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"The man who knows nothing of music, literature, or art is no better than a
beast," ancient Hindu wisdom warned, "only without a beast's tail or
teeth." The arts of Civilization's armor, her weapons and shield against
all the pitfalls of life, lighting the darkest corner of the trail, helping us
to cross its most dangerous passes. Indian wisdom has always extolled art as a
key to the salvation of ultimate release sought by all good Hindus. There is a
holistic quality about Indian art, a unity of many forms and artistic
experiences. Like the microcosmic universe of a Hindu temple, they help us to
climb from terrestrial trails and samsaric fears.
Art pervades every facet of
Indian life, is found on every byway of Indian Civilization. Indian art in its
purest form is Yoga, a disciplined style of worship and self-restraint that may
also be thought of as India's oldest indigenous "science." Shiva, the
" Great God" of yogic practice, visually represented as "King of
Dance" (Nataraja), is the most remarkable single symbol of divine powers
ever created by Indian artistic genius. Indian artists have celebrated and
immortalized the beauty of human bodies in bronze and stone for more than 5,000
years. We do not know the name of a single genius among the many who brought
gods to life in the Ellora, Ajanta or Elephanta, Karli caves or those who
created the Chola Natarajas as magnificent as any work by Benvenuto Cellini. The
great Rodin was possibly the most sensitive and perceptive of the admirers of
Indian art.
The
transition from cave excavation and carving to the creation of Hindu temples is
most dramatically and powerfully depicted at Ellora, where an entire mountain
has literally been scooped out over several centuries by patient devoted artists
and architectural geniuses, who envisioned and "extracted" Lord
Shiva's Mount Kailasha temple inside that enormous rock dome. Ellora's
Kailasantha cave temple remains one of the true "wonders" of the world
of art and a unique monument to Hindu devotion. Captain
Philip Meadows Taylor
(1808-1876)
author, says: "the carving
on some of the pillars, and of the lintels and architraves of the doors, is
quite beyond description. No chased work in silver or gold could possibly be
finer. Bu what tools this very hard, tough stone could have done wrought and
polished as it is, is not at all intelligible at the present day."
Indian art is so intimately
associated with Indian religion and philosophy that it is difficult to
appreciate it fully unless one has some knowledge of the ideals that governed
the Indian mind. In Indian art there is always a religious urge, a looking
beyond. From the exuberant carvings of the Hindu temples to the luminous
wall-paintings of Ajanta, to the intriguing art of cave sites and sophisticated
temple-building traditions, the Indian subcontinent offers an amazing visual
feast.
Introduction
Fine Arts - Timeline
Wonders of Elephanta
European
Reaction to Indian Art
Denigration by Marxist
historians of India
The
Master of the Dance
Aurobindo and Indian Art
Ideals
of Indian Art
Painting
Conclusion
Introduction
 Dr.
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy
(1877-1947) scholar and art historian and late curator of Boston Museum, has observed:
"Indian art is essentially
religious. The conscious aim of Indian art is the intimation of Divinity. But
the Infinite and Unconditioned cannot be expressed in finite terms; and art,
unable to portray Divinity unconditioned, and unwilling to be limited by the
limitation of humanity, is in India dedicated to the representation of Gods, who
to finite man represent comprehensible aspects of an infinite whole.
Sankaracarya prayed thus: "O Lord, pardon my three sins: I have in
contemplation clothed in form Thyself that has no form; I have in praise
described Thee who dost transcend all qualities; and in visiting shrines I have
ignored Thine omnipresence."
"The
extant remains of Indian art cover a period of more than two thousand years.
During this time many schools of thought have flourished and decayed, invaders
of many races have poured into India and contributed to the infinite variety of
her intellectual resources; countless dynasties have ruled and passed away. But
just as through all Indian schools of thought there runs like
a golden thread the fundamental idealism of the Upanishads, the
Vedanta, so in all Indian art there is a unity that underlies all its
bewildering variety."
(source:
Essays on National Idealism - By Ananda K. Coomraswamy
Munshiram Manoharlal
Publishers.1981 p. 17 27-28).
From its Indo-Sumerian and Vedic-Mound beginnings
to the various peaks reached during the Maurya, Sunga, Andhra, Kusana and Gupta
periods, Indian art has been influential for centuries. The grave and sensuous
and infinitely varied arts of India have long been admired around the
world. India is vast (the size of Europe); the birthplace of great
religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism; and the home of
sophisticated civilizations dating back more than 4,000 years.
 These factors
combine to give India one of the longest and most complex art traditions of the
world. Most important is the realization that "the consistent fabric of
Indian life was never rent by the Western dichotomy between religious belief and
worldly practice"--hence the easy coexistence in India of extreme religious
asceticism and the overt eroticism that pervades temples like Khajuraho and
Patan.
A grand sweep, from the ancient cities of the Indus valley, the
development of Buddhist art (which by the 12th century had faded away in the
land of its birth), the glorious paintings of Ajanta.
In India, anonymity of artists has not been accidental; it is
a distinctive national trait.
“The modern world, with its glorification of the
personality of authors,” observes Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy, “produces work of genius and works of mediocrity,
following the peculiarities of individual artists.
In India, the virtue or
defect of any work is the virtue or defect of the race in that age. The names
and peculiarities of individual artists, even if we could recover them, would
not enlighten us: nothing depends upon (individual) genius or requires the
knowledge of an individual psychology for its interpretation. To understand it
at all, we must understand experience common to all men of the time and place in
which a given work was produced.”
This is true of the Vedas, as well as the marvelous Kailas
excavations; equally true of Mohenjadaro, about five thousand years ago. This
monumental anonymity is indeed writ large on the brow of our civilization.
(source: Our
Heritage and Its Significance - By Shripad Rama Sharma p.
121-122).
Sachinder Kumar Maity
(?) an author writes:
"Like India herself Indian Art is of great
antiquity and one cannot but marvel at the height reached by Indian artists
during the Classical Age."
"Indian art has contributed a unique chapter in
the history of human civilization", says E.
B. Havell. Its continued
vitality, its astonishing range - specially in the field of painting, sculpture,
and architecture, no less than the lasting sense of beauty and power it conveys,
has placed the artistic heritage among the major cultural legacies of the world.
The architecture that created the temples of Madurai, Tanjore, Khajuraho, Orissa,
the rock-cut pagodas of Mahabalipuram, the sculpture that executed the Mathura
image of Buddha, Trimurti of Elephanta, the famous Nataraja of Tanjore and the
paintings which had its efflorescence in the haunting world of beauty in the
caves of Ajanta and Ellora, and thousand others, have nothing to lose by
comparison with the whole artistic wealth of Europe during its entire
history.
(source:
Cultural
Heritage of Ancient India - By Sachindra Kumar Maity p.10-27).
Pitirim
Sorokin (1889-1968) Russian-American
sociologist of Harvard University has written:
"Art
for a Hindu is life as it is interpreted by religion and philosophy. Art for
art's sake is consequently unknown. Instead a symbolism was created to express
various qualities of the superhuman soul and superhuman figures."
(source:
Glimpses
of Indian Culture - By Dr. Giriraj Shah p. 108).
Shiva
Vishnu - destructive and creative forces of God embodied in one
being.
"Indian Art is a blossom of the tree of the Divine wisdom, full of
suggestions from worlds invisible, striving to express the ineffable."
***
Annie Wood Besant
(1847-1933) was an active socialist on
the executive committee of the Fabian Society
along with George Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw regarded her the
"greatest woman public speaker of her time." Was a prominent leader of
India's freedom movement, member of the Indian National Congress, and of the
Theosophical Society. She has
said,
"Indian Art is a blossom of the tree of the Divine wisdom, full of
suggestions from worlds invisible, striving to express the ineffable, and it can
never be understood merely by the emotional and the intellectual; only in the
light of the Spirit can its inner significance be glimpsed."
(source: India's Culture
Through the Ages - By Mohan Lal Vidyarthi p. 114).
Bishop Heber (1783- 1826)
was a Church of England bishop, now remembered chiefly as a hymn-writer.
He observed that
"the
Hindus “build like Titans, and finish like
jewelers.”
(source:
India:
Land
of the Black Pagoda - By
Lowell
Thomas
p. 326 – 329
).
Will Durant
(1885-1981) American historian has written glowingly about Hindu art:
"Before Indian art,
as before every phase of Indian civilization, we stand in humble wonder at its
age and its continuity. From the time of Mohenjodaro to the present,
through the vicissitudes of five thousand years, India has been creating its
peculiar type of beauty in a hundred arts. The record is broken and incomplete,
not because India ever rested, but because war and the idol-smashing ecstasies
of Moslems destroyed uncounted masterpieces of building and statuary, and
poverty neglected the preservation of others. Probably no other nation known to
us has ever had so exuberant a variety of arts."
 "We shall never be able to do justice to
Indian art, for ignorance and fanaticism have destroyed its greatest
achievements, and have half ruined the rest. At Elephanta the Portuguese
certified their piety by smashing statuary and bas-reliefs in unrestrained
barbarity; and almost everywhere in the north the Moslems brought to ground
those triumphs of Indian architecture, of the 5th and 6th centuries, which
tradition ranks as far superior to the later works that arouse our wonder and
admiration today. The Moslems decapitated statues, and tore them limb from limb;
they appropriated for their mosques, and in great measure imitated, the graceful
pillars of the Jain temples." Time and fanaticism joined in the
destruction, for the orthodox Hindus abandoned and neglected temples that had
been profaned by the touch of alien hands."
"We may guess at the lost grandeur of north
Indian architecture by the powerful edifices that still survive in the south,
where Moslem rule entered only in minor degree, and after some habituation to
India had softened Mohammedan hatred of Hindu ways. Col. Ferguson had counted
some thirty southern temples any one of which, in his estimate, must have cost
as much as an English cathedral." Only a Hindu
pietist rich in words could describe the lovely symmetry of the shrine at Ittagi,
in Hydrebad, or the temple at Somnathpur in Mysore, in which gigantic masses of
stone are carved with the delicacy of lace; or the Hoyshaleshwara
Temple at Halebid...Here, Ferguson adds, "the artistic combination of
horizontal and vertical lines, and the play of outline and of light and shade,
far surpass anything in Gothic art. The effects are just what the medieval
architects were often aiming at, but which they never attained so perfectly as
was done at Halebid."
If we marvel at the laborious piety that could
carve eighteen hundred feet of frieze in the Halebid temple, and could portray
in them two thousand elephants each different from all the rest, what shall we
say of the patience and courage that could undertake to cut a complete temple
out of the solid rock? But this was a common achievement of the Hindu artisans.
At Mamallapuram, on the east coast near Chennai, they carved several
rathas or pagodas, of which the fairest is the Dharma-raja-ratha, or monastery
for the highest discipline. At Ellora, a place of religious pilgrimage..
excavating out of the mountain rock great monolithic temples of
which the supreme example is the Hindu shrine of Kailasha - named after Shiva's
mythological paradise in the Himalayas. Here the tireless builder cut a hundred
feet down into the stone to isolate the block - 250 by 160 feet - that was to be
the temple; then they carved the walls into powerful pillars, statues and
bas-reliefs; then they chiseled out of the interior, and lavished there the most
amazing art: let the bold fresco of "The Lovers" serve as a specimen.
Finally, their architectural passion still unspent, they carved a series of
chapels and monasteries deep into the rock of three sides of the quarry.
(source: Story
of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant
MJF Books.1935 p. 584-585).
Richard Lannoy
(1928 - ) author of
several books including, The
Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society
has pointed out that the caves of India are the most singular fact about
Indian art, and he is right, for they serve to distinguish it from that of other
civilizations. A prodigious amount or labor, spread over a period of about 1,300
years, was expended in this “art of mass”, the excavations of rock
sanctuaries and monasteries. These caves were hewn out of solid rock; in other
words, they were “constructed” through the excavation of space. These
sanctuaries were cut from nearly-perpendicular cliffs to a depth of a hundred
feet: in all cases, this excavation was carried out by means of a chisel ¾
inches wide; the same chisel was also used to carve out elaborately decorated
columns, galleries, and shrines. The two largest
structures of the kind are staggering in their dimensions.
(source:
Decolonizing
History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West
1492 to the Present Day - By Claude Alvares p.72-73).
 Alain Danielou
a.k.a
Shiv Sharan (1907-1994), son of French
aristocracy, author of numerous books on philosophy, religion, history and arts
of India.
He was perhaps the first European to boldly
proclaim his Hinduness. He had a wide effect upon Europe's understanding of
Hinduism. He explained:
"The
artist must prepare a geometrical design in accordance with the symbolic
proportions required for the image he wants to represent. He must concentrate
his vision and his thought on the magic diagram or yantras, till he perceives
through the geometrical outlines the form he is to sculpture. This concentration
of the artist is one of the highest and completest form of concentration."
(source:
Glimpses
of Indian Culture - By Dr. Giriraj Shah p. 108).
Dr.
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy
(1877-1947) Indian art historian, a remarkable critic, scholar and mystic, late
curator at the Boston Museum, who dazzled the Western world with his
message concerning the spiritual greatness of Indian art. A pioneer
historian of Indian art and foremost interpreter of Indian culture to the West. He
detected in India “a strong national genius... since the beginning of her
history.” He found Indian art and culture “a joint creation
of the Dravidian and Aryan genius.” Of Buddhism, he wrote:’ “the more
profound our study, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish Buddhism from
Brahmanism, or to say in what respects, if any, Buddhism is really unorthodox.
The outstanding distinction lies in the fact that Buddhist doctrine is
propounded by an apparently historical founder. Beyond this there are only broad
distinctions of emphasis.”
 Indian art had accompanied Indian religion across
straits and frontiers into Sri Lanka, Java, Cambodia, Siam, Burma, Tibet, Khotan,
Turkestan, Mongolia, China, Korea, and Japan; "in Asia all roads lead to
India." Angkor Vat a masterpiece equal to the finest architectural
achievements of the Egyptians, the Greeks, or the cathedrals of Europe. An
enormous moat, twelve miles in length, surrounds the temple; over the moat runs
a paved bridge guarded by dissuasive Nagas in stone; then an ornate enclosing
wall; then spacious galleries, whose relief's tell again the tales of the Mahabharata
and Ramayana; then the stately edifice
itself, rising upon a broad base, by level after level of a terraced pyramid, to
the sanctuary of the god, two hundred feet high.
Here magnitude does not detract
from beauty, but helps it to an imposing magnificence
that startles the Western mind into some weak realization of the ancient
grandeur once possessed by Oriental civilization.
(source: Story
of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage By Will Durant
MJF Books.1935 p.601).
"The Hindus do not regard the religious,
aesthetic, and scientific standpoints as necessarily conflicting, and in all
their finest work, whether musical, literary, or plastic, these points of view,
nowadays so sharply distinguished, are inseparably united.
(source: The
Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon - By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
p. 17).
"All that India can offer proceeds from her
philosophy, a state of mental concentration (yoga) on the part of the artist and
the enactment of a certain amount of ritual being postulated as the source of
the 'spirituality' of Indian art."
(source: The
Dance of Siva: Fourteen Indian Essays - By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
p. 21).
In the process of comparing both the European and
Oriental traditional philosophy of art, a task, it would seem, which had
convinced him of the perennial value of the traditional point of view since the
works of art as in the case of the Indian sub-continent and its environs
appeared to him to endure and increase in value down
through the ages.
Rizwan Salim (
? ) reviewer,
and assistant editor, American Sentinel,
has written eloquently about Hindu art:
"It is clear that India
at the time when Muslim invaders turned towards it (8 to 11th century) was the
earth's richest region for its wealth in precious and semi-precious stones, gold
and silver; religion and culture; and its fine arts and letters. Tenth century
Hindustan was also too far advanced than its contemporaries in the East and the
West for its achievements in the realms of speculative philosophy and scientific
theorizing, mathematics and knowledge of nature's workings. Hindus of the early
medieval period were unquestionably superior in more things than the Chinese,
the Persians (including the Sassanians), the Romans and the Byzantines of the
immediate preceding centuries. The followers of Siva and Vishnu on this
subcontinent had created for themselves a society more mentally evolved - joyous
and prosperous too - than had been realized by the Jews, Christians, and Muslim
monotheists of the time. Medieval India, until the Islamic invaders destroyed
it, was history's most richly imaginative culture and one of the five most
advanced civilizations of all times."
Ancient
Hindu temple architecture is the most awe-inspiring, ornate and spellbinding
architectural style found anywhere in the world. No artists of any historical
civilization have ever revealed the same genius as ancient Hindustan's artists
and artisans.
(source: Need
for Cultural pride - Revival - By Rizwan Salim The Hindustan
Times 9/20/1998).
 Dr.
Ernest Binfield Havell (1861-1934)
principal to the Madras College of
Art in the 1890s and left as principal of the Calcutta College of Art some 20
years later. His major ideas about Indian art theory are to be found in his two works, Indian
Sculpture and Painting (1908) and, more important, The Ideals of Indian Art
(1911). The Ideals of Indian Art was written with the express purpose of
changing the prevailing European indifference to Indian art and bringing about a
proper appreciation of its aesthetic qualities.
"Indian artistic expression begins from a
starting-point far removed from that of the European. Only an infinitesimal
number of Europeans, even of those who pass the best part of their lives in
India, make any attempt to understand the philosophic, religious, mythological
and historical ideas of which Indian art is the embodiment."
In other words, he was perceptive enough to see
that it was vital to judge work of Indian art on the basis of standards of art
criticism evolved within the Indian tradition instead of employing European
standards which were extraneous to the tradition.
(source: Much Maligned
Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art - By Partha Mitter
p. 271).
"'The opposition of Western materialism to the
philosophy of the East always makes it difficult for the Europeans to approach
Indian art with anything like unprejudiced minds. The whole of modern European
academic art-teaching has been based upon the unphilosophical theory that beauty
is a quality which is inherent in certain aspects of matter or form.."
Indian thought takes a much wider, a more
profound and comprehensive view of art. The Indian artist has the whole creation
and every aspect of it for his field; not merely a limited section of it, mapped
out by academic professors. Beauty, says the Indian philosopher, is subjective,
not objective. It is not inherent in form or matter; it
belongs only to spirit, and can only be apprehended by spiritual vision. "
(source: The
Art Heritage of India - By Ernest Binfield Havell p. 134-135).
He also
pointed out the fallacy and absurdities of some Western historians to find some
foreign influence on Indian art. He said:
"Indian
art was inspired by Indian Nature, Indian philosophy and religious teaching, and
no one."
(source:
Glimpses
of Indian Culture - By Dr. Giriraj Shah p. 115).
 Havell thought Indian art was conceptual, aiming
at the realization of 'something finer and subtle than ordinary physical beauty.
The image that the Indian created came from inside his head; he had no need of a
goose-pimpled model posing uncomfortably in his studio. His achievement was not
that of capturing real life in art, but of giving birth to an abstract
ideal. He said: " A figure with three heads, and four, six or eight
arms, seems to a European a barbaric conception, though it is not less
physiologically impossible than the wings growing from the human scapula in the
European representation of angels.... But it is altogether foolish to condemn
such artistic allegories a priori because they do not conform to the canons of
the classic art of Europe. All art is suggestion and convention, and if Indian
artists can suggest divine attributes to Indian people with Indian culture, they
have fulfilled the purpose of their art."
Just as angels are given wings, or saints halos,
or just as the Holy Spirit was portrayed as a dove, so Shiva or Vishnu were
given extra arms to hold the symbols of their various attributes, or extra heads
for their different roles. Havell showed how consummately the Indian artist
could handle movement. Taking the example of the famous Nataraja (dancing Shiva)
bronzes of south India, he first explored its symbolism. No work of Indian art
is without a wealth of allegory and symbol, ignorance of which was, and still
is, a major stumbling block for most non-Indians. The Nataraja deals with the
divine ecstasy of creation expressed in dance.
"Art will
always be caviare to the vulgar,
but those who would really learn and understand it should begin with Indian art,
for true Indian art is pure art, stripped of the superfluities and vulgarities
which delight the uneducated eye. Yet Indian art, being more subtle and
recondite than the classical art of Europe, requires a higher degree of artistic
understanding, and it rarely appeals to European dilettanti, who with a
smattering of perspective, anatomy, and rules of proportion added to their
classical scholarship, aspire to be art critics, amateur painters, sculptors or
architects, and these unfortunately have the principal voice in art
administration in Indian."
Comparing the European and Hindu art, Havell
says:
"European art has, as it were its wings
clipped: it knows only the beauty of earthly things. Indian art, soaring into
the highest empyrean, is ever trying to bring down to earth something of the
beauty of the things above."
(source: Indian
Sculpture and Painting - By
Ernest Binfield Havell Elibron
Classics reprint. Paperback. New. Based on 1908 edition by John Murray, London.
p. 24
- 69).
Dr. James Fergusson architectural
historian, has made the following observation regarding Hindu art:
"When Hindu sculpture first dawns upon us in
the rails of Buddha Gaya and Bharhut, 220 to 250 B.C. it is thoroughly original,
absolutely without, a trace of foreign influence, but quite capable of
expressing in ideas, and of telling its story with a distinctness that never was
surpassed, at least in India....For an honest, purpose-like, pre-Raphaelite kind
of art, there is probably nothing much better to be found anywhere."
(source: Indian
and Eastern Architecture - By James
Fergusson).
Baron John Emerich
Edward Dalberg Acton (1834 -1902) English historian, was greatly struck
with the architecture of Dwaraka, which he calls 'the wonderful city," and
says:
"The natives of that country (India) have carried the art of
construction and ornamenting excavated grottoes to a much higher degree of
perfection than any other people."
(source: Geographical
Ephemerides, Volume XXXII, p. 12).
 According to Rene
Grousset (1885-1952) French art Historian. Author of several
books including Civilization of India and
The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia.
He writes about the Indian
influence in South East Asia:
"In
the high plateau of eastern Iran, in the oases of Serindia, in the arid wastes
of Tibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria, in the ancient civilized lands of China and
Japan, in the lands of the primitive Mons and Khmers and other tribes of
Indo-China, in the countries of the Malaya-Polynesians, in Indonesia and Malay, India
left the indelible impress of her high culture, not only upon religion, but also
upon art, and literature, in a word, all the higher things of spirit."
Angkor wat, Cambodia.
India
left the indelible impress of her high culture, not only upon religion, but also
upon art, and literature, in a word, all the higher things of spirit."
For
more on Greater India refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi
and Sacred Angkor.
***
"There is an obstinate
prejudice thanks to which India is constantly represented as having lived, as it
were, hermetically sealed up in its age-old civilization, apart from the rest of
Asia. Nothing could be more exaggerated. During the first eight centuries of our
era, so far as religion and art are concerned, central Asia was a sort of Indian
colony. It is often forgotten that in the early Middle
Ages there existed a "Greater
India," a vast Indian empire. A
man coming from the Ganga or the Deccan to Southeast Asia felt as much at home
there as in his own native land. In those days the Indian Ocean really deserved
its name."
(source: Civilizations
of the East - By Rene Grousset
Vol. II, Chapter - Farther India and the Malay Archipelago p. 275-343). For
more on Greater India refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi
and Sacred Angkor.
He
gives a fine interpretation of the image of Nataraja:
“Whether
he be surrounded or not by the flaming aureole of the Tiruvasi (Pabhamandala)
– the circle of the world which he both fills and oversteps – the King of
the Dance is all rhythm and exaltation. The tambourine which he sounds with one
of his right hands draws all creatures into this rhythmic motion and they dance
in his company. The conventionalized locks of flying hair and the blown scarfs
tell of the speed of this universal movement, which crystallizes matter and
reduces it to powder in turn. One of his left hands holds the fire which
animates and devours the worlds in this cosmic whirl. One of the God’s feet is
crushing a Titan, for “this dance is danced upon the bodies of the dead”,
yet one of the right hands is making a gesture of reassurance (abhayamudra), so
true it is that, seen from the cosmic point of view…the very cruelty of this
universal determinism is kindly, as the generative principle of the future. And,
indeed, on more than one of our bronzes the King of the Dance wears a broad
smile. He smiles at death and at life, at pain and at joy, alike, or
rather,..his smile is death and life, both joy and pain…'
Lord Shiva:
the King of
the Dance is all rhythm and exaltation.
‘‘the dancing
Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going
through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one
another’’.
Lord
Shiva Nataraja — shows that
the ancient seers’ revelations encompass concepts which are at once
both mystical and tantalizingly scientific.
***
From
this lofty point of view, in fact, all things fall into their place, finding
their explanation and logical compulsion. Here art is the faithful interpreter
of a philosophical concept. The plastic beauty of the rhythm is no
more than the expression of an ideal rhythm. The very multiplicity of arms,
puzzling as it may seem at first sight, is subject in turn to an inward law,
each pair remaining a model of elegance in itself, so that the whole being of
the Nataraja thrills with a magnificent harmony in his terrible joy. And as
though to stress the point that the dance of the divine actor is indeed a sport,
(lila) – the sport of life and death, the sport of creation and destruction,
at once infinite and purposeless – the first of the left hands hangs limply
from the arm in the careless gesture of the gajahasta (hand as the elephant’s
trunk). And lastly, as we look at the back view of the statue, are not the
steadiness of these shoulders which uphold world, and the majesty of this
Jove-like torso, as it were a symbol of the stability and immutability of
substance, while the gyration of the legs in its dizzy speed would seem to
symbolize the vortex of phenomena.”
(source:
The Civilization of the East – India - by Rene
Grousset p. 252 - 53).
He speaks of the Trimurti
statue at Elephanta Caves:
"Universal
art has succeeded in few materialization of the Divine as powerful and also as
balanced. He believed that it is "the greatest representation of
the pantheistic god created by the hands of man."
He concludes with poetic
enthusiasm: "Never have the overflowing sap of life, the pride of force
superior to everything, the secret intoxication of the inner god of things been
so serenely expressed."
(source: The
India I Love - By Marie-Simone Renou p. 88-93).
In the words of Rene Grousset,
" The three countenances of the one being are here harmonized without a
trace of effort. There are few material representations of the divine principle
at once as powerful and as well balanced as this in the art of the whole world.
Nay, more, here we have undoubtedly the grandest representation of the
pantheistic God ever made by the hand of man...Indeed, never have the exuberant
vigor of life, the tumult of universal joy expressing itself in ordered harmony,
the pride of a power superior to any other, and the secret exaltation of the
divinity immanent in all things found such serenely expressed."
(source: The
Civilization of the East – India - by Rene Grousset p.245-6).
In its Olympian majesty, the
Mahesamurti of Elephanta is worthy of comparison with the Zeus of Mylasa or the
Asklepios of Melos."
(source: Civilizations
of the East - By Rene Grousset
Vol. II, p. 245-246).
"The principal relief at Mallalipuram is the
great rock-carving known as the Gangacatarna "descent of the Ganga".
This enormous sculpture is high relief, measuring nearly 30 yards in length and
23 feet in height and entirely covering one face of the cliff, groups a whole
world of animals, ascetics, genii, and gods round the cascade in which sports a
band of nagas and nagis, symbolic of the sacred waters. What we have before us
here is a vast picture, a regular fresco in stone.
This relief is a masterpiece
of classic art in the breadth of its composition, the sincerity of the impulse
which draws all creatures together round the beneficent waters, and its deep,
fresh love of nature. In particular we may draw attention to the ascetic
prostrating himself on the left of the cascade; this amazingly realistic figure
with its synthetic, rugged, and direct workmanship, at once restless and simple,
has all the quality of a Rodin."
(source: Civilizations
of the East - By Rene Grousset
Vol. II, Chapter -
Farther India and the Malay Archipelago
p. 230).
Abu
Fasl (1551 - 1602) was the vizier of the great Mughal emperor Akbar
and author of the Akbarnama the official history of Akbar's reign
.
He wrote of this singular
architecture of Konark thus:
“Its
cost was defrayed by twelve years’ revenue of the province. Even those whose
judgment is critical, and who are difficult to please, stand astonished at its
sight.”
(source:
India:
Land
of the Black Pagoda - By
Lowell
Thomas
p. 326 – 329
).
The Konark war-horse,
prancing into battle with a massively strong warrior striding beside it.
***
Of the colossal war-horse placed outside the
Southern facade of the black Pagoda at Kanarak in Orissa, built about the middle
of the thirteenth century by Narsingaha I, art critic E.
B. Havell says:
"Here Indian sculptors
have shown that they can express with as much fire and passion as the greatest
European art the pride of victory and the glory of triumphant warfare, for not
even the Homeric grandeur of the Elgin marbles surpasses the magnificent
movement and modelling of this Indian Achilles, and the superbly monumental
war-horse in its massive strength and vigor is not unworthy of comparison with
Verocchio's famous masterpieces at Venice!"
(source: Indian
Sculpture and Painting - By
Ernest Binfield Havell Elibron
Classics reprint. Paperback. New. Based on 1908 edition by John Murray, London.
p. 147)
The Konark war-horse,
prancing into battle with a massively strong warrior striding beside it,
appealed to Havell because it also showed that the Indian sculptor was quite
capable of handling martial themes. "Not even the Homeric grandeur of the
Elgin marbles surpasses the magnificent movement and modeling of this Indian
Achilles, and the superbly monumental war-horse with its massive strength and
vigor is not unworthy of comparison with Verocchio's famous masterpiece at
Venice."
(source: India
Discovered - By John Keay
p. 106-107).
V. S. Naipaul (1932 - ) Nobel Laureate, was born in Trinidad into a
family of Hindu origin is known for his penetrating
analyses of alienation and exile. He has discussed
some of his controversial ideas about rewriting Indian history:
"I am less interested in the Taj
Mahal which is a vulgar, crude building, a display of power
built on blood and bones. Everything
exaggerated, everything overdone, which suggests a complete
slave population. I would like to find
out what was there before the Taj Mahal."
(source: How
do you ignore history?' - interview -
economictimes.indiatimes.com - January 13' '03).
As J
D Beglar, the assistant-director of the Archaeological Survey of
India (ASI), in his Report for 1871-72, wrote: "It is only after the Mughal
conquest of India that Muhammadan architecture begins to be beautiful".
Before that the Islamic approach to architecture was barbarous. According to the
reading of the invaders, "their religion demanded the suppression of
aesthetic feelings".
Hindu art has been
incomprehensible to most Western critics, particularly of the colonial era and
they often used harsh epithets like 'barbarous', 'ugly', etc. to describe it.
But it was not so with Huxley. He found much in Indian art to appreciate even
while he used Western standards of judgment.
 Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963) the English novelist and
essayist, born into a family that included some of the most distinguished members of the
English ruling class, found:
"The Hindu architects produced buildings incomparably more rich and
interesting as works of art. I have not visited Southern India, where, it is
said, the finest specimen of Hindu architecture are to be found. But I have seen
enough of the art in Rajputana to convince me of its enormous superiority to any
work of the Mohammedans. The temples at Chittor, for example, are specimens of
true classicism." "Mohammedan art tends ..to be dry, empty,
barren, and monotonous. Huxley also visited the Taj at Agra and he was much
disappointed. He found the building expensive and picturesque but
architecturally uninteresting. He thought that it was elegant but its elegance
was of a "very dry and negative kind", and its classicism came not
from any "intellectual restraint imposed on an exuberant fancy", but
from "an actual deficiency of fancy, a poverty of imagination". Comparing
it with Hindu architecture, he said: "The Hindu architects produced
buildings incomparably more rich and interesting as works of art.
According to him, its fabulous "costliness is what most people seem to like
about the Taj", and that because it is made of marble. But
"marble", he says, "covers a multitude of sins." Its
costliness makes up for its lack of architectural merit.
It could be said that art is not Islam's forte as
it repudiates it and, therefore, it has not developed. It had little to convey
or communicate in the way of deeper spiritual truths. Its God was best satisfied
with demolition of the shrines of "other Gods", and it was in that
direction that Islam found its best self-expression." It shared this
passion of demolition with other iconoclastic religions including Christianity -
we forget what it did in its heyday.
(source: On
Hinduism Reviews and Reflections - By Ram Swarup
p.161-165).
A head of Mukhilinga, an
incarnation of Lord Shiva.
Rajarajeshvara Temple, Tanjavur,
completed in 1010, dedicated to Lord Shiva, the temple is superb example of
southern Chola style.
For more
refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred
Angkor
For a
documentary on Hindu temples, refer to The
Lost Temples of India
***
Sir William Wilson
Hunter (1840-1900) entered the Indian civil service in 1862. He was
a man of broad cultural interests and was author of several notable volumes
mainly on Indian historical subjects, acknowledges England's debt to India:
"English decorative art in our day has
borrowed largely from Indian forms and patterns. The exquisite scrolls on the
rock temples at Karli and Ajanta, the delicate marble tracey and flat
wood-carving of Western India, the harmonious blending of forms and colors in
the fabrics of Kashmir, have contributed to the restoration of tastes in
England. Indian art-work, when faithful to native designs, still obtains the
highest honors at the international exhibitions of Europe. "
(source: The
Indian Empire - By
Sir William Wilson Hunter p. 155).
Jawaharlal Nehru
(1889-1964) first
prime minister of free India, says: "The amazing expansion of Indian culture and art to other countries
has led to some of the finest expressions of this art being found outside India.
Unfortunately many of our old monuments and sculptures, especially in northern
India, have been destroyed by invaders in course of time."
(source: The
Discovery of India -
By Jawaharlal Nehru p. 210).
Sir Edwin Arnold
(1832-1904) poet and
scholar and Author of The
Song Celestial, which is a translation of the Bhagavad
Gita. His description of the Elephanta caves is very fine. He says of the statue of
Ardhanareswara:
"This statue of colossal size, is
nevertheless very delicately cut, and the limbs and features possess an almost
tender beauty."
In regard to Indian sculpture he writes: "Everywhere -
on plinth and abacus, frieze and entablature - appears the same lavish wealth of
work and fancy; for it is characteristic of the Hindu art, which the Moslem also
in this respect adopted, to leave no naked plans in the stone."
He speaks of the Meenakshi temple at Madura thus:
"Each gopuram looks like a mountain of bright and shifting hues, in the
endless detail of which the astonished vision becomes lost....Imagine four of
these carved and decorated pyramidal pagaodas, each equally colossal and
multi-colored with fine minor ones clustering near, anyone of which would singly
make a town remarkable!"
(source: Eminent
Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational
Services. p. 251-254).
Lions resting upon elephants
guard the gateway of the Surya Deul, or Temple of the Sun in Orissa. The triumph
of the lion over the elephant is thought to represent the victory of the sun
over the rain.
***
M. Rene Grousset
(1885-1952) French art historian, says: "In the high plateau of eastern
Iran, in the oases of Serindia, in the arid wastes of Tibet, Mongolia, and
Manchuria, in the ancient civilized lands of China and Japan, in the lands of
the primitive Mons and Khmers and other tribes of Indo-China, in the countries
of the Malaya-Polynesians, in Indonesia and Malay, India
left the indelible impress of her high culture, not only upon religion, but also
upon art, and literature, in a word, all the higher things of spirit."
(source: Civilizations
of the East - By Rene Grousset
Vol. II, p. 276).
Captain Philip
Meadows Taylor
(1808-1876)
a lieutenant in the Nizam of Hyderabad's
army who learned Persian and Hindi. Author of
Confessions
of a Thug (1839)
says of the Ellora caves:
"the carving on some of the pillars, and of the lintels and architraves of
the doors, is quite beyond description. No chased work in silver or gold could
possibly be finer. Bu what tools this very hard, tough stone could have done
wrought and polished as it is, is not at all intelligible at the present
day."
(source: Story
of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage By Will Durant
MJF Books. 1935 p. 601).
Colonel James Tod,
after carefully examining and exploring the temple at Barolli (Rajasthan)
exclaims: "To describe its stupendous and diversified architecture is
impossible; it is the office of the pen alone, but the labor would be endless. Art
seems to have exhausted itself, and we are perhaps now for the first time fully
impressed with the beauty of Hindu sculpture. The columns, the
ceilings, the external roofing, where each stone presents a miniature temple,
one rising over another until the crown, by the urn-like kalasha, distract our
attention. The carving on the capital of each column would require pages of
explanation, and the whole, in spite of high antiquity, is in wonderful
preservation."
"The doorway, which is destroyed, must have
been curious, and the remains that choke up the interior are highly interesting.
One of these specimens was entire and unrivalled in taste and
beauty."
(source: Annals
& Antiquities of Rajas'than - Col. James Tod Volume II. p.
704).
Temple
gods that display a shocking beauty
To
the Western eye, these gods and goddesses are, given their sacred function,
almost shockingly beautiful. Divinity and sensuous, sexual beauty seem to be
inextricably mixed. But the appreciation of a god's physical beauty was one of
India's customary approaches to the divine. Perfection of the body was
considered a prerequisite for the flow of inner beauty and supremacy of spirit.
If
we look at the Goddess Uma, for example, she is portrayed as a slender,
seductive and exquisitely beautiful woman. She has a statuesque and graceful
figure, her full breasts are softly sculpted and her skirt is slung so low as to
reveal the curve of her stomach. Other deities, too, such as the superb Shiva,
Lord of Dance, are exquisitely elegant with their perfectly proportioned thighs
and legs, plump and supple and decorated with folds of tightly drawn cloth, and
their long curved feet and fingers.
Goddess
Uma: There is grace in elegance
To
the Western eye, these gods and goddesses are, given their sacred function,
almost shockingly beautiful.
***
These
figures are nearly 1,200 years old, yet their details are still remarkably
crisply defined. The lost wax method of modelling was done to such high
standards, both technically and aesthetically, that it is still used today
unchanged.
No
wonder François-Auguste-René
Rodin (1840-1917), one of our masters of bronze
modelling, whose work can be seen at the Royal Academy, was
overwhelmed when he saw the Chola
sculpture in 1913.
"There are
things that other people do not see: unknown depths, the wellsprings of
life," he said.
"There is grace in
elegance; above grace, there is modelling; everything is exaggerated; we call it
soft but it is most powerfully soft! Words fail me then."
(source:
Chola:
Sacred Bronzes of Southern India - By
Joanna Pitman at the Royal Academy
- The Times).
Top of Page
Fine Arts - Timeline
1. Sindhu-Saraswati Valley Culture
The highest expression of Indian proto historic
culture was the Sindhu Saraswati Valley culture, after its main center. In spite
of a sense of practicality, the figures displayed on the many seals executed in
stone, steatite, ceramics and metal display an advanced aesthetic quality. The
copper figure of a dancer and the torsos of figures, are not treated with the
rigid and coarse style typical of ancient art, but with a
delicate sensitivity of feeling for the graceful movements of the dance and the
clear concept of free representation of the human figure.
2. The Mauryan Dynasty
 The Mauryans left traces of their rule in the
great royal palaces of Pataliputra, the modern Patna, the capital of their
empire. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the Selecuids to the Court of
Chandragupta Maurya, reported that the palace compared in its magnificence with
the palace of Darius of Persepolis in Persia. The few ruins that survive appear
to confirm this.
The Arts of the Andhra Dynasty
The Andhra dynasty known to itself on
inscriptions by the name of Satavahana and by other names, enjoyed favorable
political circumstances, gave rise to the finest example of rock architecture,
along the northwestern and then on the east coast at Amaravati.
The Amravati School
The scenes depicted in Amaravati reliefs are
generally extremely complex and lively, with characters shown moving freely both
in groups and singly, and in a wide variety of stances. In the works at
Nagarjunakonda and Amaravati, the silpin, or Indian artist-craftsmen, achieve a
fusion of metaphysical and tactile reality, thereby attaining a unique balance
that gives Indian art a special place in the history of world art. The Indian
artist's unique contribution is to have created eternal values that are
immediately understood.
The Gandhara School
The school of Gandhara, which was more less
contemporary with the schools of Mathura and Amravati, developed and reached its
zenith in the northwest frontier zones, especially in Afghanistan and in the
area now known as Pakistan.
The Mathura School
Mathura stands on the Jumna river in western
Uttar Pradesh and close to one of India's oldest city. It lay on the main
trade routes from north India to the rest of Asia, and by the time of the Maurya
and Sunga dynasties (4th to 1st centuries B.C). was not only a leading
commercial and religious center and a place of pilgrimage for many different
sects, but also the focal point of a highly creative literary and artistic
school. The school of Mathura, with red sandstone sculptures, the material for
which was quarried from the Sikri caves outside the city, was contemporary with
the Gandhara school.
3. Gupta and Post-Gupta Arts
In the realm of sculpture and
painting Gupta art marks the highest reach of the Indian genius. Its influence
radiated over India and beyond. By the end of the Gupta period the whole region
of South East Asia had been deeply influenced by Indian thought and custom
especially in Indian religion. Its keynote is balance and freedom from
convention. It is thoroughly Indian in spirit and is marked by classic
restraint, a highly developed taste and deep aesthetic feeling. Its ideal was
the combination of beauty and virtue.
Notable panels such as the Gajendra moksha,
Vishnu reclining on Ananta, undoubtedly rank among the best specimens of Hindu
sculpture. Samudra Gupta issued no less than eight types of gold coinage of
great artistic value. Referring to the coin, which shows Samudra Gupta with the
Vina on the observe and Lakshmi on the reverse, Percy Brown says: ' the
excellent modeling of the king's figure, the skilful delineation of the
features, the careful attention to details and the general ornateness of the
design in the best specimens constitutes this type as the highest expression of
the Gupta numismatic art.
(source: Advanced
History of India - By Nilakanta Sastri and G. Srinivasachari
p.228-232).
The Gupta art is famous for Rupam or concept of
beauty. The Gupta artists applied themselves to the worship of beautiful form in
many ways. They worshipped art in order to awaken a new sense of spiritual joy
and nobility. There are many distinguishing features of the Gupta art. We find
both refinement and restraint. The Gupta artists relied more on elegance than on
volume. Their art showed simplicity of expression and spiritual purpose. Some of
the most beautiful images of Shiva belong to this period. They created the
Ardhanarishvara form of Shiva where the deity is represented as half male and
half female. The iron pillar near New Delhi is an outstanding example of Gupta
craftmanship. Its total height inclusive of the capital is 23 feet 8 inches. Its
entire weight is 6 tons. The pillar consists of a square abacus, the melon
shaped member and a capital. According to Percy Brown,
this pillar is a remarkable tribute to the genius and manipulative dexterity of
the Indian worker.
The cultural achievements of the Guptas evoked
praise from the historians, both foreign and Indian. According to L.
D. Barnett, "Gupta period is in the annals of classical India
almost what perclean age is in the history of Greece."
Vincent Smith
wrote: "The age of the great Gupta kings presented a more agreeable and
satisfactory picture than any other period in the history of Hindu India.
Literature, art and science flourished in a degree beyond ordinary and gradual
changes in religion were effected without persecution."
Sardar
Kavalam Madhava Panikkar
(1896-1963) observed:
"The two hundred years of the Gupta rule may be said to mark the climax of
Hindu imperial tradition."
Uma_Maheshwara
(source: Indian and Indonesian Art - Ananda Coomaraswamy).
***
The poet Kalidasa, was one of the "Nine Jewels" a group representing the
best minds of the kingdom, who were gathered together at the court of
Chandragupta II, in the 5th century A.D. The figurative art of the Gupta period
clearly shows that artists had a full knowledge of the best works produced and
the most advanced techniques developed in the past. There was intense commercial
and cultural intercourse between Asian mainland, and the influence of Gupta art
spread very widely, impressing its iconographical and stylistic tendencies on
many foreign artists. Chinese and Central Asian pilgrims came to India to visit
the shrines and to study in the best universities in the land.
This
was the Golden Age of Indian Art - of splendor and of the most flourishing
artistic resurgence to occur in India.
Dr. Ananda
Coomaraswamy, regarded Gupta art as the:
"flower of our established tradition, a polished and perfect medium, like
the Sanskrit language, for the establishment of thought and feeling. Its
character is self-possessed, urbane, at once exuberant and formal...Philosophy
and faith possess a common language in this art that is at once abstract and
sensuous, reserved and passionate."
(source: Ancient India -
By V. D. Mahajan p. 541).
A. L. Basham made
the following observation about the achievement of the Gupta period:
"This
was surely a period of high civilization in every sense, but especially in the
truest sense of the term - an age of equilibrium, when human relations reached a
degree of kindliness rare in the history of the world, and the best minds of
India expressed the fullness and goodness of life in imperishable art and
literature."
(source: Indian Heritage
and Culture - By P. Raghuanda Rao ISBN: 8120709292 p. 23).
Post Gupta Age
During the six centuries following the Gupta Age
(A.D 600-1200) the chief interest in the history of Indian art was centered
around the evolution of different types of temple architecture. A number of
temples were constructed. The grandest example of Orissan architecture is the
famous Sun temple of Konarak, a symphony in stone,
constructed during the reign of Narasimhadeva (1238-64). The
temple was conceived on a gigantic scale and was intended to be an architectural
replica of the chariot of the sun being whirled along through the heaven by
seven stately horses. Around the basement of the temple are twelve
giant wheels with beautiful carvings. At the main entrance are two caparisoned
steeds straining to drag the chariot through space. The whole building is
ornamented with exquisite sculptures presenting an alluring pageant of
sculptured magnificence. No wonder, Abul Fazl was
struck by the grandeur of the temple and wrote in his Ain-I-Akbari that “even
those whose judgment is critical and who are difficult to please stand amazed at
the sight.”
(source: Main Currents
in Indian Culture - By S. Natarajan p. 114).
A stunning instance of Orissan temple architecture, Konark’s
Sun temple has been aptly described by the famous Bengali poet Rabindranath
Tagore (1861-1941) poet, author, philosopher,
Nobel prize laureate
as:
"here
the language of stone surpasses the language of man", which means that the beauty of Konark is impossible to translate
into words.
Exquisitely carved wheel of a
chariot at the Sun Temple of Konark in Orissa.
Rabindranath
Tagore described Konark as 'here the language of stone surpasses the
language of man', which means the beauty of Konark is impossible to translate
into words.
For more
refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred
Angkor
***
Rock Temples and Monasteries
Hindu temples mostly dedicated to Shiva, were
carved in the rock at Ajanta and Ellora. Rock-cut
temple, 164 ft. deep, 109 ft. wide, 98 ft. high. Est. 200,000 tons of rock
excavated, reputedly using 1" chisels over a span of nearly 100 years.
Both as architecture and examples of
decoration they were more successful, in their simplicity, than were the
Buddhist temples, even though they followed the same general plan. Similar rock
cut shrines are also to be found on the island of Elephanta near Mumbai and
other places. In the temples dedicated to Shiva, the images do not usually crowd
one upon the other, as they often do in the Buddhist shrines. All is simpler and
more sober. The reliefs are placed at much greater intervals, displaying a more
mature spatial concept. The walls are decorated with
life size figures depicting mythological events, giving an overall effect of
monumentality and imposing power.
The
Kailasa Temple intended to be an earthly replica of Shiva’s splendor, the most
extensive and most sumptuous of the rock-cut shrines, worthy of being ranked
among the wonders of the world.
 Philip
Meadows Taylor (1808 - 1876) an Anglo-Indian administrator
and novelist, was born in Liverpool, England.
He wrote on Ellora
:
“this carving on some of the
pillars, and of the lintels and architraves of the doors, is quite beyond
description. No chased work in silver or gold could possibly be finer. By what
tools this very hard, tough stone could have been wrought and polished as it is,
is not at all intelligible at the present day.”
(source: Story
of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will
Durant MJF Books. 1935. p. 601).
J. Griffiths
wrote: "There for centuries the wild ravine and the basaltic rocks were the
scene of an application of labor, skill, perseverance, and endurance that went
to the excavation of these painted palaces, standing to this day as monuments of
a boldness of conception and a defiance of difficulty as possible, we believe,
to the modern as to the ancient Indian character. The worth of the achievement
will be further evident from the fact that "much of the work has been
carried on with the help of artificial light, and no great stretch of
imagination is necessary to picture all that this involves in the Indian climate
and in situations where thorough ventilation is impossible."
Richard Lannoy has
written: “The Kailash temple at Ellora, a complete sunken Brahmanical temple
carved out in the late seventh and eighth centuries A.D is over 100 feet high,
the largest structure in India to survive from ancient times, larger than the
Parthenon. This representation of Shiva’s mountain home, Mount Kailash in the
Himalaya, took more than a century to carve, and three million cubic feet of
stone were removed before it was completed.
An
inscription records the exclamation of the last architect on looking at his
work: “Wonderful! O How could I ever have done it?”.
The Kailasa temple, Ellora
The largest structure in India to survive from ancient times, larger than the
Parthenon.
The temple of
Kailasa at Ellora is not only the most stupendous single work of art executed in
India but as an example of rock architecture it is unrivalled.
For more
refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred
Angkor
***
In Europe’s middle ages, the great cathedrals, including
the one of Chartres, rose from the ground upwards to the sky, supported not so
much by stone as by the powerful religious symbolism that drove the Christian
church. In India, the craftsmen did not build, but removed the earth and stone
to discover space in the service of a different religious symbolism, not one
identified with any religious monolith, but instead, one to which different
religious groups owed allegiance. Here Lannoy is more precise:
“A hollowed-out space in living rock is a totally different
environment from a building constructed of quarried stone. The human organism
responds in each case with a different kind of empathy. Buildings are fashioned
in sequence by a series of uniformly repeatable elements, segment by segment,
from a foundation upwards to the conjuction of walls and roof; the occupant
empathizes with a visible tension between gravity and soaring tensile strength.
Entering a great building is to experience an almost imperceptible tensing in
the skeletal muscles in response to constructional tension. Caves, on the other
hand, are scooped out by a downward plunge of the chisel from ceiling to floor
in the direction of gravity; the occupant empathizes with an invisible but
sensed resistance, an unrelenting presence in the rock enveloping him; sculpted
images and glowing pigments on the skin of the rock well forth from the deeps.
To enter an Indian cave sanctuary is to experience a relaxation of physical
tension in response to the implacable weight and density of solid rock.”
(source:
Decolonizing
History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West
1492 to the Present Day - By Claude Alvares p.72-73).
Kailasa temple, Ellora
The greatest wonder of rock-cut in the world. One of the wonders of the world on
account of their huge dimensions and elaborate carvings.
***
Rizwan
Salim writes about the beauty of Kailasa:
"Gaze
in wonder at the Kailas Mandir in the Ellora cave and remember that it is carved
out of a solid stone hill, an effort that (inscriptions say) took nearly 200
years. This is art as devotion. The temple
built by the Rashtrakuta kings (who also built the colossal sculpture in the
Elephanta caves off Mumbai harbour) gives proof of the ancient Hindus' religious
fervor. But the Kailas temple also indicated a will
power, a creative imagination, and an intellect eager to take on the greatest of
artistic challenges. The descendents of those who built the
magnificent temples of Bhojpur and Thanjavur, Konark and Kailas, invented
mathematics and urban surgery, created mind-body disciplines (yoga) of
astonishing power, and built mighty empires would almost certainly have attained
technological superiority over Europe."
(source: Need
for Cultural pride - Revival - By Rizwan Salim The Hindustan
Times 9/20/1998). For more on Kailasa, refer to World
Mysteries).
K. De B. Codrington notes
the technical skills of the builders of the Kailash temple at Ellora:
"The monolithic Kailas temple of Ellora, with its
stupendous sculptures, is a marvel of engineering,
unsurpassed by any in the world…” The Kaislas (very closely
resembling in its outlines the Everest Peak, as Havell has demonstrated) has
been scooped out of a hill, and stands four-square in a court yard hewn from
solid rock, complete with gateways, nandi pavilion, staircases on either side,
porches and subsidiary shrines – formed by the chisel, and sculptured from top
to bottom without fault! "
(source: The
Legacy of India
- Edited by G. T. Garrett p. 94).
Robert
Payne (1911-) an American critic, and author of The
splendors of Asia : India, Thailand, Japan, in the Kailasa temple
at Ellora, for instance, he sees "nothing less
than the mountain of creation. It was here that Siva hammered out the
shapes of men and women of fables and mythologies of universes and
eternities." he writes. He is awed by the sweep of
imagination, the exuberance and tumult of creation itself, depicted in stone.
(source: spectrum:
tribuneindia.com).
About the truth and precision of the
work, which are no less admirable than its boldness and extent, J.
Griffiths has the following glowing testimony:
"During my long and careful
study of the caves I have not been able to detect a single instance where a
mistake has been made by cutting away too much stone; for if once a slip of this
kind occurred, it could only have been repaired by the insertion of a piece
which would have been a blemish."
(source: The
Paintings in the Buddhist Cave-Temple of Ajanta - By John Griffiths).
Percy Brown (1872-1955)
has
said:
"The temple of
Kailasa at Ellora is not only the most stupendous single work of art executed in
India, but as an example of rock architecture it is unrivalled.
Standing within its precincts and surrounded by its grey and hoary pavilions,
one seems to be looking through into another world, not a world of time and
space, but one of intense spiritual devotion expressed by such an amazing
artistic creation hewn out of the earth itself. Gradually one becomes conscious
of the remarkable imagination which conceived it, the unstinted labor which
enabled it to be materialized and finally the sculpture with which it is
adorned, this plastic decoration is its crowning glory, something more than a
record of artistic form, it is a great spiritual achievement, every portion
being a rich statement glowing with our meaning. The Kailasa is an illustration
of one of those rare occasions when men's minds, hearts, and hands work in
unison towards the consummation of a supreme ideal. It was under such conditions
of religious and cultural stability that this grand monolith representation of
Shiva's paradise was produced."
"The Kailasa Temple, it is safe to say, is
one of the most astonishing 'buildings' in the history of architecture. This
shrine was not constructed of stone on stone, it was in fact not constructed at
all: it was carved, sculpted in toto from the volcanic hillside! A squared,
U-shaped trench was first cut into the slope to a depth of close to 100 feet.
The 'liberated' mass in the center was then patiently carved from the living
rock to produce a freestanding, two-story Hindu temple of dazzling complexity.
The temple, which is dedicated to Shiva, the often threatening god of the Hindu
trilogy, measures 109 feet wide by 164 feet long. It stands on an elevated
plinth to attain greater presence in its tight surroundings. The complex
consists of entry, Nandi (i.e. bull) shrine, open porch, main hall, and inner
sanctum. Variously scaled panels, friezes, and sculpture highlight many
surfaces."
(source: Indian
Architecture: Buddhist and Hindu - By Percy Brown - Publisher:
D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co. Private Ltd.
Bombay p. 90).
Historian
Romesh C. Dutt (1848-1909)
writes: "The
Kailasa...is imposing in its solid grandeur."
(source: The
Civilization of India - By R. C. Dutt p. 73).
Perhaps the most spectacular example is the
Kailashanatha temple at Ellora, which is a transition from the rock-cut to the
free standing style, wholly cut from the rock of the hillside, to which no
further material was added. The plan of a free-standing temple is rigorously adhered
to and it is stylistically close to the southern temple. The Kailasa
temple is approximately of the same area as the Parthenon at Athens and is one
and a half times higher than the Greek structure. The number of stone cutters
and workmen employed and the expense involved in cutting the temple must have
been immense.
S. Natarajan
has remarked: "It is an enormous shrine carved
wholly out of an isolated block of stone with a number of sculptures
characterized by dramatic pose and beauty of movement, fine modeling and
sculptural accuracy in carving. Particularly remarkable is the skill with which
different emotions are portrayed. In the sculpture of Ravana trying
to lift the Kailasa, the serene calmness of Shiva and the excitement and fear of
Parvati as she clings to Shiva for support are quite visible portrayed. In the dread dance of Shiva the principle of universal
violence and unrestrained ecstasy in destruction are brought out while the
“Relief of the Kiss” portrays the infinite bliss of divine love."
(source: Main Currents
in Indian Culture - By S. Natarajan p. 116).
Says
Ernest Binfield
Havell:
“ The design of the Kailasa
remained, for all time, the perfect model of a Shivalinga, - the temple
craftsman’s vision of Shiva’s wondrous palace in his Himalayan glacier,
where in his Yogi’s cell the Lord of the Universe, the great magician,
controls the cosmic forces by the power of thought; the holy rivers, creating
the life in the world below, enshrined in His matted locks; Parvati, His other
Self, the Universal Mother, watching by His side.”
(source: The
Splendour That Was 'Ind' - By K T Shah p. 153-154).
Sculptors had by this time acquired a thorough
knowledge of anatomy, and were able to give expression to a great range of
movement and gesture. They were able to give material form to the sensuous
visions of the poets by their masterly handling of the female shape, creating a
form of art un paralled elsewhere. Indian art is rich in representations of the
female body, a subject in which Indian artists appear to have excelled since
earliest times.
Hindu artists accepted
the sensual and erotic as integral part of life, and death with them accordingly
in their carvings, paintings and writing. To some Western eyes, used to
Victorian standards, the results may appear offensive, but these have a calm
dignity far removed from the more self-conscious efforts of lesser
artists.
In classic
Sanskrit treatises, the sculptor has been given various names. He is known as
the Sadhak (Admirer), the Mantrin (Wizard), and the Yogi (
Visionary). This is perhaps explained by the ultimate aim of the sculptor to be
primarily spiritual and only secondarily aesthetic. The
sculptor was not endeavoring to portray the
mere perfection of the physical structure, as with the Greeks. He believed that
even the perfect human figure could not fully manifest the higher spiritual
values of life, nor contain within itself the attributes and qualities of the
divinity.
Therefore, to
give expression to such abstract conceptions , the sculptor consciously set for
himself an ideal, which was not based on the contemplation of the natural form,
but upon meditation of the divine form. Consequently,
you would notice a distinctive power of suggestiveness in the sculpted forms.
Perhaps their supreme function, the idols and forms suggest attributes and
possibilities beyond the range of mortals. But
every time the chisel carved a shape, it was based on Shilpashastras (axioms
of sculpture). Drawing inspiration from the mind, mythology and experiences, the
sculptor has left behind an impression that cannot be ravaged even by time
itself. Perhaps.
Monumental Images
Art of the Pallava Dynasty
The Pallava dynasty succeeded the Andhra dynasty
in the east Deccan in about the 5th century and endured until around the end of
the 9th century. Like that of the Gupta kings, the court of the Pallava rulers
was a center for eminent men of letters and art. It is known from contemporary
inscriptions that Mahendra-varman (600-635), who was called the Temple Builder,
was a great patron of the arts, particularly architecture. Unfortunately none of
his construction have survived.
Arnold
Hermann Ludwig Heeren
(1760-1842) says: "It is without an involuntary shudder that we pass the threshold of
these spacious grottoes, and compare the weight of these ponderous roofs with
the apparent slenderness and inadequacy of its support, an admirable and
ingenious effect which must have required no ordinary share of abilities in the architect
to calculate and determine!" He concludes: "Such are the seven
pagodas or ancient monuments so-called, at Mavalipuram on the Coromandel (Cholamandal)
coast, of which extraordinary buildings it will be hardly too much to assert
that they will occupy a most distinguished place in the scale of human skill and
ingenuity."
(source: Historical
Reseraches Volume II. p. 78).
The five raths
at Mamallapuram are named after the Pandavas, the heroes of Mahabharata.
For more
refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred
Angkor
***
Cave Temples, Regal Arts and Architecture
Many cave temples were excavated and carved in
the same period in the region between Tiruchirappalli and the Krishna estuary.
These temples were mostly dedicated to Lord Shiva. King Narasimha-varman
(625-645) built the port of Mamallapuram, near Chennai, where he ordered the
excavation of many rock temples. He also enriched his citadel with five raths,
open air sculptures rather than temples, since they were carved out of isolated
rock outcrops to imitate real temples. The five raths
at Mamallapuram are named after the Pandavas, the heroes of Mahabharata.
The abundant decoration on the upper stories of these buildings gives them a
baroque air, an effect which was maintained and elaborated in medieval India.
The Gangahara Relief at Tiruchirappalli is a work of remarkable plastic worth
and is charged with vitality and expressive force. The finest sculptured work at
Mallapuram, which is also the major achievement of Pallava sculptors, is the Descent
of the Ganga, carved out of a granite rock. A split running down the
rockface provides the channel for the water representing the sacred river. The
subject is taken from an episode in the Kiratarjuniya, by the 6th century poet
Bharavi. A whole world of human and divine beings, entire families of animals in
the most varied postures, monkeys, elephants and cats, all issue as it were from
the living rock to pay homage to Lord Shiva for his miraculous gift to them of
the Ganga springing down from the mountain. The work is rich in detail of all
kinds, and is completely successful aesthetically, whether looked at as a whole
or in detail.
This colossal work achieved a synthesis
between Gupta elegance and the lively narrative art of the Amaravati
school.
"Indian Art " says
art critic E. B. Havell
"is always super ably decorative.
" "The best Indian Sculpture
touched a deeper note of feeling and finer sentiments than the best Greek. There
is in this art a depth and spirituality which never entered into the soul of
Greece."
(source: Indian
Sculpture and Painting - By
Ernest Binfield Havell Elibron
Classics reprint. Paperback. New. Based on 1908 edition by John Murray, London. p.144).
Descent of Ganga, Pallava early
7th century relief carved in granite.
For more
refer to chapter on Greater
India: Suvarnabhumi and Sacred
Angkor
For a
documentary on Hindu temples, refer to The
Lost Temples of India
***
Rashtrakuta dynasty who were undoubtedly
responsible for a number of cave temples excavated in the rock at Ellora, which
was the capital of the early kings of the dynasty. The temple of Dharmanatha at
Malwa and the temple of Shiva at Elephanta may also be attributed to them. The
most important Rashtrakuta temple is the Kailasnath temple, which was
constructed in the reign of Krishna I (757-83). The style of the Kailasnath
temple is characterized by pyramidal roofs sloping down to great quandrangular
pilasters, which are balanced by thick projecting cornices and panels decorated
with sculpture. The sculptures on the inner walls of the main shrine show flying
spirits in audacious and exciting, but also extremely elegant postures. The
reliefs in the sanctuary of Shiva rely on the visual effects obtainable from
chiaroscuro, or light and shadow, and broken movement.
The
theatrical effect evident 200 years earlier at Elephanta reaches a climactic
conclusion in the Kailasa where the image of Ravana in one relief panel is
actually detached from its background so that the action takes place on a deeply
shadowed stone stage. The Kailasa is indeed a daring undertaking that speaks
eloquently both of the creative genius of the architect and the driving
enthusiasm of Krishna I.
Originally, both exterior and interior of this rock-cut temple
carried painted adornment over a thin layer of plaster. In certain areas, three
layers of paint are discernible, indicating the continual refurbishment of the
mural decoration. Further confirmation of such renewal of the murals come from
16th century Muslim accounts which speak of the Kailasa as Rang Mahal or Colored
Mansion.
15th century Chariot-temple in
Hampi, Karnataka "The
large stone chariot in the Vithala
temple is a marvelous testimony to the skill of the stone carvers - its wheels
can rotate on the axle.
The carved pillars in the Hall
of Musical Pillars
resound like musical instruments.
***
Chola dynasty ruled from | 
