must not judge of Indian society,
especially Indian society in its present moment of decay, as
if it actually realized the Brahmanical social ideals; yet
even with all its imperfections Hindu society as it survives
will appear to many to be superior to any form of social
organization attained on a large scale anywhere else, and
infinitely superior to the social order which we know as
"modern civilization." But even if it were impossible to
maintain this view — and a majority of Europeans and of
English-educated Indians certainly believe to the contrary
—what nevertheless remains as the most conspicuous spe-
Indian culture, and its greatest signif-
cial character of the
icance for the modern world, is the evidence of a constant
effort to understand the meaning and the ultimate purpose
5 .' WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
of life, and a purposive organization of society in har-

mony with that order, and with a view to the attainment of
the purpose. 1 The Brahmanical idea is an Indian "City of
the gods" — as devanagari, the name of the Sanskrit script,
suggests. The building of that city anew is the constant
and though the details of our plans
task of civilization;
may change, and the contours of our building, we may learn
from India to build on the foundations of the religion of
Eternity.
Where the Indian mind most from the average
differs
mind of modern Europe is view of the value of phi-
in its
losophy. In Europe and America the study of philosophy is

regarded as an end in itself, and as such it seems of but lit-
tle importance to the ordinary man. In India, on the con-
trary, philosophy is not regarded primarily as a mental

gymnastic, but rather, and with deep religious conviction,
as our salvation (moksha) from the ignorance (avidya)
which forever hides from our eyes the vision of reality.
Philosophy is the key to the map of life, by which are set
forth the meaning of life and the means of attaining its
goal. It is no wonder, then, that the Indians have pursued
the study of philosophy with enthusiasm, for these are mat-
ters that concern all.
There is a fundamental difference between the Brah-

man and the modern view of politics. The modern politi-
cian considers that idealism in politics
is unpractical; time
enough, he thinks, to deal with social misfortunes when

they arise. The same outlook may be recognized in the fact
that modern medicine lays greater stress on cure than on
prevention, endeavours to protect against unnatural
i.e.,
conditions rather than to change the social environment.

The Western sociologist is apt to say: "The teachings of
religionand philosophy may or may not be true, but in
any case they have no significance for the practical re-
former." The Brahmans, on the contrary, considered all
activity not directed in accordance with a consistent theory

of the meaning and purpose of life as supremely unprac-
tical.
Only one condition permits us to excuse the indifference

of the European individual to philosophy; it is that the
struggle to exist leaves him no time for reflection. Philoso-
phy can only be known to those who are alike disinterested
and free from care; and Europeans are not thus free, what-
ever their political status. Where modern Industrialism
prevails, the Brahman, Kshattriya, and Shudra alike are
exploited by the Vaishya, 2 and where in this way com-
merce settles on every tree there must be felt continual
anxiety about a bare subsistence; the victim of Industry
must confine his thoughts to the subject of to-morrow's
food for himself and his family; the mere Will to Life
takes precedence of the Will to Power. If at the same time
it is decided that every man's voice is to count equally in
the councils of the nation, it follows naturally that the
voice of those who think must be drowned by that of those
who do not think and have no leisure. This position
leaves all classes alike at the mercy of unscrupulous in-
dividual exploitation, for all political effort lacking a phil-

osophical basis becomes merely opportunist. The problem
of modern Europe is to discover her own aristocracy and
to learn to obey its will.
It is just this problem which India long since solved for
herself in her own way. Indian philosophy is essentially the

creation of the two upper classes of society, the Brahmans
and the Kshattriyas. To the latter are due most of its for-
ward movements; to the former its elaboration, systema-
tization, mythical representation, and application. The
Brahmans possessed not merely the genius for organiza-
tion, but also the power to enforce their will; for, what-
ever may be the failings of individuals, the Brahmans as a
class are men whom other Hindus have always agreed to
7 : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
reverence, and still regard with the highest respect and

affection. The secret of their power is manifold; but it is
above all in the nature of their appointed dharma, of

study, teaching, and renunciation.
Of Buddhism I shall not speak at great length, but
rather in parenthesis: for the Buddhists never directly at-
tempted to organize human society, thinking that, rather
than concern himself with polity, the wise man should
leave the dark state of life in the world to follow the bright
state of the mendicant. 3 Buddhist doctrine is a medicine
solely directed to save the individual from burning, not in
a future hell, but in the present fire of his own thirst. It as-
sumes that to escape from the eternal recurrence is not
merely the summum bonum, but the whole purpose of life;
he is the wisest who devotes himself immediately to this
end; he the most loving who devotes himself to the en-
lightenment of others.
Buddhism has nevertheless deep and lasting effects on
Indian state-craft. For just as the Brahman philosopher
advised and guided his royal patrons, so did the Buddhist
ascetics. The sentiment of friendliness (metteya), through
its effect upon individual character, reacted upon social

theory.
It is difficult to separate what is Buddhist from what is
Indian generally; but we may fairly take the statesmanship

of the great Buddhist Emperor Ashoka as an example of
the effect of Buddhist teaching upon character and policy.
His famous edicts very well illustrate the little accepted
truth that "in the Orient, from ancient times, national
government has been based on benevolence, and directed
to securing the welfare and happiness of the people." 4 One
of the most significant of the edicts deals with "True Con-
quest." Previous to his acceptance of the Buddhist dharma
Ashoka had conquered the neighboring kingdom of the
Kalingas, and added their territory to his own; but now,
His Majesty feels "remorse for having con-

says the edict,
quered the Kalingas, because the conquest of a country
previously unconquered involves the slaughter, death, and
carrying away captive of the people. That is a matter of
profound sorrow and regret to His Sacred Majesty . . .
His Sacred Majesty desires that all animate beings should

have security, self-control, peace of mind, and joyousness.
. .My sons and grandsons, who may be, should not re-
.
gard it as their duty to conquer a new conquest. If per-

chance they become engaged in a conquest by arms, they
should take pleasure in patience and gentleness, and re-
gard as (the only true) conquest, the conquest won by piety.
That avails both for this world and the next."
In another edict "His Sacred and Gracious Majesty the
King does reverence to men of all sects, whether ascetics or
householders." Elsewhere he announces the establishment
of hospitals, and the appointment of officials "to consider
the case where a man has a large family, has been smitten
by calamity, or advanced in years"; he orders that ani-
is
mals should not be killed for his table; he commands that

shade and fruit trees should be planted by the high roads;
and he exhorts all men to "strive hard." He quotes the
Buddhist saying, "All men are my children." The annals
of India, and especially of Ceylon, can show us other Bud-
dhist kings of the same temper. But it will be seen that
such Buddhist teachings have their further con-
effects of
sequences mainly through benevolent despotism, and the
moral order established by one wise king may be de-
stroyed by his successors. Buddhism, so far as I know, never
attempted to formulate a constitution or to determine the
social order. Just this, however, the Brahmans attempted
in many ways, and and it is
to a great extent achieved,
mainly their application of religious philosophy to the
problems of sociology which forms the subject of the pres-
ent discussion.
p : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
The Kshattriya-Brahman solution of the ultimate prob-

lems of life is given in the early Upanishads. 5 It is a form
of absolute (according to Sahkaracharya) or modified (ac-
cording to Ramanuja) Monism. Filled with enthusiasm
for this doctrine of the Unity or Interdependence of all
life, the Brahman-Utopists set themselves to found a social

order upon the basis provided. In the great epics 6 they
represented the desired social order as having actually ex-
isted in a golden past, and they put into the mouths of the
epic heroes not only their actual philosophy, but the the-
ory of its practical application — this, above all, in the long
discourses of the dying Bhishma. The heroes themselves
they made ideal types of character for the guidance of
all subsequent generations; for the education of India
has been accomplished deliberately through hero-worship.
In the 'Dharmashastra' of Manu 7 and the 'Arthashastra' 8
of —
Chanakya perhaps the most remarkable sociological
—
documents the world possesses they set forth the picture
of the ideal society, defined from the standpoint of law.
By these and other means they accomplished what has
not yet been effected in any other country in making reli-
gious philosophy the essential and intelligible basis of
popular culture and national polity.
What, then, is the Brahman view of life? To answer this
at length, to expound the Science of the Self (Adhyatma-
vidya), which is the religion and philosophy of India,
would require considerable space. We have already indi-
cated that this science recognizes the unity of all life one —
source, one essence, and one goal —
and regards the realiza-
tion of this unity as the highest good, bliss, salvation, free-
dom, the final purpose of life. This is for Hindu thinkers
eternal life; not an eternity in time, but the recognition
here and now of All Things in the Self and the Self in All.
"More than all else," says Kabir, who may be said to speak
for India, "do I cherish at heart that love which makes me
io : The Dance of Shiva
to live a limitless life in this world." This inseparable

unity of the material and spiritual world is made the
foundation of the Indian culture, and determines the
whole character of her social ideals.
How, then, could the Brahmans tolerate the practical
diversity of life, how provide for the fact that a majority
of individuals are guided by selfish aims, how could they
deal with the problem of evil? They had found the Religion
of Eternity (Nirguna Vidya); what of the Religion of
Time (Saguna Vidya)}
This is the critical point of religious sociology, when it
remains to be seen whether the older idealist (it is old
souls that are idealistic, the young are short-sighted) can
remember his youth, and can make provision for the in-
terest and activities of spiritual immaturity. To fail here is
to divide the church from the everyday life, and to create

the misleading distinction of sacred and profane; to suc-
ceed is to illuminate daily life with the light of heaven.
The life man may
be regarded as constituting
or lives of
—
a curve an arc of time-experience subtended by the dura-
tion of the individual Will to Life. The outward move-
—
ment on this curve Evolution, the Path of Pursuit the —
Pravritti Marga — characterized by
is self-assertion. The in-
ward movement — Involution, the Path of Return — the
Nivritti Marga — characterized by increasing
is Self-realiza-
tion. 9
The religion of men on the outward path is the
Religion of Time; the religion of those who return is the
Religion of Eternity. If we consider life as one whole, cer-
tainly Self-realization must be regarded as its essential pur-
pose from the beginning; all our forgetting is but that we
may remember the more vividly. But though it is true that
in most men the two phases of experience interpenetrate,
we shall best understand the soul of man drawn as it is —
in the two opposite, or seeming opposite, directions of
Affirmation and Denial, Will and Will-surrender by —
II : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
separate consideration of the outward and the inward

tendencies.Brahmans avoid the theological use of the
terms "good" and "evil," and prefer to speak of "knowl-
edge" and "ignorance" (vidya and avidya), and of the
three qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas. As knowledge
increases, so much the more will a man of his own motion,
and not from any sense of duty, tend to return, and his
character and actions will be more purely sattvic. But we
need not on that account condemn the self-assertion of the
ignorant as sin; for could Self-realization be where self-
assertion had never been? It is not sin, but youth, and to
forbid the satisfaction of the thirst of youth is not a cure;
rather, as we realize more clearly every day desires sup-
pressed breed pestilence. The Brahmans therefore, not-
withstanding the austere rule appointed for themselves,
held that an ideal human society must provide for the en-
joyment of all pleasures by those who wish for them; they
would say, perhaps, that those who have risen above the
mere gratification of the senses, and beyond a life of mere
pleasure, however refined, are just those who have already
tasted pleasure to the full.
For reasons of this kind it was held that the acquisition
of wealth and the enjoyment of sense-pleasure
(artha)
(kama), subject to such law (dharma 10 ) as may protect
the weak against the strong, are the legitimate preoccupa-
tions of those on the outward path. This is the stage at-
tained by modern Western society, of which the norm is
competition regulated by ethical restraint. Beyond this
stage no society can progress unless it is subjected to the
creative will of those who have passed beyond the stage of
most extreme egoism, whether we call them heroes, guard-
ians,Brahmans, Samurai, or simply men of genius.
Puritanism consists in a desire to impose the natural
asceticism of age upon the young, and this position is
largely founded on the untenable theories of an absolute

ethic and an only true theology. The opposite extreme is

illustrated in industrial society, which accepts the princi-
ples of competition and self-assertion as a matter of course,
while it denies the value of philosophy and discipline.
Brahman sociology, just because of its philosophical basis,
avoided both errors in adopting the theory of sva-dharma,
the "own-morality" appropriate to the individual accord-
ing to his social and spiritual status, and the doctrine of
the many forms of Ishvara, which is so clumsily interpreted
by the missionaries as polytheistic. However much the
Brahmans held Self-realization to be the end of life, the
summum bonum, they saw very clearly that it would be
illogical to imposethis aim immediately upon those mem-
bers of the community who are not yet weary of self-asser-
tion. It is most conspicuously in this understanding tol-
erance that Brahman sociology surpasses other systems.

At this point we must digress to speak briefly of the doc-
trine of reincarnation,which is involved in the theory of
eternal recurrence. This doctrine is assumed and built
upon by Brahman sociologists, and on this account we
must clearly understand its practical applications. We must
not assume that reincarnation is a superstition which, if it
could be definitely refuted (and that is a considerable
"if"), would have as a theory no practical value. It is a
faôn de parler, valid only for so long as we attribute a real

being to the Ego that "is not my Self"; in truth, as Sankara
says, "The Lord is the only transmigrant," and That art —
thou, not "what thou callest T or 'myself.' " Even atoms
and electrons are but symbols, and do not necessarily rep-
resent tangible objects like marbles, which we could see if
we had large enough microscopes; the practical value of a
theory does not depend on its representative character, but
on its efficacy in resuming past observation and forecasting
future events. The doctrine of reincarnation corresponds
to a fact which everyone must have remarked; the varying
1} : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
age of the souls of men, irrespective of the age of the body

counted in years. "A man
not an elder because his head
is
is grey" (Dhammapada, 260). Sometimes we see an old

head on young shoulders. Some men remain irresponsible,
self-assertive, uncontrolled, unapt to their last day; others
from their youth are serious, self-controlled, talented,
and friendly. We must understand the doctrine of rein-
carnation at any rate as an artistic or mythical representa-
tion of these facts. To these facts the Brahmans rightly
attached great importance, for it is this variation of tem-
perament or inheritance which constitutes the natural
inequality of men, an inequality that is too often ignored
in the theories of Western democracy.
We can now examine the Brahmanical theory a little
more closely. An essential factor is to be recognized in the
dogma of the rhythmic character of the world-process.
This rhythm is determined by the great antithesis of Sub-
ject and Object, Self and not-Self, Will and Matter, Unity
and Diversity, Love and Hate, and all other "Pairs." The
interplay of these opposites constitutes the whole of sensa-
tional and registrateable existence, the Eternal Becoming
(samsara), which is characterized by birth and death,
evolution and involution, descent and ascent, srishti and
—
samhara. Every individual life mineral, vegetable, ani-
—
mal, human, or personal god has a beginning and an end,
and this creation and destruction, appearance and disap-
pearance, are of the essence of the world-process and
equally originate in the past, the present, and the future.
According to this view, then, every individual ego (jivat-
mari), or separate expression of the general Will to Life
(ichchha, trishna), must be regarded as having reached a
certain stage of its own cycle (gati). The same is true of the
collective life of a nation, a planet, or a cosmic system. It
is further considered that the turning point of this curve
is reached in man, and hence the immeasurable value
which Hindus (and Buddhists) attach to birth in human

form. Before the turning point is reached — to use the lan-
guage of Christian theology — the natural man prevails;
after it is man. The turning point is
passed, regenerate
not to be regarded as sudden, for the two conditions
interpenetrate, and the change of psychological centre of
gravity may occupy a succession of lives; or if the turning
seems to be a sudden event, it is only in the sense that the
fall of a ripe fruit appears sudden.
According to their position on the great curve, that is to
say, according to their spiritual age, we can recognize three
prominent types of men. There is first themob, of those
who are preoccupied with the thought of I and Mine,
whose objective is self-assertion, but are restrained on the

one hand by fear of retaliation and of legal or after-death
punishment, and on the other by the beginnings of love
of family and love of country. These, in the main, are the
"Devourers" of Blake, the "Slaves" of Nietzsche. Next
there is a smaller, but still large number of thoughtful
and good men whose behavior is largely determined by a
sense of duty, but whose inner life is still the field of con-
flict between the old Adam and the new man. Men of this
type are actuated on the one hand by the love of power

and fame, and ambition more or less noble, and on the
other by the disinterested love of mankind. But this type
is rarely pan-human, and its outlook is often simultaneously
unselfish and narrow. In times of great stress, the men of

this type reveal their true nature, showing to what extent
they have advanced more or less than has appeared. But
all these, v\ho have but begun to taste of freedom, must
still be guided by rules. Finally, there is the much smaller

number of great men — heroes, saviours, saints, and avatars
— who have definitely passed the period of greatest stress
and have attained peace, or at least have attained to occa-
sionaland unmistakable vision of life as a whole. These
1$ : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
are the "Prolific" of Blake, the "Masters" of Nietzsche,

the true Brahmans in their own right, and partake of the
nature of the Superman and the Bodhisattva. Their ac-
tivity is determined by their love and wisdom, and not by
rules. In the world, but not of it, they are the flower of
humanity, our leaders and teachers.
These classes constitute the natural hierarchy of human
society. The Brahman sociologists were firmly convinced
that in an ideal society, i.e., a society designed deliberately
by man for the fulfilment of his own purpose (purushar-
tha), 11 not only must opportunity be allowed to every one
for such experience as his spiritual status requires, but
also that the best and wisest must rule. It seemed to them
impossible that an ideal society should have any other than
an aristocratic basis, the aristocracy being at once intellec-
tual and spiritual. Being firm believers in heredity, both of
blood and culture, they conceived that it might be possible
to constitute an ideal society upon the already existing
basis of occupational caste. "If," thought they, "we can de-
termine natural classes, then let us assign to each its appro-
priate duties (svadharma, own norm) and appropriate
honor; this will at once facilitate a convenient division of
necessary labor, ensure the handing down of hereditary
skill in pupillary succession, avoid all possibility of social
ambition, and will allow to every individual the experi-
ence and activity which he needs and owes." They assumed
that by a natural law, the individual ego is always, or
nearly always, born into its own befitting environment. If
they were wrong on this point, then it remains for others
to discover some better way of achieving the same ends. I
do not say that this is impossible; but it can hardly be de-
nied that the Brahmanical caste system is the nearest ap-
proach that has yet been made towards a society where
there shall be no attempt to realize a competitive equality,
but where all interests are regarded as identical. To those
who admit the variety of age in human souls, this must ap-
pear to be the only true communism.
To describe the caste system as an idea or in actual prac-
tice would require a whole volume. But we may notice
a few of its characteristics. The nature of the difference
between a Brahman and a Shudra is indicated in the view
that a Shudra can do no wrong, 12 a view that must make an
immense demand upon the patience of the higher castes,
and is the absolute converse of the Western doctrine
that the King can do no wrong. These facts are well illus-
trated in the doctrine of legal punishment, that that of
the Vaishya should be twice as heavy as that of the Shudra,
that that of the Kshattriya twice as heavy again, that of
the Brahman twice or even four times as heavy again in
respect of the same offence; for responsibility rises with
intelligence and status. The Shudra is also free of innu-
merable forms of self-denial imposed upon the Brahman;
he may, for example, indulge in coarse food, the widow
may re-marry. It may be observed that it was strongly held
that the Shudra should not by any means outnumber the
other castes; if the Shudras are too many, as befell in an-
cient Greece, where the slaves outnumbered the freemen,
the voice of the least wise may prevail by mere weight of
numbers.
Modern craftsmen interested in the regulation of ma-
chinery will be struck by the fact that the establishment
and working of large machines and factories by individuals
was reckoned a grievous sin; large organizations are only
to be carried on in the public interest. 13
Given the natural classes, one of the good elements of
what is now regarded as democracy was provided by mak-
ing the castes self-governing; thus was secured that a
it
man should be tried by his peers (whereas, under Indus-

trial Democracy, an artist may be tried by a jury of trades-
men, or a poacher by a bench of squires). Within the caste

iy : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
there existed equality of opportunity for all, and the caste

as a body had collective privileges and responsibilities. So-
ciety thus organized has much the appearance of what
would now be called Guild Socialism.
In a just and healthy society, function should depend
upon capacity; and in the normal individual, capacity and
inclination are inseparable (this is the 'instinct of work-
manship'). We are able accordingly to recognize, in the
theory of the Syndicalists, as well as in the caste organiza-
and
tion of India, a very nearly ideal combination of duty
pleasure, compulsionand freedom; and the words vocation
or dharma imply this very identity. Individualism and so-
cialism are united in the concept of function.
The Brahmanical theory has also a far-reaching bearing
on the problems of education. "Reading," says the Garuda
Purana, "to a man devoid of wisdom, is like a mirror to the
blind." The Brahmans attached no value to uncoordinated
knowledge or to unearned opinions, but rather regarded
these as dangerous tools in the hands of unskilled crafts-
men. The greatest stress is laid on the development of
character. Proficiency in hereditary aptitudes is assured by
pupillary succession within the caste. But it is in respect of
what we generally understand by higher education that
the Brahman method differs most from modern ideals; for
it is not even contemplated as desirable that all knowledge
should be made accessible to all. The key to education is to

be found in personality. There should be no teacher for
whom teaching is less than a vocation (none may "sell the
Vedas"), and no teacher should impart his knowledge to
a pupil until he finds the pupil ready to receive it, and the
proof of is to be found in the asking of the right ques-
this
tions."As the man who digs with a spade obtains water,
even so an obedient pupil obtains the knowledge which is
in his teacher." 14
The relative position of man and woman is also very

noteworthy. Perhaps the woman is in general a younger

soul, as Paracelsus puts it, "nearer to the world than man."
But there is no war of words as to which is the superior,
which inferior; for the question of competitive equality is
not considered. The Hindu marriage contemplates iden-
tity, and not The primary motif of marriage is
equality. 15
not merely individual satisfaction, but the achievement of
Purushartha, the purposes of life, and the wife is spoken of
as sahadharmacharini , "she who co-operates in the fulfill-

ment of social and religious duties." In the same way for
the community at large, the system of caste is designed
rather to unite than to divide. Men of different castes have
more in common than men is in an
of different classes. It
Industrial Democracy, and where a system of secular educa-
tion prevails, that groups of men are effectually separated;
a Western professor and a navvy do not understand each
other half so well as a Brahman and a Shudra. It has been
justly remarked that "the lowest pariah hanging to the
skirts of Hindu society is in a sense as much the disciple of
the Brahman ideal as any priest himself."
It remains to apply what has been said to immediate
problems. I have suggested that India has nothing of more
value to offer to the world than her religious philosophy,

and her faith in the application of philosophy to social
problems. A few words may be added on the present
16
crisis and the relationship of East and West. Let us un-
derstand first that what we see in India is a co-operative so-
ciety in a state of decline. Western society has never been

so highly organized, but in so far as it was organized, its
disintegration has proceeded much further than is yet the

case in India. And we may expect that Europe, having sunk
into industrial competition first, will be the first to emerge.
The seeds of a future co-operation have long been sown,
and we can clearly recognize a conscious, and perhaps also
an unconscious, effort towards reconstruction.
Ip : WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
In the meantime the decay of Asia proceeds, partly of

internal necessity, because at the presentmoment the so-
cial change from co-operation to competition is spoken of
as progress, and because it seems to promise the ultimate
recovery of political power, and partly as the result of de-
structive exploitation by the Industrialists. Even those Eu-
ropean thinkers who may be called the prophets of the
new age are content to think of a development taking place
in Europe alone. But let it be clearly realized that the
modern world is not the ancient world of slow communica-
tions; what done in India or Japan to-day has immedi-

is
ate spiritual and economic results in Europe and America.

To say that East is East and West is West is simply to
hide one's head in the sand. 17 It will be quite impossible to
establish any higher social order in the West so long as the
East remains infatuated with the, to her, entirely novel
and fascinating theory of laissez-faire.
The is thus an evil portent for

rapid degradation of Asia
the future of humanity and for the future of that Western
social idealism of which the beginnings are already recog-
nizable. If, either in ignorance or in contempt of Asia,
constructive European thought omits to seek the co-opera-
tion of Eastern philosophers, there will come a time when
Europe will not be able to fight Industrialism, because this
enemy will be entrenched in Asia. It is not sufficient for
the English colonies and America to protect themselves by
immigration laws against cheap Asiatic labor; that is a
merely temporary device, and likely to do more harm than
good, even apart from its injustice. Nor will it be possible
for theEuropean nationalist ideal that every nation should
choose its own form of government, and lead its own life, 18
to be realized, so long as the European nations have, or
desire to have, possessions in Asia. What has to be secured
is the conscious co-operation of East and West for common
ends, not the subjection of either to the other, nor their
lasting estrangement. For if Asia be not with Europe, she

will be against her, and there may arise a terrible conflict,
economic, or even armed, between an idealistic Europe
and a materialized Asia.
To put the matter in another way, we do not fully realize
the debt that Europe already owes to Asiatic thought, for
the discovery of Asia has hardly begun. And, on the other
hand, Europe has inflicted terrible injuries upon Asia in
modern times. 19 I do not mean to say that the virus of
"civilization" would not have spread through Asia quite
apart from any direct European attempts to effect such a
result —quite on the contrary; but cannot be denied
it
that those who have been the unconscious instruments of

the degradation of Asiatic society from the basis of dharma
to the basis of contract have incurred a debt.
The is not merely a dream of the past.
"clear air" of Asia
There is idealism, and there are idealists in modern India,
even amongst those who have been corrupted by half a
century of squalid education. We are not all deceived by
the illusion of progress, but, like some of our European col-
leagues, desire "the coming of better conditions of life,
when the whole world will again learn that the object of
human life is not to waste it in a feverish anxiety and race
after physical objects and comforts, but to use it in devel-
oping the mental, moral, and spiritual powers, latent in
man." 20 The debt, then, of Europe, can best be paid and —
—
with infinite advantage to herself by seeking the co-opera-
tion of modern Asia in every adventure of the spirit which
Europe would essay. It is true that this involves the hard
surrender of the old idea that it is the mission of the West
to civilize the East; but that somewhat Teutonic and Im-
perial view of Kultur is already discredited. What is
needed for thecommon civilization of the world is the rec-
ognition of common problems, and to co-operate in their
21 '. WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED?
solution. If it be asked what inner riches India brings to

aid in the realization of a civilization of the world, then,
from the Indian standpoint, the answer must be found in
her religions and her philosophy, and her constant applica-
tion of abstract theory to practical life.
HINDU
VIEW OF ART
HISTORICAL
®
The Indian art of which we have any information

earliest
or concerning which we are able to draw reasonably cer-
tain inferences, we may designate as Vedic, since we can
hardly undertake here the discussion of the perhaps con-
temporary culture of the early Dravidians. Vedic art was
essentially practical. About painting and sculpture we have
no knowledge, but the carpenter, metal-worker and potter
and weaver efficiently provided for man's material require-
ments. If their work was decorated, we may be sure that
its 'ornament' had often, and perhaps always, a magical
and protective significance. The ends of poetry were also

practical. The Vedic hymns were designed to persuade the
gods to deal generously with men:
"As birds extend their sheltering wings,

Spread your protection over us."
(rigveda)
Much of this poetry is descriptive; it is nature-poetry in

the sense that it deals with natural phenomena. Its most
2} '. HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL
poetical quality is its wonder and admiration, but

sense of
it is not lyrical in any other sense. It has no tragic or reflec-
tive elements, except in some of the later hymns, and there

is no question of 'aesthetic contemplation,' for the concep-
tion of the sympathetic constantly prevails. The poet some-

times comments on his own work, which he compares to a
car well-built by a deft craftsman, or to fair and well-woven
garments, or to a bride adorned for her lover; and this
art it was that made the hymns acceptable to the gods to
whom they were addressed. Vedic aesthetic consisted es-
sentially in the appreciation of skill.

The keynote of the age of the Upanishads (800 B.C.)
and Pali Buddhism (500 B.C.) is the search for truth. The
ancient hymns had become a long-established institution,
taken for granted; ritual was followed solely for the sake
of advantage in this world or the next. Meanwhile the
deeper foundations of Indian culture were in process of
determination in the mental struggle of the 'dwellers in
the forest.' The language of the Upanishads combines aus-
terity with passion, but this passion is the exaltation of
mental effort, remote from the common life of men in the
world. Only here and there we find glimpses of the later
fusion of lyric and religious experience, when, for exam-
ple, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the bliss of atman-
intuition, or the intuition of the Self, is compared with the
happiness of earthly lovers in self-forgetting dalliance. In
general, the Upanishads are too much preoccupied with
deeper speculations to exhibit a conscious art, or to dis-
cuss the art of their times; in this age there is no explicit
aesthetic.
When, however, we consider the Indian way of regard-

ing the Vedas as a whole, we shall find implicit in the
word 'shruti' a very important doctrine; that the Veda is
eternal, the sacred books are its temporal expression, they

have been 'heard.' This is not a theory of 'revelation' in
the ordinary sense, since the audition depends on the

qualification of the hearer, not on the will and active mani-
festation of a god. But it is on all fours with the later Hindu
view which treats the practice of art as a form of yoga, and
identifies aesthetic emotion with that felt when the self
perceives the Self.
In Pali Buddhism generally, an enthusiasm for the
truth, unsurpassed even in the Upanishads, is combined
with monastic institutionalism and a rather violent po-
lemic against the joys of the world. Beauty and personal
love are not merely evanescent, but are snares to be
avoided at all costs; and it is clearly indicated that the
Early Buddhist aesthetic is strictly hedonistic. 1 The indica-
tions of this point of view are summed up in the following
pages of the Visuddhi Marga: ''Living beings on account of
their love and devotion to the sensations excited by forms
and the other objects of sense, give high honour to paint-
ers, musicians, perfumers, cooks, elixir-prescribing physi-
cians, and other like persons who furnish us with objects
of sense."
In the Upanishads on the one hand, and in the teachings
of Buddha on the other, the deepest problems of life were
penetrated; the mists of the Vedic dawn had melted in the
fire of austerity (tapas), and life lay open to man's inspec-
tion as a thing of which the secret mechanism was no more
mysterious. We can scarcely exaggerate the sense of tri-
umph with which the doctrines of the Atman or Self and

the gospel of Buddha permeated Indian society. The im-
mediate result of the acceptance of these views appeared
in an organized and deliberate endeavour to create a form
of society adapted for the fulfilment of the purposes of life
as seen in the light of the new philosophies. To the ideal
of the saint in retirement was very soon added that of the
man who remains in the world and yet acquires or pos-
sesses the highest
—
wisdom "It was with works that Janaka
2$ .*
HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL
and others came unto adeptship" iii. 20). Theie

(Gita,
was now also evolved the doctrine of union by action
(karmayoga) set forth in the Bhagavad Gita, as leading
even the citizen on the path of salvation. The emergence of
a definitely Brahmanical rather than a Buddhist scheme of
life is to be attributed to the fact that the practical energies
of Buddhists were largely absorbed within the limits of its
monasticism; the Buddhists in the main regard Nirvana

not merely as the ultimate, but as the sole object of life.
But the Brahmans never forgot that this life is the field
and Return. Their scheme of life is set
alike of Pursuit
forth at great length in the Sutra literature, the Dharma
Shastras and the Epics (in general, 4th — 1st centuries
B.C.).
This literature yields sufficient material for an elucida-

tion of the orthodox view of art. But notwithstanding the
breadth of the fourfold plan, we find in this literature the
same hedonistic and puritanical applications as
aesthetic
are characteristic of Pali Buddhism. Thus, Manu forbids
the householder to dance or sing or play on musical in-
struments, and reckons architects, actors and singers
amongst the unworthy men who should not be invited to
the ceremony of offerings to the dead. Even Chanakya,
though he tolerates musicians and actors, classes them with
courtesans. The hedonistic theory still prevailed. In later
times the 'defence' of any art, such as poetry or drama, was
characteristically based on the fact that it could contribute
to the achievement of all or any of the Four Aims of Life.
Meanwhile the stimulus of discovered truth led not

only to this austere formulation of a scheme of life (typi-
cally in Manu), but also to the development of yoga as a
practice for the attainment of the desired end; and in this
development an almost equal part was taken by Brahmans
and Buddhists (typically in Patanjali and Nagarjuna).
We shall digress here, and partially anticipate, to discuss
briefly theimportant part once played in Indian thought

by the concept of Art as Yoga, a subject sufficient in itself
for a whole volume. It will be remembered that the pur-
pose of Yoga is mental concentration, carried so far as the
overlooking of distinction between the subject and the
all
object of contemplation; a means of achieving harmony or

unity of consciousness.
It was soon recognized that the concentration of the
artist w asT
of this very nature; and we find such texts as
Shukracharya's:
"Let the imager establish images in temples by medita-
tion on the deities who are the objects of his devotion. For
the successful achievement of this yoga the lineaments of
the image are described in books to be dwelt upon in de-
tail. In no other way, not even by direct and immediate
vision of an actual object, is it possible to be so absorbed
in contemplation, as thus in the making of images."
The manner in which even the lesser crafts constitute a
practice (acharya) analogous to that of (samprajnata)
yoga is indicated incidentally by Sankaracharya in the com-
mentary on the Brahma Sutra, 3, 2, 10. The subject of
discussion is the distinction of swoon from waking; in
swoon the senses no longer perceive their objects. Sanka-
racharya remarks, "True, the arrow-maker perceives noth-
ing beyond his work when he is buried in it; but he has
nevertheless consciousness and control over his body, both
of which are absent in the fainting person." The arrow-
maker seems have afforded, indeed, a proverbial in-
to
stance of single-minded attention, as we read in the
Bhagavata Purana.
"I have learned concentration from the maker of ar-
rows."
A connection between dream and art is recognized in a
passage of the Agni Purana, 2 where the imager is in-
structed, on the night before beginning his work, and after
2J : HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL
ceremonial purification, to pray, "O thou Lord of all the

gods, teach me dreams how to carry out all the work I
in
have in my mind." Here again we see an anticipation of
modern views, which associate myth and dream and art as
essentially similar and representing the dramatization of
man's innermost hopes and fears.
The practise of visualization, referred to by Shukra-
charya, is identical in worship and in art. The worshipper
recites the dhyana mantram describing the deity, and
forms a corresponding mental picture, and it is then to
this imagined form that his prayers are addressed and the
offerings are made. The artist follows identical prescrip-
tions, but proceeds to represent the mental picture in a
visible and objective form, by drawing or modelling. Thus,
to take an example from Buddhist sources. 3
The artist (sadhaka, mantrin, or yogin, as he is vari-
— —
ously and significantly called), after ceremonial purifica-
tion, is to proceed to a solitary place. There he is to perform
the "Sevenfold Office," beginning with the invocation of
the hosts of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and the offering to
them of real or imaginary flowers. Then he must realize
in thought the four infinite moods of friendliness, compas-
sion, sympathy, and impartiality. Then he must meditate
upon the emptiness (shunyata) or non-existence of all
things, for "by the fire of the idea of the abyss, it is said,
there are destroyed beyond recovery the five factors" of
ego-consciousness. 4 Then only should he invoke the de-
sired divinity by the utterance of the appropriate seedword
(bija) and should identify himself completely with the di-
vinity to be represented. Then finally on pronouncing the

dhyana mantram, in which the attributes are defined, the
divinity appears visibly, "like a reflection," or "as in a
dream" and this brilliant image is the artist's model.
This ritual is perhaps unduly elaborated, but in essen-
tials it shows a clear understanding of the psychology of
the imagination. These essentials are the setting aside the

transformations of the thinking principle; 5 self-identifica-
tion with the object of the work; 6 and vividness of the final
image. 7
There are abundant literary parallels for this concep-
tion of art as yoga. Thus Valmiki, although he was already
familiar with the story of Rama, before composing his
own Ramayana sought to realize it more profoundly, and
"seating himself with his face towards the East, and sip-
ping water according to rule (f. e. ceremonial purification),
he set himself to yoga-contemplation of his theme. By
virtue of his yoga-power he clearly saw before him Rama,
Lakshman and Sita, and Dasharatha, together with his
wives, in his kingdom laughing, talking, acting and mov-
ing as if in real life ... by yoga-power that righteous one
beheld all that had come to pass, and all that was to come
to pass in the future, like a nelli fruit 8 on the palm of his
hand. And having truly seen all by virtue of his concentra-
tion, the generous sage began the setting forth of the his-
tory of Rama." 9
Notice here particularly that the work of art is com-

pleted before the work of transcription or representation
isbegun. 10 "The mind of the sage," says Chuang Tzu, "be-
ing in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the
speculum of all creation." Croce is entirely correct when
he speaks of "the artist, who never makes a stroke with his
brush without having previously seen it with his imagina-
tion" and remarks that the externalization of a work of art
"implies a vigilant will, which persists in not allowing cer-
tain visions, intuitions, or representations to be lost." u
should be understood that yoga ('union') is not
It
merely a mental exercise or a religious discipline, but the

most practical preparation for any undertaking whatever. 12
Hanuman, example, before searching the Ashoka grove
for
for Sita, "prayed to the gods and ranged the forest in im-
2p : HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL
agination till he found her"; then only did he spring from

the walls of Lanka, like an arrow from a bow, and enter
the grove in the flesh. Throughout the East, wherever
Hindu or Buddhist thought have deeply penetrated, it is
firmly believed that all knowledge is directly accessible to

the concentred and 'one-pointe^ mind, without the
direct intervention of the senses. Probably all inventors,
artists and mathematicians are more or less aware of this
as a matter of personal experience. In the language of

psycho-analysis, this concentration preparatory to under-
taking a specific task is "the willed introversion of a crea-
tive mind, which, retreating before its own problem and
inwardly collecting its forces, dips at least for a moment into
the source of life, in order there to wrest a little more
strength from the mother for the completion of its work,"
and the result of this reunion is "a fountain of youth and
new fertility." 13
We have spoken so far of yoga, but for the artist this was
rather a means than an end. Just as in Mediaeval Europe,
so too, and perhaps even more conspicuously in India, the
impulse to iconolatry derived from the spirit of adoration
— the loving and passionate devotion to a personal divinity,
which we know as bhakti. Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutra,
mentions the Lord only as one amongst other suitable ob-
jects of contemplation, and without the use of any image
being implied; but the purpose of the lover is precisely to
establish a personal relation with the Beloved, and the
plasticsymbol is created for this end. A purely abstract
philosophy or a psychology like that of Early Buddhism
does not demand aesthetic expression; it was the spirit of
worship which built upon the foundations of Buddhist and
Vedantic thought the mansions of Indian religion, which
shelter all those whom purely intellectual formulae
—
could not satisfy the children of this world who will not
hurry along the path of Release, and the mystics who find
jo : The Dance of Shiva
a foretaste of freedom in the love of every cloud in the

sky and flower at their feet.
This was indeed a return to superstition, or at any rate
to duality; but what in this world is not a dream and a
superstition? —certainly not the atoms of science. And for
all those who are not yet idealists there are, as there must
be, idols provided. The superstitions of Hinduism, like
those of Christianity, accomplished more for the hearts of
men than those of modern materialism. It may well be
doubted if art and idolatry, idolatry and art, are not in-
separable. 14
Let us observe here that the purpose of the imager was
neither self-expression nor the realization of beauty. He did
not choose his own problems, but like the Gothic sculptor,
obeyed a hieratic canon. 15 He did not regard his own or
his fellows' work from the standpoint of connoisseurship
—
or aestheticism not, that is to say, from the standpoint of
the philosopher, or aesthete, but from that of a pious
artisan. To him the theme was all in all, and if there is
beauty in his work, this did not arise from aesthetic inten-
tion, 16 but from a state of mind which found unconscious
expression. In every epoch of great and creative art we ob-
serve an identical phenomenon —
the artist is preoccupied
with his theme. It is only in looking backward, and as
philosophers rather than artists —or if we are also artists, a
rare combination, then with the philosophic and not the
aesthetic side of our minds —that we perceive that the
quality of beauty in a work of art is really quite indepen-
dent of its theme. Then we are apt to forget that beauty
has never been reached except through the necessity that
was felt to deal with the particular subject. We sit down to
paint a beautiful picture, or stand up to dance, and having

nothing in us that we feel must be said and said clearly at
all costs, we are surprised that the result is insipid and lacks
conviction; the subject may be lovely, the dancer may be
31 HINDU VIEW OF ART*. HISTORICAL
ravishing, but the picture and the dance are not rasavant.
The theory of beauty is a matter for philosophers, and
artists strive to demonstrate it at their own risk.
The Indian imager was concerned with his own prob-

lem. It is interesting to see the kind of man he was ex-
pected to be. According to one of the Shilpa Shastras: "The
Shilpan (artificer) should understand the Atharva Veda,
the thirty-two Shilpa Shastras, and the Vedic mantras by
which the deities are invoked. He should be one who
wears a sacred thread, a necklace of holy beads, and a ring
of kusha grass on his finger; delighting in the worship of
God, faithful to his wife, avoiding strange women, piously
acquiring a knowledge of various sciences, such a one is
17
indeed a craftsman." Elsewhere it is said "the painter
must be a good man, no sluggard, not given to anger;
holy, learned, self-controlled, devout and charitable, such
18
should be his character." It is added that he should work
in solitude, or when another artist is present, never be-

fore a layman.
In this connection it is very important to realize that
the artisan or artist possessed an assured status in the form
of a life contract, or rather an hereditary office. He was
trained from childhood as his father's disciple, and fol-
lowed his father's calling as a matter of course. He was

member and the guilds were recognized, and
of a guild,
protected by the king. The artificer was also protected from
competition and undercutting; it is said: "That any other
than a Shilpan should build temples, towns, seaports, tanks
comparable 19
or wells, is to the sin of murder." This was
guild socialism in a non-competitive society. 20
The earliest impulses of Indian art appear to have been

more or less practical and secular, and it is perhaps to this
fact that we may partly trace the distrust of art exhibited
by the early hedonists. On the other hand, the dominant
motifs governing its evolution from the third century b.c.
onwards, and up to the close of the eighteenth century, are

devotion (bhakti) and reunion (yoga). Neither of these
is peculiar to India, but they exhibit there a peculiar
character which leaves its mark on everything Hindu or
Buddhist. Let us now follow these traces in a very summary
reference to actual documents.
I have discussed in another chapter the beginnings of
Buddhist art. 21 It is in the southern primitives at Amara-

vati and Anuradhapura rather than in the semi-Roman
figures of the North-west that we can best observe the de-
velopment of an art that is distinctively Indian. This is the
main stream; and it is these types from which the suave
and gracious forms of Gupta sculpture derive, and these
in turn became the models of all Buddhist art in China. In
India proper, they grow more and more mouvemente,
more dramatic and vigorous, in the classic art of Elura and
Elephanta, Mamallapuram and Ceylon, and form the basis
of the immense developments of colonial Buddhist and
Hindu art in Java and Cambodia. Gupta and classic paint-
ing are preserved at Ajanta.
The tender humanism and the profound nature sym-
pathies which are so conspicuous in the painting of Ajanta
and the sculpture of Mamallapuram are recognizable
equally in the work of poets like Ashvaghosha and Arya
Shura and dramatists like Kalidasa. Ashvaghosha says of
Prince Siddhartha that one day as he was riding in the
country "he saw a piece of land being ploughed, with the
path of the plough broken like waves of the water. . . .
And regarding the men as they ploughed, their faces soiled

by the dust, scorched by the sun, and chafed by the wind,
and their cattle bewildered by the burden of drawing, the
All-noble One felt the uttermost compassion; and alight-
ing from the back of his horse, he passed slowly over the
earth, overcome with sorrow —pondering the birth and
destruction proceeding in the world, he grieved." Nor can
55 • HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL
anything be more poignant than Shanti Deva's expression

of his sense of the eternal movement and unsubstantiality
of life
—"Who is a kinsman, and who a friend, and unto
whom?" The literature of love is no less remarkable. We
recognize here, just as in the painting and sculpture, what
is eternal in all art, and universal —impassioned vision
based on understanding, correlated with cloudless thought
and devoid of sentimentality. There is every reason to be-
lieve too that this was the time of highest attainment in
music. Lastly, this was a time of progress in the field of
pure science, especially mathematics and astronomy. From
the fourth to the end of the eighth century we must regard
as the golden age of Indian civilization. This was the period
of Wei and T'ang in China; Eastern Asia represented then
to all intents and purposes the civilization of the world.
After the ninth or tenth century there is a general,
though certainly not universal, decline in orthodox art, of
which the formulae were rapidly stereotyped in their main
outlines, and rendered florid in their detail. Classical San-
skrit literature also came to an end in a forest of elaborate
embroidery. But great forces (sometimes grouped under
the designation of the Pauranic Renaissance) had long
been at work preparing the way for the emergence of the
old cults of Shiva and Vishnu in forms which gave re-
—
newed inspiration to art sculpture and poetry in the
South, and poetry and painting in the North. In these
devotional faiths was completed the cycle of Indian
spiritual evolution from pure philosophy to pure mys-
ticism, from knowledge to love. The inner and outer life
—
were finally unified a development entirely analogous to
that of Zen Buddhism in the Far East. The transparency of
life so clearly expressed in the paintings of Ajanta is indi-
—
cated with a renewed emphasis above all in the Radha-
—
Krishna cults and in all the Northern Vaishnava poetry
—
and painting the tradition in which Rabindranath Ta-
a
34 •'
The Dance of Shiva
gore is the latest singer, and of which the theory is plainly

set forth in his song:
Not my way of salvation, to surrender the world!

Rather for me the taste of Infinite Freedom
While yet I am bound by a thousand bonds to the
wheel . . .
In each glory of sound and sight and scent

I shall find Thy infinite joy abiding:
My passion shall burn as the flame of salvation,
The flower of my love shall become the ripe fruit of
devotion.
But such a theory is now rather a survival of all that was

universal in Indian religion, rather than a new point of
departure. The current Êsthetic of 'educated* India —
product of a wide miscomprehension of Western culture
and Nonconformist ethics is again
a general surrender to —
realistic and hedonistic, and perhaps for the first time il-
lustrative, personal, and sentimental.
HINDU
VIEW OF ART:
THEORY OF BEAUTY
®
We have so far discussed the Hindu view of art mainly

from the internal evidence of the art itself. There remains,
what is more exactly pertinent to the title of these chapters,
to discuss the Hindu Êsthetic as it is expressly formulated
and elaborated in the abundant Sanskrit and Hindi litera-
ture on Poetics and the Drama. 1 We shall find that general
conclusions are reached which are applicable, not only to
literature, but to all arts alike.
The discussion begins with the Defence of Poesy. This is

summed up in the statement that it may contribute to the
achievement of all or any of the Four Ends of Life. A
single word rightly employed and understood is compared
to the 'cow of plenty,' yielding every treasure; and the
same poem that is of material advantage to one, may be
of spiritual advantage to another or upon another occa-
sion.
The question follows: What is the essential element in
poetry? According to some authors this consists in style or
figures, or in suggestion (vyanjana, to which we shall re-
cur in discussing the varieties of poetry). But the greater

writers refute these views and are agreed that the one es-
sential element in poetry 2 is what they term Rasa, or
Flavor. With this term, which is the equivalent of Beauty

or Êsthetic Emotion 3 in the strict sense of the philosopher,
must be considered the derivative adjective rasavant 'hav-
ing rasa,' applied to a work of art, and the derivative sub-
stantive rasika, one who enjoys rasa, a connoisseur or lover,
and finally rasasvadana, the tasting of rasa, i.e., aesthetic
contemplation.
A whole literature is devoted to the discussion of rasa
and the conditions of its experience. The theory, as we
have remarked, is worked out in relation to poetry and
drama, especially the classic drama of Kalidasa and others.
When we consider that these plays are essentially secular
in subject and sensuous in expression, the position arrived
at regarding its significance will seem all the more remarka-
ble.
—rasa—
Aesthetic emotion is said to result in the spec-
tator —rasika— though not it is effectively caused, through
the operation of determinants (vibhava), consequents
(anubhava), moods (bhava) and involuntary emotions
(sattvabhava)* Thus:
determinants: the aesthetic problem, plot theme, etc.,
viz:the hero and other characters and the circumstances of
time and place. In the terminology of Croce these are the
"physical stimulants to aesthetic reproduction."
consequents: deliberate manifestations of feeling, as
gestures, etc.
moods: transient moods (thirty-three in number) in-
duced in the characters by pleasure and pain, e.g., joy,
agitation, impatience, etc. Also the permanent (nine),
viz: the Erotic, Heroic, Odious, Furious, Terrible, Pa-
thetic, Wondrous and Peaceful.
involuntary emotions: emotional states originating in
—
37 •' HINDU VIEW OF ART: THEORETICAL
the inner nature; involuntary expressions of emotion such

as horripilation, trembling, etc. (eight in all).
In order that a work may be able to evoke rasa one 5 of
the permanent moods must form a master-motif to which
all other expressions of emotion are subordinate. 6 That is
to say, the first essential of a rasavant work is unity
As a king to his subjects, as a guru to his disciples,

Even so the master-motif is lord of all other motifs. 7
If, on the contrary, a transient emotion is made the mo-

tif of the whole work, this "extended development of a
transient emotion tends to the absence of rasa," 8 or as we
should now say, the work becomes sentimental. Pretty art
which emphasizes passing feelings and personal emotion
is neither beautiful nor true: it tells us of meeting again in
heaven, it confuses time and eternity, loveliness and beauty,

partiality and love.
Let us remark in passing that while the nine permanent
moods correspond to an identical classification of rasas or
flavors as nine in number, the rasa of which we speak here
is an absolute, and distinct from any one of these. The
'nine rasas' are no more than the various colorings of one

experience, and are arbitrary terms of rhetoric used only
for convenience in classification: just as we speak of poetry
categorically as lyric, epic, dramatic, etc., without implying
that poetry anything but poetry. Rasa is tasted beauty is
is —
felt —only by empathy, 'Einfiihlung' (sadharana); that
is to say by entering into, feeling, the permanent motif;
but it is not the same as the permanent motif itself, for,
from this point of view, it matters not with which of the

permanent motifs we have to do.
It is just here that we see how far Hindu Aesthetic had
now departed from its once practical and hedonistic char-
acter: the Dasharupa declares plainly that Beauty is ab-

solutely independent of the sympathetic

—"Delightful or
disgusting, exalted or lowly, cruel or kindly, obscure or
refined, (actual) or imaginary, there is no subject that
cannot evoke rasa in man."
Of course, a work of art may and often does afford us at
the same time pleasure in a sensuous or moral way, but
this sort of pleasure is derived directly from its material
qualities, such as tone or texture, assonance, etc., or the

ethical peculiarity of its theme, and not from its aesthetic
qualities: the aesthetic experience is independent of this,

and may even, as Dhanamjaya says, be derived in spite of
sensuous or moral displeasure.
Incidentally we may observe that the fear of art which
prevails amongst Puritans arises partly from the failure to
recognize that aesthetic experience does not depend on
pleasure or pain at all: and when this is not the immediate
difficulty, then from the distrust of any experience which
is"beyond good and evil" and so devoid of a definitely
moral purpose.
The tasting of rasa —the vision of beauty— is enjoyed,
says Vishvanatha, "only by those who are competent
thereto": and he quotes Dharmadatta to the effect that
"those devoid of imagination, in the theatre, are but as the
wood-work, the walls, and the stones." It is a matter of
common experience that it is possible for a man to devote
a whole life time to the study of art, without having once
experienced aesthetic emotion: "historical research" as
Croce expresses it, "directed to illumine a work of art by
placing us in a position to judge it, does not alone suffice
to bring it to birth in our spirit," for "pictures, poetry, and

every work of art produce no effect save on souls prepared
to receive them." Vishvanatha comments very pertinently
on this fact when he says that "even some of the most
eager students of poetry are seen not to have a right per-
ception of rasa." The capacity and genius necessary for
35> •* HINDU VIEW OF ART! THEORETICAL
appreciation are partly native ('ancient') and partly culti-

vated ('contemporary'): but cultivation alone is useless,
and if the poet is born, so too is the rasika, and criticism is
akin to genius.
Indian theory is very clear that instruction is not the
purpose of art. On this point Dhanamjaya is sufficiently
sarcastic:
"As for any simple man of little intelligence," he writes,
"who says that from dramas, which distil joy, the gain is
knowledge only, as in the case of history and the like (mere
statement, narrative, or illustration) homage to him, —
for he has averted his face from what is delightful." 9
The spectator's appreciation of beauty depends on the
effort of his own imagination, "just as in the case of chil-
10
dren playing with clay elephants." Thus, technical elab-
oration (realism) in art is not by itself the cause of rasa:
as remarked by Rabindranath Tagore "in our country,
those of the audience who are appreciative, are content to
perfect the song in their own mind by the force of their
own feeling." n This is not very different from what is said
by Shukracharya with reference to images: "the defects of
images are constantly destroyed by the power of the virtue
of the worshipper who has his heart always set on God."
If this attitude seems to us dangerously uncritical, that is
to say dangerous to art, or rather to accomplishment, let
us remember that it prevailed everywhere in all periods

of great creative activity: and that the decline of art has
always followed the decline of love and faith.
Tolerance of an imperfect work of art may arise in two
ways: the one uncritical, powerfully swayed by the sym-
pathetic, and too easily satisfied with a very inadequate
correspondence between content theme and the other
creative, very little swayed by considerations of charm,
and able by force of true imagination to complete the
correspondence of content and form which is not achieved
or not preserved in the original. Uncritical tolerance is
content with prettiness or edification, and recoils from

beauty that is 'difficult': creative tolerance is indifferent
to prettiness or edification, and is able from a mere sug-
gestion, such as an awkward 'primitive' or a broken frag-
ment, to create or recreate a perfect experience.
Also, "the permanent motif becomes rasa through the
rasika's own capacity for being delighted —not from the
character of the hero to be imitated, nor because the work
aims at the production of aesthetic emotion." 12
How many
works which have "aimed at the production of aesthetic
emotion," that is to say, which were intended to be beauti-
ful, have failed of their purpose!
The degrees of excellence in poetry are discussed in the

Kavya Prakasha and the Sahitya Darpana. The best is where
there is a deeper significance than that of the literal sense.
In minor poetry the sense overpowers the suggestion. In
inferior poetry, significantly described as 'variegated' or
'romantic' (chitra), the only artistic quality consists in the
ornamentation of the which conveys no sug-
literal sense,
gestion beyond meaning. Thus narrative and de-

its face
scriptive verse take a low place, just as portraiture does in
plastic art: and, indeed, the Sahitya Darpana excludes the
last kind of poetry altogether. It is to be observed that the
kind of suggestion meant is something more than implica-

tion or double entendre: in the first case we have to do
with mere abbreviation, comparable with the use of the
words et cetera, in the second we have a mere play on
words. What is understood to be suggested is one of the
nine rasas.
It is worth noting that we have here a departure from,
and, I improvement on Croce's definition 'expres-
think, an
sion is art.' A mere statement, however completely expres-
sive, such as: "The man walks," or (a+b) 2 =a 2 -|-2ab-|-b
2
,
13
is not art. Poetry is indeed a kind of sentence: but what
jl : HINDU VIEW OF ART: THEORETICAL
kind of sentence? A sentence ensouled by rasa, 14 i.e., in

which one of the nine permanent moods is implied or sug-
gested: and the savoring of the corresponding flavor,
through empathy, by those possessing the necessary sen-
condition of beauty or rasasvadana
sibility is the .
What then are rasa and rasasvadana, beauty and aesthetic

emotion? The nature of this experience is discussed by
Vishvanatha in the Sahitya Darpana: 15 "It is pure, indi-
visible, self-manifested, compounded equally of joy and
consciousness, free of admixture with any other percep-
tion, the very twin brother of mystic experience (Brahmas-
vadana sahodarah), and the very life of it is supersensuous
(lokottara) wonder." 16 Further, "It is enjoyed by those
who are competent thereto, in identity, 17 just as the form
of God is itself the joy with which it is recognized."
For that very reason it cannot be an object of knowl-
edge, its perception being indivisible from its very exist-
ence. Apart from perception it does not exist. It is not on
that account to be regarded as eternal in time or as inter-
rupted: it is timeless. It is again, supersensuous, hyper-
physical (alaukika), and the only proof of its reality is to
be found in experience. 18
Religion and art are thus names for one and the same
—
experience an intuition of reality and of identity. This is
not, of course, exclusively a Hindu view: it has been ex-
pounded by many others, such as the Neo-platonists,
Hsieh Ho, Goethe, Blake, Schopenhauer and Schiller. Nor
is it refuted by Croce. It has been recently restated as fol-
lows:
"In those moments of exaltation that art can give, it is
easy to believe that we have been possessed by an emotion

that comes from the world of reality. Those who take this
view will have to say that there is in all things the stuff out
of which art is made —
reality. The peculiarity of the artist
would seem to be that he possesses the power of surely
and frequently seizing reality (generally behind pure

form), and the power of expressing his sense of it, in pure
form always!" 19
Here pure form means form not clogged with unaes-
thetic matter such as associations.
It will be seen that this view is monistic: the doctrine of
the universal presence of reality is that of the immanence
of the Absolute. It is inconsistent with a view of the world
as absolute maya, or utterly unreal, but it implies that

through the false world of everyday experience may be
seen by those of penetrating vision (artists, lovers and
philosophers) glimpses of the real substrate. This world is
the formless as we perceive it, the unknowable as we know
it.
Precisely as love is reality experienced by the lover, and

truth is reality as experienced by the philosopher, so
beauty is by the artist: and these are
reality as experienced
three phases of the Absolute. But it is only through the
objective work of art that the artist is able to communicate
his experience, and for this purpose any theme proper to
himself will serve, since the Absolute is manifested equally
in the little and the great, animate and inanimate, good
and evil.
We have seen that the world of Beauty, like the Abso-

lute, cannot be known objectively. Can we then reach this
world by rejecting objects, by a deliberate purification of
art from all associations? We have already seen, however,
that the mere intention to create beauty is not sufficient:
there must exist an object of devotion. Without a point of
departure there can be no flight and no attainment: here
also "one does not attain to perfection by mere renuncia-
tion." 20 We can no more achieve Beauty than we can find
Release by turning our backs on the world: we cannot
find our way by a mere denial of things, but only in learn-
ing to see those things as they really are, infinite or beauti-
43 : HINDU VIEW of art: theoretical
ful. The artist reveals this beauty wherever the mind at-
taches itself: and the mind attaches itself, not directly to
the Absolute, but to objects of choice.
Thus we return we supposed we should
to the earth. If
find the object of search elsewhere, we were mistaken. The
two worlds, of spirit and matter, Purusha and Prakriti,
are one: and this is as clear to the artist as it is to the
lover or the philosopher. Those Philistines to whom it
is not so apparent, we should speak of as materialists or as

nihilists —exclusive monists, to whom the report of the
senses is either all in all, or nothing at all. The theory of
rasa set forth according to Vishvanatha and other aestheti-
cians, belongs to totalistic monism; it marches with the
Vedanta. In a country like India, where thought is typically
consistent with itself, this is no more than we had a right to
expect.
THAT BEAUTY
IS A
STATE
It is very generally held that natural objects such as human

beings, animals or landscapes, and artificial objects such
as factories, textiles or works of intentional art, can be
classified as beautiful or ugly. And yet no general principle
of classification has ever been found: and that which seems
to be beautiful to one is described as ugly by another. In
the words of Plato "Everyone chooses his love out of the
objects of beauty according to his own taste."
To take, for example, the human type: every race,
and some extent every individual, has an unique ideal.
to
Nor can we hope for a final agreement: we cannot expect
the European to prefer the Mongolian features, nor the
Mongolian the European. Of course, it is very easy for
each to maintain the absolute value of his own taste and to
speak of other types as ugly; just as the hero of chivalry
maintains by force of arms that his own beloved is far
more beautiful than any other. In like manner the various
sects maintain the absolute value of their own ethics. But
it is clear that such claims are nothing more than state-
45 •' THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE
merits of prejudice, for who is to decide which racial ideal
or which morality is "best"? It is a little too easy to decide

that our own is best; we are at the most entitled to be-
lieve it the best for us. This relativity is nowhere better
suggested than in the classic saying attributed to Majnun,
when it was pointed out to him that the world at large re-
garded his Laila as far from beautiful. "To see the beauty
of Laila," he said, "requires the eyes of Majnun."
It is the same with works of art. Different artists are in-
spired by different objects; what is attractive and stimu-

lating to one is depressing and unattractive to another, and
the choice also varies from race to race and epoch to epoch.
As to the appreciation of such works, it is the same; for
men in general admire only such works as by education or
temperament they are predisposed to admire. To enter
into the spirit of an unfamiliar art demands a greater effort
than most are willing to make. The classic scholar starts
convinced that the art of Greece has never been equalled
or surpassed, and never will be; there are many who think,
like Michelangelo, that because Italian painting is good,
therefore good painting is Italian. There are many who
never yet felt the beauty of Egyptian sculpture or Chinese
or Indian painting or music: that they have also the hardi-
hood to deny their beauty, however, proves nothing.
It is also possible to forget that certain works are
beautiful: the eighteenth century had thus forgotten the
beauty of Gothic sculpture and primitive Italian painting,
and the memory of their beauty was only restored by a
great effort in the course of the nineteenth. There may
also exist natural objects or which humanity
works of art
only very slowly learns to regard as in any way beautiful;
the western aesthetic appreciation of desert and mountain
scenery, for example, is no older than the nineteenth cen-
tury; and it is notorious that artists of the highest rank are
often not understood till long after their death. So that
themore we consider the variety of human election, the

more we must admit the relativity of taste.
And yet there remain philosophers firmly convinced
that an absolute Beauty (rasa) 1 exists, just as others main-
tain the conceptions of absolute Goodness and absolute
Truth. The lovers of God identify these absolutes with
Him (or It) and maintain that He can only be known as
perfect Beauty, Love and Truth. It is also widely held
that the true critic (rasika) is able to decide which works
of art are beautiful (rasavant) and which are not; or in sim-
pler words, to distinguish works of genuine art from those
that have no claim to be so described. At the same time we
must admit the relativity of taste, and the fact that all
gods (devas and Ishvaras) are modelled after the likeness
of men.
It remains, then, to resolve the seeming contradictions.
This is only to be accomplished by the use of more exact
terminology. So far have I spoken of 'beauty' without de-
fining my meaning, and have used one word to express a
multiplicity of ideas. But we do not mean the same thing
when we speak of a beautiful girl and a beautiful poem; it
will be still more obvious that we mean two different
things, if we speak of beautiful weather and a beautiful pic-
ture. In point of fact, the conception of beauty and the
adjective "beautiful" belong exclusively to aesthetic and
should only be used in aesthetic judgment. We seldom make
any such judgments when we speak of natural objects as
beautiful; we generally mean that such objects as we call
beautiful are congenial to us, practically or ethically. Too

often we pretend to judge a work of art in the same way,
calling it beautiful if it represents some form or activity of
which we heartily approve, or if it attracts us by the tender-
ness or gaiety of its color, the sweetness of its sounds or
thecharm of its movement. But when we thus pass judg-
ment on the dance in accordance with our sympathetic at-
4J : THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE
titude towards the dancer's charm or skill, or the meaning

of the dance, we ought not to use the language of pure
aesthetic. Only when we judge a work of art aesthetically
may we speak of the presence or absence of beauty, we
may call the work rasavant or otherwise; but when we
judge from the standpoint of activity, practical or ethi-
it
cal, we ought to use a corresponding terminology, calling
the picture, song or actor "lovely," that is to say lovable,

or otherwise, the action "noble," the color "brilliant," the
gesture "graceful," or otherwise, and so forth. And it will
be seen that in doing this we are not really judging the
work of art as such, but only the material and the separate
parts of which it is made, the activities they represent,
or the feelings they express.
Of course, when we come to choose such works of art to
live with, there no reason why we should not allow the
is
sympathetic and ethical considerations to influence our

judgment. Why should the ascetic invite annoyance by
hanging in his cell some representation of the nude, or the
general select a lullaby to be performed upon the eve of
battle? When every ascetic and every soldier has become
an artist there will be no more need for works of art: in
the meanwhile ethical selection of some kind is allowable
and necessary. But in this selection we must clearly under-
stand what we are doing, if we would avoid an infinity of
error, culminating in that type of sentimentality which
regards the useful, the stimulating and the moral elements
We ought not to forget that
in works of art as the essential.
he who plays the villain of the piece may be a greater artist
than he who plays the hero. For beauty in the pro- —
—
found words of Millet does not arise from the subject of
a work of art, but from the necessity that has been felt of
representing that subject.
We should only speak of a work of art as good or bad
with reference to its aesthetic quality; only the subject and
the material of the work are entangled in relativity. In

other words, to say that a work of art is more or less beauti-
ful, or rasavant, is to define the extent to which it is a

work of art, rather than a mere However im-
illustration.
portant the element of sympathetic magic in such a work
may be, however important is practical applications, it
is not in these that its beauty consists.

What, then, is Beauty, what is rasa, what is it that en-
titles us to speak of divers works as beautiful or rasavant?
What is this sole quality which the most dissimilar works
of art possess in common? Let us recall the history of a
work of art. There is (/) an aesthetic intuition on the
part of the original artist, —the poet or creator; then (2)
the internal expression of this intuition, —the true crea-
tion or vision of beauty, (5) the indication of this by ex-
ternal signs (language) for the purpose of communica-
tion, — the technical activity; and finally, {4) the result-
ing stimulation of the critic or rasika to reproduction of
the original intuition, or of some approximation to it.
The source of the original intuition may, as we have

seen, be any aspect of life whatsoever. To one creator the
scales of a fish suggest a rhythmical design, another is
moved by certain landscapes, a third elects to speak of

hovels, a fourth to sing of palaces, a fifth may express the
idea that all and enamoured
things are enlinked, enlaced
in terms of the General Dance, or he may express the same
idea equally vividly by saying that "not a sparrow falls to
the ground without our Father's knowledge." Every artist
discovers beauty, and every critic finds it again when he
tastes of the same experience through the medium of the
external signs. But where is this beauty? We have seen
that it cannot be said to exist in certain things and not in
others. It may then be claimed that beauty exists every-
where; and this I do not deny, though I prefer the clearer
statement that it may be discovered anywhere. If it could
49 ' THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE
be said to everywhere in a material and intrinsic

exist
sense, it with our cameras and scales,
we could pursue
after the fashion of the experimental psychologists: but if
we did so, we should only achieve a certain acquaintance
with average taste —we should not discover a means of dis-
tinguishing forms that are beautiful from forms that are

ugly. Beauty can never thus be measured, for it does not
exist apart from the artist himself, and the rasika who enters
into his experience. 2
All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it.

Did you think it was in the white or grey stone? or the lines
of the arches and cornices?
All music is what awakes in you when you are reminded of
itby the instruments,
It is not the violins and the cornets . . . nor the score of the
baritone singer
It is nearer and further than they. 3
When every sympathetic consideration has been ex-

cluded, however, there still remains a pragmatic value in
the classification of works of art as beautiful or ugly. But
what precisely do we mean by these designations as ap-
plied to objects? In the works called beautiful we recognize
a correspondence of theme and expression, content and
form: while in those called ugly we find the content and
form at variance. In time and space, however, the corre-
spondence never amounts to an identity: it is our own ac-
tivity, in the presence of the work of art, which completes
the ideal relation, and it is in this sense that beauty is what

we "do to" a work of art rather than a quality present in
the object. With reference to the object, then "more" or
"less" beautiful will imply a greater or less correspondence
between content and form, and this is all that we can say of
the object as such: or in other words, art is good that is
good of its kind. In the stricter sense of completed internal
$o : The Dance of Shiva
aesthetic activity, however, beauty is absolute and cannot

have degrees.
The vision of beauty is spontaneous, in just the same
sense as the inward light of the lover (bhakta). It is a state
of grace that cannot be achieved by deliberate effort;
though perhaps we can remove hindrances to its manifes-
tation, for there are many witnesses that the secret of all
art is to be found in self-forgetfulness. 4 And we know that

this state of grace is not achieved in the pursuit of pleasure;
the hedonists have their reward, but they are in bondage
to loveliness, while the artist is free in beauty.
It is further to be observed that when we speak seriously
of works of art as beautiful, meaning that they are truly
works of art, valued as such apart from subject, association,
or technical charm, we still speak elliptically. We mean
that the external signs — poems, pictures, dances, and so
forth —are effective reminders. We may say that they pos-
sess significant form. But this can only mean that they
possess that kind of form which reminds us of beauty, and
awakens in us aesthetic emotion. The nearest explana-
tion of significant form should be such form as exhibits the
inner relations of things; or, after Hsieh Ho, "which re-
veals the rhythm of the spirit in the gestures of living
things." All such works as possess significant form are lin-
guistic; and, ifwe remember this, we shall not fall into the
error of those who advocate the use of language for lan-
guage's sake, nor shall we confuse the significant forms, or
their logical meaning or moral value, with the beauty of
which they remind us.
Let us insist, however, that the concept of beauty has
originated with the philosopher, not with the artist: he
has been ever concerned with saying clearly what had to
be said. In all ages of creation the artist has been in love
—
with his particular subject when it is not so, we see that
his work is not 'felt' —he has never set out to achieve the
—
5/ : THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE
Beautiful, in the strict aesthetic sense, and to have this aim

is to invite disaster, as one who should seek to fly without
wings.
It is not to the artist that one should say the subject is
immaterial: that is for the Philosopher to say to the philis-

tine who dislikes a work of art for no other reason than
that he dislikes it.
The true critic (rasika) perceives the beauty of which

the artist has exhibited the signs. It is not necessary that
the critic should appreciate the artist's —every meaning
work of art is a kamadhenu, yielding many meanings —
for
he knows without reasoning whether or not the work is
beautiful, before the mind begins to question what it is
"about." Hindu writers say that the capacity to feel beauty
cannot be acquired by study, but is the re-
(to taste rasa)
ward of merit gained in a past life; for many good men and
would-be historians of art have never perceived it. The
poet is born, not made; but so also is the rasika, whose
genius differs in degree, not in kind, from that of the
original artist. In western phraseology we should express
this by saying that experience can only be bought by ex-
perience; opinions must be earned. We gain and feel noth-
ing merely when we take it on authority that any partic-
ular works are beautiful. It is far better to be honest, and
to admit that perhaps we cannot see their beauty. A day
may come when we shall be better prepared.
The critic, as soon as he becomes an exponent, has to
prove his case; and he cannot do this by any process of ar-
gument, but only by creating a new work of art, the criti-
cism. His audience, catching the gleam through him
but still the same gleam, for there is only one has then —
the opportunity to approach the original work a second
time, more reverently.
When I say that works of art are reminders, and the ac-
tivity of the critic is one of reproduction, I suggest that the
$2 : The Dance of Shiva
vision of even the original artist may be rather a discovery

than a creation. If beauty awaits discovery everywhere,
that is to say that it waits upon our recollection (in the
sufi sense and in Wordsworth's): in aesthetic contempla-
tion, as in love and knowledge, we momentarily recover
the unity of our being released from individuality.
There are no degrees of beauty; the most complex and
the simplest expression remind us of one and the same
state. The sonata cannot be more beautiful than the sim-
plest lyric, nor the painting than the drawing, merely be-
cause of their greater elaboration. Civilized art is not more
beautiful than savage art, merely because of its possibly
more attractive ethos. A mathematical analogy is found if
we consider large and small circles; these differ only in
their content, not in their circularity. In the same way,
there cannot be any continuous progress in art. Immedi-
ately a given intuition has attained to perfectly clear ex-
pression, it remains only to multiply and repeat this ex-
pression. This repetition may be desirable for many rea-

sons, but it almost invariably involves a gradual decadence,
because we soon begin to take the experience for granted.
The vitality of a tradition persists only so long as it is fed
by intensity of imagination. What we mean by creative
art, however, has no necessary connection with novelty of
subject, though that is not excluded. Creative art is art

that reveals beauty where we should have otherwise over-
looked it, or more clearly than we have yet perceived.
Beauty is sometimes overlooked just because certain ex-
pressions have become what we call "hackneyed"; then the
creative artist dealing with the same subject restores our
memory. The artist is challenged to reveal the beauty of
all experiences, new and old.
Many have rightly insisted that the beauty of a work of

art is independent of its subject, and truly, the humility of
art, which finds its inspiration everywhere, is identical
55 • THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE
with the humility of Love, which regards alike a dog and

a Brahman —and of Science, which the lowest form
to is as
significant — the
as And possible because
highest. this is it is
one and the same undivided all. "If a beauteous form we

view, 'Tis His reflection shining through."
It will now be seen in what sense we are justified in
speaking of Absolute Beauty, and in identifying this

beauty with God. We do not imply by this that God (who
is without parts) has a lovely form which can be the object
of knowledge; but that in so far as we see and feel beauty,

we see and are one with Him. That God is the first artist
does not mean that He created forms, which might not
have been lovely had the hand of the potter slipped: but
that every natural object is an immediate realization of
His being. This creative activity is comparable with aes-
thetic expression in its non-volitional character; no ele-
ment of choice enters into that world of imagination and

eternity, but there is always perfect identity of intuition-
and body. The human artist who discovers
expression, soul
beauty here or there is the ideal guru of Kabir, who
"reveals the Supreme Spirit wherever the mind attaches
itself."
BUDDHIST
PRIMITIVES
®
The early Buddhist view of art is strictly hedonistic. Just

as little as Early Buddhism dreamed an expression of its
of
characteristic ideas through poetry, drama, or music, so
little was it imagined that the arts of sculpture and paint-
ing could be anything but worldly in their purpose and

effect. The arts were looked upon as physical luxuries, and
loveliness as a snare. "Beauty is nothing to me," says the

Dasa Dhamma Sutta, "neither the beauty of the body nor
that that comes of dress." The Brethren were forbidden to
allow the figures of men and women to be painted on
monastery walls, and were permitted only representations
of wreaths and creepers. 1 The psychological foundation of
this attitude is nowhere more clearly revealed than in a
passage of the Visuddhi Marga, where we find that
painters, musicians, perfumers, cooks, and elixir-prescrib-
ing physicians are all classed together as purveyors of
sensuous luxuries, whom others honor "on account of love
and devotion to the sensations excited by forms and other
objects of sense." This is the characteristic Hinayana posi-
55 •' BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
tion throughout, and it is, of course, conspicuous also in

the Jaina system, and in certain phases of Brahmanical
thought, particularly in the period contemporary with
early Buddhism.
It is only in the third and second centuries B.C. that we
find the Buddhists patronizing craftsmen and employing

art for edifying ends. From what has just been said, how-
ever, it will be well understood that there had not at this
time come into being any truly Buddhist or Brahmanical
idealistic art; and thus "Early Buddhist" art was neces-
sarily the popular Brahmanical art and animistic art of the
day, adapted to Buddhist requirements. The
only excep-
tion to this rule is Buddhist art
that special phase of Early
which is represented by the capital of the Ashoka columns,
of which the forms are not merely non-Buddhist, but of
extra-Indian origin. 2
The Indian non-Buddhist art that we have evidence of
in the age of Ashoka and in the period immediately fol-
lowing Ashoka, is chiefly concerned with the cult of nature-

spirits — the Earth Goddess, the Nagas or Serpent kings of
the waters, and the Yaksha kings who rule the Four Quar-
ters. The Mauryatypes are represented by the well-known
free-standing female figure at Besnagar, 3 and the Park-
ham figure 4 now in the Mathura Museum. The early Bud-
dhist art of Sanchi and Bharhut, probably slightly later,
reflects the prevalence of the animistic cults in placing
low-relief figures of the Yaksha, guardians of the Four
Quarters, as protectors of the entrance gateways. 5 That
the nature-spirits should thus act as guardians of Buddhist
shrines reflects the essential victory of Buddhism, precisely
as the story of the Naga Muchalinda, who, in the literary
tradition, shelters the Buddha during the week of storms.
Besides the Guardians of the Quarters we find at Sanchi
figures of beautiful Yakshinis or dryads, whose function
may be partly protective, but is also in large degree honor-
ary and decorative. The Yakshini figure here reproduced

[Fig. 11] is typical of all that is best in the art of San-
chi; but in what different world happy dryad moves
this
from that of the Pali where orthodox Buddhism
Suttas,
tries to prove that "as the body when dead is repulsive, so
also is it when alive!" Buddhist monasticism to use the —

—
language of Blake sought consistently to bolt and bar the
"Western Gates": but our Sanchi dryad rather seems to
say "the soul of sweet delight can never be defiled."
The art of Sanchi is essentially pagan,and this appears
not only in its fearless happiness, untinged by puritan mis-
giving or by mystic intuition, but also in the purely repre-
sentative and realistic technique. It was in the main a later
Mahayana and Vaishnava achievement of the Indian lyric
spirit to discover that the two worlds of spiritual purity
and sensuous delight need not, and ultimately cannot, be
divided.
In any case the Sanchi art is plainly not an expression of
Early Buddhist feeling: and so also it is not primitive, but,
on the contrary, it is the classic achievement of an old
popular art already long practised in less permanent ma-
terials. If there is any extant Buddhist art that can be
fairly called primitive, it is only to be recognized in archi-

tecture, where the simple forms of the early stupas, and
their undecorated railings, and the severe design of the
early excavated chaitya-halh truly reflect the intellectual
and austere enthusiasm of Early Buddhism.
Another part of the art of the Bharhut railing and the
Sanchi gateways is devoted to the illustration of edifying
legends, particularly stories of the former lives of the Bud-
dha, and of the last The work is delicately ex-
incarnation.
ecuted in low relief —weknow from a contemporary in-
scription that amongst the craftsmen who contributed to
the decoration of the Sanchi toranas were the "ivory-
workers of Bhilsa" —and affords us a remarkable record of
5J : BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
Indian life, with its characteristic environment, manners

and cults set out with evident realism and a wealth of
circumstantial detail. But for all their interest these re-
liefs, too, are essentially illustrations of edifying anecdotes,
and only to a limited extent — less, for example, than the
similar, but, of course, very much later, illustrations at
—
Borobodur directly express the Early Buddhist view of
life and death.
There is, however, one respect in which that view is

perfectly reflected; in the fact that the figure of the Master
himself is nowhere represented. Even in the group of
episodes which illustrate the Great Renunciation —Prince
Siddhattha's departure from home, riding upon the back
of the horse Kanthaka, and attended by the groom Channa
— Kanthaka's back is bare, and we see only the figures of
the Devas who lift up the feet of the horse lest men should
be roused by the sound of his hoofs, while the presence
of the Prince is only indicated by the parasol of dominion
borne beside the horse. In other compositions the Buddha

is represented by symbols such as the Wisdom Tree or
the conventionally represented footprints, the "Feet of the

Lord" [Fig. 12]. It will be realized at once that the ab-
sence of the Buddha figure from the world of living men
—where, however, there yet remain the traces of his minis-
try, literally footprintson the sands of time is a true —
artistic rendering of the Master's guarded silence respect-
ing the after-death state of those who have attained Nir-
vana: "the Perfect One is released from this, that his being
should be gauged by the measure of the corporeal world,"
he is released from "name and form." In the omission of
the figure of the Buddha, the Early Buddhist art is truly
Buddhist: for the rest, it is an art about Buddhism, rather
than Buddhist art.
Changes were meanwhile proceeding in the material of

Buddhist belief. This belief is no longer merely intellec-
$8 : The Dance of Shiva
tual, but has undergone an emotional development akin

to that which finds expression in the bhakti doctrine of the
Bhagavad Git a:
Even they that be born of sin, even women, traffickers,

and serfs, if they turn to Me, come to the Supreme Path:
be assured, O son of Kunti, that none who is devoted to
Me is lost.
Similarly we
even in so early a text as the Majj-
find,
hima Nikaya that those who have not yet even entered the
Paths, "are sure of heaven if they have love and faith to-
wards Me." Gradually the idea of Buddhahood replaces
that of Arahatta: the original agnosticism is ignored, and
the Buddha is endowed with all the qualities of tran-
scendental godhead as well as with the physical pecularities
or perfections of the Superman (maha-purusha). The
Buddha thus conceived, together with the Bodhisattvas or
Buddhas-to-be, presently engaged in the active work of
salvation, became the object of a cult and was regarded as
approachable by worship. In all this an we see not merely
internal development of metaphysics and theology, but
also the influence of the lay community: for a majority of
men, and still more the majority of women, have always
been more ready to worship than to know.
At Amaravati we still find that the Buddha is repre-
sented by symbols, but it may be clearly seen from the
passionate devotion of those who worship at the symbol-
—
shrines and many of these are women, as in the case of the
fragment there reproduced in Fig. 12 that the One adored —
must have been conceived in other terms than those of a
purely intellectual psychological analysis. Even before the
Buddha figure is represented in official Buddhist art, the
Buddha had become an object of adoration, a very per-
sonal god: and it cannot surprise us that the Master's
—
59 : BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
figure should soon appear wherever Buddhist piety erected

shrines and monuments. We know that images of Hindu
gods were already in use in the second century, B.C., and
it is highly probable that Buddha figures were in similar
private use long before they took their place in a public

cult.
Before, however, we speak of the Buddha images, we
must which
refer to a second phase of religious experience,
plays a great part alike in the development of Buddhism
and Hinduism. This is the practice of Yoga, whereby en-
lightenment and emancipation are sought to be attained
by meditation calculated to release the individual from
empirical consciousness. Even in the earliest Buddhist
praxis it would be difficult to exaggerate the part which
these contemplative exercises play in the spiritual history
of the Brethren, and to a lesser extent of laymen, for while
the most abstract meditations lead to the attainment of
Nirvana and the station of "No-return," the lesser no less
certainly led to rebirth in the higher heavens. It is just

for purposes of meditation that lonely places and roots of
trees are so highly praised in the Buddhist literature, and
of this the classic example is that of the Buddha himself,
who reached the final enlightenment while seated in yogi-
fashion at the foot of the Wisdom-tree. The essence of the
method lies in the concentration of thought upon a single
point, carried so far that the duality of subject and object
is resolved into a perfect unity
—"when," in the words of
Schelling, "the perceiving self merges in the self-perceived.
At thatmoment we annihilate time and the duration of
time; we are no longer in time, but time, or rather eternity
itself, is in us." A very beautiful description of the yogi
isgiven as follows in the Bhagavad Gita* and as quoted
here in a condensed form applies almost equally to Bud-
dhist and Brahmanical practice, for the yoga is a praxis
rather than a form of sectarian belief:
Abiding alone in a secret place, without craving and with-

out possessions, he shall take his seat upon a firm seat, neither
over-high nor over-low, and with the working of the mind
and of the head and neck
senses held in check, with body,
maintained in perfect equipoise, looking not round about
him, so let him meditate, and thereby reach the peace of the
Abyss: and the likeness of one such, who knows the bound-
less joy that lies beyond the senses and is grasped by intu-
ition, and who swerves not from truth, is that of a lamp in

a windless place that does not flicker.
Long before the Buddha image became a cult object,

the familiar form of the seated yogi must have presented
itself to the Indian mind in inseparable association with
the idea of a mental discipline and of the attainment of
and when the develop-
the highest station of self-oblivion;
ment of imagery followed there was no other form which
could have been made a universally recognized symbol of
Him-who-had-thus-attained.
This figure of the seated Buddha-yogi, with a far deeper
content, is as purely monumental art as that of the Egyp-
tian pyramids; and since it represents the greatest ideal
which Indian sculpture ever attempted to express, it is
well that we find preserved even a few magnificent ex-
amples of comparatively early date. Amongst these the
colossal figure at Anuradhapura is almost certainly the
best [Fig. 13]. The same ancient Buddhist site affords ex-
amples of a Bodhisattva, here reproduced on Fig. 14, and
of two standing Buddhas, illustrated in Figs. 15 and 16
while nearly related to these are the standing figures of
Buddhas lately excavated at Amaravati, reproduced on Fig.
17. To all these works we may honored
fairly assign the
name of primitives, since their massive formsand austere
outline are immediately determined by the moral gran-
deur of the thesis and the suppressed emotion of its realiza-
tion, without any intrusion of individuality or parade of
6l : BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
skill. The fulness of the modelling expresses a high degree

of vitality, but does not yet show the conscious elegance
and suavity of Gupta types.
We are not in position to precisely date these Buddhist
primitives of Anuradhapura and Amaravati, but they may
not be earlier than the first or second century a.d. and can
hardly be later than the third or fourth. In describing

these works as primitive, it is not, of course, suggested
that they are the earliest or nearly the earliest of Buddha
figures extant, nor that all of them are absolutely free
from any element of western formulation, but merely that
in them the primitive inspiration is better preserved than
anywhere else. I have already suggested that the figures of
the seated Buddha, if not the standing types, probably
came into use as cult objects a good deal earlier, perhaps
in the second century B.C.; and if these were generally
made in wood or other impermanent materials, this would
be in accord with all that we know of the general develop-
ment of Indian plastic art and architecture. In any case, as
M. Foucher points out, 7 the conventional character of the
Buddha figure of the Kanishka reliquary
denote un art deja stereotype, et suffit pour reporter

. . .
d'au moins cent ans en arriere et faire par suite remonter

au I er siecle avant notre ere la creation du type plastique du
Bienheureux.
The same may be said of the Bodhisattvas. Indra and

Brahma were perhaps the types from which the sculptural
representations of Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya were
evolved, and Mr. Spooner has recorded his view that this
evolution "was an accomplished fact prior to any form of
the Gandhara school with which we are yet familiar,"
pointing out here too that "the forms of both are stereo-
typed" already in the earliest examples from Gandhara. 8
We have so far left out of account the abundant and
well-known Graeco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, dating

from the ist to the 4th century a.d., as well as the school
of Mathura, which in part derives from the older art of
Sanchi and Bharhut, and is partly dependent upon Gan-
dhara. This omission is not, as M. Foucher would suggest,
"par engouement d'estheticien ou rancune de nation-
aliste" 9
but because we are here concerned to discover
the sources of inspiration of Buddhist imagery and to
learn how this inspiration and most fully ex-
was first
pressed. That many western formulae were absorbed into

Indian art through Gandhara does not touch the question
of feeling; we must avoid the common error of confusing
"Formensprache" with "Geist" It is even easy to exag-
gerate the importance of the western formulae, as such, for
whatever else in Buddhist art is borrowed, the cross-legged
figure seated upon a lotus throne is entirely Indian in
form as well as in idea; and besides this seated figure, the

standing Buddha and the images of all the Buddhist gods
are but of secondary importance.
For several reasons, it seems probable that the actual
Gandhara sculptures are mainly the work of western crafts-
men employed by the Gandhara kings to interpret Bud-
dhist ideas, rather than Indian workmen under western
guidance; and if some of the workmen were Indian by
birth, they nevertheless did not give expression to Indian
feeling.We have the parallel modern example of the late
Raja Ravi Varma, who, despite the nominally Indian sub-
ject matter of his paintings, entirely fails to reflect the
Indian spirit.
The manner in which the western formulae have been
gradually Indianized, alike in the northwest and in the
school of Mathura, and thus, as Professor Oskar Munster-
berg remarks, developed under national and Bud-
"first
dhist inspiration into anew and genuine art," 10 has been

studied in considerable detail by many scholars; but what
6} : BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
is equally or more our enquiry is the manner

significant for
in which certain Indian formulae and Indian ideas are
misrepresented at Gandhara, for misrepresentation neces-
sarily implies the pre-existence of a type to be misinter-
preted. The plainest case is afforded by the Buddha figure
throne" (padmasana). In Gandhara
'
seated on a 'lotus
sculpture the seated figure is uncomfortably and unstably
balanced on a lotus flower that is far too small, and with its
pointed petals, like an artichoke, 11 suggests a seat of pen-

ance rather than of ease [Fig. 10]. The true sense of the
padmasana is, of course, to indicate spiritual purity or
divinity, and the symbol is only appropriately combined
with that of the seated yogi, when this function is fulfilled
without detracting from the one essential quality of re-
pose. It is specially emphasized in yoga texts that the seat
of the yogi is to be firm and easy, "sthira-sukha," and
where this condition is overlooked, it is impossible to rec-
ognize an immediate expression of the original thesis.
The foregoing argument supports the view already men-
tioned, that the seated Buddha image in the age of Kan-
ishka was "deja stereotype/' It takes us, however, some-
what further, for in connection with the far stronger,
though to archaeologists less convincing, aesthetic evi-
dence, it shows plainly that Gandhara sculpture is not
primitive Buddhist art. Where, then, are we to look for
the prototype of the seated figure thus "deja stereotype?"
Can we postulate a Roman yogi, seated on a lotus throne,
and with hands in the dhyani mudra, to set beside the
Lateran Sophocles of which the influence is evident in
standing images? The suggestion is sufficiently absurd to
need no refutation. The seated Buddha, as we have al-
ready suggested on a priori grounds, can only be of Indian
origin; and this being so, it will be seen how great an ex-
aggeration is involved in speaking of the "Greek Origin of
the Image of Buddha."
It has been sufficient for our purpose to explain in what

senses Gandhara sculpture cannot be regarded as primi-
tive and autochthonous Buddhist art; it has not been neces-
sary to emphasize also how little the smug and complacent
features of the Gandhara Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and
their listless and effeminate gestures, reflect the intellec-
tual vigor or the devotional passion of Buddhist thought.
For the benefit of M. Foucher, however, and of other
scholars who may suppose, with him, that Mr. Havell,
Professor Miinsterberg, and I, have cared more for Indian
art than for art, I may point out that our estimate of Gan-
dhara sculpture as of small aesthetic significance must not
be taken as evidence of any prejudice against the art of
Europe; it simply indicates concurrence in the view that
"in the long sands and flats of Roman realism the stream
of Greek inspiration is lost for ever." To admire Gandhara
art, as art, is not a compliment to the greatness of the
Greeks, but only shows how far that greatness has been
misunderstood. If it is possible for a European critic to
write of the mosaics of the Galla Placidia at Ravenna that
they are "still coarsely classical," and that "there is a nasty,
woolly realism about the sheep, and about the good shep-
herd more than a suspicion of the stodgy, Graeco-Roman
Apollo," 12
then surely we may criticize the sculptures of
Gandhara in the same terms without incurring charges of
bad faith.
To resume: Early Buddhist art is popular, sensuous and
animistic Indian art adapted to the purposes of the
illustration of Buddhist anecdote and the decoration of
Buddhist monuments; Gandhara art is mixed, and mis-
interpreted equally both eastern and western formulae,
which must be older than itself, while it is not Buddhist
in expression; the earliest Indian primitives of Buddhist
art properly so-called are probably lost. In northern India
the absence of primitives is partly to be accounted for by
6$ : BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
the fact that Buddhist inspiration was there absorbed, not

in direct creation, but in adapting Graeco-Roman motifs
to its own and Ceylon the
spiritual ends. In southern India
same energy working in greater isolation found a more
direct expression; and though the earliest masterpieces
may be lost, there are still preserved at Anuradhapura and
Amaravati magnificent works, which we may fairly speak of
as Buddhist primitives. 18
— —
THE
DANCE OF
SHIVA
"The Lord of Tillai's Court a mystic dance perform*;
what's that, my dear?" Tiruvagagam, XII, 14.
Amongst the greatest of the names of Shiva is Nataraja,

Lord of Dancers, or King of Actors. The Cosmos is His
theatre, there are many different steps in His repertory,
He Himself is actor and audience
When the Actor beateth the drum,

Everybody cometh to see the show;
When the Actor collecteth the stage properties
He abideth alone in His happiness.
How many various dances of Shiva are known to His

worshippers I cannot say. No
doubt the root idea behind
all of these dances is more or
less one and the same, the
manifestation of primal rhythmic energy. Shiva is the Eros

Protogonos of Lucian, when he wrote:
"It would seem that dancing came into being at the be-
ginning of all things, and was brought to light together
with Eros, that ancient one, for we see primeval danc-
this
ing clearly set forth in the choral dance of the constella-
6j : THE DANCE OF SHIVA
tions, and in the planets and fixed stars, their interweaving

and interchange and orderly harmony."
I do not mean to say that the most profound interpreta-
tion of Shiva's dance was present in the minds of those

who first danced in frantic, and perhaps intoxicated en-
ergy, in honour of the pre-Aryan hill-god, afterwards
merged in Shiva. A great motif in religion or art, any
great symbol, becomes all things to all men; age after age
it yields to men such treasure as they find in their own
hearts. Whatever the origins of Shiva's dance, it became in
time the clearest image of the activity of God which any
art or religion can boast of. Of the various dances of Shiva
I shall only speak of three, one of them alone forming the
main subject of interpretation. The first is an evening

dance in the Himalayas, with a divine chorus, described as
follows in the Shiva Pradosha Stotra:
"Placing the Mother of the Three Worlds upon a
golden throne, studded with precious gems, Shulapani
dances on the heights of Kailasa, and all the gods gather
round Him:
"Sarasvati plays on the vina, Indra on the flute, Brahma
holds the time-marking cymbals, Lakshmi begins a song,
Vishnu plays on a drum, and all the gods stand round
about:
"Gandharvas, Yakshas, Patagas, Uragas, Suddhas, Sad-
hyas, Vidyadharas, Amaras, Apsarases, and all the beings
dwelling in the three worlds assemble there to witness the
celestial dance and hear the music of the divine choir at
the hour of twilight."
This evening dance is also referred to in the invocation
preceding the Katha Sarit Sagara.
In the pictures of this dance, Shiva is two-handed, and
the co-operation of the gods is clearly indicated in their
position of chorus. There is no prostrate Asura trampled
under I know, no special interpreta-

Shiva's feet. So far as
dance occur in Shaiva literature.
tions of this
The second well known dance of Shiva is called the
Tandava, and belongs to His tamasic aspect as Bhairava
or Vira-bhadra. It is performed in cemeteries and burning
grounds, where Shiva, usually in ten-armed form, dances
wildly with Devi, accompanied by troops of capering imps.
Representations of this dance are common amongst an-
cient sculptures, as at Elura, Elephanta, and also Bhuvan-
eshvara. The tandava dance is in origin that of a pre-Aryan
divinity, half-god, half-demon, who holds his midnight
revels in theburning ground. In later times, this dance in
the cremation ground, sometimes of Shiva, sometimes of
Devi, is interpreted in Shaiva and Shakta literature in a
most touching and profound sense.
Thirdly, we have the Nadanta dance of Nataraja be-
fore the assembly (sab ha) in the golden hall of Chidam-
baram or Tillai, the centre of the Universe, first revealed
to gods and rishis after the submission of the latter in the
forest of Taragam, as related to the Koyil Puranam. The
legend, which has after all, no very close connection with
the real meaning of the dance, may be summarised as
follows:
In the forest of Taragam dwelt multitudes of heretical
rishis, following of the Mimamsa. Thither proceeded
Shiva to confute them, accompanied by Vishnu disguised as

a beautiful woman, and Ati-Sheshan. The were at
rishis
first led to violent dispute amongst themselves, but their
anger was soon directed against Shiva, and they en-

deavored to destroy Him by means of incantations. A fierce
tiger was created in sacrificial fires, and rushed upon Him;
but smiling gently, He seized it and, with the nail of His
little finger, stripped off its skin, and wrapped it about
Himself like a silken cloth. 1 Undiscouraged by failure, the

69 : THE DANCE OF SHIVA
sages renewed their offerings, and produced a monstrous

serpent, which however, Shiva seized and wreathed about
His neck like a garland. Then He began to dance; but
there rushed upon Him a last monster in the shape o£ a
malignant dwarf, Muyalaka. Upon him the God pressed
the tip of His foot, and broke the creature's back, so that
it writhed upon the ground; and so, His last foe prostrate,
Shiva resumed the dance, witnessed by gods and rishis.

Then Ati-Sheshan worshipped Shiva, and prayed above
all things for the boon, once more to behold this mystic
dance; Shiva promised that he should behold the dance

again in sacred Tillai, the centre of the Universe.
This dance of Shiva in Chidambaram or Tillai forms
the motif of the South Indian copper images of Shri Nata-
raja, the Lord These images vary amongst
of the Dance.
themselves in minor details, but all express one funda-
mental conception. Before proceeding to enquire what
these may be, it will be necessary to describe the image of
Shri Nataraja as typically represented. The images, then,
represent Shiva dancing, having four hands, with braided
and jewelled hair of which the lower locks are whirling
in the dance. In His hair may be seen a wreathing cobra, a
skull,and the mermaid figure of Ganga; upon it rests the
crescent moon, and it is crowned with a wreath of Cassia
leaves. In His right ear He
wears a man's earring, a
woman's in the left; He
adorned with necklaces and
is
armlets, a jewelled belt, anklets, bracelets, finger and toe-

rings. The chief part of His dress consists of tightly fit-
ting breeches, and He wears also a fluttering scarf and a
sacred thread. One right hand holds a drum, the other is
uplifted in the sign of do not fear: one left hand holds fire,
the other points down upon the demon Muyalaka, a dwarf
holding a cobra; the left foot is raised. There is a lotus
pedestal, from which springs an encircling glory (tiru-
jo : The Dance of Shiva
vasi), fringed with flame, and touched within by the hands

holding drum and fire. The images are of all sizes, rarely
if ever exceeding four feet in total height.
Even without reliance upon literary references, the in-
terpretation of this dance would not be difficult. Fortu-
nately, however, w e have
T
the assistance of a copious
contemporary literature, which enables us to fully explain
not only the general significance of the dance, but equally,
the details of its concrete symbolism. Some of the peculiar-
ities of the Nataraja images, of course, belong to the con-
ception of Shiva generally, and not to the dance in par-
ticular.Such are the braided locks, as of a yogi: the Cassia
garland: the skull of Brahma: the figure of Ganga, (the
Ganges fallen from heaven and lost in Shiva's hair):
the cobras: the different earrings, betokening the dual
nature of Mahadev, 'whose half is Uma': and the four
arms. The drum also is a general attribute of Shiva, be-
longing to his character of Yogi, though in the dance, it
has further a special significance. What then is the mean-

ing of Shiva's Nadanta dance, as understood by Shaivas?
Its essential significance is given in texts such as the follow-
ing:
"Our Lord is the Dancer, who, like the heat latent in
firewood, diffuses His power in mind and matter, and
2
makes them dance in their turn."
The dance, in fact, represents His five activities (Pan-
cakritya), viz.: Shrishti (overlooking, creation, evolution),
Sthiti (preservation, support), Samhara (destruction, evo-
lution), Tirobhava (veiling, embodiment, illusion, and
also, giving rest), Anugraha (release, salvation, grace).
These, separately considered, are the activities of the
deities Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Maheshvara and Sada-
shiva.
This cosmic activity is the central motif of the dance.
Further quotations will illustrate and explain the more
yi : THE DANCE OF SHIVA
detailed symbolisms. Unmai Vilakkam, verse 36, tells us:

"Creation arises from the drum: protection proceeds
from the hand of hope: from fire proceeds destruction: the
foot held aloft gives release." It will be observed that
the fourth hand points to this lifted foot, the refuge of the
soul.
We have also the following from Chidambara Mummani
Kovai:
"O my Lord, Thy hand holding the sacred drum has
made and ordered the heavens and earth and other worlds
and innumerable souls. Thy lifted hand protects both the
conscious and unconscious order of thy creation. All these
worlds are transformed by Thy hand bearing fire. Thy
sacred foot, planted on the ground, gives an abode to the
tired soul struggling in the toils of causality. It is Thy
approach
lifted foot that grants eternal bliss to those that
Thee. These Five-Actions are indeed Thy Handiwork."
The following verses from the Tirukuttu Darshana
(Vision of the Sacred Dance), forming the ninth tantra of
Tirumular's Tirumantram, expand the central motif fur-
ther:
"His form is everywhere: all-pervading in His Shiva-

Shakti:
Chidambaram is everywhere, everywhere His dance:
As Shiva is all and omnipresent,
Everywhere is Shiva's gracious dance made manifest.
His five-fold dances are temporal and timeless.
His five-fold dances are His Five Activities.
By His Grace He performs the five acts,
This is the sacred dance of Uma-Sahaya.
He dances with Water, Fire, Wind and Ether,
Thus our Lord dances ever in the court.
Visible to those who pass over Maya and Mahamaya

(illusion and super-illusion)
— —
J2 : The Dance of Shiva
Our Lord dances His eternal dance.

The form of the Shakti is all delight
This united delight is Uma's body:
This form of Shakti arising in time
And uniting the twain is the dance
His body is Akash, the dark cloud therein is Muya-
laka,
The eight quarters are His eight arms,
The three lights are His three eyes,
Thus becoming, He dances in our body as the congre-
gation."
This is His dance. Its deepest significance is felt when it
is realized that it takes place within the heart and the self.
Everywhere is God: that Everywhere is the heart. Thus

also we find another verse:
"The dancing foot, the sound of the tinkling bells,
The songs that are sung and the varying steps,

The form assumed by our Dancing Gurupara
Find out these within yourself, then shall your fetters
fall away."
To this end, all else but the thought of God must be cast
out of the heart, that He alone may abide and dance
therein. In Unmai Vilakkam, we find:
"The silent sages destroying the threefold bond are
established where their selves are destroyed. There they
behold the sacred and are filled with bliss. This is the
dance of the Lord of the assembly, 'whose very form is
Grace'."
With this reference to the 'silent sages' compare the
beautiful words of Tirumular:
"When resting there they (the yogis who attain the
highest place of peace) lose themselves and become idle.
. . . Where the idlers dwell is the pure Space. Where the

75 •' THE DANCE OF SHIVA
idlers sport is the Light. What the idlers know is Vedanta.

What the idlers find is the deep sleep therein."
Shiva is and loves the burning ground. But
a destroyer
what does He destroy? Not merely the heavens and earth
at the close of a world-cycle, but the fetters that bind each
separate soul. 3 Where and what is the burning ground? It
is not the place where our earthly bodies are cremated,
but the hearts of His lovers, laid waste and desolate. The
place where the ego is destroyed signifies the state where
illusion and deeds are burnt away: that is the cremato-
rium, the burning-ground where Shri Nataraja dances,
and whence He is named Sudalaiyadi, Dancer of the burn-
ing-ground. In this simile, we recognize the historical con-
nection between Shiva's gracious dance as Nataraja, and
His wild dance as the demon of the cemetery.
This conception of the dance is current also amongst
Shaktas, especially in Bengal, where the Mother rather
than the Father-aspect of Shiva is adored. Kali is here the
dancer, for whose entrance the heart must be purified by
fire, made empty by renunciation. A Bengali Hymn to Kali
voices this prayer:
"Because Thou lovest the Burning-ground,

I have made a Burning-ground of my heart —
That Thou, Dark One, haunter of the Burning-ground,
Mayest dance Thy eternal dance.
Nought else is within my heart, O Mother:
Day and night blazes the funeral pyre:
The ashes of the dead, strewn all about,
I have preserved against Thy coming,
With death-conquering Mahakala neath Thy feet
Do Thou enter in, dancing Thy rhythmic dance,
That I may behold Thee with closed eyes.'*
Returning to the South, we find that in other Tamil

texts thepurpose of Shiva's dance is explained. In Shiva-
jnana Siddhiyar, Supaksha, Sutra V, 5, we find,
j4 • The Dance of Shiva
"For the purpose of securing both kinds of fruit to the

countless souls, our Lord, with actions five, dances His
dance." Both kinds of fruit, that is Iham, reward in this
world, and Param, bliss in Mukti.
Again, Unmai Vilakkam, v. 32, 37, 39 inform us
"The Supreme Intelligence dances in the soul . . . for
the purpose of removing our sins. By these means, our
Father scatters the darkness of illusion (maya), burns the
thread of causality (karma), stamps down evil (mala,
anava, avidya), showers Grace, and lovingly plunges the
soul in the ocean of Bliss (ananda). They never see re-
births, who behold this mystic dance."
The conception of the world process as the Lord's pas-
time or amusement (lila) is also prominent in the Shaiva
scriptures. Thus Tirumular writes, "The perpetual dance
is His play." This spontaneity of Shiva's dance is so clearly
expressed in Skryabin's Poem of Ecstasy that the extracts
following will serve to explain it better than any more
formal exposition —what Skryabin wrote is precisely what
the Hindu imager moulded:
"The Spirit (purusha) playing,

The Spirit longing,
The Spirit with fancy (yoga-maya) creating all,
Surrenders himself to the bliss (ananda) of love . . .
Amid the flowers of His creation (prakriti), He lingers in a

kiss. . . .
Blinded by their beauty, He rushes, He frolics, He dances, He

whirls. . . .
He is all rapture, all bliss, in this play (lila)
Free, divine, in this love struggle

In the marvellous grandeur of sheer aimlessness,
And in the union of counter-aspirations (dvandva)
In consciousness alone, in love alone,
The Spirit learns the nature (svabhava) of His divine be-
ing. . . .
J5 : THE DANCE OF SHIVA
'O, my world, my life, my blossoming, my ecstasy!

Your every moment I create
By negation of all forms previously lived through:
I am eternal negation (neti, neti). . .
.'
Enjoying this dance, choking in this whirlwind,

Into the domain of ecstasy, He takes swift flight.
In this unceasing change (samsara, nitya bhava), in this flight,
aimless (nishkama), divine

The Spirit comprehends Himself,
In the power of will, alone (kevala) free (mukta),
Ever-creating, all-irradiating, all vivifying,
Divinely playing in the multiplicity of forms (prapancha), He
comprehends Himself. . . .
7 already dwell in thee, O, my world,

Thy dream of me —'twas I coming into existence. . . .
And thou art all—one wave of freedom and bliss . .

.'
By a general conflagration (maha-pralaya) the universe (sam-

sara) is embraced
The Spirit is at the height of being, and He feels the tide un-
ending
Of the divine power (shakti) of free will. He is all-daring:
What menaced, now is excitement,
What terrified, is now delight. . . .
And the universe resounds with the joyful cry I am." 4
This aspect of Shiva's immanence appears to have given

rise to the objection that he dances as do those who seek to
please the eyes of mortals: but it is answered that in fact
He dances to maintain the life of the cosmos and to give
release to those who seek Him. Moreover, if we understand
even the dances of human dancers rightly, we shall see
that they too lead to freedom. But it is nearer the truth to
answer that the reason of His dance lies in His own na-
ture, all his gestures are own-nature-born (svabhava-jah) y
—
spontaneous, and purposeless for His being is beyond the
realm of purposes.
In a much more arbitrary way the dance of Shiva is
j6 : The Dance of Shiva
identified with the Pancakshara, or five syllables of the

prayer Shi-va-ya-na-ma, 'Hail to Shiva.' In Unmai Vilak-
kam we are told: "If this beautiful Five-Letters be medi-
tated upon, the soul will reach the land where there is
neither light nor darkness, and there Shakti will make it
One with Shivam." 5
Another verse of Unmai Vilakkam explains the fiery

The Panchakshara and the Dance are
arch (tiruvasi):
identified with the mystic syllable 'Om,' the arch being the
kombu or hook of the ideograph of the written symbol:
"The arch over Shri Nataraja is Omkara; and the akshara
which is never separate from the Omkara is the contained
splendor. This is the Dance of the Lord of Chidam-
baram."
The Tiru-Arul-Payan however (Ch. ix. 3) explains the
tiruvasi more naturally as representing the dance of Na-
ture, contrasted with Shiva's dance of wisdom.
"The dance of nature proceeds on one side: the dance of
enlightenment on the other. Fix your mind in the centre
of the latter."
I am indebted to Mr. Nallasvami Pillai for a commen-
tary on this:
The first dance is —material and

the action of matter
individual energy. This the isOmkara, the
arch, tiruvasi,
dance of The other
Kali. the Dance of Shiva — the
is ak-
shara inseparable from the Omkara—called ardhamatra or
the fourth of the Pranava — Chaturtam and Turiyam.
letter
The first dance is not possible unless Shiva wills it and
dances Himself.
The general result of this interpretation of the arch is,
then, that it represents matter, nature, Prakriti; the con-

tained splendor, Shiva dancing within and touching the
arch with head, hands and feet, is the universal omni-
present Spirit (Purusha). Between these stands the indi-
vidual soul, as ya is between Shi-va and na-ma.
yy : the dance of shiva
Now to summarize the whole interpretation we find that

The Essential Significance of Shiva's Dance is threefold:
First, it is the image of his Rhythmic Play as the Source of
all Movement within the Cosmos, which is Represented
by the Arch: Secondly, the Purpose of his Dance is to Re-
lease the Countless souls of men from the Snare of Illu-
sion: Thirdly the Place of the Dance, Chidambaram, the
Centre of the Universe, is within the Heart.
So far I have refrained from all aesthetic criticism and
have endeavored only to translate the central thought of
the conception of Shiva's dance from plastic to verbal
expression, without reference to the beauty or imperfec-
tion of individual works. But it may not be out of place to
call attention to the grandeur of this conception itself as a
synthesis of science, religion and art. How amazing the
range of thought and sympathy of those rishi-artists who
first conceived such a type as this, affording an image of
reality, a key to the complex tissue of life, a theory of na-

ture, not merely satisfactory to a single clique or race, nor
acceptable to the thinkers of one century only, but univer-
sal in its appeal to the philosopher, the lover, and the artist
of all ages and all countries. How
supremely great in
power and grace this dancing image must appear to all
those who have striven in plastic forms to give expression
to their intuition of Life!
In these days of specialization, we are not accustomed to
such a synthesis of thought; but for those who 'saw' such
images as this, there could have been no division of life
and thought into water-tight compartments. Nor do we
always realize,when we criticize the merits of individual
works, the full extent of the creative power which, to
borrow a musical analogy, could discover a mode so ex-
pressive of fundamental rhythms and so profoundly sig-
nificant and inevitable.
Every part of such an image as this is directly expressive,
j8 : The Dance of Shiva
not of any mere superstition or dogma, but of evident

facts. Noartist of today, however great, could more ex-
actly or more wisely create an image of that Energy which
science must postulate behind all phenomena. If we would
reconcile Time with Eternity, we can scarcely do so other-
wise than by the conception of alternations of phase ex-
tending over vast regions of space and great tracts of time.
Especially significant, then, is the phase alternation im-
plied by the drum, and the fire which 'changes,' not de-
stroys. These are but visual symbols of the theory of the
day and night of Brahma.
In the night of Brahma, Nature is inert, and cannot
dance till Shiva wills it: He rises from His rapture, and
dancing sends through inert matter pulsing waves of awak-
ening sound, and lo! matter also dances appearing as a
glory round about Him. Dancing, He sustains its mani-
fold phenomena. In the fulness of time, still dancing, he
destroys all forms and names by fire and gives new rest.
This is poetry; but none the less, science.
It is not strange that the figure of Nataraja has com-
manded the adoration of so many generations past: fa-
miliar with all scepticisms, expert in tracing all beliefs to
primitive superstitions, explorers of the infinitely great

and infinitely small, we are worshippers of Nataraja still.
INDIAN IMAGES
WITH
MANY ARMS
<2>
Certain writers, speaking of the many-armed images of

Indian art, have treated this peculiarity as an unpardon-
able defect. "After 300 a.d.," says Mr. Vincent Smith,
"Indian sculpture properly so-called hardly deserves to be
reckoned as art. The figures both of men and animals be-
come stiff and formal, and the idea of power is clumsily
expressed by the multiplication of members. The many-
headed, many-armed gods and goddesses whose images
crowd the walls and roofs of mediaeval temples have no
pretensions to beauty, and are frequently hideous and
grotesque." * Mr. Maskell speaks of "these hideous deities
with animals' heads and innumerable arms." 2 Sir George
Birdwood considers that "the monstrous shapes of the
Puranic deities are unsuitable for the higher forms of
artistic representation; and this is possibly why sculpture
3
and painting are unknown Quota-
as fine arts in India."
tions of this kind could be multiplied, but enough has
been given to show that for a certain class of critics there
exists the underlying assumption that in Indian art the
multiplications of limbs or heads, or addition of any ani-

mal attributes, is in itself a very grave defect, and fatal to
any claim for merit in the works concerned.
In reply to criticisms of this kind it would be useless to
cite examples of Greek art such as the Victory of Samo-
thrace or the head of Hypnos: of Egyptian, such as the
figures of Sekhet or other animal divinities: of Byzantine
or mediaeval angels: or modern works such as some of M.
Rodin's. For it is clear that all these, if the critics be con-
sistent, must suffer equal condemnation.
Let me digress at this point to class the critics: for I fear

that I ought to apologize for putting forward in this chap-
ter what is obvious. The difficulty is one that has been
raised exclusively by philologists and historians: in a con-
siderable experience I have never heard these objections
raised by artists or by connoisseurs. These notes are dedi-

cated, then, only to the philologist and the historian, and
may be neglected by all others.
The condemnations quoted are certainly to be justified
if we are to agree to find the final aim of art in representa-
tion: then let us seek the most attractive models and care-
fully copy them.
But this test of verisimilitude has never been anything
more than the result of a popular misunderstanding. Let
us submit the Indian, Greek or Egyptian figures to recog-
nized standards, and to criticism a little more penetrating
than is involved in merely counting heads or arms.
Leonardo says that that figure is most worthy of praise
which by its action best expresses the passion that ani-
mates it.
Hsieh Ho demands that the work of art should exhibit

the fusion of the rhythm of the spirit with the movement
of living things.
Mr. Holmes suggests that a work of art must possess in
8l : INDIAN IMAGES WITH MANY ARMS
some degree the four qualities of Unity, Vitality, Infinity

and Repose.
In other words, a work of art is great in so far as it ex-
presses its own theme in a form at once rhythmic and im-
passioned: through a definite pattern it must express a
motif deeply felt.
From this point of view it would seem that we must

take each work of art upon its own merits. To apply the
simplest tests just quoted — wish to speak with the great-
I
est possible simplicity — an image with many arms or heads

may be called an inferior work of art, or inartistic, if it
lacks any one of the four qualities demanded by Mr.

Holmes, or as we may say, if it is not 'felt.' But if it has
such qualities, if it is felt, need we further concern our-
selves with arithmetic?
The artist does not choose his own problems: he finds in
the canon instruction to make such and such images in
such and such a fashion —for example,
an image of Na-
taraja with four arms, Fig. 1, of Sadashiva with five
heads, Fig. 19, of Mahisha-mardini with ten arms, Fig. 20,
or of Ganesa with an elephant's head. Our critics are bold
enough to assert that in obeying these instructions he can-
not create a work of art. It would have been fairer and
more moderate to suggest that the problems propounded
are often very difficult; this would have left open the way
to recognize a successful effort, if such could be found. To
have overcome the difficulties would then be a proof of ar-
tistic capacity —
and I suppose it should be the aim of the
historian of art to discover such proofs.
The accompanying illustration, Fig. 20, shows a Java-
nese figure of Mahisha-mardini with ten arms, slaying the
demon Mahisha. She is here a dread avenging power: yet
she is neither cruel nor angry, but rather sad with the
sadness of those who are wise, playing an inevitable part,
though at heart no more than the spectator of a drama.

This entire figure, damaged as it is, shows what tenderness
may be expressed, even in tamasic images. And this peace
and tenderness find expression in the movement of the
whole figure, and not by any arbitrary means: no part
of the whole is at war with any other, and this is what we
mean by unity. It would indeed be futile to condemn an
image such as this because it has ten arms. Or take the
Nataraja image of the primal rhythmic energy underlying
all phenomenal appearances and activity: here is perpetual
movement, perpetually poised —the rhythm of the spirit.
The death of Hiranyakashipu, Fig. 21, is a work that

may be called grotesque. We have long learnt however
that this cannot be used as amere term of abuse. It would
be difficult to imagine a more splendid rendering of the
well known theme of the impious king who met his death
at the hands of the avenging deity in man-lion form. The
hand upon the shoulder, the shrinking figure with the
mocking smile that has had no time to fade what could —
be more terrible? These are figures expressing by their ac-
tion their animating passions: or if not so, then none have
ever been. It would be unkind to contrast a work such as
this with the 'truth to nature' of the Laokoon.
In these figures we cannot speak of the many arms as
'additional members' because in a human being they
might appear to be such. We have here a work of art which
is, or is not a unity. If the work is a unity we can no more
speak of added elements, than we can speak of ornament

in a work of art as something added to an expression that
would not otherwise be beautiful. It not by addition or
is
removal that we create. Before these works we can only

ask, are these, or are they not, clear and impassioned ex-
pressions of their subject matter? All unprejudiced and
competent observers would then agree that amongst In-
dian images there are some of which we can say that they
8} : INDIAN IMAGES WITH MANY ARMS
are such adequate expressions, and of others that they are

not: but to recognize those and these requires a rather
more subtle approach than that involved in the arithmet-
ical process of counting arms or heads.
Certain developments in the most modern art could be
quoted in comparison with the Indian complex figures,
and, indeed, the method of these is more than modern.
Some painters of the present day have sought by many
strange devices to create a synthetic and symphonic art
representing a continuity of thought or action, and an in-
terpretation of ideas belonging to more than a single phase
—
of personality an art of interpretation. And if, as we now
realise, even the human personality is compound, we
should understand that this must be even more true of a

cosmic divinity, who is, indeed, able by a division of
upadhis, to function in many places at one time. To reflect
such conceptions in art demands a synthetic rather than a
representative language. It might well be claimed, then,
that this method adopted sometimes in India, sometimes
in Egypt, sometimes in Greece, and still employed, has
proved successful from the practical point of view, of pure
expression, the getting said what had to be said: and this is
after all the sure and safe foundation of art.
These forms remain potentially equally satisfactory, too,
whether as philosophers we regard them as purely abstract
expressions, or with the artists themselves regard them as
realistic presentations of another order of life than our
own, deriving from a deva-loka, other than the world we
are familiar with, but not necessarily unknowable or al-
ways invisible. The distinction in any case is slight, for the
images equally belong to a world of their own, however we
regard them.
The criticism of the philologists ultimately resolves it-
self into a complaint that the art is not always representa-

tive ('true to nature'). I have tried to show that it is true to
experience and feeling. But aside from that, whatever in a

work of art is ostensibly representative must be judged
according to the logic of the world it represents —even if
that world be no other than the idea-world of the sadhanas

and dhyana man trams. All worlds are idea-worlds of one
kind or another, and we should also remember that 'recog-
nition' does not necessarily imply any real knowledge of
—
things in themselves we do not know that men have
really two arms, that is merely an 'intelligible representa-
tion.' It is no criticism of a fairy tale to say that in our
world we meet no fairies: we should rather, and do actu-

ally, condemn on the score of insincerity, a fairy tale which
should be so made as to suggest that in the writer's world

there were no no criticism of a beast-fable to
fairies. It is
say that after all animals do not talk English or Sanskrit.

Nor is it a criticism of an Indian icon to point out that we
know no human beings with more than two arms.
To appreciate any art, moreover, we ought not to con-
centrate our attention upon its peculiarities — ethical or
formal —but should endeavor to take for granted what-
ever the artist takes for granted. No motif appears bizarre
to those who have been familiar with it for generations:
and in the last analysis it must remain beyond the reach of
all others so long as it remains in their eyes primarily
bizarre.
If circumstances then compel the philologist and the his-
torian to classify the extant materials for the study of In-

dian art, their studies will be the more valuable the more
strictly they are confined to the archaeological point of
view. For those should not air their likes and dislikes in
Oriental art, who when they speak of art mean mere illus-
tration: for there they will rarely meet with what they
seek, and the expression of their disappointment becomes
wearisome.
INDIAN
MUSIC
®
Music has been a cultivated art in India for at least three

thousand years. The chant is an essential element of Vedic
ritual; and the references in later Vedic literature, the
scriptures of Buddhism, and the Brahmanical epics show
that it was already highly developed as a secular art in
centuries preceding the beginning of the Christian era. Its
zenith may perhaps be assigned to the Imperial age of the
—
Guptas from the fourth to the sixth century a.d. This
was the classic period of Sanskrit literature, culminating
in the drama of Kalidasa; and to the same time is assigned
the monumental treatise of Bharata on the theory of mu-
sic and drama.
The artmusic of the present day is a direct descendant
of these ancient schools, whose traditions have been
handed down with comment and expansion in the guilds
of the hereditary musicians. While the words of a song may
have been composed at any date, the musical themes com-
municated orally from master to disciple are essentially an-
cient. As in other arts and in life, so here also India pre-
sents to us the wonderful spectacle of the still surviving
—
consciousness of the ancient world, with a range of emo-

tional experience rarely accessible to those who are preoc-
cupied with the activities of over-production, and intimi-
dated by the economic insecurity of a social order based on
competition.
The art music of India exists only under cultivated pa-
tronage, and in its own intimate environment. It corre-
sponds to all that is most classical in the European tradi-

tion. It is the chamber-music of an aristocratic society,
where the patron retains musicians for his own entertain-
ment and for the pleasure of the circle of his friends: or it
is temple music, where the musician is the servant of God.
The public concert is unknown, and the livelihood of the

artist does not depend upon his ability and will to amuse
the crowd. In other words, the musician is protected. Un-
der these circumstances he is under no temptation to be
anything but a musician; his education begins in infancy,
and his art remains a vocation. The civilizations of Asia do
not afford to the inefficient amateur those opportunities of
self-expression which are so highly appreciated in Europe
and America. The arts are nowhere taught as a social ac-
complishment; on the one hand there is the professional,
proficient in a traditional art, and on the other the lay
public. The musical cultivation of the public does not con-
sist in "everybody doing it," but in appreciation and rev-
erence.
Ihave indeed heard the strange objection raised that to
sing the music of India one must be an artist; and this ob-
jection seems to voice a typically democratic disapproval
of superiority. But it would be nearly as true to say that
the listener must respond with an art of his own, and this
would be entirely in accord with Indian theories of aes-
thetic. The musician in India finds a model audience

technically critical, but somewhat indifferent to voice pro-
duction. The Indian audience listens rather to the song
8j : INDIAN MUSIC
than to the singing of the song: those who are musical,

perfect the rendering of the song by the force of their own
imagination and emotion. Under these conditions the ac-
tual music is better heard than where the sensuous perfec-

tion of the voice is made a sine qua non: precisely as the
best sculpture primitive rather than suave, and we pre-
fer conviction to
is
prettiness
— "It is like the outward pov-
erty of God, 1 whereby His glory nakedly revealed."
is
None the less the Indian singer's voice is sometimes of

great intrinsic beauty, and sometimes used with sensitive
intelligence as well as skill. It is not, however, the voice
that makes the singer, as so often happens in Europe.
Since Indian music is not written, and cannot be learnt
from books, except in theory, it will be understood that
the only way for a foreigner to learn it must be to establish
between himself and his Indian teachers that special rela-
tionship of disciple and master which belongs to Indian
education in all its phases: he must enter into the inner
spiritand must adopt many of the outer conventions of
Indian life, and his study must continue until he can im-
provise the songs under Indian conditions and to the satis-

faction of Indian professional listeners. He must possess
not only the imagination of an but also a vivid mem-
artist,
ory and an ear sensitive to microtonal inflections.

The theory of scale is everywhere a generalisation from
the facts of song. The European art scale has been reduced
to twelve fixed notes by merging nearly identical intervals
such as D E flat, and it is also tempered to facili-
sharp and
tate modulation and free change of key. In other words,
the piano is out of tune by hypothesis. Only this compro-
mise, necessitated in the development of harmony, has
made possible the triumphs of modern orchestration. A
purely melodic art, however, may be no less intensely culti-
vated, and retains the advantages of pure intonation and
modal coloring.
Apart from the keyed instruments of modern Europe

there scarcely exists an absolutely fixed scale: at any rate,
in India the thing fixed is a group of intervals, and the
precise vibration value of a note depends on its position
in a progression, not on its relation to a tonic. The scale of
twenty-two notes is simply the sum of all the notes used in
all the songs —no musician sings a chromatic scale from C
to C with twenty-two stopping places, for this would be a
mere tour de force.
The 'quarter-tone' or shruti is the microtonal interval
between two successive scale notes: but as the theme rarely
employs two and never three scale notes in succession, the
microtonal interval is not generally conspicuous except in
ornament.
Every Indian song is said to be in a particular raga or
ragini —ragini being the feminine of and indicating raga,
an abridgement or modification of the main theme. The
raga, like the old Greek and the ecclesiastical mode, is a
selection of five, six, or seven notes, distributed along the
scale; but the raga is more particularized than a mode, for
it has certain characteristic progressions, and a chief note
towhich the singer constantly returns. None of the ragas
employs more than seven substantive notes, and there is
no modulation: the strange tonality of the Indian song is
due to the use of unfamiliar intervals, and not to the use
of many successive notes with small divisions.
The raga may be bestdefined as a melody-mould or the
ground plan of a song. It is this ground plan which the
master first of all communicates to the pupil; and to sing
is to improvise upon the theme thus defined. The possible
number of ragas is very large, but the majority of systems

recognise thirty-six, that is to say six ragas, each with five
raginis. The origin of the ragas is various: some, like
Pahari, are derived from local folk-song, others, like Jog,
from the songs of wandering ascetics, and still others are
8p : INDIAN MUSIC
whose names they are

the creation of great musicians by
known. More than sixty are mentioned in a Sanskrit-
Tibetan vocabulary of the seventh century, with names
such as 'With-a-voice-like-a-thunder-cloud,' 'Like-the-god-
Indra,' and 'Delighting-the-heart.' Amongst the raga
names in modern use may be cited 'Spring,' 'Evening
beauty,' 'Honey-flower,' 'The swing,' 'Intoxication.'
Psychologically the word raga, meaning coloring or pas-
sion, suggests to Indian ears the idea of mood; that is to
say that precisely as in ancient Greece, the musical mode
has definite ethos. It is not the purpose of the song to re-
peat the confusion of life, but to express and arouse par-
ticular passions of body and soul in man and nature. Each

raga is associated with an hour of the day or night when it
may be appropriately sung, and some are associated with
particular seasons or have definite magic effects. Thus
there is still believed the well-known story of a musician
whose royal patron arbitrarily insisted on hearing a song
in the Dipak raga, which creates fire: the musician obeyed
under protest, but as the song proceeded, he burst into
flames, which could not be extinguished even though he
sprang into the waters of the Jamna. It is just because of
this element of magic, and the association of the ragas with
the rhythmic ritual of daily and seasonal life, that their
clear outlines must not be blurred by modulation: and
this is expressed, when the ragas are personified as musical
genii, by saying that 'to sing out of the raga' is to break the
limbs of these musical angels. A characteristic story is re-
lated of the prophet Narada, when he was still but a
learner. He
thought that he had mastered the whole art of
music; but the all-wise Vishnu, to curb his pride, revealed
to him in the world of the gods, a spacious buildingwhere
there lay men and women weeping over their broken arms
and legs. They were the ragas and raginis, and they said
that a certain sage of the name of Narada, ignorant of
oo : The Dance of Shiva
music and unskillful in performance, had sung them amiss,

and therefore their features were distorted and their limbs
broken, and until they were sung truly there would be no
cure for them. Then Narada was humbled, and kneeling
before Vishnu prayed to be taught the art of music more
perfectly: and in due course he became the great musician
priest of the gods.
Indian music is a purely melodic art, devoid of any har-
monised accompaniment other than a drone. In modern
European art, the meaning of each note of the theme is
mainly brought out by the notes of the chord which are
heard with it; and even in unaccompanied melody, the
musician hears an implied harmony. Unaccompanied folk-
song does not satisfy the concert-goer's ear; as pure melody
it is the province only of the peasant and the specialist.
This is partly because the folk-air played on the piano or

written in staff notation is actually falsified; but much
more because under the conditions of European art, mel-
ody no longer exists in its own right, and music is a com-
promise between melodic freedom and harmonic neces-
sity. To hear the music of India as Indians hear it one
must recover the sense of a pure intonation and must forget

all implied harmonies. It is just like the effort which we
have to make when for the first time, after being accus-
tomed to modern art, we attempt to read the language of
early Italian or Chinese painting, where there is expressed
with equal economy of means all that intensity of experi-
ence which nowadays we are accustomed to understand
only through a more involved technique.
Another feature of Indian song —and so also of the in-
strumental solo — is the elaborate grace. It is natural that
in Europe, where many notes are heard simultaneously,
grace should appear as an unnecessary elaboration, added
to the note, rather than a structural factor. But in India
the note and the microtonal grace compose a closer unity,
pi : INDIAN MUSIC
for the grace fulfils just that function of adding light and
shade which in harmonised music is attained by the vary-
ing degrees of assonance. The Indian song without grace
would seem to Indian ears as bald as the European art song
without the accompaniment which it presupposes.
Equally distinctive is the constant portamento, or rather,
glissando. In India it is far more the interval than the note
that sung or played, and we recognize accordingly a con-
is
tinuity of sound: by contrast with this, the European song,

which is vertically divided by the harmonic interest and
the nature of the keyed instruments which are heard with
the voice, seems to unaccustomed Indian ears to be "full
of holes."
All the songs, except the 'alaps,' are in strict rhythms.
These are only difficult to follow at a first hearing because
the Indian rhythms are founded, as in prosody, on con-
trasts of long and short duration, while European rhythms
are based on stress, as in dance or marching. The Indian

musician does not mark the beginning of the bar by ac-
cent. His fixed unit is a section, or group of bars which are
not necessarily alike, while the European fixed unit is
typically the bar, ofwhich a varying number constitute a

section. The European rhythm is counted in multiples of
2 or 3, the Hindu in sums of 2 or 3. Some of the countings
are very elaborate: Ata Tala, for example, is counted as 5
plus 5 plus 2 plus 2. The frequent use of cross rhythms
also complicates the form. Indian music is modal in times
as well as melody. For all these reasons it is difficult to
grasp immediately the point at which a rhythm begins and
ends, although this is quite easy for the Indian audience
accustomed to quantitative poetic recitation. The best way
to approach the Indian rhythm is to pay attention to the
phrasing, and ignore pulsation.
The Indian art-song isaccompanied by drums, or by the
instrument known as a tambura, or by both. The tambura
is of the lute tribe, but without frets: the four very long
strings are tuned to sound the dominant, the upper tonic
twice, and the octave below, which are common to all
ragas: the pitch is adjusted to suit the singer's voice. The
four strings are fitted with simple resonators —shreds of
wool between the string and the bridge which are the —
source of their 'life': and the strings are continuously
sounded, making a pedal point background very rich in
overtones, and against this dark ground of infinite poten-
tiality the song stands out like an elaborate embroidery.
The tambura must not be regarded as a solo instrument,

nor as an object of separate interest like the piano accom-
paniment of a modern song: its sound is rather the am-
bient in which the song lives and moves and has its being.
India has, besides the tambura, many solo instruments.
By most important of these is the vina. This classic
far the
instrument, which ranks with the violin of Europe and the
koto of Japan, and second only to the voice in sensitive
tambura in having frets,
response, differs chiefly from the
the notes being made with the left hand and the strings
plucked with the right. The delicate nuances of micro-
tonal grace are obtained by deflection of the strings, whole
passages being played in this manner solely by a lateral
movement of the left hand, without a fresh plucking.
While the only difficulty in playing the tambura is to main-
tain an even rhythm independently of the song, the vina
presents all the difficulties of technique that can be im-
agined, and it is said that at least twelve years are required
to attain proficiency.
The Indian singer is a poet, and the poet a singer. The
dominant subject matter of the songs is human or divine
love in all its aspects, or the direct praise of God, and the
words are always sincere and passionate. The more essen-
tially the singer is a musician, however, the more the
—
£3 • INDIAN MUSIC
words are regarded merely as the vehicle of the music: in

art-song the words are always brief, voicing a mood rather
than telling any story, and they are used to support the
—
music with little regard to their own logic precisely as the
representative element in a modern painting merely serves
as the basis for an organisation of pure form or color. In
—
the musical form called alap an improvisation on the raga
theme, this preponderance of the music is carried so far
that only meaningless syllables are used. The voice itself
is a musical instrument, and the song is more than the

words of the song. This form is especially favored by the
Indian virtuoso, who naturally feels a certain contempt
for those whose first interest in the song is connected with
the words. The voice has thus a higher status than in Eu-
rope, for the music exists in its own right and not merely to
illustrate the words. Rabindranath Tagore has written on
this:
When I was very young heard the song, 'Who dressed

I
you like a foreigner?', and that one

line of the song painted
such a strange picture in my mind that even now it is sound-
ing in my memory. I once tried to compose a song myself
under the spell of that line. As I hummed the tune, I wrote
the first line of the song, 'I know thee, thou stranger,' and if
there were no tune to it, I cannot tell what meaning would
be left in the song. But by the power of the spell of the tune
the mysterious figure of that stranger was evoked in my
mind. My heart began to say, 'There is a stranger going to
—
and fro in this world of ours her house is on the further
—
shore of an ocean of mystery sometimes she is to be seen in
the autumn morning, sometimes in the flowery midnight
sometimes we receive an intimation of her in the depths of
—
our heart sometimes I hear her voice when I turn my ear to
the sky.' The tune of my song led me to the very door of that
stranger who ensnares the universe and appears in it, and I
said:
"Wandering over the world

I come to thy land:
I am a guest at thy door, thou stranger.'
One day, many days afterwards, there was someone going

along the road singing:
'How does that unknown bird go to and away from the cage?
Could I but catch it, I would set the chain of my mind about
its feet!'
I saw that that folk-song, too, said the very same thing!
Sometimes the unknown bird comes to the closed cage and
speaks a word of the limitless unknown — the mind would
keep it forever, but cannot. What but the tune of a song
could report the coming and going of that unknown bird?
Because of this I always feel a hesitation in publishing a
book of songs, for in such a book the main thing is left out.
This Indian music is essentially impersonal: it reflects

an emotion and an experience which are deeper and
wider and older than the emotion or wisdom of any single
individual. Its sorrow is without tears, its joy without exul-
tation and it is passionate without any loss of serenity. It is
in the deepest sense of the words all-human. But when the
Indian prophet speaks of inspiration, it is to say that the
Vedas are eternal, and all that the poet achieves by his de-
votion is to hear or see: it is then Sarasvati, the goddess of
speech and learning, or Narada, whose mission it is to dis-
seminate occult knowledge in the sound of the strings of
his vina, or Krishna, whose flute is forever calling us to
leave the duties of the world and follow Him it is these, —
rather than any human individual, who speak through the
singer's voice, and are seen in the movements of the
dancer.
Or we may say that this is an imitation of the music in
heaven. The master musicians of India are always repre-
P5 • INDIAN MUSIC
sented as the pupils of a god, or as visiting the heaven-

world to learn there the music of the spheres that is to —
say, their knowledge springs from a source far within the
surface of the empirical activity of the waking conscious-
ness. In this connection it is explained why it is that hu-
man must be studied, and may not be identified with
art
the imitation of our everyday behavior. 2 When Shiva ex-
pounds the technique of the drama to Bharata the famous —
—
author of the Natya Shastra he declares that human art
must be subject to law, because in man the inner and outer
life are still in conflict. Man has not yet found Himself,
but all his activity proceeds from a laborious working of

the mind, and all his virtue is self-conscious. What we call
our life is uncoordinated, and far from the harmony of art,
which rises above good and evil. It is otherwise with the
gods, whose every gesture immediately reflects the affec-
tions of the inner life. Art is an imitation of that perfect
—
spontaneity the identity of intuition and expression in
those who are of the kingdom of heaven, which is within
us. Thus it is that art is nearer to life than any fact can be;
and Mr. Yeats has reason when he says that Indian music,
though its theory is elaborate and its technique so difficult,
is not an art, but life itself.
For it is the inner reality of things, rather than any tran-

"Those
sient or partial experience that the singer voices.
who God": and the
sing here," says Sankaracharya, "sing
Vishnu Purana adds, "All songs are a part of Him, who
wears a form of sound." 3 We could deduce from this a
metaphysical interpretation of technique. In all art there
are monumental and articulate elements, masculine and
feminine factors which are unified in perfect form. We
have here the sound of the tambura which is heard before
the song, during the song, and continues after it: that is
the timeless Absolute, which as it was in the beginning, is

now and ever shall be. On the other hand there is the song
p5 : The Dance of Shiva
itself which is the variety of Nature, emerging from its
source and returning at the close of its cycle. The harmony

of that undivided Ground with this intricate Pattern is
the unity of Spirit and Matter. We see from this why this
music could not be improved by harmonisation, even if
harmonisation were possible without destroying the modal
bases: for in breaking up the ground into an articulate ac-
companiment, we should merely create a second melody,
another universe, competing with the freedom of the song
itself, and we should destroy the peace on which it rests.
This would defeat the purpose of the singer. Here in this

ego-conscious world we are subject to mortality. But this
mortality is an illusion, and all its truths are relative: over
against this world of change and separation there is a
timeless and spaceless Peace which is the source and goal
of all our being
—
"that noble Pearl," in the words of Beh-
men, "which to the World appears Nothing, but to the
Children of Wisdom is All Things." Every religious teacher
offers us But the way is hard and
those living waters.
long: we are called upon to leave houses and lands, fa-
thers and mothers and wives to achieve an end which in
our imperfect language we can only speak of as Non-
existence. Many of us have great possessions, and the hard-
est of these to surrender are our own will and identity.
What guarantee have we that the reward will be commen-
surate with the sacrifice?
Indian theory declares that in the ecstasies of love and
art we already receive an intimation of that redemption.
This is also the katharsis of the Greeks, and it is found in
the aesthetic of modern Europe when Goethe says
For beauty they have sought in every age

He who perceives it is from himself set free
aus sich entriickt. We are assured by the experience of aes-
thetic contemplation that Paradise is a reality.

9J : INDIAN MUSIC
In other words the magical effects of a song in working

mere miracles are far surpassed by its effectsupon our in-
ner being. The singer is still a magician, and the song is
a ritual, a sacred ceremony, an ordeal which is designed to
set at rest that wheel of the imagination and the senses
which alone hinder us from contact with reality. But to
achieve this ordeal the hearer must co-operate with the
musician by the surrender of the will, and by drawing in
his restless thought to a single point of concentration: this
is not the time or place for curiosity or admiration. Our
attitude towards an unknown art should be far from the

sentimental or romantic, for it can bring us nothing that
we have not already with us in our own hearts: the peace
of the Abyss which underlies all art is one and the same,
whether we find it in Europe or in Asia.
STATUS OF
INDIAN WOMEN
®
In the Mahabharata there is reported a conversation be-

tween Shiva and Uma. The Great God asks her to describe
the duties of women, addressing her, in so doing, in terms
which acknowledge her perfect attainment of the high-
est wisdom possible to man or god —
terms which it would
be hard to parallel anywhere in western literature. He says:
"Thou that dost know the Self and the not-Self, expert in
every work: endowed with and perfect same-
self-restraint
sigh tedness towards every creature: free from the sense of I
—
and my thy power and energy are equal to my own, and
thou hast practised the most severe discipline. O Daughter of
Himalaya, of fairest eyebrows, and whose hair ends in the
fairest curls, expound to me the duties of women in full."
Then She, who is queen of heaven, and yet so sweetly

human, answers:
"The duties of woman are created in the rites of wedding,

when in presence of the nuptial fire she becomes the asso-
ciate of her Lord, for the performance of all righteous deeds.
99 ' STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
She should be beautiful and gentle, considering her husband

as her god and serving him as such in fortune and misfor-
tune, health and sickness, obedient even if commanded to
unrighteous deeds or acts that may lead to her own destruc-
tion. She should rise early, serving the gods, always keeping
her house clean, tending to the domestic sacred fire, eating
only after the needs of gods and guests and servants have
been devoted to her father and mother and the
satisfied,
father and mother of her husband. Devotion to her Lord is

woman's honor, it is her eternal heaven; and O Mahesh-
vara,"
she adds, with a most touching human cry,
"I desire not paradise itself if thou are not satisfied with
me!"
"She is a true wife who gladdens her husband," says

Rajashekhara in the Karpura Manjari. The extract follow-
ing is from the Laws of Manu:
"Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure else-
where, or devoid of good qualities, a husband must be con-

stantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife ... If a wife
obeys her husband, she will for that reason alone be exalted
in heaven."
"The production of children, the nurture of those born,
and the daily life of men, of these matters woman is visibly
the cause."
"She who controlling her thoughts, speech and acts, vio-
latesnot her duty to her Lord, dwells with him after death
in heaven, and in this world is called by the virtuous a faith-
ful wife."
Similar texts from a variety of Indian sources could be

indefinitely multiplied.
If such are the duties of women, women are accorded
corresponding honor, and exert a corresponding influence
ioo : The Dance of Shiva
upon society. This power and influence do not so much

belong to the merely young and beautiful, nor to the
—
wealthy, as to those who have lived mothers and grand-
—
mothers or who follow a religious discipline widows or —
nuns. According to Manu: 'A master exceedeth ten tutors
in claim to honour; the father a hundred masters; but the
mother a thousand fathers in right to reverence and in the
function of teacher.' When Rama accepted Kaikeyi's de-
cree of banishment, it was because 'amother should be as
much regarded by a son as is a father.' Even at the present
day it would be impossible to over-emphasize the influence
of Indian mothers not only upon their children and in all
household affairs, but upon their grown-up sons to whom
their word is law. According to my observation, it is only
those sons who have received an 'English' education in
India who no longer honour their fathers and mothers.
No story is more appropriate than that of Madalasaand
her son Vikranta to illustrate the position of the Indian
mother as teacher. As Vikranta grew up day by day, the
Markandeya Purana relates, Madalasa 'taught him knowl-
edge of the Self * by ministering to him in sickness; and as
he grew in strength and there waxed in him his father's
heart, he attained to knowledge of the Self by his mother's
words.' And these were Madalasa's words, spoken to the
baby crying on her lap:
"My child, thou art without a name or form, and it is
but in fantasy that thou hast been given a name. This thy
body, framed of the five elements, is not thine in sooth, nor
art thou of it. Why dost thou weep? Or, maybe, thou weep-
est not; it is a sound self-born that cometh forth from the
king's son. ... In the body dwells another self, and there-
with abideth not the thought that 'This is mine,' which
appertaineth to the flesh. Shame that man is so deceived!"
Even in recent times, in families where the men have

received an English education unrelated to Indian life and
IOI : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
thought, the inheritance of Indian modes of thought and

feeling rests in the main with women; for a definite phi-
losophy of life is bound up with household ritual and
traditional etiquette and finds expression equally in folk-
tale and cradle-song and popular poetry, and in those
pauranic and epic stories which constitute the household
Bible literature of India. Under these conditions it is often
the case that Indian women, with all their faults of senti-
mentality and ignorance, have remained the guardians of
a spiritual culture which is of greater worth than the effi-
ciency and information of the educated.
It is according to the Tantrik scriptures, devoted to the
cult of theMother of the World, that women, who partake
of her nature more essentially than other living beings, are
especially honoured; here the woman may be a spiritual
teacher (guru), and the initiation of a son by a mother is
more fruitful than any other. One doubts how far this may
be of universal application, believing with Paracelsus that
woman is nearer to the world than man, of which the evi-
dence appears in her always more personal point of view.
But all things are possible to women such as Madalasa.
The claim of the Buddhist nun —'How should the
—
woman's nature hinder us?' has never been systematically
denied in India. It would have been contrary to the spirit
of Indian culture to deny to individual women the oppor-
tunity of saintship or learning in the sense of closing to
them the schools of divinity or science after the fashion of
the Western academies in the nineteenth century. But
where the social norm is found in marriage and parent-
hood for men and women alike, it could only have been in
exceptional cases and under exceptional circumstances
that the latter specialised, whether in divinity, like Auv-
vai, Mira Bai, or the Buddhist nuns, in science, like Lila-
vati, or in war, like Chand Bibi or the Rani of Jhansi.
Those set free to cultivate expert knowledge of science or to

follow with undivided allegiance either religion or any art,
could only be the sannyasini or devotee, the widow, and

the courtesan. A majority of women have always, and nat-
urally, preferred marriage and motherhood to either of
these conditions. But those who felt the call of religion,
those from whom a husband's death removed the central
motif of their life, and those trained from childhood as ex-
pert artists, have always maintained a great tradition in
various branches of cultural activity, such as social service
or music. What we have to observe is that Hindu sociol-
ogists have always regarded these specializations as more
or less incompatible with wifehood and motherhood; life
is not long enough for the achievement of many different

things.
Hinduism justifies no cult of ego-expression, but aims
consistently at spiritual freedom. Those who are conscious
of a sufficient inner life become the more indifferent to
outward expression of their own or any changing person-
ality. The ultimate purposes of Hindu social discipline are
that men should unify their individuality with a wider and
deeper than individual life, should fulfil appointed tasks
regardless of failure or success, distinguish the timeless
from its shifting forms, and escape the all-too-narrow
prison of the 'I and mine.'
Anonymity thus in accordance with the truth; and it
is
isone of the proudest distinctions of the Hindu culture.

The names of the 'authors' of the epics are but shadows,
and in later ages it was a constant practise of writers to
suppress their own names and ascribe their work to a
mythical or famous poet, thereby to gain a better atten-
tion for the truth that they would rather claim to have
'heard' than to have 'made.' Similarly, scarcely a single
Hindu painter or sculptor is known by name; and the en-
tire range of Sanskrit literature cannot exhibit a single
autobiography and but little history. Why should women
IO} : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
have sought for modes of self-advertisement that held no

lure even for men? The governing concept of Hindu ethics
is vocation (dharma); the highest merit consists in the ful-
filment of 'one's own duty/ in other words, in dedication

to one's calling. Indian society was highly organized; and
where was considered wrong for a man to fulfil the
it
duties of another man rather than his own, how much

more must a confusion of function as between woman and
man have seemed wrong, where differentiation is so much
more evident. In the words of Manu: 'To be mothers were
women created, and to be fathers men'; and he added sig-
nificantly 'therefore are religious sacraments ordained in

the Veda to be observed by the husband together with the
2
wife.'
The which would have been
Asiatic theory of marriage,
perfectly comprehensible in the Middle Ages, before the
European woman had become an economic parasite, and
which is still very little removed from that of Roman or
Greek Christianity, is not readily intelligible to the indus-
trial democratic consciousness of Europe and America,
which is so much more concerned for rights than for

duties, and desires more than anything else to be released
—
from responsibilities regarding such release as freedom.
It is thus that Western reformers would awaken a divine
discontent in the hearts of Oriental women, forgetting

that the way of ego-assertion cannot be a royal road to real-
ization of the Self. The industrial mind is primarily senti-
mental, and therefore cannot reason clearly upon love and
marriage; but the Asiatic analysis is philosophic, religious
and practical.
Current Western theory seeks to establish marriage on
a basis of romantic love and free choice; marriage thus de-
pends on the accident of 'falling in love.' Those who are
'crossed in love' or do not love are not required to marry.
This individualistic position, however, is only logically de-
fensible if same time it is recognized that to fall out

at the
of love must end the marriage. It is a high and religious
ideal which justifies sexual relations only as the outward
expression demanded by passionate love and regards an
intimacy continued or begun for mere pleasure, or for
reasons of prudence, or even as a duty, as essentially im-
moral; an ideal which isolated individuals and groups
it is
have constantly upheld; and it may be that the ultimate

development of idealistic individualism will tend to a
nearer realisation of it. But do not let us deceive ourselves
that because the Western marriage is nominally founded
upon free choice, it therefore secures a permanent unity
of spiritual and physical passion. On the contrary, perhaps
in a majority of cases, it holds together those who are no
longer 'in love'; habit, considerations of prudence, or, if
there are children, a sense of duty often compel the pas-

sionless continuance of a marriage for the initiation of
which romantic love was felt to be a sine qua non. Those
who now live side by side upon a basis of affection and
common interest would not have entered upon marriage
on this basis alone.
If the home is worth preserving under modern condi-
tions— and in India at any rate, the family is still the cen-
tral element of social organization, then probably the 'best
solution' will always be found in some such compromise as

is implied in a more or less permanent marriage; though
greater tolerance than is now usual must be accorded to

exceptions above and below the norm. What are we going
to regard as the constructive basis of the normal marriage?
For Hindu sociologists marriage is a social and ethical
relationship, and the begetting of children the payment
of a debt. Romantic love is a brief experience of timeless
freedom, essentially religious and ecstatic, in itself as
purely antisocial as every glimpse of Union is a denial of
the Relative; it is the way of Mary. It is true the glamour
105 : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
of this experience maypersist for weeks and months, when

the whole of life is illumined by the partial merging of
the consciousness of the lover and beloved; but sooner or
later in almost every case there must follow a return to the
world of unreality, and that insight which once endowed
the beloved with innumerable perfections fades in the
light of commonsense. The lovers are fortunate if there
remains to them a basis of common interest and common
duty and a mutuality of temperament adequate for friend-
ship, affection and forbearance; upon this chance depends
the possibility of happiness during the greater part of al-
most every married life. The Hindu marriage differs from
the marriage of sentiment mainly in putting these con-
siderations first. Here, as elsewhere, happiness will arise
from the fulfilment of vocation, far more than when im-
mediate satisfaction is made the primary end. I use the
term vocation advisedly; for the Oriental marriage, like
the Oriental actor's art, is the fulfilment of a traditional
design, and does not depend upon the accidents of sensibil-
ity. To be such a man as Rama, such a wife as Sita, rather
than to express 'oneself,' is the aim. The formula is pre-
determined; husband and wife alike have parts to play;
and it is from this point of view that we can best understand
the meaning of Manu's law, that a wife should look on her

husband as a god, regardless of his personal merit or de-
—
merits it would be beneath her dignity to deviate from a
woman's norm merely because of the failure of a man. It is
for her own sake and for the sake of the community, rather
than for his alone, that life must be attuned to the eternal
unity of Purusha and Prakriti.
Whatever the ultimate possibilities of Western individ-
ualism, Hindu society was established on a basis of group
morality. It is true that no absolute ethic is held binding
on all classes alike; but within a given class the freedom of
the individual is subordinated to the interest of the group,
the concept of duty is paramount. How far this concept of

duty trenches on the liberty of the individual may be seen
in Rama's repudiation of Sita, subsequent to the victory in
Lanka and the coronation at Ayodhya; although con-
vinced of her perfect fidelity, Rama, who stands in epic his-
tory as the mirror of social ethics, consents to banish his
wife, because the people murmur against her. The argu-
ment is that if the king should receive back a wife who had
been living in another man's house, albeit faithful, popular
morality would be endangered, since others might be
moved by love and partiality to a like rehabilitation but
with Jess justification. Thus the social order is placed be-
fore the happiness of the individual, whether man or
woman. This is the explanation of the greater peace which
distinguishes the arranged marriage of the East from the
self-chosen marriage of the West; where there is no decep-
tion there can be no disappointment. And since the condi-
tions on which it is founded do not change, it is logical
that Hindu marriage should be indissoluble; only when
social duties have been fulfilled and social debts paid, is it
permissible for the householder to relinquish simultane-

ously the duties and the rights of the social individual. It
is also logical that when the marriage is childless, it is per-
missible to take a second wife with the consent —and often
at the wish —of the first.
sometimes asked, what opportunities are open to

It is
the Oriental woman? How can she express herself? The

answer is that life is so designed that she is given the op-
—
portunity to be a woman in other words, to realise, rather
than to express herself. It is possible that modern Europe
errs in the opposite direction. We must also remember
that very much which passes for education nowadays is
superficial;some of it amounts to little more than parlor

tricks,and nothing is gained by communicating this condi-
tion to Asia, where I have heard of modern parents who
IOJ : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
desired that their daughters should be taught 'a little
French' or 'a few strokes on the violin.' The arts in India

are professional and vocational, demanding undivided
service; nothing is taught to the amateur by way of social
accomplishment or studied superficially. And woman rep-
resents the continuity of the racial life, an energy which
cannot be divided or diverted without a corresponding

loss of racial vitality; she can no more desire to be some-
thing other than herself, than the Vaishya could wish to be

known as a Kshattriya, or the Kshattriya, as a Brahman.
It has been shown in fact, some seventy -five percent of
Western graduate women do not marry; and apart from

these, if it be true that five-sixths of a child's tendencies
and activities are already determined before it reaches
school age, and that the habits then deeply rooted cannot
be greatly modified, if it be true that so much depends on
deliberate training while the instincts of the child are still
potential and habits unformed, can we say that women

whose social duties or pleasures, or self-elected careers or
unavoidable wage slavery draws them into the outer world,
are fulfilling their duty to the race, or as we should say,
the debt of the ancestors? The modern suffragist declares
that the state has no demand of woman, whether
right to
directly or indirectly,by bribe or pressure of opinion, that
she consider herself under any obligation, in return for the
protection afforded her, to produce its future citizens. But
we are hardly likely to see this point of view accepted in
these days when the right of society to conscript the bodies
of men is almost universally conceded. It is true that many
who do not acquiesce in the existing industrial order are
prepared to resist conscription in the military sense, that
is but we are becoming
to say, conscription for destruction;
accustomed to the idea of another kind of conscription, or
rather co-operation, based on service, and indeed, accord-
ing to either of the two dynamic theories of a future society
—the syndicalist and the individualistic — it must appear

that without the fulfilment of function there can exist
no rights. From the co-operative point of view society
has an absolute right to compel its members to fulfil the
functions that are necessary to it; and only those who,
like the anchorite, voluntarily and entirely renounce the
advantages of society and the protection of law have a right
to ignore the claims of society. 3 From the individualist
point of view, on the other hand, the fulfilment of function
is regarded as a spontaneous activity, as iseven now true in
the cases of the thinker and the artist; but even the indi-
and
vidualist does not expect to get something for nothing,
the last idea he has compel the service of others.
is to
I doubt if anyone will deny that it is the function or
—
nature of women, as a group not necessarily in every in-
dividual case —in general, to be mothers, alike in spiritual
and physical senses. What we have to do then, is not to
assert the liberty of women to deny the duty or right of
motherhood, however we regard it, but to accord this func-
tion a higher protection and honor than it now receives.
And here, perhaps,, there is still something to be learnt in
Asia. There the pregnant woman is auspicious, and re-
ceives the highest respect; whereas in many industrial and
secular Western societies she is an object of more or less
open ridicule, she is ashamed to be seen abroad, and tries
to conceal her condition, sometimes even by means that
are injurious to her own and the child's health. That this
was not the case in a more vital period of European civ-
ilization may be seen in all the literature and art of the
Middle Ages, and particularly in the status of the Virgin
Mary, whose motherhood endeared her to the folk so much
more nearly than her virginity.
To avoid misunderstanding, let me say in passing, that
in depicting the life of Hindu women as fulfilling a great
ideal, I do not mean to indicate the Hindu social formula
lOp : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
be repeated or imitated. This would be a view

as a thing to
Gothic revival in architecture; the
as futile as that of the
reproduction of period furniture does not belong to life.
A perfection that has been can never be a perfection for us.
Marriage was made for man, not man for marriage. One
would gladly accept for Europe very soon, and for Asia in
due time, temporary marriage, the endowment of mother-
hood, and matriarchal succession, or whatever other forms
our own spiritual and economic necessity may determine
for us —not because such forms may be absolutely better
than the Asiatic or mediaeval European institutions, but
because they correspond more nearly to our inner life. In
comparing one social order with another, I have no faith
in any millennium past or future, but only in the best at-
tainable adaptation of means to ends; and, 'let the ends
determine the means,' should be the evidence of our ideal-
ism.
Let us now return to the Indian Sati and try to under-
stand her better. The root meaning of the word is essential
being, and we have so far taken it only in the wide sense.
But she who refuses to live when her husband is dead is
called Sati in a more special sense, and it is only so that the
word (suttee) is well-known to Europeans. This last proof
of the perfect unity of body and soul, this devotion beyond
the grave, has been chosen by many Western critics as our
reproach; we differ from them in thinking of our 'suttees'
not with pity, but with understanding, respect, and love.
So far from being ashamed of our 'suttees' we take a pride
in them; that is even true of the most 'progressive' amongst
us. It is very much like the tenderness which our children's
children may some day feel for those of their race who
were willing to throw away their lives for 'their country
right or wrong,' though the point of view may seem to us
then, as it seems to so many already, evidence rather of
generosity than balanced judgment.
no : The Dance of Shiva
The criticism we make on the institution of Sati and

woman's blind devotion is similar to the final judgment
we are about to pass on patriotism. We do not, as prag-
matists may, resent the denial of the ego for the sake of an
absolute, or attach an undue importance mere life; on
to
the contrary we see clearly that the reckless and useless
sacrifice of the 'suttee' and the patriot is spiritually signifi-
cant. And what remains perpetually clear is the superiority
of the reckless sacrifice to the calculating assertion of
Indian woman from
rights. Criticism of the position of the
the ground of assertive feminism, therefore, leaves us en-
tirely unmoved: precisely as the patriot must be un-
moved by an appeal to self-interest or a merely utilitarian
demonstration of futility. We do not object to dying for an
idea as 'suttees' and patriots have died; but we see that
there may be other and greater ideas we can better serve
by living for them.
For some reason it has come to be believed that Sati
must have been a man-made institution imposed on
women by men for reasons of their own, that it is associ-
ated with feminine servility, and that it is peculiar to
India. We shall see that these views are historically un-
sound. It is true that in aristocratic circles Satibecame to
some degree a social convention, and pressure was put on
4
unwilling individuals, precisely as conscripts are even now

forced to suffer or die for other people's ideas; and from
this point of view we cannot but be glad that it was pro-
hibited by law in 1829 on the initiative of Raja Ram-
mohun Roy. But now that nearly a century has passed it
should not be difficult to review the history and signif-
icance of Sati more dispassionately than was possible in the
hour of controversy and the atmosphere of religious preju-
dice.
It is not surprising that the idea of Sati occupies a con-
siderable place in Indian literature. Parvati herself, who
Ill I STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
could not endure the insults levelled against her husband

by her father, is the prototype of all others. In the early
Tamil lyrics we read of an earthly bride whom the Brah-
mans seek to dissuade from the sacrifice; but she answers
that since her lord is dead, the cool waters of the lotus pool
and the flames of the funeral pyre are alike to her. Another
pleads to share her hero's grave, telling the potter that she
had fared with her lord over many a desert plain, and ask-
ing him to make the funeral urn large enough for both.
Later in history we read of the widowed mother of Harsha
that she replied to her son's remonstrances:
"I am the lady of a great house; have you forgotten that
I am the lioness-mate of a great spirit, who, like a lion, had
his delight in a hundred battles?"
A man of such towering genius and spirituality as Kabir
so takes for granted the authenticity of the impulse to Sati
that he constantly uses it as an image of surrender of the
ego to God; and indeed, in all Indian mystical literature
the love-relation of woman to man is taken unhesitatingly

asan immediate reflection of spiritual experience. This is
most conspicuous in all the Radha-Krishna literature. But
here let us notice more particularly the beautiful and very
interesting poem of Muhammad Riza Nau'i, written in the
reign of Akbar upon the 'suttee' of a Hindu girl whose be-
trothed was killed on the very day of the marriage. This
Musulman poet, to whom the Hindus were 'idolaters,'
does not relate his story in any spirit of religious intoler-
ance or ethical condescension; he is simply amazed 'that
after the death of men, the woman shows forth her marvel-
lous passion.' He does not wonder at the wickedness of
men, but at the generosity of women; how different from
the modern critic who can see no motive but self-interest
behind a social phenomenon that passes his comprehen-
sion!
This Hindu bride refused to be comforted and wished
ii2 : The Dance of Shiva
to be burnt on the pyre of her dead betrothed. When

Akbar was informed of this, he called the girl before him
and offered wealth and protection, but she rejected all his
persuasion as well as the counsel of the Brahmans, and
would neither speak nor hear of anything but the Fire.
Akbar was forced, though reluctantly, to give his con-
sent to the sacrifice, but sent with her his son Prince
Daniyal who continued to dissuade her. Even from amidst
the flames, she replied to his remonstrances, 'Do not an-
noy, do not annoy, do not annoy.' 'Ah,' exclaims the poet:
"Let those whose hearts are ablaze with the Fire of

Love learn courage from this pure may!
Teach me, O God, the Way of Love, and enflame my
heart with this maiden's Fire."
Thus he prays for himself; and for her:
"Do Thou, O God, head of that rare hidden

exalt the
virgin, whose purity exceeded that of the Houris,
Do Thou endear her to the first kissing of her King,
and graciously accept her sacrifice."
Matter of fact accounts of more modern 'suttees' are

given by Englishmen who have witnessed them. One
which took place in Baroda in 1825 is described by R.
Hartley Kennedy, the widow persisting in her intention in
spite of "several fruitless endeavors to dissuade her." A
more remarkable case is described by Sir Frederick Halli-
day. Here also a widow resisted all dissuasion, and finally
proved her determination by asking for a lamp, and hold-
ing her finger in the flame until it was burnt and twisted
like a quill pen held in the flame of a candle; all this time
she gave no sign of fear or pain whatever. Sir F. Halliday
had theiefore to grant her wish, even as Akbar had had to
do three centuries earlier.
It is sometimes said by Indian apologists that at certain
11$ .*
STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
times or places in India—amongst the Buddhists, or the

Marathas, or in the epics— there was no purdah; or that
certain historic or mythic individual women were not se-
cluded. Such statements ignore the fact that there are

other kinds of seclusion than those afforded by palace
walls. For example, though Rama, Lakshman and Sita had
lived together in forest exile for many years in closest affec-
tion, it is expressly stated that Lakshman had never raised
his eyes above his brother's wife's feet, so that he did not
even know her appearance. To speak more generally, it is
customary for Hindus, when occasion arises for them to ad-

dress an unknown woman, to call her 'mother' irrespective
of her age or condition. These unseen walls are a seclusion
equally absolute with any purdah. One result is that the
streets of an Indian city by night are far safer for a woman
than those of any city in Europe. I have known more than
one European woman, acquainted with India, express her
strong conviction of this.
Western have often asserted that the Oriental

critics
woman is a slave, and that we have made her what she is.
We can only reply that we do not identify freedom with
self-assertion, and that the Oriental woman is what she is,
only because our social and religious culture has permitted

her to be and to remain essentially feminine. Exquisite as
she may be and art, we dare not claim for our-
in literature
selves as men the whole honor of creating such a type,
however persistently the industrious industrial critic
would thrust it upon us.
The Eastern woman is not, at least we do not claim that
she is, superior to other women in her innermost nature;
she is perhaps an older, purer and more specialised type,
but certainly an universal type, and it is precisely here that

the industrial woman departs from type. Nobility in
women does not depend upon race, but upon ideals; it is
the outcome of a certain view of life.
—
ii4 : The Dance of Shiva
Savitri, Padmavati, Sita, Radha, Uma, Lilavati, Tara

our divine and human heroines have an universal fellow- —
ship, for everything feminine is of the Mother. Who could
have been more wholly devoted than Alcestis, more pa-
tient than Griselda, more loving than Deirdre, more soldier
than Joan of Arc, more Amazon than Brynhild?
When the Titanic sank, there were many women who
—
refused perhaps mistakenly, perhaps quite rightly that —
—
was their own affair to be rescued without their hus-
bands, or were only torn from them by force; dramatic
confirmation of the conviction that love-heroism is always
and everywhere the same, and not only in India, nor only
in ages past, may be stronger than death.
I do not think that the Indian ideal has ever been the
exclusive treasure of any one race or time, but rather, it
reappears wherever woman is set free to be truly herself,

that is wherever a sufficiently religious, heroic and aesthetic
culture has afforded her the necessary protection. Even
the freedom which she seeks in modern self-assertion
which I would grant from the standpoint of one who
will not govern — is merely an inverted concept of protec-
tion, and it may be that the more she is freed the more she
will reveal the very type we have most adored in those who
seemed to be slaves. Either way would be happier for men
than the necessity of protecting women from themselves,
and the tyranny of those who are not capable of friendship,
being neither bound nor free.
The cry of our Indian Sati, "Do not annoy, do not an-
noy," and "No one has any right over the life of another;
is not that my own affair?" is no cry for protection from a
fate she does not seek; it is passionate, and it has been ut-
tered by every woman in the world who has followed
lovebeyond the grave. Deirdre refused every offer of care
and protection from Conchubar: "It is not land or earth
or food I am wanting," she said, "or gold or silver or
II<y : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
horses, but leave go to the grave where the sons of

to
Usnach are lying." Emer called to Cuchullain slain: "Love
of my life, my friend, my sweetheart, my one choice of the
men of the world, many is the woman, wed or unwed, en-
vied me until today, and now I will not stay living after
you."
Irish women were free, but we are used even more to
look on the old Teutonic type as representative of free and
even amazonian womanhood. We do not think of Bryn-
hild, Shield-may and Victory-wafter, as compelled by men
to any action against her will, or as weakly submissive. Yet
when Sigurd was slain she became 'suttee'; the prayers of
Gunnar availed as little as those of Conchubar with Deir-
dre. He "laid his arms about her neck, and besought her to
live and have wealth from him; and all others in like wise
letted her from dying; but she thrust them all from her,
and said that it was not the part of any to let her in that
which was her will." And the second heroic woman fig-
ured in the saga, wedded to Sigurd, though she did not die,
yet cried when he was betrayed:
Now am I as little
As the may be
leaf
Amid wind-swept wood,
Now when dead he lieth.
"She who is courteous in her mind," says the Shack-

"with shyness shall her face be bright; of all the
tavelslek,
beauties of the body,none is more shining than shyness."
This theory of courtesy, of supreme gentleness "full —
sweetly bowing down her head," says the English Merlin,
"as she that was shamefast," runs also through all mediae-
val chivalry. Yet it is about this shy quiet being, a mystery
to men, that the whole mediaeval world turns; "first re-
serve the honor to God," says Malory, "and secondly, the
—
n6 : The Dance of Shiva
quarrel must come of thy lady." Like Uma and Sita, Vir-
gin Mary is the image of a perfect being
For in this rose conteined was

Heaven and earth in litel space —
and for a little while, in poetry and architecture, we
glimpse an idealisation of woman and woman's love akin
to the praise of Radha in the contemporary songs of Chan-
didas and Vidyapati.
But for our purpose even more significant than the re-
ligious and knightly culture, the product of less quickly
changing conditions, and impressive too in its naivete, is
the picture of the woman of the people which we can
gather from folk-song and lyric. Here was a being ob-
viously strong and sensible, not without knowledge of life,
and by no means economically a parasite. If we study the
folk speech anywhere in the world we shall see that it re-
veals woman, and not the man, as typically the lover; when
her shyness allows, it is she who would pray for man's love,
and will serve him to the utmost. Industrialism reverses
this relation, making man the suppliant and the servant, a
condition as unnatural as any other of its characteristic
perversions.
The woman of the folk does not bear resentment. Fair
Helen,who followed Child Waters on foot, and bore his
child in a stable, is overheard singing:
Lullaby, my owne deere child!

Iwold thy father were a king,
Thy mother layd en a beere.
Is she not like the Bengali Malanchamala, whose hus-

band had married a second wife, and left her unloved and
forgotten —who says, "though I die now, and become a
Iiy : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
bird or a lesser creature or whatever befall me, I care not,

for have seen my
I darling happy?"
If woman under industrialism is unsatisfied, it would be
difficult to say how much man also loses. For woman is
naturally the lover, the bestower of life:
Conjunction with me renders life long.

I give youth when I enter upon amorousness. 5
Her complaint is not that man demands too much, but that
he will accept too little.
Long time have I been waiting for the coming of my dear;

Sometimes I am uneasy and troubled in my mind,
Sometimes I think I'll go to my lover and tell him my mind.
But if I should go to my lover, my lover he will say me nay,
If I show to him my boldness, he'll ne'er love me again*
And it is to serve him, not to seek service from him that

she desires:
In the cold stormy weather, when the winds are a-blowing,

My dear, I shall be willing to wait on you then. 1
The woman, perhaps is not Oriental at all, but

Oriental
simply woman. If the modern woman could accept this
thought, perhaps she would seek a new way of escape, not
an escape from love, but a way out of industrialism. Could
we not undertake this quest together?
It is true that the modern woman is justified in her dis-
content. For of what has she not been robbed? The organ-
ization of society for competition and exploitation has
made possible for the few, and only the very few, more
physical comfort and greater security of life; but even
these it has robbed of all poise, of the power to walk or to
dress or to marry wisely, or to desire children or lovers, or
n8 : The Dance of Shiva
to believe in any power not legally exteriorised. From

faith in herself to a belief in votes, what a descent!
Decade after decade since the fourteenth century has
seen her influence reduced. It was paramount in religion,
in poetry, in music, in architecture and in all life. But
men, when they reformed the church and taught you that
love was not a sacrament without the seal of clerical ap-
proval; when they forced your music into modes of equal
temperament; when they substituted knowledge for feel-
ing and wisdom in education, 8 when they asked you to
pinch your shoes and your waists, and persuaded you to
think this a refinement, and the language of Elizabethan
poetry coarse; when at last they taught you to become Im-
perialists, and went away alone to colonise and civilise the
rest of the world, leaving you in England with nothing par-
ticular to do; when, if you have the chance to marry at all,
it is ten or fifteen years too late —
who can wonder that you
are dissatisfied, and claim the right to a career of your own
"not merely to earn your livelihood, but to provide your-
self with an object in life?" 9 How many women have only
discovered an object in life since the energies of men have

been employed in activities of pure destruction? What a
confession! To receive the franchise would be but a small
compensation for all you have suffered, if it did not hap-
pen that we have now seen enough of representative gov-
ernment and the tyranny of majorities to understand their
futility. Let women as well as men, turn away their eyes
from the delusions of government, and begin to under-

stand direct action, finding enough to do in solving the
problems of their own lives, without attempting to regu-
late those of other people. No man of real power has either
time or strength for any other man's work than his own,
and this should be equally true for women. Aside from all
questions of mere lust for power or demand for rights,
untold evils have resulted from the conviction that it is
Up : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
our God-given duty to regulate other people's lives —the

effects of thecurrent theories of 'uplift/ and of the 'white
man's burden' are only single examples of this; and even if
the intentions are good, we need not overlook the fact that
the way to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Meanwhile there lies an essential weakness in the propa-
ganda of emancipation, inasmuch as the argument is based
on an unquestioning acceptance of male values. The so-
called feminist is as much enslaved by masculine ideals as
the so-called Indian nationalist is enslaved by European
ideals. Like industrial man, the modern woman values in-
dustry more than leisure, she seeks in every way to exter-
nalise her life, men's professions, she
to achieve success in
feigns to be ashamed of her sexual nature, she claims to be
as reasonable, as learned, as expert as any man, and her
best men friends make the same claims on her behalf. But
just in proportion as she lacks a genuine feminine ideal-
ism, inasmuch as she wishes to be something other than
herself, she lacks power.
The claim ofwomen to share the loaves and fishes with
industrial man may be as just as those of Indian politicians.
But the argument that women can do what men can do
("we take all labor for our province," says Olive Schreiner)
like theargument that Indians can be prepared to govern

themselves by a course of studies in democracy, implies a
profound self-distrust. The claim to equality with men, or
—
with Englishmen what an honor! That men, or English-
men, as the case may be, should grant the claim what a —
condescension!
If there is one profound intuition of the non-industrial
consciousness, it is that the qualities of men and women
are incommensurable. "The sexes are differently enter-
tained," says Novalis, "man demands the sensational in
intellectual form, woman the intellectual in sensational
form. What is secondary to the man is paramount to the
woman. Do they not resemble the Infinite, since it is im-

possible to square (quadriren) them, and they can only be
approached through approximation?" Is not the Hindu
point of view possibly right; not that man and woman
should approach an identity of temperament and function,
but that for the greatest abundance of life, there is requi-
site the greatest possible sexual differentiation?
What that great men— poets and
is it creators, not men
of analysis —demand of women? It is, surely, the require-
ments of the prolific, rather than of the devourers, which
are of most significance for the human race, which ad-
vances under the guidance of leaders, and not by accident.
The one thing they have demanded of women is Life.
To one thing at least the greatest men have been al-
ways indifferent, that is, the amount of knowledge a

woman may possess. It was not by her learning that Beatrice
inspired Dante, or the washerwoman Chandidas. When
Cuchullain chose a wife, it was Emer, because she had the
six gifts of beauty, voice, sweet speech, needlework, wis-
dom and charity. We know only of Helen that "strangely
like she was to some immortal spirit;" in other words, she
was radiant. Radha's shining made the ground she stood
on bright as gold. The old English poet wrote of one like
her
Hire luve lumes liht
As a launterne a nyht.
It is this radiance in women, more than any other qual-

ity, that urges men to every sort of heroism, be it martial
or poetic.
Everyone understands the heroism of war; we are not
surprised at Lady Hamilton's adoration of Nelson. But the
activity of war is atavistic, and highly civilized people such
as the Chinese regard it with open contempt. What never-
121 : STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
theless we do not yet understand is the heroism of art, that

exhausting and perpetual demand which all creative labor
makes alike on body and soul. The artist must fight a con-
tinual battle for mastery of himself and his environment;
his work must usually be achieved in the teeth of violent,
ignorant and often well-organised opposition, or against
still more wearing apathy, and in any case, even at the
best, against the intense resistance which matter opposes to
the moulding force of ideas, the tamasic quality in things.
The ardent love of women is not too great a reward for
those who are faithful. But it is far more than the reward of
action, it is the energy without which action may be im-
possible. As pure male, the Great God is inert, and his
'power' always feminine, and it is she who leads the
is
hosts of heaven against the demons.

When man of necessity spent his life in war or in hunt-
ing, when women needed a personal physical as well as a
spiritual protection, then she could not do enough for him
in personal service; we have seen in the record of folk-song
and epic how it is part of woman's innermost nature to
worship man. In the words of another Indian scripture,
her husband is for her a place of pilgrimage, the giving of
alms, the performance of vows, and he is her spiritual
—
teacher this according to the same school which makes
the initiation of son by mother eight times more efficacious
than any other. What we have not yet learnt is that like
relations are needed for the finest quality of life, even un-
der conditions of perpetual peace; the tenderness of
women is as necessary to man now, as ever it was when his
firstduty was that of physical warfare, and few men can

achieve greatness, and then scarcely without the danger of
a one-sided development, whose environment lacks this
atmosphere of tenderness. Woman possesses the power of
perpetually creating in man the qualities she desires, and
this is for her an infinitely greater power than the posses-
—
sion of those special qualities could ever confer upon her

directly.
Far be it from us, however, to suggest the forcing of any
preconceived development upon the modern individualist.
We shall accomplish nothing by pressing anything in
moulds. What I have tried to explain is that notwithstand-
ing that the formula of woman's status in Oriental society
may have ere now crystallised — the formulae of
as classic
art have become academic —nevertheless formula rep-

this
resented once, and still essentially represents, although
'unfelt' in realisation, a veritable expression of woman's
own nature. If not so, then the formula stands self-con-
demned. I do not know
through our modern idealistic
if
individualism it may be possible to renounce all forms and

—
formulae for ever I fear that it is only in heaven that
there shall be neither marrying nor giving in marriage
but were that the case, and every creature free to find it-
self, and to behave according to its own nature, then it is
possible, at least, that the 'natural' relation of woman to

man would after all involve the same conditions of magic
that are implied in the soon-to-be-discarded conventional
and calculated forms of mediaeval art and Oriental soci-
ety. If not, we must accept things as they really are how- —
ever they may be.
Meanwhile, it would be worth while to pause before we
make haste to emancipate, that is to say, reform and in-
dustrialize the Oriental woman. For it is not for Asia alone

an age that is other-
that she preserves a great tradition, in
wise preoccupied. If she too should be persuaded to ex-
pend her power upon externals, there might come a time
on earth when it could not be believed that such women
had ever lived, as the ancient poets describe; it would be
forgotten that woman had ever been unselfish, sensuous
and shy. Deirdre, Brynhild, Alcestis, Sita, Radha, would
then be empty names. And that would be a loss, for al-
12} '. STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN
ready it has been felt in Western schools that we "are not

furnished with adequate womanly ideals in history and
literature." 10
The industrial revolution in India is of external and
very recent origin; there is no lack of men, and it is the
sacred duty of parents to arrange a marriage for every
daughter: there no divergence of what is spiritual and
is
what is Indian women do not deform their

sensuous:
bodies in the interests of fashion: they are more concerned
about service than rights: they consider barrenness the
widowhood. In a word,
greatest possible misfortune, after
it has never happened in India that women have been
judged by or have accepted purely male standards. What

possible service then, except in few externals, can the
Western world render to Eastern women? Though it may
be able to teach us much of the means of life, it has every-
thing yet to relearn about life itself. And what we still
remember there, we would not forget before we must.
SAHAJA
Sahaja, sahaja, everyone speaks of sahaja,
But who knows what sahaja means?
Chandidas.
The last achievement of all thought is a recognition of

the identity of spirit and matter, subject and object; and
this reunion is the marriage of Heaven and Hell, the
reaching out of a contracted universe towards its freedom,
in response to the love of Eternity for the productions of
time. There is then no sacred or profane, spiritual or
sensual, but everything that lives is pure and void. This
very world of birth and death is also the great Abyss.
In India we could not escape the conviction that sexual
love has a deep and spiritual significance. There is noth-
ing with which we can better compare the 'mystic union'
—
of the finite with its infinite ambient that one experience
which proves itself and is the only ground of faith than —
the self-oblivion of earthly lovers locked in each other's
arms, where 'each is both.' Physical proximity, contact,
and interpenetration are the expressions of love, only be-
cause love is the recognition of identity. These two are one
flesh, because they have remembered their unity of spirit.
This is moreover a fuller identity than the mere sympathy

12$ : SAHAJA
of two individuals; and each as individual has now no

more heaven for
significance for the other than the gates of
one who stands within. It is like an algebraic equation
where the equation is the only truth, and the terms may
stand for anything. The least intrusion of the ego, how-
ever, involves a return to the illusion of duality.
This vision of the beloved has no necessary relation to
empirical reality. The beloved may be in every ethical
—
sense of the word unworthy and the consequences of this
may be socially or ethically disastrous: but nevertheless the
eye of love perceives her divine perfection and infinity,
and is not deceived. That one is chosen by the other is
therefore no occasion of pride: for the same perfection and
infinity are present in every grain of sand, and in the rain-
drop as much as in the sea.
To carry through such a relationship, however, and to
reach a goal, to really progress and not merely to achieve
—
an intimation for this it is necessary that both the lover
and the beloved should be of one and the same spiritual
age and of the same moral fibre. For if not, as Chandidas
says, the woman who loves an unworthy man will share the
fate of a flower that is pierced with thorns, she will die of
a broken heart: and the youth who falls in love with a
woman of lower spiritual degree will be tossed to and fro
in great unrest and will give way to despair.
Because the stages of human love reflect the stations of
spiritual evolution, it is said that the relationship of hero
and heroine reveals an esoteric meaning, and this truth has
been made the basis of the well known allegories of Radha
and Krishna, which are the dominant motif of mediaeval
Hinduism. Here, illicit love becomes the very type of sal-
vation: for in India, where social convention is so strict,
such a love involves a surrender of all that the world val-
ues, and sometimes of life itself. When Krishna receives
the milkmaids, and tells them he owes them a debt that
can never be paid, it is because they have come to him

"like the vairagi who has renounced his home" neither —
their duties nor their great possessions hindered them
from taking the way of Mary. The great seducer makes
them his own.
—
All this is an allegory the reflection of reality in the
mirror of illusion. This reality is the inner life, where
Krishna is the Lord, the milkmaids are the souls of men,
and Brindaban the field of consciousness. The relation of
the milkmaids with the Divine Herdsman is not in any
sense a model intended to be realised in human relation-
ships, and the literature contains explicit warnings against
any such confusion of planes.
The interpretation of this mystery, however, is so well
known as to need no elaboration. But there is a related
cult, which is called Sahaja, 1 which constitutes a practical
and what we have to speak of here con-

discipline, a 'rule,'
cerns this more and less familiar teaching.
difficult
In sahaja, the adoration of young and beautiful girls
was made the path of spiritual evolution and ultimate
emancipation. By this adoration we must understand not
merely ritual worship (the Kumari Puja), but also 'roman-
tic love.'
This doctrine seems to have originated with the later

Tantrik Buddhists. Kanu Bhatta already in the tenth cen-
tury wrote Sahaja love songs in Bengal. The classic ex-
ponent, however, is Chandidas, who lived in the four-
teenth century. Many other poets wrote in the same sense.
Chandidas himself was called a madman a term in Ben- —
gali which signifies a man of eccentric ideas who neverthe-
less endears himself to everyone. He was Brahman and a
priest of the temple of Vashuli Devi near Bolpur. One day

he was walking on the river bank where women were
washing clothes. By some chance there was a young girl
whose name was Rami: she raised her eyes to his. There
I2J : SAHAJA
was a meeting of Dante and Beatrice. From this time on

Chandidas was filled with love. Rami was very beautiful:
but in Hindu society what can a washerwoman be to a
Brahman? She could only take the dust off his feet. He,
however, openly avowed his love in his songs, and neg-
lected his priestly duties. He would fall into a dream
whenever he was reminded of her.
The love songs of Chandidas were more like hymns of
devotion: "I have taken refuge at your feet, my beloved.
When I do not see you my mind has no rest. You are to
me as a parent to a helpless child. You are the goddess
herself — the garland about my neck —my very universe.
All is darkness without you, you are the meaning of my
prayers. I cannot forget your grace and your charm and —
yet there no desire in my heart."
is
Chandidas was excommunicated, for he had affronted

the whole orthodox community. By the good .offices of his
brother he was once on the point of being taken back into
society, on condition of renouncing Rami forever, but
when she was told of this she went and stood before him at
—
the place of the reunion never before had she looked
—
upon his face so publicly then he forgot every promise
of reformation, and bowed before her with joined hands as
a priest approaches his household goddess.
It is said that a divine vision was vouchsafed to certain
of the Brahmans there present —for Rami was so trans-
figured that she seemed to be the Mother of the Universe
herself, theGoddess: that is to say that for them, as for
Chandidas himself, the doors of perception were cleansed,
and they too saw her divine perfection. But the rest of
them saw only the washerwoman, and Chandidas remained
an outcast.
He has explained in his songs what he means by Sahaja.
The lovers must refuse each other nothing, yet never fall.
Inwardly, he says of the woman, she will sacrifice all for
—
love, but outwardly she will appear indifferent. This secret

love must find expression in secret: but she must not yield
to desire. She must cast herself freely into the sea of con-
tempt, and yet she must never actually drink of forbidden
waters: shemust not be shaken by pleasure or pain. Of the
man he be a true lover he must be able to
says that to
make a frog dance in the mouth of a snake, or to bind an
elephant with a spider's web. That is to say, that although
he plays with the most dangerous passions, he must not be
carried away. In this restraint, or rather, in the temper
that makes it possible, lies his salvation. "Hear me," says
Chandidas, "to attain salvation through the love of woman,
—
make your body like a dry stick for He that pervades the
universe seen of none, can only be found by one who feows
the secret of love." It is not surprising if he adds that one
such is hardly to be found in a million.
This doctrine of romantic love is by no means unique:
we meet with it also at the summit levels of European
culture, in the thirteenth century. "And so far as love is
concerned," says a modern Russian (Kuprin), "I tell you

that even this has its peaks which only one out of millions
is able to climb."
Before attempting to understand the practise of Sahaja
we must define the significance of the desired salvation
the spiritual freedom (moksha) which is called the ulti-
mate purpose, the only true meaning of life, and by hy-
pothesis the highest good and perfection of our nature. It
is a release from the ego and from becoming: it is the
realization of self and of entity —

when 'nothing of ourself is
left in us.' This perfect state must be one without desire,
because desire implies a lack: whatever action the jivan

mukta or spiritual freeman performs must therefore be of
the nature of manifestation, and will be without purpose
or intention. Nothing that he does will be praiseworthy or
blameworthy, and he will not think in any such terms, — as
—
72p : SAHAJA
the Mahabharata says, with many like texts, 'He who

considers himself a doer of good and evil knows not the
truth, I trow.' Nothing that the freeman does will be
'selfish/ for he has lost the illusion of the ego. His entire
being will be in all he does, and it is this which makes the
virtue of his action. This is the innocence of desires.
Then and then only is the lover free when he is free —
from willing. He who is free is free to do what he will
but first, as Nietzsche says, he must be such as can will, or
as Rumi expresses it, must have surrendered will. This is
by no means the same as to do what one likes, or avoid
what one does not like, for he is very far from free who is
subject to the caprices or desires of the ego. Of course, if
the doors of perception were cleansed we should know
that we are always free ('It is nought indeed but thine
own hearing and willing that do hinder thee, so that thou
dost not hear —
and see God') for the world itself is mani-
festation and not the handiwork of the Absolute. The
most perfect love seeks nothing for itself, requiring noth-
ing, and offers nothing to the beloved, realizing her infi-
nite perfection which cannot be added to: but we do not
know this except in moments of perfect experience.
Very surely the love of woman is not the only way to
approach this freedom. It is more likely by far the most
dangerous way, and perhaps for many an impossible way.
We do not however write to condemn or to advocate, but
to explain.
In reading of romantic love we are apt to ponder over
what is left unsaid. What did the writers really mean?
What was the actual physical relation of the Provencal
lover to his mistress, of Chandidas to Rami? I have come
to see now that even if we knew this to the last detail it
would tell us nothing. He who looks upon a woman with
desire (be it even his wife) has already committed adul-
tery with her in his heart, for all desire is adultery. We
—
i jo : The Dance of Shiva
remember that saying, but do not always remember that

the converse is also true — that he who embraces a woman
without desire has added nothing to the sum of his mortal-
ity. Action is then inaction. It is not by non-participation
but by non-attachment that we live the spiritual life. So
that he in Sahaja who merely represses desire, fails. It is
easy not to walk, but we have to walk without touching the
ground. To refuse the beauty of the earth which is our —
birthright — from fear that we may sink to the level of
pleasure seekers that inaction would be action, and bind
us to the very flesh we seek to evade. The virtue of the ac-
tion of those who are free beings lies in the complete
coordination of their being —body, soul and spirit, the
inner and outer man, at one.
The mere action, then, reveals nothing. As do the
slaves of passion impelled by purpose and poverty, so do
the spiritually free, out of the abundance of the bestowing
virtue. Only the searcher of hearts can sift the tares from
the wheat; it is not for mortal man to judge of another's
state of grace.
When we say that the Indian culture is spiritual, we do
not mean that it is not sensuous. It is perhaps more sensu-
ous than has ever been realized because a sensuousness —
such as this, which can classify three hundred and sixty
kinds of the fine emotions of a lover's heart, and pause to
count the patterns gentle teeth may leave on the tender
skin of the beloved, or to decorate her breasts with painted
flowers of sandal paste —and perfect
carries sweetness
through the most erotic art — inconceivable
is to those who
are merely sensual or by a superhuman effort are merely
self-controlled. The Indian temperament makes it possible
to speak of abstract things meme entre les baisers.
For be possible demands a profound culture of

this to
—
the sexual relationship something altogether different
from the "innocence" of Western girlhood and the brutal
I$I : SAHAJA
violence of the "first night" and the married orgy. The
mere understanding of what is meant by Sahaja demands

at least a racial if not an individual education in love an —
education related to athletics and dancing, music and
hygiene. The sexual relation in itself must not be so rare
or so exciting as to intoxicate: one should enjoy a woman
as one enjoys any other living thing, any forest, flower
or mountain that reveals itself to those who are patient.
One should not be forced to the act of love by a merely
physical tension: minutes suffice for that, but hours are
needed for the perfect ritual. What the lover seeks should
be the full response, and not his mere pleasure: and by
this I do not mean anything so sentimental as "forbear-
ance" or "self-sacrifice," but what will please him most.
Under these conditions violence has no attractions: in
Arabia, Burton tells us, the Musulmans respected even
their slaves, and
it was "pundonor," a point of culture,
that a slave, like any other woman, must be wooed.

Lafcadio Hearn has pointed out the enormous degree to
which modern European literature is permeated with the
idea of love. This is however as nothing compared with
what we find in the Vaishnava literature of Hindustan.
There, however, there is always interpretation: in Euro-
pean romantic literature there is rarely anything better
than description. That should be only a passing phase, for
the real tendency of Western sexual freedom is certainly
idealistic, and its forms are destined to be developed until
the spiritual significance of love is made clear.
Under the sway of modern hedonism, where nothing is
accepted as an end, and everything is a means to something
else, the preconditions for understanding Sahaja scarcely

exist. Sahaja has nothing to do with the cult of pleasure.
It is a doctrine of the Tao, and a path of non-pursuit. All
that is best for us comes of itself into our hands —but if
we strive to overtake it, it perpetually eludes us.

i}2 : The Dance of Shiva
In the passionless spontaneous relation of Sahaja, are we

to suppose that children are ever to be begotten? Certainly
not of necessity. It is true that in early times it was con-
sidered right for the hermit who has renounced the world
and the flesh to grant the request of a woman who comes
to him of her own will and desires a child. But this is quite
another matter —and incidentally a wise eugenic disposi-
tion, removing an objection to monasticism which some
have found in its sterilisation of the best blood. The Sahaja
relation, on the contrary, is an end in itself, and cannot
be associated with social and eugenic ideas. Those who are
capable of such love must certainly stand on the plane of
the 'men of old,' who did not long for descendants, and said
'Why should we long for descendants, we whose self is the
universe? For longing for children is longing for posses-
sions, and longing for possessions is longing for the world:
one like the other is merely longing.' 2 We cannot admit
such a longing in Sahaja. It is however just possible that
such a relation as this might be employed by the Powers
for the birth of an avatar: and in such a case we should
understand what was meant by immaculate conception and
—
virgin birth she being virgin who has never been moved
by desire.
The Sahaja relation is incommensurable with marriage,
categorically regarded as contract, inasmuch as this rela-
tion is undertaken for an end, the definite purpose of
'fulfilling social and religious duties,' and in particular, of
paying the 'debt to the ancestors' by begetting children.
Those whose view of life is exclusively ethical will hold
that sexual intimacy must be sanctified, justified or ex-
piated by at least the wish to beget and to accept the con-
sequent responsibilities of parenthood. There is, indeed,
something inappropriate in the position of those who pur-
sue the pleasures of life as such and evade by artificial
means their natural fruit. But this point of view presup-
J35 •' SAHAJA
poses that the sexual intimacy was a sought pleasure: what

we have discussed is something quite other than this, and
without an element of seeking.
It is only by pursuing what is not already ours by divine
right that we go astray and bring upon ourselves and upon

others infinite suffering — to those who do not pursue, all
things will offer themselves. What we truly need, we need
not strive for.
It will be seen from all this how necessary it is that sex-

ual intimacy should not in itself be considered an unduly
exciting experience. It is more than likely also that those
who are capable of this spontaneous control will have been
already accustomed to willed control under other circum-
stances: and a control of this kind implies a certain
training. We may remark in passing that in 'birth control'
we see an objection to the use of artificial means an —
objection additional to what is obvious on aesthetic
—
grounds in the fact that such means remove all incentive
to the practice of ^//-control. Those who have good reason
to avoid procreation at any time, should make it a point of
pride to accomplish this by their own strength —and in
any case, no man who has not this strength can be sure of
his ability to play his part to perfection, but may at any
time meet with a woman whom he cannot satisfy.
How is one to avoid in such a relation as Sahaja the
danger of self-deception, 3 the pestilence of suppressed de-
sires, and even of physical overstrain and tension?
For very highly perfected beings it may be true that

those subtle exchanges of nervous energy which are ef-
fected in sexual intercourse —and are necessary to full
vitality —can be effected by mere intimacy, in a relation
scarcely passionate in the common sense. We read, indeed,
of other worlds where even generation may be effected by
an exchange of glances. But it is given to few to function
always on such a plane as this. Are we then to forbid to
i) j : The Dance of Shiva
those who need the consolations of mortal affection —are

we to forbid to these the passionless intimacy of Sahaja?
Why should we do so? Even for those who cannot renounce
the sheltered valleys of the personal life for ever, it is well
sometimes to breathe the cold air of the perpetual snows.
We should add that 'to whom chastity is difficult, it is to be
dissuaded': in order to be sure of our ground we should
not attempt the practise of a degree of continence beyond
our power. We should also be careful not to 'mix our
planes' or to make one thing an excuse for another. We
must recognize everything for what it really is the relative —
as relative, the absolute as absolute —
and render unto
Caesar those things, and only those, which are lawfully his.
We are now, perhaps, in a better position to know what
is meant by Chandidas when he speaks of the difficulties
and the meaning of Sahaja. What he intends by 'never

falling' (sati) is a perpetual uncalculated life in the pres-
ent,and the maintenance, not of deliberate control, but of
unsought unshaken serenity in moments of greatest inti-
macy: he means that under circumstances of temptation
—
none should be felt not that temptation should be merely
overcome. And to achieve this he does not pray to be
delivered from temptation, but courts it.
Here nothing is to be done for one another, but all for

love. There is to be no effort to evoke response, and none
to withhold it. All this is far removed from the passion and
surrender, the tricks of seduction, and the shyness, of the
spiritual allegory and of the purely human experience.
INTELLECTUAL
FRATERNITY*
"To mark by some celebration the intellectual fraternity of
mankind."
Alike to those who Europe in her hour of

grieve for
civil war, and to those who would offer tribute at the
shrine of William Shakespeare, it must appear appropri-
ate and significant to publish tokens of the brotherhood of
man in art. For it is likely the prestige of Empire may be
completely shattered in the present conflict of rival im-
perialisms: it may appear henceforth a matter for shame to
exercise political domination over men of another race:
and where until lately it has been the custom to proclaim
the conqueror's civilizing purposes, a common civilization
of the world will demand of us a mutual understanding
carried at least so far that we may substitute for the en-
deavour do one another good, an effort based on com-
to
mon needs and human purposes, conceived in intellectual
fraternity. None has been more distinguished than
William Shakespeare, in his profound appreciation of the
common humanity of an infinite variety of man. Civiliza-
tion must henceforth be human rather than local or na-
tional, or it cannot exist. In a world of rapid communi-
* Contributed to the "Book of Homage to Shakespeare," edited by Israel

Gollancz, London 1916.
,
/5 6 : The Dance of Shiva
cations it must be founded in the common purposes and

intuitions of humanity, since in the absence of common
motives, their cannot be co-operation for agreed ends. In
the decades lately passed —in terms of 'real duration,' now
so far behind us — it been fashionable to insist
has, indeed,
upon a supposed fundamental divergence of European and
Asiatic character: and those who held this view were not
entirely illogical in thinking the wide earth not wide
enough for Europe and Asia to live in side by side. For
artificial barriers are very frail: and if either white or
yellow 'peril' were in truth an essentially inhuman force,

then whichever party believed itself to be the only human
element, must have desired the extermination, or at least
the complete subordination of the other.
But the premises were false: the divergences of char-
acter are superficial, and the deeper we penetrate, the
more we discover an identity in the inner life of Europe
and Asia. Can we, in fact, point to any elemental ex-
perience or to any ultimate goal of man which is not
equally European and Asiatic? Does one not see that these
are the same for all ages and continents? Who that has
breathed the clear mountain air of Upanishads, of Gau-
tama, Sankara and Kabir, of Rumi, of Lao Tze and Jesus
(I mention so far Asiatic prophets only) can be alien to
those who have sat at the feet of Plato and Kant, Tauler,
Behmen and Ruysbroeck, Whitman, Nietzsche and Blake?
The latter may well come to be regarded as the supreme
prophet of a post-industrial age, and it is significant that
one could not find in Asiatic scripture a more typically
Asiatic purpose than is revealed in his passionate will to be
delivered from the bondage of division:
"/ will go down to self-annihilation and Eternal Death,

Lest the Last Judgment come and find me unannihilate
And I be seized and giv'n into the hands of my own Self-
hood."
IJJ : INTELLECTUAL FRATERNITY
But it is not only in Philosophy and Religion Truth —

—
and Love but also in Art that Europe and Asia are
united: and from this triple likeness we may well infer
that all men are alike in their divinity. Let us only notice
here the singular agreement of Eastern and Western
theories of Drama and Poetry, illustrating what has been
said with special reference to the hero of our celebration:
for the work of Shakespeare is in close accordance with
Indian canons of Dramatic Art.
"I made this Drama," says Brahma, "to accord with the
movement of the world, whether at work or play, in peace
or laughter, battle, lust or slaughter —yielding the of fruit
righteousness to those who and
are followers of a moral law,
pleasures to the followers of pleasure—informed with the
divers moods of the soul —following the order of the world
and all its weal and woe. That which is not to be found
herein is neither craft nor wisdom, nor any art, nor is it
Union. That shall be Drama which affords a place of en-

tertainment in the world, and a place of audience for the
Vedas, for philosophy and for the sequence of events."
And poetry is justified to man inasmuch as it yields the

fourfold Fruit of Life —Virtue, Pleasure, Wealth and Spiri-
tual Freedom. The Western reader may inquire, "How
Spiritual Freedom?" and the answer is to be found in the
disinterestedness of aesthetic contemplation, where the
spirit is momentarily freed from the entanglements of good
and evil. We read in the dramatic canon of Dhanamjaya,
for example:
"There is no theme, whether delightful or disgusting,

cruel or gracious, high or low, obscure or plain, of fact or
fancy, that may not be successfully employed to communi-
cate aesthetic emotion."
We may also note the words of Chuang Tzu:

1^8 : The Dance of Shiva
"The mind of the sage being in repose, becomes the

mirror of the Universe."
and compare them with those of Whitman, who avows

himself not the poet of goodness only, but also the poet of
wickedness.
It is sometimes feared that the detachment of the Asiatic
vision tends towards inaction. If this be partly true at the
present moment, it arises from the fullness of the Asiatic
experience, which still contrasts so markedly with Euro-
pean youth. If the everlasting conflict between order and
chaos is for the present typically European, it is because
spiritual wars no less than physical must be fought by those
who are of military age. But the impetuosity of youth can-
not completely compensate for the insight of age, and we
must demand of a coming race that men should act with
European energy, and think with Asiatic calm the old —
ideal taught by Krishna upon the field of battle:
"Indifferent to pleasure and pain, to gain and loss, to

conquest and defeat, thus make ready for the fight. . . .
As do the foolish, attached to works, so should the wise do,

but without attachment, seeking to establish order in the
world."
Europe, too, in violent reaction from the anarchy of

laissez-faire, is conscious of a will to the establishment of
order in the world. But European progress has long re-
mained in doubt, because of its lack of orientation. It is
significant that the discovery of Asia should coincide with

the present hour of decision: for Asiatic thought again
and interdependence of all life, at the
affirms the unity
moment when Europe begins to realize that the Fruit of
Life is not easily attainable in a society based upon divi-
sion. In honoring the genius of Shakespeare, then, we do not
merely offer homage to the memory of an individual, but
*39 INTELLECTUAL FRATERNITY
are witnesses to the intellectual fraternity of mankind:

and it is that fraternity which assures us of the possibility
of co-operation in a common task, the creation of a social
order founded on Union.
COSMOPOLITAN VIEW
OF NIETZSCHE
®
Certainly, Nietzsche was not a philosopher in the strict

sense of the word. He is essentially a poet and sociologist,
and above all, a mystic. He stands in the direct line of
European mysticism, and though less profound, speaks
with the same voice as Blake and Whitman. These three
might, indeed, be said to voice the religion of modern
Europe —the religion of Idealistic Individualism. If it were
realized that his originality does not consist in an incom-

prehensible and unnatural novelty, but in a poetic re-
statement of a very old position, it might be less needful
to waste our breath in the refutation of theses he never
upheld.
It is true that we find in his work a certain violence and
exaggeration: but its very nature is that of passionate pro-
test against unworthy values, Pharisaic virtue, and
snobisme, and the fact that this protest was received with
somuch execration suggests that he may be a true prophet.
The stone which the builders rejected: Blessed are ye
when men shall revile you. Of special significance is the
141 I COSMOPOLITAN VIEW OF NIETZSCHE
beautiful doctrine of the —

Superman so like the Chinese
concept of the Superior Man, and the Indian Maha
Purusha, Bodhisattva and Jivan-mukta.
Amongst the chief marks of the mystic are a constant
sense of the unity and interdependence of all life, and of
the interpenetration of the spiritual and material op- —
posed to Puritanism, which distinguishes the sacred from
the secular. So too is the sense of being everywhere at
—
home unlike the religions of reward and punishment,
which speak of a future paradise and hell, and attach an
absolute and eternal value to good and evil. "All things,"
he says, "are enlinked, enlaced and enamoured": "I con-
jure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and be-
lieve not those who speak to you of super earthly hopes":
—
"For me how could there be an outside of me? There is
no outside": "Every moment beginneth existence, around
every 'Here' rolleth the ball 'There.' The middle is every-
where": "Becoming must appear justified at every instant
. . the present must not under any circumstances be
.
justified by a future, nor the past be justified for the sake

of the present." All these are characteristic mystic intui-
tions, or logical deductions from monism, in close accord
with the Brahmanical formula, "Thou art thou."
The doctrine of the Superman, whose virtue stands "be-
yond good and evil," who is at once the flower and the
leader and saviour of men, has been put forward again and
again in the world's history. A host of names for this ideal
occur in Indian literature: he is the Arhat (adept), Buddha
(enlightened), Jina (conqueror), Tirthakara (finder of
the ford), the Bodhisattva (incarnation of the bestowing
virtue),and above all Jivan-mukta (freed in this life),
whose actions are no longer good or bad, but proceed from
his freed nature.
Let us see what Nietzsche himself has to say of the
Superman. "Upward goeth our course onward from genera
to super-genera. But a horror to me is the degenerating

sense, which saith 'All for myself.' " Is that the doctrine of
selfishness? As well accuse the Upanishad, where it declares
that all things are dear to us for the sake of the Self. For
the monist there is no true distinction of selfish and un-
selfish, for all interests are identical. Self-realisation is
perfect service, and our supreme and only duty is to be-

come what we are (That art thou). This is idealistic indi-
vidualism, and this doctrine of inner harmony is valid on
all planes, 1 for we are not saved by what we do, only by
what we are. "Ye constrain," he says, "all things to flow

towards you and into you, so that they shall flow back
again out of your fountain as the your love. Verily,
gifts of
an appropriator of all values must such a bestowing love

become: but healthy and holy call I this selfishness . . .
But another selfishness there is, an all-too-poor and hungry

—
kind, which would always steal with the eye of the thief
it looketh upon all that is lustrous': with the craving of
hunger it measure th him who hath abundance: and ever
doth it prowl round the table of bestowers." It is the author
of a supposed apotheosis of the "Blonde Beast," who ex-
claims: "Better to perish than to fear and hate: far better
to perish than to be feared and hated!"
Nietzsche has certainly a contempt for pity that is, for —
sentimentalizing over one's own sufferings or those of
others. Naturally, life is hard: for the higher man it should
be ever harder by choice. "My suffering and my fellow-
—
suffering what matter about them!" "Ye tell me 'Life is
hard to bear.' But for what purpose should ye have your
pride in the morning and your resignation in the eve-
ning?" This is certainly different from the "greatest
happiness of the greatest number," which Western de-
mocracies have made their aim.
It is hardly worth while to refer to those who bracket
our poet-philosopher and mystic with the Trietschkes

7^5 : COSMOPOLITAN VIEW OF NIETZSCHE
and Crambs, and would make him one of the prime in-
stigators of a "Euro-Nietzschean" war. It would be easy to
show by quotation how he scorned alike the mediocrity of
Germany and England, and how he regarded France as
"still the seat of the most intelligent and refined culture of
Europe," and contrasted the French esprit with "our Ger-

man infirmity of taste." Better than this, however, will be
to show how well he understood the fundamental unity of
—
Europe a unity of suffering now, but then as now a unity
of movement, by the side of which the present hatreds
assume the proportions of a mere episode and how little—
he could ever have associated patriotism with greatness:
"Owing," he says, "to the morbid estrangement which
the nationality-craze has induced and still induces amongst
the nations of Europe, owing also to the short-sighted and
hasty-handed politicians, who with the help of this craze,
are at present in power, and do not suspect to what extent
the disintegrating policy they pursue must necessarily be
only an interlude policy —owing to all this, and much
more that is altogether unmentionable at present, the most
unmistakable signs that Europe wishes to be one, are now
overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. With
all the more profound and large-minded men of this cen-
tury, the real general tendency of the mysterious labor of
their souls was to prepare the way for that new synthesis
and tentatively to anticipate the European of the future;
only in their simulations, or in their weaker moments, in
old age, perhaps, did they belong to the 'fatherlands' they — "
only rested from themselves when they became 'patriots.'
And what may be said to prove the truth of this sense of
European unity, which even ten years ago might have
seemed a too brilliant generalization, is the fact that we see
now, that not only Europe, but the whole world, and in
precisely the same way, through the mysterious labors
of great men, has long striven to be one, and is now, per-
—
ij4 : The Dance of Shiva
haps for the first time in history, within a measurable

distance of realizing its unconscious purpose.
The "Will to Power" has nothing
to do with tyranny
it isopposed alike to the tyranny of the autocrat and the
tyranny of the majority. The Will to Power asserts that
our life is not to be swayed by motives of pleasure or pain,
the "pairs of opposites," but is to be directed towards its
goal, and that goal is the freedom and spontaneity of the
Jivan-mukta. And this is beyond good and evil. This also
set out in the Bhagavad Gita: the hero must be superior to
pity (ashocyananvashocastvam); resolute for the fray, but
unattached to the result, for, as Whitman expresses it,
"battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."
If he be wounded, he will urge his comrades onward,
rather than ask them to delay to condole with him: and he

will not insult them by supposing that they in their turn
would do otherwise. "Let your love be stronger than your
pity": but that is not self-love, it is not even neighbor-love
—
or patriotism "Higher than love to your neighbor is love
to the furthest and future ones; higher still than love to
men is love to things and phantoms 'Myself do I offer
. . .
unto my love, and my neighbor as myself such is the —

language of all creators." "Ah! that ye understood my
word," he says: "do ever what ye will but first be such as —
can will. . He who cannot command himself shall
. .
obey." This is infinitely remote from the doctrines of

"getting our own way" or "doing what we like" "a horror
—
to us," as he says, "is the degenerating sense, which saith
"
'All for myself.'
The teaching of Nietzsche is a pure nishkama dharma:
"Do I then strive after happiness? I strive after my ivorkl"
and "All those modes of thinking," he says, "which meas-
ure the worth of things according to pleasure and pain,
are plausible modes of thought and naivetes, which every-
one conscious of creative powers and an artist's conscience
J\f5 •* COSMOPOLITAN VIEW OF NIETZSCHE
will look down upon with scorn." For the Superman, as we

should say, is not swayed by the pairs of opposites. 'Do
what ye will': this doctrine is neither egotistic nor altruistic.
Not egotistic, for to yield to all the promptings of the
senses, to be the slave of caprice, is to be moulded by our
environment, and the very reverse of far-willing: it is pre-
Superman may not spare. It is not al-
cisely himself the
truistic, for where there is naught external to myself, there
can be no altruism. The highest duty is that of self-realiza-
tion. "Physician, heal thyself," exclaims Nietzsche: "then
wilt thou also heal thy patient. Let be his best cure to
it
see with his eyes him who maketh himself whole." This is
nothing but the old doctrine of Chuang Tzu: "The sages
of old first got Tao and then got it for
for themselves,
others. Before you possess this yourself, what leisure have
you to attend to the doings of wicked men? Cherish and
preserve your own self, and all the rest will prosper of it-
self." It reminds us also of Jesus: "First cast out the mote
from thine own eye."

The leaders of humanity have never been such as have
acted from a sense of duty, in the ordinary sense of the
word. Duty is but a means of playing safe for those who
lack the Bestowing Virtue. The activity of genius is not an
obedience to rules, but dedication of life to what is com-
manded from within, even though it should appear to all
others as evil.
Was Jesus humble, or did He

Give any proofs of humility?
When but a child He ran away,
And His parents in dismay:
left
These were the words upon His tongue

"I am doing My Father's business."
What constitutes the virtue of any action is the complete

coordination of the actor. We should act according to our
own nature: and when that nature has developed to its

fullest stature, then what is divine attains complete mani-
festation. It is with preoccupations such as this that Nie-
tzsche exclaims with such profound conviction:
"That ye might become weary of saying: 'that an action
is good because it is unselfish.' Ah! my friends! That your
very self be in your action, as the mother is in the child: let

that be your formula of virtue."
This is the very prayer of Socrates, "and may the out-
ward and inward man be at one" — all else is hypocrisy.
The inferior man regulates his life by externals: inasmuch
as he is constrained by desire for long life, reputation,
riches, rank or offspring, he is not free. The superior man
is of another sort, and of him it may be said, with Chuang
Tzu, "that they live in accordance with their own nature.
In the whole world they have no equal. They regulate
their life by inward things."
"What are not the powerful doing?" says the Prema
Sagara. "Who knows their course of action? They, indeed,
do nothing for themselves; but to those that do them
honor and seek their aid, they grant their prayers. Such
is their path, that they appear united to all; but upon
reflection thou shalt perceive that they stand aloof from all,
as the lotus leaf from water." "The man of perfect virtue"
(Superman), says Chuang Tzu again, "in repose has no
thoughts, in action no anxiety. He recognizes no right,
nor wrong, nor good, nor bad. Within the Four Seas, when
all profit — that is his pleasure; when all share — that is his
repose. Men cling to him as children who have lost their
mothers; they rally round him as wayfarers who have

missed their road." For his is the Bestowing Virtue.
According to Ashvaghosha, too, "it is said that we attain
to Nirvana and that various spontaneous displays of ac-
tivity are accomplished." The Bodhisattvas do not consider
the ethics of their behavior: "they have attained to spon-

I4J : COSMOPOLITAN VIEW OF NIETZSCHE
taneity of action, because their discipline is in unison with

the wisdom and activity of all Tathagatas." "Jesus was all
virtue, because he acted from impulse and not from rules."

When Nietzsche says that the Superman is the meaning of
the earth he means what we mean when we speak of a
Bodhisattva, or of a Jivan-mukta. This type which repre-
sents the highest attainment and purpose of humanity is
the most difficult thing for A

self-assertive minds to grasp.
being "beyond good and evil," a law unto himself. "How
wicked!" exclaims the ordinary man: "for even / feel it my
duty to conform to the rules of morality and to restrain my
selfish desires."
Thus we shall never comprehend the selfishness which
Nietzsche and other mystics praise, if we interpret it ac-
cording to the lights of those who believe that all actions
should be praiseworthy. The pattern of man's behavior is
not to be found in any code, but in the principles of the
universe, which is continually revealing to us its own na-
ture. Consider the lilies . . .
There exists a voluptuousness that is not sensuality, a

passion for power that is not self-assertion, and a selfish-
ness that is more generous than any altruism. These are
distinctions which Nietzsche himself is careful to insist
upon, and only willful misunderstanding ignores it. It is
precisely of the great man who fails that he says: "Once

they thought of becoming heroes; but sensualists are they
now." "Art thou the victorious one (/ma)," he says, "the
self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of
thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee. Or does the animal speak
in thy wish, and necessity? or isolation? or discord in thee?"
"What I warn people against confounding debauch-
. . .
ery, and the principle 'laisser aller' (i.e. 'never mind')

with the Will to Power — the latter is the exact reverse of
the former." "And verily, it is no commandment for today
and tomorrow to learn to love oneself. Rather is it of all
arts the finest, subtlest, last and "True and

patientest."
ideal selfishness consists in always watching over and re-
straining the soul, so that our productiveness may come
to a beautiful termination."
So far, then, from a doctrine of self-indulgence, it is a
form of asceticism or ardor (tapas) which Nietzsche would
have us impose on ourselves, if we are strong enough. This
was precisely the view of Manu when he established a
severe rule of life for the Brahman, and one far easier for
the Shudra. And understanding this, Nietzsche has praised
the institution of caste, for he thought it right that life
should grow colder towards the summit. As the Mar-

kandeya Purana pronounces, a Brahman should do nothing
for the sake of enjoyment.
Those who have comprehended the decline and fall of
Western civilization will recognize in Nietzsche the re-
awakening of the conscience of Europe.
YOUNG
INDIA
®
(t)
(^&)
In order to understand Young one must understand

India,
the world. What is the meaning of youth or age in cycles
of civilization, as well as in individuals? In terms of real-
ity, this is not a question of dates or years, but of experi-
ence. India is at once unbelievably old and incredibly
young, utterly sophisticated and pathetically naive. Her

great achievements of the past —
in philosophy, art and
social organization — an indestructible value, and
possess
there can be no true citizenship of the world of which the
roots do not reach back into this ground, at least as far
as they reach back into the classic culture of the Mediter-
ranean. There is no point at which the speculation, ex-
periment, success or failure which constitute Indian civili-
zation do not touch the vital problems of the present day.
And yet we cannot say that modern India has created any-
thing.
We stand in the West at the close of the great cycle of
Christian civilization which attained its zenith, let us say,
in the twelfth or thirteenth century, when the creative
will of man swept far beyond its personal boundaries,

an order in the outer world to cor-
striving to establish
respond with the universal order of the world of imagina-
tion or eternity. From the thirteenth to the twentieth
century one can follow the progressive decay of life —the
ever fainter expression of the creative will, loosening
social integration, the substitution of contract for status,
the advancement of material and moral to the exclusion
of spiritual values, the decline of vision, up to this present
hour of pure chaos, when life and art are evidence of
centuries of aimlessness.
The war in Europe is no unfortunate accident, but the
inevitable outcome of European civilization. How clearly
this was already apparent towards the close of the nine-
teenth century is to be seen in the remarkable words of
Viscount Torio, published in 1890: "Occidental civiliza-
tion . must ultimately end in disappointment and de-
. .
moralization. Peaceful equality can never be attained

. . .
until built up among the ruins of annihilated Western

States and the ashes of extinct Western peoples." And,
indeed, we cannot be surprised that the philosophy of
internecine peace should have been transferred at last to
the visible field of battle.
We feel that the intention of this war has been to make
the world safe for exploitation; this might have been ac-
complished by a decisive victory on either side. And
"Victory breeds hatred: because the conquered are un-
happy." 1 The best one could hope for was that the strug-
gle would go on long enough and be sufficiently in-
conclusive to destroy the prestige of Imperialism and
exploitation for many centuries. Nevertheless, democracy
understood politically as the tyranny of a majority is no
more congenial to liberty than an autocracy, for it implants
or assumes in every one the desire to govern. But those only

are worthy to govern, as the Chinese say, who would
—
IJI : YOUNG INDIA
rather be excused. Representative government has every-

where been found to involve no more than the victory of
the most powerful interests. And even revolts have not
created liberty
The Iron hand crushed the tyrant's head

And became a tyrant in his stead.
Every oppressed nationality oppresses some other or

embraces the oppression of class by class. Our sympathies
are then not only with the oppressed, but with the op-
pressor, for both alike are in need of salvation from the
same group of false values. The liberty that we concede is
of far greater significance to us than any liberty we can
take by force or receive by gift.
Perhaps we ought not to include the Russians in these

criticisms. In Russia more clearly than anywhere else, the
religion of —
Europe the idealistic individualism of Blake
—
and Whitman and Nietzsche has found expression in art
and action. It is a tragic reflection that those who laid
down their arms were not wrong, but only too right. Yet
we cannot collectively abandon the use of force in a day or
establish the kingdom of heaven in a week: to find the
Paradise still upon earth is possible only for the individ-
ual, never for the race ... we cannot see our way to
If
the end of all government, however, we can see that the
least amount of government it is possible to live with is
the best, and the less we are mixed up with it the better
for us: or, rather, the better we are, the less we shall wish
to be involved in it. Needless to say, in refusing to govern,
we do not refuse to co-operate: but to accomplish this, we
must serve, not one another, but ends beyond ourselves.
Let us pause now
what has been going on in
to see
India, and first to consider the past as it survives side by
side with the Young India that is the final subject of our
i $2 : The Dance of Shiva
argument. Broadly contrasted with the opportunist in-

dustrial order of today ("a desperately precarious institu-
where the whole energy of man is used
tional situation"), 2
up in making sure of mere existence, the civilization of
India presents to us the spectacle of something stable and
leisurely: and this not merely by virtue of some kind of
inertia, but as the result of deliberate organization based
on a definite view (definite, whether right or wrong) of
the meaning and purpose of life. The principles of gov-
ernment are defined, not by the interested, but by the dis-
interested; that is to say, by the philosopher who has no
personal ends to serve and no "stake in the country"; he is
the law-giver, and the status of the executive power is
inferior. In a stable co-operative society the achievement
of mere life, the solution of the bare economic problem,
is taken for granted, and there remains abundant energy
for the pursuit of the real ends oflife. These were defined
in India in the famous formula of "Human Aim" (puru-

shartha), on the one hand temporarily as vocational ac-
tivity (function, or duty), winning wealth and enjoying
pleasure; and on the other hand eternally as spiritual
freedom. Obviously the latter object is the main concern
of all higher men.
Here are the criteria of ethical judgment. That is a
priori right, which tends to the achievement of one of all
of these ends (all being good in their degree or kind),
and that is wrong, which involves the attainment of any
end not appropriate to the individual concerned, or in-
volves a failure to attain what is appropriate. We speak of
right or wrong accordingly as purely relative to individ-
uality and circumstance; and since all men are really un-
like, it requires but a slight development of the doctrine
of "own morality" of the vocational groups, which is the
basis of organized ethics, to reach the pure individualism
which is the ultimate religion alike of Asia and modern
I$3 : YOUNG INDIA
Europe. The individual who attains this ground of liberty

is called in India "Jivan-mukta," free in this life, since
nothing of himself is left in him. This is the concept of
superman; but it demands also the entirety of man at
every stage of development. There can be no doubt that
this latter end of spiritual freedom —
to become what we
are —dominated in India all others; so that the connota-
tion of success in India has but little in common with its
connotation in America.
Let us speak of two conspicuous features of the Hindu
This system, of which
social order. First, the caste system.
the lines are drawn once ethnically and culturally (not
at
pecuniarily), represents an integration (not a division)
of society in vocational groups internally democratic, and
outwardly answerable to other groups only for the ful-
fillment of their 'own function.' It somewhat as if, for
is
example, the farmers of the whole United States should

be answerable to the community at large only for the
production of good and sufficient food, in return for the
means of production guaranteed to them, while as a group
they should remain completely autonomous in all other
respects, e. g., in matters of marriage and divorce, educa-
tion, wages and hours of labor, etc., while none could be
called on for any other public service than their own. In
place of States, then, we should have nation-wide, someday
perhaps world-wide, vocational groups directly founded
on the instinct of workmanship and the inheritance of
aptitude.
was assumed in India that heredity determined birth
It
in the appropriate environment. This may have been true

of an ordered society like that of ancient India, but it
could not apply to the melting pot, and we may expect
that the coming development of syndicalism will differ
chiefly from the caste system in permitting intermarriage
and choice or change of occupation under certain condi-
1 54 •' The Dance of Shiva
tions, though still recognizing the general desirability of

marriage within the group and of following one's parent's
calling. In such a reinstatement of the instinct of work-
manship in the West, and a certain relaxation of caste
rule in the East, it is possible to foresee a common socio-
logical agreement of the workers of the world.
Secondly, marriage. In India the home is still the
foundation of all social thought; in Europe and America
the home determined by existing tradition is already

as
—
a lost cause a profound distinction, and yet, under the
same influences the same result is bound to succeed even
in India, though the ancient order may be long in dying.
The Indian marriage is an impersonal contract, under-
taken as a social debt, by men and women alike, not for
happiness, but for the fulfillment of social and religious
duties. It is not based on romantic love or passion, and it
is indissoluble, just because it is undertaken for ends that

are realizable apart from individual interest. To be per-
fect wife or husband is not so much a question of personal
adaptation as of education, since ethical culture is
achieved through hero-worship and the general knowl-

edge of epic literature. The end is a perfect harmony
—
based on self-forgetfulness an order exquisite in form,
and possibly superior to the romantic concept of the har-
mony of selves which underlies the modern theory of
marriage or liaison based on love, but incongruous with
our necessity to prove for ourselves the spiritual and
dynamic value of passion.
One further observation on the past: it was from begin-
ning to end an era of proficiency in handicraft, rather than
of ingenious mechanism. The industrial arts attained an
unsurpassed perfection with great economy of means.
Sculpture had already declined, but painting and architec-
ture were still at a very high level at the end of the eight-
—
755 •' YOUNG INDIA
eenth century. Music, poetry and dancing survive today,

however, precariously.
In the nineteenth century we have to remark two
special conditions beside the survival of the past in the
present. First, that the Indian culture was already decadent,
that is from the inevitable consequences
to say, suffering
of all formulation. The
formula, however admirable, is
inherited rather than earned, it becomes an end instead
of a means, and its meaning is forgotten, so that it is
insecure. Secondly, political subjection coincided with the
impact of the industrial revolution and of the dead weight
of empirical science apprehended simply as the basis of
economic success. All this implied a transvaluation of all
values, in an arbitrary rather than a constructive sense

in the main a degradation of values and a diversion of
energy compressing into half a century a process that has
occupied hundred years in Europe.
five
Let us emphasize again that the war is merely the evi-
dence and not the cause of European chaos: there is im-
mediate hope for Europe since he that is down need fear
no fall. Western civilization stands at the beginning of a
new movement, and is not without renewed religious
motivation. But India affords the most tragic spectacle of
the world, since we see there a living and magnificent
organization, akin to, but infinitely more complete than
that of mediaeval Europe, still in the process of destruc-
tion. Inheriting incalculable treasure, she is still incalcu-
lably poor, and most of all in the naivete with which she
boasts of the poverty that she regards as progress. One
questions sometimes whether it would not be wiser to
accelerate the process of destruction than to attempt to
preserve the broken fragments of the great tradition.
It is hard to realize how completely the continuity of
Indian life has been severed. A single generation of Eng-
—
lish education suffices to break the threads of tradition

and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived
of all roots —
a sort of intellectual pariah who does not
belong to the East or the West, the past or the future. The
greatest danger for India is the loss of her spiritual in-
tegrity. Of all Indian problems the educational is the
most and most tragic. As things now stand it is
difficult
dominated by political considerations in the sense that

loyalty is more essential than personality in a teacher
even university professors are subject to espionage and
their activity to censorship: it is dominated by economic
considerations, too, for the present system is really a
vested interest in the hands of Macmillans and Long-
mans and the younger graduates of English universities,
while the power of the missionary school is derived from
the contributions of those who are interested much more
in proselytizing than in education. In all government
and missionary institutions there is the widest possible
divergence between the ideals of the school and the ideals
of the home: the teachers do not in one case in a hundred
effect any real contact with their pupils, whatever they
may believe to the contrary.
Modern pedagogic theory teaches us that the aim of
education should be not so much the levelling up of
faculties and the production of uniform types as the in-
tensive cultivation of the faculties we have. Ruskin was
never more right than when he said that education means
finding out what people have tried to do, and helping
them to do it better. There has been no "finding out" in
India, but only a complete inversion of values. And what
does this imply? From the home to the world, from the
freedom of the spirit it was the aim of every great Hindu
to attain, from the great example of Bhishma and Rama,
from the pursuit and acquisition of Yoga, from the celes-
tial songs of Radha and Krishna, from the knowledge
Itf : YOUNG INDIA
which is in unity to the knowledge of manifold things,

3
this was a descent from the Himalayas to the plains. It
is true that this was inevitable. The English, in spite of
Macaulay and Cramb, are not entirely to blame for it. A

renunciation of what appears to be obsolete is justified;
political and economic problems cannot be ignored; man
and man's world are still to be explored: but with all that
there has been too little love, too much of snobism, too
indiscriminate a taste, and too little distaste, and now only
the greatest souls by a supreme effort can achieve a syn-
thesis of the past and the future.
In the midst of all these conditions we have seen the rise
of Indian Nationalism, the growth of Young India. Fun-
damentally this has been a political movement covering a
wide range of purposes, from those of the Moderates who
desire to see a gradual progress towards colonial self-
government, to those of the Extremists who would like to
see the last Englishmen driven out of India at the earliest
opportunity.
There no question but that India has had and still has
is
many just grievances, some inseparable from any foreign

domination and some peculiar to the present situation.
For example, Indians are excluded to a very large extent
from the higher paid posts of the civil and educational
service: while India is freely open to British economic
exploitation, Indian settlers are arbitrarily excluded from
other parts of the Empire. The system of police espionage
and the searching of private houses, the censorship of
private correspondence, the law against the possession of
arms, the not infrequent imprisonment and even deporta-
tion of influential men without charge or trial, and par-
ticular measures such as the partition of Bengal are con-
stant provocatives of a very natural resentment. The color
prejudice is such that educated Indians are often insulted
by Englishmen in railway trains and to all intents and pur-
1 58 : The Dance of Shiva
poses are excluded from English society. Many of these

grievances depend immediately on the fact that India is
never regarded by the Englishman as his home: a con-

quest resulting in the establishment of an English dynasty
related by marriage to the Indian aristocracy (however
the latter might have resented it), and identified with
Indian would have involved far more vital in-

interests,
tegrations than now exist. This was what happened in the
case of the Mughals. As it is, the sympathy between rulers
and ruled and the common understanding are admittedly
less than was the case fifty years ago.
A large part of the Indian unrest is, of course, economic,
and due to the disturbance of settled conditions by indus-
trial competition, and the impact of the era of technology
upon an era of handicraft. Conditions of this kind are not
somuch traceable to foreign domination as to world-wide
economic disorder. As for the war, it can only be said to
concern the Indians indirectly, or rather, they are directly
concerned only because of the political association with
Britain. It is interesting to note that two particular griev-
ances have been remedied since the outbreak of the war:
the excise duty on cotton has been removed, and very re-
cently, Indians have been allowed to qualify as commis-
sioned officers. It is certain that far-reaching changes in the
direction of self-government will be made immediately
after the war,and this must result equally from the actual
situation and from the principles of freedom to which the
Allies have declared their allegiance. It is, however, with a
certain distaste that one is compelled to enumerate these
various grievances and to refer to the inevitable resent-
ments they must evoke: for Indian national idealism has a
wider significance than the redress of grievances.
Moderate nationalism has found expression not only in
political, but also in economic, social and educational ac-
tivities. Economically in the Swadeshi Town-country')
75P •* YOUNG INDIA
movement, which, despite the heroic idealism of com-

munities and individuals in the main represents a rather
pathetic endeavour to 'get back' at European trade, with-
out much reference to the quality or desirability of par-
ticular industries or the conditions of manufacture. In-
dian economists are still or have remained until very
recently in the early Victorian stage, enthusiastic believers
in factory production and laissez-faire. Even in Western
universities the student is rarely brought in touch with
current thought, and this is still more true of universities
in India. The Indian student has little opportunity to
realize that the accepted forms of European thought are
necessarily far behind its Western soci-
real development.
ety is in process of such rapid change that it must be re-
garded as tragic or ridiculous that the prestige of power

should have provoked imitation: and this at the best
implies provincialism, for sociological, like sartorial fash-
ions, travel round the world second hand long after they
at
have been forgotten at their source. Creation or death.
Socialendeavour has been in the nature of what is here
known as "uplift," and has been especially directed to the
elevation of the depressed classes, the reduction of caste
institutionalism, and the "emancipation" of women. A
recrudescence of puritanism, like a return to the early
Buddhist fear of the world, but really of Christian mis-
sionary and bourgeois origin, and no better reasoned than
similar movements in modern America, leads to the con-
demnation of exquisite national costumes as "indecent"
and to absurd apologies for classic literature and art: and
the dancer has been driven from the temple to the streets.
We must class here also as Moderate activities such move-
ments as are represented by the Bengal National College,
the Fergusson College, Poona, the diffusion of popular
education in Baroda, and part of the work of the Arya
Samaj, and the Servants of India. The effects are merito-
i6o : The Dance of Shiva
rious rather than inspiring. Sometimes the genuine Eng-

lish educationalist, seeking to restore the Indian classics or
vernaculars to their real place in Indian curricula, is met
by the determined opposition of the Nationalists: and it
is not without reason that Professor Patrick Geddes, who,
I am glad to say, has been entrusted with the organization
of the Hindu University at Benares 4 has remarked that it

would be a mistake to allow the Europeanized Indian
graduates to have their way with Indian education: "that
would be continuing our mistake," as he says, "not correct-
ing it."
There have been somewhat parallel developments in

religion, typified in the eclecticism of the Brahmo Samaj
—a sort of Unitarianism combining Hindu philosophy
with Nonconformist ethics.
The keynote of most of these activities, as of the political
programme of the National Congress and the Moderate
press, is to be recognized in a complete acceptance of
European models, and, indeed, of European sources of
inspiration: they represent the just wish of Indians to do
for themselves what is now done or left undone by others.
But this is a somewhat uninspiring and insufficient pro-
gramme, regarded from the standpoint of futurist Eur-
opeans, who expect from the East, not a repetition of their
own mistakes, but a positive contribution to the solution
of problems that face the whole world, and no longer
merely a single race or continent.
The beauty and logic of Indian belong to- a dying
life
past: the nineteenth century has degraded much and cre-

ated nothing. If any blame for this is to be laid on alien
shoulders, it should be only in the sense that if it must be
that offences come, woe unto them through whom they
come. It is an ungrateful and unromantic task to govern a
subject race. England could not in any case have inspired a
new life: the best she could have done would have been to
l6l : YOUNG INDIA
understand and conserve through patronage and educa-

tion the surviving categories of Indian civilization archi- —
tecture, music, handicrafts, popular and classic literature,
—
and schools of philosophy and that she failed here is to
have been found wanting in imagination and sympathy.
It should not have been regarded as the highest ideal of
Empire "to give to all men an English mind."

If I speak now of the Idealists as distinguished from
the Moderates, it is because they alone possess a genuine

sense of the future. Needless to say, it is not the idealist
who is "impatient": it is the opportunist who has not the
patience to pursue a distant end. It should also be empha-
sized that there is never a hard and fast line separating the
Idealist from the Moderate; these are types that may be
combined in a single individual, and are almost always
represented in any group. I also dismiss the questions of
disloyalty and sedition as irrelevant for the present dis-
cussion: and as I have said elsewhere, loyalty is too often
sentimentality or interest and disloyalty no more than
irritation —
if loyalty were always friendship and disloyalty
detachment one could welcome either.

The first reaction of the idealist is recognizable in disil-
lusion. He begins to see that people are not inspired or

made happy by government but by themselves he loses —
faith in politics, and turns to direct action, more often
than otherwise, educational. He is no longer deceived by
the prestige of —
European power very often he has lived
for many years in Europe or America, and has learnt to
regard both "progress" and "civilization" with distaste and
distrust. He begins to see things as they really are and re-
gards his Indian life no longer with disparagement, but
with a new understanding and affection. He begins to see
that life is an art, and is rather a means than an end.
The first expression of national idealism is then a reha-
bilitation of the past. We have turned from the imitation
of European formulae to follow the historical development

of our own beliefs, our architecture, sculpture, music and
literature, and of all the institutions, social and religious,
with which they are inseparably intertwined; and to pre-
serve and defend the Prolific against the Devourers. This
is fundamentally a process of creative introspection prepar-
atory to renewed activity.
It does not matter that the realization of what we have
lost has come too late: this was inevitable. If for a moment
it seemed that we desired to turn back the hands of the
clock, that was only sentimentality, and it was not long
before we remembered that fresh waters are ever flowing
in upon us. We have learnt that we are exiled; but we
would not and cannot return. In India, as in Europe, the
vestiges of ancient civilization must be renounced: we are
called from the past and must make our home in the fu-
ture. But to understand, to endorse with passionate con-
viction, and to love what we have left behind us is the
only possible foundation for power. If the time has hardly
yet come for the creation of new values —and it cannot
long be delayed — let us remember that time and suffering
are essential to all creation.
We see now springing up all over India societies of liter-
ary or historical research or sociological experiment, and
schools of national education. In Bengal, for example, the
Sahitya Parishad (library, MSS. and research), in the
United Provinces the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Hindu
texts and a great dictionary), in Poona the Gayan Samaj
(study and encouragement of pure music), in Madura
the Tamil Sangam (modelled after the old Tamil literary
academies), religious organizations such as the Arya Samaj
(in part), the Ramakrishna order, the Vivekananda socie-
ties, and the Theosophical society (in part): and the Bud-
dhist revival in Ceylon. There are signs of life even in the

universities, though the most interesting development in
16} : YOUNG INDIA
this directionis the newly established Hindu University
in Benares,which gives at least an equal place to indige-

nous and to foreign learning. A time must come and will
come when Indian universities will be once more places of
pilgrimage for foreign students. Beside this there are
many individual Indian scholars publishing their results in
association with European savants, with the Archaeologi-
calSurvey of India or through the various Asiatic socie-
tiesor in separate volumes. Private collections of ancient
works of art are being made and interest is taken in muse-
ums and the preservation of ancient monuments.
The inner meaning of most of these activities
to be is
found in the concept of National Education: a return to

die aims of Oriental education in general, the develop-
ment of personality rather than the mere acquisition of
knowledge, and above all, a reunion of those links of un-
derstanding which have been so roughly broken: and to
the end that we may see the last of those "educated" In-
dians who are Indian only in name. Up till now the steril-
ity of higher education in India has been far more unfor-

tunate than the absence of elementary literary education
for the masses and for women. The latter have always pos-
sessed and have not yet lost, what the progressive amongst
the men have lost, the incalculable advantage of familiar-
ity through oral tradition with an epic literature vast in
amount and saturated with a great philosophy. To some
extent, indeed, India may be said to be now a land of
cultivated peasants
—
and uncultivated leaders "Their ordi-
nary Plowmen and Husbandmen," said Knox without ex-
aggeration, "do speak elegantly and are full of compli-
ment. And there is no difference between the ability and
speech of a Countryman and a Courtier" a fact which —
affords us a good deal of food for reflection.
Amongst the schools of national education two or three
are of special importance: Sir Rabindranath Tagore's
164 ' The Dance of Shiva
school at Bolpur, the Kalasala at Masulipatam, and the

Gurukula of the Arya Samaj at Hardwar. In all these the
mother-tongue is made the medium of instruction, and
English takes a second though still very important place:
there had been danger of creating an educated class unable
to express itself perfectly in any language. The Gurukula,
it has been said very truly, is perhaps the most fascinating
educational experiment in the world. It is for boys of all
castes, from the highest to the lowest, and no distinctions

are made. Tuition is free and the teachers are unpaid. The
first seven years are devoted entirely to Sanskrit, religion
and physical culture, and the twelve years following to
Western literature, science and laboratory work: at the age
of twenty-five the man is ready to go out into the world.
During the whole of this time the pupils remain in charge
of their teacher, without returning home, nor are they
permitted to meet any women except their mothers. There
are institutions for the education of girls on somewhat
similar but less severe lines: since the marriage of spiritual
equals is taken for granted in the foundations of Hindu
society. The most conspicuous feature of the system is its
return to the impersonal and philosophic concepts of cul-

ture which have always been characteristic of the East,
and the combination of this ancient wisdom with modern
and practical knowledge.
At the same time the return of idealism has brought with
it a renewed appreciation of indigenous art and popular
mythology, and has sought expression in creative activity.

These matters have been closed books to the politicians
and social reformers: even now there is perhaps no country
in the world so completely lacking in cultivated and con-
scious taste as modern India, for as we have said, all that is
so beautiful in the life that we see by riverside, in temples
or homes, and in the streets, is merely an inheritance, and
those who have been mis-educated would gladly exchange
l6$ : YOUNG INDIA
it all for the cheapest commercial art of Western stores and

music halls and for the villa architecture of a London
suburb.
There has been a revival of painting in Bengal, inspired
by Abanindranath Tagore and his brother, nephews of the
well known poet. But important as this movement has
been, its main significance belongs to appreciation rather
than production. It may be compared rather to the work
of the pre-Raphaelites than to that of the great post-Im-
pressionists — the time for these has not yet arrived. It has
proved impossible for those who have not seen the ancient
gods to represent them: and the powers to be are not yet
seen or heard, only the movement of their dance is faintly
felt.
But for the great idealists of younger India, nationalism

is not enough. Patriotism is parochial, and even banal, and
there are finer parts great souls may play. Certainly not as
missionaries or propagandists — the day has gone by for
sectarian groupings and for invitations to be "one of us":
but as equally concerned with all others in the exploration
of the thousand paths that have never yet
been trodden. It
and not merely Indian life that claims our loyalty.
is life,
The pursuit of mere liberty is not enough: it is not his

happiness, but his task that concerns the idealist. For those
who pursue a distant end there is no time to devote to what
is momentary.
Freedom is always open to those who are free. And free
for what? For the very same ends that are foreseen by the
idealists of Europe: how could there be a divergence of
idealism from idealism? The chosen people of the future
cannot be any nation or race, but an aristocracy of the
earth uniting the virility of European youth to the serenity
These leaders of thought in every nation
of Asiatic age.
understand each other very well, and all significant move-
ments are international and world-wide as has always —
1 66 : The Dance of Shiva
been the case to a greater extent than we are apt to realize.

We only await the declaration of peace to renew our
camaraderie with the other idealists, and meanwhile we
will not betray our common cause. The flowering of hu-
manity is than the victory of any party. The only
more to us
condition of a renewal of life in India, or elsewhere, should
be a spiritual, not merely an economic and political
awakening, and it is on this ground alone that it will ever
be possible to bridge the gulf which has been supposed to
divide the East from the West.
To the idealist all interests are identical because all
life is one. The only and real significance of Young India

for the world will be revealed in the great men who are
given to the common one great philosopher, poet,
life:
painter, scientist or singer shall be accounted in the last

judgment more than all the concessions won by all the
Congresses in a hundred years.
And so while India is occupied with national education
and social reconstruction at home, she must also throw in
her lot with the world: what we need for the creation of a
common civilization is the recognition of common prob-
lems, and to co-operate in their solution.
Meanwhile it is not sufficient for the Western world to
stand aside from the development of Asia, with idle curi-
osity or apprehension wondering what will happen next.
There is serious danger that the degradation of Asia will
ultimately menace the security of European social ideal-
ism, for the standing of idealism is even more precarious in
modern Asia than in modern Europe: and that would be
a strange nemesis if European post-Industrialists should
ultimately be defeated by an Industrialism or Imperialism
of European origin established in the East!
Asia is like the artist in the modern city doing nothing —
great, mainly because nothing heroic is demanded of him:
it is enough if he pleases and amuses us, we do not take him
l6j : YOUNG INDIA
seriously. It is with something of romantic attitude

this
that Europe and America have regarded India. The merely
philological studies of the universities have been con-
ducted in such an arid fashion as to be comparatively in-
on the other hand, Indian
accessible to artistic spirits:
thought has been popularized and perverted in many
forms that are vague, mysterious, and feminine, and so
brought into disrepute. What is really needed is a point of
view which is practical, rather than scholastic or senti-
mental: some power to grasp what is essential, disentangled
by clear thinking from a mass of incorrect assumptions.
The challenge of the East is very precise: To what end is
your life? Without an answer to this question there may
indeed be change, but progress is impossible; for without
a sense of direction, who knows if we do not return upon
our footsteps in everlasting circles? I conclude then with
this reminder: that the future of India depends as much
upon what is asked of her as upon what she is.
INDIVIDUALITY,
AUTONOMY AND
FUNCTION 1
The object of government is to make the governed be-

have as the governors wish. This is true of 'good' and 'bad'
government and alike of the rule of a conqueror, of
alike,
a hereditary monarchy and of majority government by
representation.
The repudiation of tyranny must ultimately involve a
repudiation of majority rule. Consider a community of
five. It is impossible to deny that the rule of three, in so far
as it affects the other two,is as much an arbitrary con-
straint as the rule of one affecting the other four. It is very

liable to be less intelligent. In any case, however, the rule
of three becomes, on the basis of votes, a rule of two: and
a majority government will mean the rule of two over
three.
Inasmuch, however, as each of the five is unique, and
'one law for the lion and the ox is oppression,' there can
be no entirely just solution outside the autonomy of each.
This, which is widely admitted to be true for nations, is
no less true for individuals.
l6p : INDIVIDUALITY, AUTONOMY, FUNCTION
From an existing tyranny it is possible to arrive at an

individual autonomy in two ways. In the first place four
of the five may revolt against the arbitrary rule of the one,
setting up in place of it the rule of the majority. The re-
maining two may then assert their 'right' of self-determina-
tion as against the majority. Ultimately each of the five
will become autonomous: each, as it were, sitting armed in
his own house, prepared to repel the intruder. This may
be described as a disintegration sanctioned by the pre-
sumed diversity of interests which a pluralistic philosophy
must assert.
Since, however, each still desires to govern (to feel it
one's 'duty' to govern is only the same thing in other

words), and nothing prevents the exercise of governing
powers but fear of resistance, the desire will be translated
into action as soon as opportunity affords: and one, or a
group of two, three, or four of the five must be regarded as
merely awaiting (consciously or unconsciously) the favor-
able moment. In the meantime co-operation for common
ends is excluded by mutual suspicion: each of the five will
have to exercise all of the functions necessary to the exist-
ence of an individual, and only a fraction of the activity of
each will be vocational. This is the inevitable consequence
and of that sort of desire to take part in
of resistance,
government which finds expression in the demand for
votes.
The anarchy approached by self-assertion, however justi-
fied, is therefore the anarchy of chaos: resistance, however
inevitable, can of itself only create an unstable equilib-
rium, which must tend to reconstitute the status quo
ante.
The second approach to individual autonomy is through
renunciation —a repudiation of the will to govern. As we
are speaking in terms of time, we must conceive of this
idea as originating with one of the five, and spreading to
i jo : The Dance of Shiva
the others. Let us, however, ignore the transition period,

and suppose that the idea of government has become, for
each of the five, even more distasteful than the idea of
being governed.
In this situation there is nothing to prevent a recogni-
tion of common interests, or co-operation to achieve them
(co-operation is not government). This will be an integra-
tion founded on the presumed identity of all interests
which a monistic philosophy must assert. Neither of the
five will expect to receive from any of the others something
for nothing: but the principle of mutual aid or co-opera-
tion will permit each one to fulfil his own function. Activ-
ity will be vocational, that is to say, willing.
The anarchy approached by renunciation is thus an an-
archy of spontaneity: only a renunciation of the will to
govern could create a stable equilibrium. Everyone who
believes in the self-determination of national groups is to
that extent an anarchist. And while we must acknowledge
that a state of entire liberty can never be attained, because
the will to govern can never be totally eradicated, never-
theless it can be shown that activity based on anarchic
principles may be and often is far more immediately and
practically effective than an activity of control. Contrast,
for example, the result of granting a large measure of
autonomy to the Boers with the consequences of withhold-
ing it in Ireland.
"The last ideal of a future state," says Dmitri Merezh-
kovski, "can only consist in the creation of new religious
forms of thought and affairs; a new religious syntheses be-
tween the individual and society, composed of unending
love and unending liberty." Far be it from me to assert
that such a millennium could ever be realized. But he who
knows not whither he saileth knows not which is a fair or
a foul wind for him. It cannot be unwise to shape our
course towards the desired haven. So much, at least, is pos-
iyi : INDIVIDUALITY, AUTONOMY, FUNCTION
sible to every individual: and only he is an individualist

in truth, who does not will to govern any other than him-
self.
The 'will to govern' must not be confused with the 'will

to power.' The will to govern is the will to govern others:
power is the
the will to will to govern oneself.
Those who would be should have the will to power
free
without the will to govern. If such as these are chosen to
advise the executive, which cannot be entirely dispensed
with, this should tend to the greatest degree of freedom
and justice practically possible.
NOTES
®
WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED

TO HUMAN WELFARE
1 Lest I should seem to exaggerate the importance which
Hindus attach to Adhyatma-vidya, the Science of the Self, I
quote from the 'Bhagavad Gita/ ix. 2: "It is the kingly sci-
ence, the royal secret, sacred surpassingly. It supplies the only

sanction and support to righteousness, and its benefits may
be seen even with the eyes of the flesh as bringing peace and
permanence of happiness to men"; and from Manu, xii. 100:
"Only he who knows the Vedashastra, only he deserves to be
the Leader of Armies, the Wielder of the Rod of Law, the
King of Men, the Suzerain and Overlord of Kings."
The reader who up the subject of this
desires to follow
essay is strongly recommended work of Bhagavan Das,
to the
'The Science of Social Organization/ London and Benares,
1910.
2
—
Brahman, Kshattriya, Vaishya, Shudra the four primary
types of Brahmanical sociology, viz., philosopher and educa-
tor, administrator and soldier, tradesman and herdsman,
craftsman and laborer.
3
Dhammapada, 87; also the Jatakamala of Arya Shura, xix,
27.
—
ijj • Notes
4 Viscount Torio in The Japan Daily Mail, November 19th-

20th, 1890. The whole essay, of which a good part is quoted
in Lafcadio Hearn's 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan/ is a
searching criticism of Western polity, regarded from the
standpoint of a modern Buddhist.
5 Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads, translated by
A. S. Geden, London, 1906.
6 The 'Mahabharata' and 'The Ramayana.' Available in
translations by R. C. Dutt, Everymans Library.
7
This most important document is best expounded by Bha-
gavan Das, The Science of Social Organization, London and
Benares, 1910; also translated in full in the "Sacred Books of
the East," vol. xxv. "Herein," says Manu (i. 107, 118), "are
declared the good and evil results of various deeds, and
herein are expounded the eternal principles of all the four
types of human beings, of many lands, nations, tribes, and
and also the ways of evil men."
families,
8 N. N. Law, Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity, London, 1914.
The following precept may serve as an example of the text:
that the king who has acquired new territory "should follow
the people in their faith, with which they celebrate their na-
tional, religious, and congregational festivals and amuse-
ments."
9 It is a common convention of Indianists to print the word
"self" in when the ego (jivatman) is intended, and
lower case
with a capital when the higher self, the divine nature (para-
matmari), is referred to. Spiritual freedom —the true goal
is the release of the self from the ego concept.
10 Dharma is that morality by which a given social order is
protected. "It Dharma that civilization is maintained"

is by
(Matsya Purana, cxlv. 27). Dharma may also be translated as
social norm, moral law, vocation, function, order, duty,
righteousness, or as religion, mainly in its exoteric aspects.
11
Purushartha. This is the Brahmanical formula of utility,
forming the standard of social ethics. A given activity is use-

ful,and therefore right, if it conduces to the attainment of
dharma, artha, kama and moksha (function, prosperity,
pleasure, and spiritual freedom), or any one or more of these
ij4 ' Notes
without detriment to any other. Brahmanical utility takes

into account the whole man. Industrial sociologists enter-
tain a much narrower view of utility: "It is with utilities
that have a price that political economy is mainly con-
cerned" (Nicholson, Principles of Political Economy, ed. 2,
p. 88).
12 Manu, x. 126.
13 Manu, xi. 63, 64, 66. 'A truly progressive society is only
possible where there is unity of purpose. How rapidly the
social habit can then be changed is well illustrated by the
action of many of the Allied Governments in taking control
of several departments of industrial production. It is only
sad to reflect thatit needed a great disaster to compel so
simple an act as the limitation of profits. In the same way

vast sums are now spent on caring for the welfare of an army
of soldiers who would be, and will again be, left to the
tender mercies of the labor market in times of peace. If the
nation were as united in peace by a determination to make
the best of life how much could not be accomplished at a
fraction of the cost of war? If a nation can co-operate for self-
defence, why not also for self-development?'

14 Manu, ii. 218.
15 Manu, ix. 45. "The man is not the man alone; he is the man,
the woman, and the progeny. The Sages have declared that
the husband is the same as the wife."
16 I
do not only refer to the two world wars, as such, but civili-
zation at the parting of the ways.

17 I should like to point out here that Mr. Lowes Dickinson's
return to this position ('An Essay on India, China, and
Japan/ and 'Appearances,' both 1914), is very unfortunate.
He says the religion of India is the Religion of Eternity, the
religion of Europe the Religion of Time, and chooses the
latter. These phrases, by the way, are excellent renderings
of Pravritti dharma and Nivritti dharma. So far as Mr. Dick-

inson's distinction is true, in so far that is as India suffers
from premature vairagya (disillusionment), and Europe from
excessive activity, so far each exhibits an excess which each
ij$ : Notes
should best be able to correct. But an antithesis of this sort

isonly conceptually possible, and no race or nation has ever
followed either of the religions exclusively. All true civiliza-
tion is the due adjustment of the two points of view. And

just because this balance hasbeen so conspicuously attained
in India, one who knows far more of India than Mr. Dickin-
son remarks that she "may yet be destined to prepare the
way for the reconciliation of Christianity with the world,
and through the practical identification of the spiritual with
the temporal life, to hasten the period of that third step for-
ward in the moral development of humanity, when there
will be no divisions of race, creed, or class, or nationality be-
tween men, by whatsoever name they may be called, for they
will all be one in the acknowledgment of their common
Brotherhood" (Sir George Birdwood, Sva, p. 355).
18 The ideal of self-determination (sva-raj) for which the Allies
claimed to be fighting in both world wars.
19 — —
For example and without the least ill-will the English in
India who unconsciously created social confusion simply be-
cause they could not understand what they saw, and en-
deavoured to fit a co-operative structure into the categories
of modern political theory.
20 S. C. Basu, The Daily Practice of the Hindus, 2nd ed., p. 4.
HINDU VIEW OF ART: HISTORICAL

1
i.e.Regards aesthetic experience as merely the satisfaction of
an appetite.
2 Agni Purana, ch, xliii. Cf. Patanjali, Yoga Sutra, 1, 38. For
the theory of dreams see also Katha Upanishad, v. 8, and
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, iv. 3, 9-14 and 16-18.
3
Condensed from Foucher, Iconographie Bouddhique, 11,
8-11.
4 Similar views are met with again and again in modern
aesthetic.Goethe perceived that he who attains to the vision
of beauty is from himself set free: Riciotto Canudo remarks
that the secret of all art is self-forgetfulness: and Laurence
iy6 : Notes
Binyon that "we too should make ourselves empty, that the
great soul of the universemay fill us with its breath (Ideas of
Design in East and West, Atlantic Monthly, 1913).
5 Wagner speaks of "an internal sense which becomes clear
and active when all the others, directed outward, sleep or
dream" (Combarieu, Music, its Laws and Evolution, p. 63).
That God is the actual theme of all art is suggested by San-
karacharya in the commentary on the Brahma Sutra, i, i, 20-
21, where he indicates the Brahman as the real theme of
secular as well as spiritual songs: and according to Behmen,
"It is nought indeed but thine own hearing and willing that
do hinder thee, so that thou dost not see and hear God
(Dialogues on the Supersensual Life).
6 Cf. the phrase "Devam bhutva, devam yajet": to worship the
god become the god. That which remains for us object, re-
mains unknown. Like Dante: "Who paints a figure, if he
cannot be it, cannot draw it." (Canzone xvi.)
7
"He who does not imagine in stronger and better linea-
ments," said Blake, "and in stronger and better light than
his perishing mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all."
8
Phyllanthus emblica, the round fruit which is about the
size of an ordinary marble. The simile is a common Indian
formula for clear insight.
9 Ramayana, Balakandam.
10 Cf. Coomaraswamy and Duggirala, The Mirror of Gesture,
Introduction, p. 3. So Vasubandhu speaks of the poet as see-
ing the world, like a jujube fruit, lying within the hollow of
his hands (Vasavadatta, invocation). "It seems to me," Wil-
liam Morris wrote, "that no hour of the day passes that the
whole world does not show itself to me": and Magnusson
records of him, referring to Sigurd the Volsung and other
poems, that "in each case the subject matter had taken such
a clearly definite shape in his mind, as he told me, that it
only remained to write it down."

11
Croce, Aesthetic, pp. 162, 168.
12 "Yoga is skill in action." Bhagavad Gita ii. 50.
13
Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious, pp. 330, 336.
14
"The lineaments of images," says Shukracharya, "are deter-
iyj : Notes
mined by the relation which subsists between the adorer and

the Adored." Cf. the Shaiva invocation "Thou that dost take
the forms imagined by thy worshippers."
15 We cannot assert this too strongly of orthodox or classic
(shastriya) Hindu art. Rajput painting more romantic, but

is
even there the theme is pre-determined in literature, and the

pictures, though they are not illustrations in the representa-
tive sense of the word, are pictures for verses just as much as
the Ajanta paintings or the reliefs of Borobodur.
16 "Even the misshapen image of a god," says Shukracharya, "is
to be preferred to the image of a man, however charming":
in full accord with our modern view, that prefers conviction
to prettiness.
17 From a Tamil version of a Shilpa Shastra, quoted by Kearns,
Indian Antiquary, vol. v., 1876.
18 Grunwedel, Mythologie des Buddhismus, p. 102. Cf. Ce-
zanne, "I have never permitted anyone to watch me while I
work. I refuse to do anything before anyone" (quoted W. H.
Wright, Modern Painting, p. 152).
19 Kearns, loc. cit.
20 The Sociology is discussed more fully in Sir George Bird-
wood's Industrial Arts of India, and Sva, and my Mediaeval
Sinhalese Art and The Indian Craftsman.
21 The beginnings of Hindu art also go back to the second
or third century B. C, but apart from a few coins, little or
nothing has been preserved of earlier date than the third or
fourth century A. D. But its origins are recognizable in the
Harappa culture of the third millennium B. C. Mohenjo-
Daro-Harappa.
HINDU VIEW OF ART: THEORETICAL

1
Especially Vishvanatha in the Sahitya Darpana, ca. 1450
A. D. (trans. Bibliotheca Indica, Ballantyne). Also in the
Agni Pur ana, and the Vyakti Viveka.
2 As remarked by W. Rothenstein, "What is written upon a
single work should enable people to apply clear principles to
all works they may meet with" {Two Drawings by Hok'sai,
ij8 : Notes
1910). Benedetto Croce, "laws relating to special

Also
branches are not conceivable" (Aesthetic, p. 350).
3 Such words as saundarya and rupa should be translated as
loveliness or charm.
No one suggests that metre makes poetry. This error was
hardly to be expected in a country where even the dryest
treatises on law and logic are composed in metre. Metrical
poetry is padya kavya, prose poetry is gadya kavya, but it is
rasa that m?kes them poetry.
4 Dhanamjaya, Dasharupa, iv. 1.
5
Or any two rasas combined.
6 Dasharupa,
iv. 46.
7
Bharata, Natya Shastra, 7, 8.
8 Dasharupa,
iv. 45.
Blake, too, says that "Knowledge of Ideal Beauty is not to

be acquired. It is born with us." And as P'u Sung-ling re-
marks: "Each interprets in his own way the music of heaven;
and whether it be discord or not, depends upon antecedent
causes" (Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, p.
xviii).
9 Dasharupa, 1, 6.
10 Dasharupa, iv. 50. Cf. Goethe. "He who would work for the
stage . should leave Nature in her proper place and take
. .
careful heed not to have recourse to anything but what may

be performed by children with puppets upon boards and
laths, together with sheets of cardboard and linen" quoted —
in 'The Mask,' Vol: v. p. 3.
11 Jiban-smriti, pp. 134-5.
12 Dasharupa, iv. 47.
13 The likeness of aesthetic to linguistic is indicated in Das-
harupa, iv. 46.
14 Vakyam rasatmakam vacakam —Sahitya Darpana, 3.
15 w. 33, 51, 55, 54.
16 Wonder
is denned as a kind of expanding of the mind in
'admiration.'
17 The expression rasasvadana is fictitious, because rasasvadana
is rasa, and vice versa. In esthetic contemplation, as in perfect
— —
iyp : Notes
worship, there is identity of subject and object, cause and

effect.
18 The rasika is therefore unable to convince the Philistine by
argument: he can but say, Taste and see that it is good
for /know in what I have believed.
19 GliveBell,^(r^p. 54.
20 Bhagavad Gita, 111, 14.
THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE

1 Rasa, rasavant and rasika are the principal terms of Indian
aesthetics, explained in the preceding chapter.
2 Cf. "Listening, you cannot hear its sound, and gazing, you
cannot see its —Chung Tzu: "The
form." of in secret art lies
the artist himself" — Kuo Jo Hsu, (12th century), quoted in
The Kokka, No. 244.
3 Walt Whitman.
4
E. g., Riciotto Canudo: "It is certain that the secret of all
art . . . lies in the faculty of self-oblivion" (Music as a Re-
ligion of the Future).
BUDDHIST PRIMITIVES
1
Cullavagga, vi, 3, 2.
2 Vishvakarma, 80, 81.
3 Vishvakarma, 64.
4
Vishvakarma, 26.
6 A much later example of the same arrangement is illustrated
in Vishvakarma, 75.
6 Bhagavad Gita, vi, 10-21 —omitting the theistic elements.
7 Foucher (A.), L'Origine grecque de Vlmage du Bouddha,
Paris, 1913. p. 31.
8
Spooner, D. B. Archaeological Survey of India, Ann. Rep.,
1907-8 (1911), p. 144. Also Burgess, Gandhara Sculptures,
Journal of Indian Art, Vol. 8.
9 Foucher (A.), loc. cit., p. 41.
10 A characteristic example may be studied in Vincent Smith,
180 : Notes
History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, Plate xxiv.

11
Munsterberg (O.), Chinesische Kunstgeschichte, p. 117, n.
12 Bell(Clive),,4r*,p. 128.
18 Early Buddhist art in China and Japan is also "primitive"
in the aesthetic sense, precisely as Christian art in Europe pre-
served its primitive inspiration for six hundred years, be-
cause "some new race was always catching the inspiration
and feeling and expressing it with primitive sensibility and
passion."
THE DANCE OF SHIVA

1 A similar story is elsewhere related about an elephant; and
these legends account for the elephant or tiger skin, which
Shiva wears.
2 Kadavul Mamunivar's Tiruvatavurar Puranam, Puttarai-
vatil, Venracarukkam, stanza 75, translated by Nallasvami
Pillai, Shivajnanabodham, p. 74. This could also be ren-
dered:
Like heat latent in firewood, he fills all bodies:

Our Father dances, moving all souls into action, know ye!
Compare Eckhart, "J ust as the fire infuses the essence and
clearness into the dry wood, so has God done with man."
8 Cf. Marcel Schwob. Le Livre de Monelle. "This is the teach-
ing: Destroy, destroy, destroy. Destroy within yourself, de-
stroy allaround you. Make room for your soul and for other
souls. Destroy,because all creation proceeds from destruc-
tion. . For all building up is done with debris, and
. .
nothing in the world is new but shapes. But the shapes must
be perpetually destroyed Break every cup from which
. . .
you drink."
4 From the translation by Lydia L. Pimenoff Noble, published
in the Boston Symphony Orchestra Programme, October 29,
6 See Nandikeshvara, The Mirror of Gesture, translated by

Coomaraswamy and Duggirala, p. 1 1.
.
181 : Notes
INDIAN IMAGES WITH MANY ARMS

1
Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1910, vol. II.
2 Ivories, 1915, p. 332.
3 Industrial Arts of India, 1880, p. 125. If the fine arts were
until recently "unknown in India," perhaps this can be ex-
plained by the remark of B. H. Baden-Powell, who says that
"In a country like this we must not expect to find anything
that appeals to mind or deep feeling." For "unknown" to
Sir George Birdwood or Mr. Baden-Powell need not imply
anything more than "unrecognized."
It is fair to say that Mr. Vincent Smith's opinions have
been considerably modified since 1910.
INDIAN MUSIC
1
Maheshvara, who wanders through the world a penniless
and naked ascetic.
2 This is like the principle of 'conscious control' advanced by
F. M. Alexander in Man's Supreme Inheritance.
3 Cf. the Granth Sahib (Japji xxvii): "How many musicians,
how many ragas and raginis and how many singers sing
Thee?"
STATUS OF INDIAN WOMEN

1
'Knowledge of the Self — the Adhyatmavidya referred to
above, p. 9
2
Jahangir observes in his 'Memoirs' that the Hindu woman
'is the half of a man, and his companion in religious cere-
monies.' Cf. the Prema Sagara, ch. xxiv: 'without a wife a
sacrifice is not fruitful.'
3 A vigorous society can well afford to support, and in the
interests of spiritual values will gladly support, so far as sup-
port is necessary, not only thinkers and artists, whose func-
tion is obvious, but also a certain number of thorough-going
rebels who to all appearances are mere idlers. But the idler,
whether anchorite or courtesan, must not demand to be sup-
182 : Notes
ported in luxury, and must recognize that whatever he or

is given in love, and not according to law.
she receives
4
'Social conventions' are rarely 'man-made laws' alone.
5 Nizami.
6 Eastern Counties folk-song.
7
Somerset folksong.
8
Cf.The Great State, p. 127.
9 From an advertisement in the Englishwoman's Year Book,
1911.
10 Stanley Hall, Youth, ed. 1909, p. 286.
SAHAJA
1
Root meaning cognate, or innate, and hence, "spontaneous."
2 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
3
"How nicely can doggish lust beg for a piece of spirit, when
flesh is denied it!" —
Nietzsche.
COSMOPOLITAN VIEW OF NIETZSCHE

1
See, for example, Artzibashef's Sanine, where the one man
who is at peacewith himself, though far from a highly spir-
itual type, is still the most lovable.
YOUNG INDIA
1
Dhammapada.
2 Veblen, The Instinct of Workmanship.
3 Dinesh Chandra Sen, History of Bengali Language and
Literature.
4 Since writing this I have learned with regret that this is no
longer the case.
INDIVIDUALITY, AUTONOMY AND FUNCTION

1 Sva-bhava, sva-rajya, sva-dharma.
N 108—Art $2.45
SBN 374.5.0032.0
THE DANCE
OF SHIVA Revised Edition
FOURTEEN INDIAN ESSAYS
The life of Ananda Coomaraswamy was given to interpreting the

East to the West, and often the West to itself. Throughout these
beautifully written, integrated essays he puts forward the Indian
way of life as expressed in art and religion, to serve as a lesson to
Western peoples who have been caught up in a search for happiness
solely through material accumulation. Reminding us of the resources
in our own tradition, he suggests that the vigor of European action
must be united with the serenity of Asiatic thought if civilization is
not to destroy itself. Coomaraswamy's message is particularly appro-
priate now when many in the West feel that our culture has reached
a dead end, and are casting about for a new ideal that can replace
that of Faustian man.
ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY was born in 1877 in Colombo,

Ceylon, the son of an English mother and a Ceylon ese father.
Originally trained as a geologist, he soon extended his researches
into archeology, and from there to philology, iconography, meta-
physics, and religion. From
1917 until his death in 1947, he was re-
search fellow in Oriental art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
THE NOONDAY PRESS

NEW YORK 1 0003

Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Dance of Shiva

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Dance of Shiva

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ananda Coomaraswamy - The Dance of Shiva

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ANANDA K.

/. The Dance of Shiva. Cosmic Dance of Nataraja. Brahmanical

2. Shiva and Parvati on Mt. Kailasa. Brahmanical stone sculpture.

3. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. Buddhist bronze. Ceylon, 8th century.

5. Elephants. Mamallapuram. 8th century,

^V«*N*y: * •<•&** ' '*.*'-%..

8. right top. Brahmanical Temple at Badami, 8th century.

9. right bottom. Monkey family. Stone sculpture. Mamallapuram,

/o. Seated Buddha, Gandhara. /if century, A.D.

ii. right top. Dryad, Sanchi. 2nd century, B.C.

12. right bottom. Lay worshippers at a Buddha Shrine. Amaravati.

14. Standing Bodhisattva. Stone sculpture, Ceylon. 2nd century, A.D.

16. below. Standing Buddha. Stone sculpture, Ceylon.

iy. right. Standing images of Buddha. Stone sculpture.

19. Sadashiva. Brahmanical stone sculpture, Elephanta. 8th century.

21. Death of Hiranyakashipu. Brahmanical stone sculpture. Elura,

25. Madhu-madhavi Ragini (a musical mode). "The sweet, sweet rum-

Hindu marriage. From a Mughal painting, about 1600.

30. Radha in her kitchen: Krishna at the window. Rajput painting.

33. above. A School of Philosophy. Rajput painting, 18th century.

36. The Bathing Ghat at Benares.

This book, originally published by the

THE DRAWING OF SHIVA ON THE TITLE PACE

Tenth printing, 1972

WHAT HAS INDIA CONTRIBUTED TO HUMAN WELFARE?

HINDU VIEW OF ART: THEORY OF BEAUTY .*

THAT BEAUTY IS A STATE :

INDIAN IMAGES WITH MANY ARMS .*

intellectual fraternity .'

cosmopolitan view of nietzsche .*

individuality, autonomy and function .*

Each race contributes something essential to the world's

realization. The character built up in solving its own prob-

The heart and essence of the Indian experience is to be

freedom. All that India can offer to the world proceeds

own day. I do not suggest that the ancient Indian solutions

with a view to the attainment of the fruit of life; and this

of life, and a purposive organization of society in har-

losophy. In Europe and America the study of philosophy is

trary, philosophy is not regarded primarily as a mental

There is a fundamental difference between the Brah-

enough, he thinks, to deal with social misfortunes when

conditions rather than to change the social environment.

activity not directed in accordance with a consistent theory

Only one condition permits us to excuse the indifference

dividual exploitation, for all political effort lacking a phil-

herself in her own way. Indian philosophy is essentially the

reverence, and still regard with the highest respect and

above all in the nature of their appointed dharma, of

its effect upon individual character, reacted upon social

Indian generally; but we may fairly take the statesmanship

His Majesty feels "remorse for having con-

His Sacred Majesty desires that all animate beings should

gard it as their duty to conquer a new conquest. If per-

mals should not be killed for his table; he commands that

The Kshattriya-Brahman solution of the ultimate prob-

life, the Brahman-Utopists set themselves to found a social

to live a limitless life in this world." This inseparable

to divide the church from the everyday life, and to create

^V«Ny: * •<•&** ' '.'-%..