1. The-Concept-of-Imitation-in-Greek-and-Indian-Aesthetics Ananta Charan Shukla

SUKLA

ANANTA CHARANA SUKLA

THE CONCEPT OF IMITATION IN GREEK AND INDIAN AESTHETICS

RUPA

The Concept of

IMITATION

in

Greek and Indian

Aesthetics

THE CONCEPT OF IMITATION IN GREEK AND INDIAN AESTHETICS

In a single volume the author presents in two separate parts the independent evolution of the concept of imitation in two different cultures—Greek and Indian—conditioned by their characteristic environmental and temperamental aspects. Ransacking the whole range of literature of allied fields the author has established that while the idea of art as an imitation of Nature is as old as the Creto-Minoan and Mycenaean cultures of the western world and the word mimesis meant a lot for the Greeks, long before Plato and Aristotle, and was bound to bear a naturalistic and unmystic connotation, the idea of art as a “Pratirupa” or ‘Anukriti’, rooted in the very Vedic thoughts of an ancient India, was bound to convey idealism. By a parallel method of comparison, again, the author observes that in imitation of Nature the Greek procedure was from body to body while that of the Indian was from spirit to body : if all art was realistic for the Greeks, for the Indians the real was the ideal ; and finally by supplementing one thought to the other he attempts to formulate a universal concept of imitation and concludes that ‘imitation and re-perception (or creation) are to be regarded as simply two names of the same process.”

Rs. 60/-

Dr. Sukla; born in November 1942 at Garadpur, Bhadrak (Orissa), graduated from Bhadrak College, received his M.A. in English from Jadavpur University in 1965, and later in 1969, as a non-collegiate student, obtained the M. A. degree in Philosophy from Utkal University specialising in ancient Indian Philosophy. He acquired working knowledge in Greek and studied Sanskrit literature in both traditional and modern methods. At Jadavpur, influenced by Prof. S. C. Sen Gupta's teaching of Aristotle's Poetics, he started thinking on Comparative Aesthetics producing, finally the present work, a result of hard labour and intensive studies of half a dozen years which earned him the Ph. D. of Jadavpur University in 1974.

Dr. Sukla serves the Education Department of the Govt. of Orissa and has been teaching English literature in different under-graduate and post-graduate colleges since 1965. He is an established critic and story-teller in Oriya literature. His Oriya translation of Aristotle's Poetics with critical comments and essays (Cuttack, 1969) is an outstanding contribution to Oriya literary criticism. At present he is working on Coleridge's aesthetics on a comparative basis.

COMMENTS:

The author has made a detailed study, more detailed he rightly claims, than hitherto attempted, of the concept of 'imitation' in aesthetic thought and has devoted equal space to Greek and Sanskrit writers ... Wilamowitz, the doyen of modern classical scholars, describes mimesis as a 'fatal word' 'dubbed out' by Plato. But the present author has demonstrated with great cogency that the word was not coined by Plato at all, and that the concept and the word are both as old as Greek thought. He shows too, with considerable scholarship and perception, how Greek and Sanskrit critical art were bound to be sensuous, unsymbolical and also formal in the best sense of the term. In the four lengthy chapters of the first part of his thesis the author gives at every step evidence of deep study and illuminating insight, and can claim originality both in approach and argument. The chapter on Aristotle...contains one of the best discussions of ideals I have read ...... the most striking aspects of his thesis is his elucidation of poetic truth according to Aristotle.....

I am satisfied that the two parts of this book are really not two separate and disjointed studies patched between the same covers but a single study of the two divergent aspects of the same problem. It is just like two allied expeditions to the same cliff from two opposite sides. Although the horizon is the same, a fuller and rounder view of a hill is possible only when it's climbed from two opposite bases.

This topic is of absorbing interest and has been little explored. It is a brave even a heroic attempt.

THE

CONCEPT

OF

IMITATION

IN

GREEK

AND

INDIAN

AESTHETICS

The

idea

of

art

as

an

imitation

of

Nature

is

a

seminal

and,

probably,

the

starting

point

of

aesthetics

and

theory

of

art.

It

emerged

perhaps

everywhere

in

every

primitive

thinker

on

art

But

only

in

ancient

Greece

and

India

--cradles

of

the

western

and

eastern

civilizations--it

achieved

a

philosophical

establishment.

Hence

to

understand

the

idea

fully

it

is

inevitable

to

study

its

evolution

in

both

the

countries.

The

present

work

is

the

first

attempt

to

fulfil

this

long-felt

want.

In

a

single

volume

it

presents

a

detailed

study

of

the

independent

evolution

of

the

concept

in

Greece

and

India

and,

by

using

this

parallel

method

of

comparison,

attempts

finally

to

establish

a

harmonious

understanding

of

the

concept.

THE

CONCEPT OF IMITATION

IN

GREEK AND INDIAN

AESTHETICS

BY

ANANTA CHARANA SUKLA

M. A. (English and Philosophy), Ph. D., Sāhitya Śāstri

Rupa & Co

CALCUTTA

ALLAHABAD : BOMBAY : DELHI

1977

First published 15 October, 1977

Copyright Dr A. C. Sukla

Published by :

RUPA & Co.

15 Bankim Chatterjee Street : Calcutta 700 073

94 South Malaka : Allahabad 211 001

102 Prasad Chambers : Opera House : Bombay 400 004

3031 Pataudi House Road : New Delhi 110 002

Printed by :

B. Sahoo

Pragati Udyog

Bhadrak : Orissa

Cover design by :

B. Nayak, Sambalpur : Orissa

C. Mandal, P. C. Baral St., Calcutta 700 012

Price :

Rs. 60 /-

Sukhoditā dītrsubhagā

Saṅkarārdhaśarīriṇ,

Cranthapuspāpopahāreṇa

pritā nah Pārvatī sadā

(Śāradā Tilaka, XXV. 59 )

May Pārvatī, the bestower of happiness,

(the most) prosperous among the bounteous,

half of the body of Saṅkara, be always pleased

with us by the offering of (this) book-flower.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PART ONE :

I. PRAGMA MIMĒSIN 1

II. IMITATION OF THE SOUL 31

III. IMITATION OF IMITATION 54

IV. IMITATION AND CONSCIOUS ILLUSION 92

PART TWO :

I. YADVAÏ PRATIRŪPAM TACCHILPAM 137

II. RŪPAM : IMITATION OF THE THREE WORLDS 161

III. VĀṆMAYAM : IMITATION AND RE-PERCEPTION 217

ANALOGUE : 281

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ERRATA

P R E F A C E

The idea of art as an imitation of Nature is a seminal

and, probably, the starting point of theory of poetry and fine

arts. Since the time of Plato this idea has always been a

controversial issue among the poeticians and aestheticians of

the western world. Though Aristotle's answer to the Platonic

devaluation of the imitative ( fine ) arts including poetry

remained an authority for centuries to follow, his idea of

imitation, the pivot of his aesthetics lost its essence during

its progress through the different elucidators and theorists,

most of whom tried to justify their own theories on the

ground of Aristotelian authority. Hence it became necessary

for the scholars of the second half of the present century to

recover Aristotle from among the masked Aristotelians. The

attempts of learned scholars like Richard Mckeon, G. F. Else

and D. W. Lucas are very much commendable. But when

Aristotle himself is not always free from ambiguity in his

laconic work, it becomes almost impossible to search for

Aristotle in only the Aristotelian texts. Unless we read the

first chapter of the book--explore the entire gamut of the

Hellenic thought journeying as far as the beginning of the

Creto-Minoan culture and the very environmental situations

conditioning the peculiarities of this thought--all our attempts

to understand the last chapter, the culminiition of the

Hellenic thought in Aristotle, will necessarily fail. Here

and there scholars have tried to fulfil this want in conne-

ction with Aristotle's idea of imitation. But we believe,

their attempts and success both have been partial : and the

first object of the present study is to fulfil this long-felt want.

( ii )

Secondly, by understanding the Aristotelian or

Greek concept of artistic imitation it is not expected that one

can appreciate the universality of the idea. As among all

other ancients only the Indians have talked of it and

debated upon this problem, it is quite profitable to explore

their ideas on the topic for a better understanding of the

concept itself, and for examining its possibility for universal

recognition. Here again only partial attempts have been

made by scholars like K. C. Pandey, while others are of

opinion that the idea of imitation is alien to Indian

aesthetics except for Saṅkuka, whose views cannot be

accepted as authentic as they are only excerpts from an

adverse critic like Abhinavagupta. Hence our object in the

second part of this volume is to trace the origin of the idea

of art as an imitation in the Vedic literatures and to show

its evolution through many other texts and authors on

architecture, literature and fine arts accepting Saṅkuka’s

views as authentic on the ground which justifies the authen-

ticity of the materialism of Cārvāka, whose views are

gathered only from the adverse criticism of his philosophy.

Such an attempt—a systematization of a whole

course of thought on a particular topic requires ample illus-

trations of new points and re-arrangement or re-interpretation

of some known points and facts in support of our argument.

This may, at times, appear long-winded or as a rehash ; but

we believe in their relevance.

It is obvious that this present parallel study of the

growth and development of the concept of imitation that

flourished in classical Greece and that of a similar, but also

somewhat different, concept of imitation that found its way

in Indian aesthetics, is not out of mere historical or archae-

logical curiosity ; nor is it a history of terminology or idea,

nor a contribution to lexicography. A comparative study of

this type — of two otherwise unconnected and independent

( iii )

theories of the idea and their various elaborations is rewarding

in that it clarifies some of the obscurities in either and

supplements some of the partial understandings of each by

bringing corrective light from the other. One must admit

that in any such parallel study the similarities are as

important as the dissimilarities. They show two different

cultures, inspite of springing forth from the basic differences

in the environments, temperaments and their world out-

looks, share with the key-words of aesthetic thought of human

beings as a whole contributing finally to a world harmony.

This method may baffle those who are accustomed

with influence-studies or think that comparative studies

are possible only in case of similarities. But we believe,

our method is justified.

The present volume was originally written as a

thesis entitled The Concept of Mimesis in Poetics for the

degree of Ph. D. in Arts of Jadavpur University. The work

was started under the supervision of Dr. S. C.

Sen Gupta, the then Professor of English, and on his

retirement in 1968 Dr. Jagannath Chakravorty, Reader in

English became my supervisor. I acknowledge my deepest

gratitude to these revered teachers and scholars of inter-

national repute. Besides, late Dr. Sisir Chatterjee, Professor

of English, and many other learned scholars are remem-

ered with kind regards in this connection. Shri N. C.

Padhi, Shri D. K. Padhi and Shri Jagadish Prasad have

actively co-operated in its publication and Shri D. Mehra

has finally published the book. Shri B. Sahoo, M. A.

has read the proofs ; my pupil Shri B. S. Baral, M. A.

and my wife Dr. Indulata have prepared the index ;

I feel greatly obliged to them. I wish also to express

my gratitude to sister Yogamaya and to many other friends

of nine for their sincere good will and co-operation

in different spheres of my studies and researches.

A. C. S.

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

PRAGMA MIMESIN

i. The geographical settings of Greece inspiring a homely attitude towards Nature–naturalism in the myths of creation and concrete anthropomorphism in the myths of gods making men dependent on the gods in form, character and activity–all their techmai an imitation of those of the gods like Hephaistos and Athene. ii. Naturalistic art forms of the Creto-Minoan and Mycenaian cultures–their descriptions in the Homeric and Hesiodic shields of Achilles and Heracles–the dawn of the Greek taste for an art object representing a natural phenomenon as exactly as possible–the homely attitude towards Nature responsible for this taste. iii. Absence of any word to denote an art-figure in Homer and Hesiod–Homer’s use of Xoanon for the aniconic figure of Pallas Athene indicating only a wooden figure in general without referring to any life-like form–agalma used for a portrait statue of a victor in the Olympic games–a motive for memorization displayed in the preservation of the statues of heroes, victors in games and pious people–a combination of the naturalistic tendency and the motive for memorization leading to life-like portraits–use of words like mimēsis, eikōn and eidōlon in connexion with these portraits–later extension of the use of these words for any art-figure–Nature’s supreme artisanship–human artist as an imitator of Nature–imitative elements in sculpture, painting, poetry, dance and music–imitation versus duplication–the belief that an artist is an imitator and not a duplicator. iv. The belief versus the practice–mimēsis versus a mirroric reflection–the imitation of Nature by the artist not passive–imitation involving observation and imagination–inductive method followed in deriving the principles of beauty–the canon of Polycleitus–imitation involving selection, idealization, and symbolization–examples from the activities of the artists–Pheidias, Zeuxix, Polycleitus, Parrhasîus, Apollodorus and others in Pliny’s Natural History.

i. Ancient Greece was neither a vast land nor was it

a land of extreme climates. Though it began where the

Balkan mass of land tapers and thrusts into the midland sea,

it possessed no range of mountains thick with forests. Here

and there shot up the hills, proud of their independence,

flaunting their peaks upward. But their surfaces were

almost bare—only the bones of the wasted body.'1 Rivers

were scanty, and none of them were either long or wide.

Torrential in winter, they became only gutters full

of boulders in summer. The land was not fertile except

the valleys below the hills where food crops could be grown

by excessive efforts with water preserved in pools and wells

in winter. Meat and milk were not plentiful as the country

was unable to feed the flocks on a large scale. Life, in

short, was quite hard and, therefore, the Greek people took

great care to control even their small population.

As was the land so were the seas—the Aegian in

the east, the Ionian in the west and the Cretan in the south—

all narrow watery areas easily crossable by boats. Up to

the time of Herodotus, the world to the Greeks centred

around the Mediterranean not beyond Persia in the east,

Italia in the west, Scythia in the north and Lybia in the

south. Just as the Greek world was limited so was the Greek

climate temperate. Even in winter when the gust of the

west wind was horrible, the Greeks could enjoy warm

sunshine ; and in summer intense heat could not exhaust

their energy and effort. Rainfall was neither heavy nor

continuous and did not damp their vigour into lethargy or

1. Critias, 3

visionary habits of mind. Every season called for a hard

struggle either on the land going up and down the hills with

heavy loads, ploughing the stony fields, irrigating the tilled

lands, taming horses and mules, and driving away the

attacks of the beasts or on the seas reaching the neighbou-

ring countries with a trading mission or sometimes repelling

the attacks of neighbours with determination. The Greeks

found Nature not beyond their comprehension. Their busy

hard life made them practical in their attitude to everything

and prevented them from indulging in negative thoughts and

idle speculation. Any irregularity or disturbance in natural

occurrences, in their physical or psychic states, or in their

failures and successes in the struggle for a happy existence

were guided, they felt, by some powers, though invisible to

ordinary eyes, not without physical forms or bodies like

their own; and these powerful beings, they believed, could

be appeased by invocations and sacrifices and induced to

make their life happy and easy-going.

In an earlier age when the Greek thought was not

established independently, when it shared the native Creto-

Minoan culture that had amply adopted the thoughts of

ancient Egypt, these powers were thought to have bodies of

animals or birds. Faint echoes of this stage are found in

the Homeric myths where Athene is owl-faced, Hera cow-

faced, Zeus takes the shape of a bull, Applo is associated

with wolves and mice, Poseidon with horses and Artemes

with bears2. But the more the Greeks became matured

in thought and independent in their speculation, the more

their gods became concrete with bodies and nature like

those of themselves. This was so because their untiring

labour, strong impulses and heroic struggles made the

Greeks confident of the possibilities of human power.

2. C. M. Bowra, The Greek Experience, A mentor Book, New York,

3. P. 56.

"Wonders are many and none is more wonderful than man," sings Sophocles, "the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him…….And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horses of shaggy mane; he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain-bull. And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when, 'tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come. Only against Death shall he call for aid in vain"3. There was, besides, the intoxicating beauty of the Greek body. If men with their hard manual labour developed a sturdy and muscular frame, women likewise without sitting idly at home worked in the fields with males joining them even on ships and in sports, developed stout figures with hard breasts and shapely buttocks. The mediterranean climate made their eyes blue, cheeks rosy and lips red enriching them with a sound sexual urge. One would hardly find a man or a woman with a swelling belly, wrinkled face, flat chest or loose arms even years after youth had expired. The Greeks were so fond of the virile charm of a feminine figure that they dreamt of a war-loving race of charming woman in their myths of the Amazons.

Beauty and power-these two among the values were the most attractive for the Greeks and they believed that their supreme manifestation was possible only through human forms. Thus their gods were all human in form and character, born of the same mother earth of which the mortals are moulded. In humanizing their gods the Greeks felt themselves more intelligent than any other

3. Antigone, 332 ff.

neighbouring races. "The Hellenic race", says Herodotus,

"was marked off from the barbarians as more intelligent

and emancipated from silly nonsense";4 and this silly

nonsense of the barbarians was displayed through their

formation of gods as a grotesque combination of beasts, birds

and human beings. The Greek gods have bodies of flesh,

blood and bones and they have the same passions of love,

jealousy and anger as the mortals have ; and like the

earthly kings they have their heavenly kingdom on the

unsurpassable mountain of the Olympus. Cronus could

castrate his father Uranus and blood would flow from his

wound.5 Aphrodite could be enamoured of gods other

than her husband and of the mortals and could even bear

children to them6 and could be wounded by the arrows

of human warriors.7 No more holy were they than

human beings as their indiscipline in the affairs of sex,

power, vengeance and cruelty even surpassed those of the

latter. The distinction between these two races of beings,

it seems, would have completely ceased unless two funda-

mental points stood in the way. The physical bodies of the

gods are invisible to the ordinary human eyes for the

extreme lustre of their appearance ; and the strength, beauty

and longevity of these bodies knew no decay. The flow of

blood that came of the wound of Uranus was no ordinary

mortal blood as it ran from heaven to earth and Ares

could never be arrowed to death by human beings. Pindar

summarizes the distinction between the gods and the

mortals thus :

"Single is the race, single

Of men and of gods ;

4. I. 60, 5. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, Vol. I, P. 37. 6. For

her love affairs with Ares, Odyssey, Viii. 266-367 ; with Anchises,

Iliad , V. 280 ff; the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. 7. By Diomedes.

Iliad, V. 325 ff.

6

From a single mother we both draw breath.

But a difference of power in everything

Keeps us apart ;

For the one is as nothing but the brazen sky

Stays a fixd habitation for ever,

Yet we can in greatness of mind

Or of body be like the Immortals,

Though we know not to what goal

By day or in the nights

Fate has written that we shall run" 8.

So one the Greeks felt with their gods that they believed

that the gods could be invoked to be present physically in

their religious rites and to share food with them. Their rites

were acts more of hospitality than of expiations 9.

If the gods possess forms similar to those of human

beings, both the races must have the same process of

generation. The Pre-Hellenic creation-myth suggests that

creation is not possible by a single being, it is the result of

a union of two separate bodies. Eurynome the Goddess of

All Things rising naked from Chaos found no support for

her feet. So she divided the sea from the sky and danced

towards the south and the wind blew behind her. She

thought of creating the universe with this wind which was

something new and separated from her. Turning about she

caught it within her palms, and a serpent came out of it

with which she copulated and having assumed the form of

a dove she released the universal Egg on the waves. 10

8. Nemean Odes, VI. 1-7. quoted by Bowra, op. cit. P. 57. 9. Bowra,

op. cit. P. 59. Herodotus suggests that paganism necessarily involves a

belief that the gods and human beings possess the same nature-“They

( Persians) have no images (agalmaia), no temples, no altars and consider

the use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think, from their not

believing the gods to have the same nature with men, as the Greeks

imagine.” 1. 131. 10. Graves, Op. cit. P 27.

The Homeric myth, essentially a version of the Pelasgian

myth, narrates that the gods and all living creatures origi-

nated in the stream of Oceanus which girdles the world.11

Sometimes mystic attitude to the problem is also noticed in

the Orphic myth of creation in which black-winged Night

and Wind are said to be the primeval parents.12 But in

all this a matured Greek concept of creation is absent.

"Whence the gods severally sprang", says Herodotus,

"whether or no they had all existed from eternity, what

forms they bore–these are questions of which the Greeks

knew nothing until the other day so to speak."13 This

myth came into vogue. Mother Earth, according to this,

emerged in the beginning from Chaos and bore her son

Uranus as she slept. He showered rain upon her secret

clefts and she bore plants, beasts and birds ; rivers flew upon

her and hollow places were filled up with water forming

lakes and he fathered Titans upon her and from the Titans

Cronus and from him the Olympian gods and goddesses were

born.14 It seems, beginning from Uranus all the gods

including Titans and Olympians were of human form

and they created human beings after their own model.

Hesiod15, Euripides16 and Aristophanes17 agree with a

definite physiological origin of the world. Some gods were

there from time immemorial and the mortal and the transi-

ent world were born of a union similar to that of men and

women of Gaia and Ouranus. Plato records18 that the

gods were there from an unknown time, devoid of decay and

change. Once when they felt the mortals should be created

they created them out of earth and fire just as

potters make earthen pots and harden them in fire. Apollo-

11. Ibid. 30. 12. Loc. cit. 13. II. 53. 14. Graves op, cit p. 31 ff.

12. Theogony, 116 ff. 16. Fragments, 484. Collected in The Pre-

Socratic Philosophers, ed. and com. G. S. Kark and I. E. Raven. See

Chap. I. 17. Birds, 693. 18. Protagoras, 320.

dorus makes this myth more definite.19 Prometheus the

Titan being asked by Zeus moulded men out of earth and

water after the images of gods into which Athene breathed

life.

In attributing thus to the gods a similar form and

a similar process of generation as they possess themselves

the Greeks have narrowed the scope of the cosmic creation

into a mechanical process and that of human activity into

a mimicry of divine activity. It is suggested that as human

beings are themselves made after the image of the gods,

nothing can they perform which has not already been

practised by the gods previously. All the glories of human

body, beauty and workmanship that Sophocles sings of are

possessed in a perfect degree by the gods, and being merci-

fully contributed to human beings are controlled and guided

by them. A hero cannot display his heroism unless the god of

power is in his favour. It is even believed that the acti-

vities which they perform in order to facilitate the happi-

ness and prosperity of their life, are taught to them by

the gods directly or through the Titan Prometheus. These

activities are called technai derived from the root technazō

meaning to contrive cunningly or to deal subtly.20 The

technai include all the useful crafts together with pleasing

arts and any activity that needs skill and contrivance.

Among the gods two technicians are there– Hephaistos21

and Athene.22 The former is the smith god of Olympus,

who was ugly and weak at his birth for which his mother

Hera dropped him from heaven, and falling on the sea who

was brought up by the goddesses Thetis and Eurynome and

devised there all sorts of useful and ornamental 'objects'.

One day Hera found him among his nursing goddesses and

19. Bibliotheca, iii. iv. 4. 20. Greek lexicon, 21. Graves, op. cit.

P. 87. 22. Ibid. P. 96; Pindar, Olympian Odes, VII. 34-52; Homeric

Hymn to Aphrodite, 10-14.

realizing his skill from a brood of his workmanship took

him to heaven where he was facilitated for practising much

finer smithy. Among his achievements notable are a set

of mechanical women talking and working and a set of

three-legged tables with golden wheels which could run by

themselves. Hephaistos seems to be more a technician than

an artist with a sense of beauty : for the strength, usefulness,

and automatic mechanism of his works are emphasized.

Following the capacity and forms of the goddesses he made

the mechanical women whose beauty is not so much men-

tioned as strength and working capacity. The Greeks perhaps

were not satisfied with only the useful products. Their

strong sensitiveness towards beauty made them imagine a

marriage of Aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty with

Hephaistos the god of technai so that a good technician

might possess an ample sense of beauty by a combination of

which he could produce technai worthy of praise and pre-

servation. Their purpose was successful in Hephaistos'

moulding of Pandora of clay by the order of Zeus. He cons-

structed the body of this woman, fairest of all ever created,

even tending to surpass the beauty of Aphrodite herself into

which the four winds breathed life and whom the goddesses

of Olympus adorned with their own special charms.

Athene's artisanship is more pronounced by the Greeks.

She is thought not to be born par vagina but to have

sprung up from the head of Zeus fully armed. Thus she is

always associated with wisdom and intellect-the activities of

head, and is held as the goddess of wisdom. By her wise

speculation she contrived the flute, the trumpet, the

earthenware pot, the plough, the rake, the ox-yoke, the

horse-bridle, the chariot and the ship. All house-hold

feminine arts and mathematics, the science of number,

also are her inventions. She remains over a virgin almost

hating the sexual relation : and although she is always

10

fully armed as a goddess of war, her function differs from

Ares, the god of war, in settling the disputes rather than

obtaining pleasure in them. Her mercy is profound, and it

seems, her arms signify rather her smartness, the capacity

of controlling the senses than any ferocious love for war.

Out of her mercy, it is told, she taught all the artistic

devices to human beings. Sometimes Prometheus is also said

to have stolen fire, together with all the principles of arts

that are practised with its help, from heaven and by teaching

them to mankind to have made them cultured.23

The myths of the divine artisans suggest that any

piece of art or craft is a technē and its maker must be an

intelligent being. With a strong and stout body he must

possess enough mental power to control the sense organs.

Generosity of heart, sensitivity of soul and smartness of mind

are not less important. Gross sexual passion, it seems, is not

favourable for art creation. That is why perhaps Athene is a

virgin and Hephaistos is unable to cope with the vigorous

lust of Aphrodite, for which, most probably, she remains

engaged in adultery with the gods and mortals. The Greeks,

of course, have imagined a sexual union of the two artisan

divinities - Hephaistos and Athene.24 When the latter went

to the former with a request that he might make some

arms, which she needed in the Trojan war, he asked her

love as the cost and applied physical force which she avoided

strongly. But such incident is very strange in Hephaistos'

character. He would never feel so much passionate, had not

Poseidon informed him falsely before that Athene would go

to him, for his violent love under the pretext of begging some

arms. Athene remains a virgin; and it seems, her artistic

inventions are subtler and more attractive than those of

Hephaistos as she is sexually more restrained.

23. Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound. 109-15. 24. Graves, Op. cit. P. 96.

The characteristics required for a divine artisan are also applicable to a human one, in a limited amount.

Although the latter works in imitation of the former, cunning and intelligence are required in full measure, for

to imitate a divine principle is not a small task for a mortal.

Applying their limited power the human artisans produce

the technai which are far inferior in splendour and glamour

to those of the divine ones; and the more the human product

is akin to the divine one, the more is the success of the artist.

ii. The Pre-Hellenic Creto-Minoan Culture that

developed in Crete, Archipelagos and the Aegian islands,

contained arts like gem cutting, gold and silver smithy,

metal carving, painting on terracotta, coffin and vases,

frescos on the walls of palaces and houses and modelling

in terracotta that show strong native characteristics although

borrowed here and there from the styles of oriental culture

especially of Egypt. Its style is remarkable for its natura-

lism in details, especially in plants and natural forms.

Human figures are, however, conventionalised with unna-

tural slim waists and elongated limbs. A realistic rendering

of landscape in the representation of sacred mountains are

favourite subjects of gem-paintings. But the artists here

representing the figures of divinities have not been suffici-

ently successful to indicate a distinction between these and

human figures except by signs and attributes. Rudely

fashioned terracotta images of divinities are also found in

Crete, Mycenae and in the main land of Greece.25

Naturalistic tendency is more obvious in somewhat more

developed sculptural style of the late Minoan Culture.

Bronze figures of men and women show a liveliness that

could have been attained only by modelling directly on wax.

25. Raymond S. Stites, The Arts and Man, McGraw Hill Book corp.,

New York. 1940, P 147-59.

12

The chryselephantine statue of the little priestess found in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is full of expressiveness with arms held out as if to protect the face from the two-hooded snake, held erect and attention pulled downward by the mass of the breasts. 26

Art like painting and carving are chiefly decorative in the Mycenaean culture and the subject matters of these arts are cultural phenomena and affairs of daily life both agricultural and religious. The decorative artist is extremely conservative and imitative in the use of his available repertoire of groups and figures. Free invention is hardly noticed except in cases where no familiar type could be adopted.27 The decoration upon the Homeric shield of Achilles seems to be more a Mycenaean product than Hellenic for the Greeks had not developed their independent art style at or before the time of Homer. Their poetry is earlier than their sculpture or painting. Five layers of metal are superimposed on the shield of Achilles–two of bronze, two of tin perhaps alternating, that in the centre being gold. Four things are thus formed around the inner circle each covered with sculptural decoration. Within the golden disc there is wrought–“the earth, the heavens, and the sea ; the moon at her full and the untiring sun with all the constellations that glorify the face of the heaven ; the Pleiads, the Hyads, huge Orion and the Bear….which turns round ever in its place facing Orion and alone never dips into the stream of the Oceanus”.28 Upon one side of the concentric band is shown a city in time of peace with a wedding procession and a court of justice ; upon the other a besieged city with a rumble of defenders and a general engagement.

26. Iliad 159. 27. E. A. Gardner. Encyclopaedia of Ethics andReligion. ed. James Hastings, Edinburgh, 1925 vol. 1. P 366-71. 28. Iliad, XVIII. 4:3 ff.

Upon the second ring are the four seasons indicated by ploughing, harvesting the vintage and by a band of peace-fully grazing cattle, attacked by lions. A harvest dance of youths and maidens, before whom stands a singer decorates the third ring; while the fourth and the outermost is ornamented with waves representing the sea, which according to the ancients surrounds the circular earth.

The vividness and liveliness which Homer's poetic fancy reads into the shield is not really found in the samples of such decoration on the vases of the Mycenaean Age, the fragments of which are now kept in the museums of America and Europe.29 No touch of such realistic character is seen in the figures, as it was impossible for the manufacturer of this age to work so. No sign of carving is also there. The artist of the Heroic age cut his figures from the sheets of metal and pasted them upon the surfaces of the shield, filling up the middle spaces with ornaments. The metals were chosen out of colours different from that of the band to which those were to be fixed, thus approaching to some extent the art of painting. Homer's observation of a vivid naturalistic glamour in such a shield opens the Greek way of tasting a piece of fine art. In fact, he read into it what he desired to see—the transient beauties of Nature stabilized with its vitality; and the excellence of such art, he considered, consisted in creating the exact appearance of the subject though the materials quite different from those of the originals. The ploughing scene on the shield of Achilles is an excellent work of art not so much for its details as for the artist's bringing the exact likeness of a ploughed land on the surface of gold. "The earth looked dark behind the plough, and like to ground that had been ploughed, although it was made of

29. See the cover of Dodwell's vase. History of Ancient Art by Franz von Reber, New York, 1882, P. 271.

14

gold ; that was a marvellous piece of work'30. The figures

wrought by Hephaistos do not appear as mere statues or

painted pictures before Homer ; they are all enlivened and

full of expressiveness. The artist has captured some

moments of life and has made them imperishable and

changeless. Homer can see the figures dancing 'Keeping

time with skipping feet'31 and can listen to a boy 'who

made sweet music with his lyre and sang a dinos with his

clear boyish voice'32 and can feel the alertness of the

besiegers when they heard much noise among the cattle as

they sat in council, sprang to their horses and made with

all speed towards them.33 It is not a poet's evocation of

his own individual feelings at the sight of the objects he

likes, for Homer's voice is not the voice of an individual, but

that of a race, of a dawning nation which could

inculcate its characteristics at its very outset.

The same naturalistic attitude of Homer may be

detected at the breast plate of Agamemnon where serpents

of cyanus reared themselves up towards the neck, these upon

either side like the rainbows which the son of Cronus has set

in heaven as a sign to mortal men,34 and at his shield on

the centre of which is a gorgon's head fierce and grim with

Rout and Pain on either35 side. His Helen embroiderers 36

the battle scene of the Greeks and Trojans in detail and

Penelope weaves textures which are quite elaborate.37

This taste for a naturalistic art is enhanced in

Hesiod's description of the shield of Heracles. A gap of a

century separates Homer from Hersiod. The Greek mind

began to crystallize gradually. Religious ceremonics and

30. Iliad, XVIII. 548. 31. Ibid. 559 ff. 32. Loc. cit. 33. Ibid.

517 ff. 34. Ibid. XI. 31. ff. 35. Loc. cit. 36. Ibid. III. 129

ff; see also the decorations on the aegis of Athene and her self-embroi-

dered robe, Ibid. V. 730 ff. 37. Referred to by Franz von Reber

also, op. cit. p. 269.

myths were more systematized and popularized. So along

with scenes from Nature such as the seasons, the sea and

the affairs of human life, cities peaceful and besieged, pic-

tures from legends such as the combat of the Lapithae and

Centaurs, and from religion such as Apollo among the

Muses are also wrought on this shield.38 Although basi-

cally it adopts the plan of the Homeric shield, it is an

improvement upon that in so far as the subject matters of its

decoration are more Greek. But the Greek mind had not yet

found an art-form suitable for its special choice. It dema-

nded a form as vital as the form of life itself with its thro-

bbing sensation and expressive emotion. They dreamt such

a form in the products of Daidalos39 a legendary artist,

Athenian by birth, who could make walking and talking

statues which were so lively that one would distinguish those

from their natural counterparts. He made a cow, it is said,

of wood for Pasiphae, the daughter of Minos, so realistically

that when it was left on the field where cows graze, a bull

came up to it and copulated. Similar was the power of

Cyprian artists. The king Pygmalion found a statue of

Aphrodite that aroused his passion, and he felt so enchanted

that he took the statue to his bed.40

But the Greeks had no intention to make art a

substitute of Nature. They were rather well aware of the

impossiblity of such substitution. In praising the natura-

listic character of art they praised the genius of man,

which, although inferior to Nature, could produce things

having forms no less enlivened than hers, and such forms

indeed were attained by the Greeks in a Xenocrates who

painted a runner in a race in full armour that seemed to

38. The shield of Heracles, 315 ff. 39. Diodorus siculus, IV. 76 ff.;

Apollodorus, op. cit. III. 1. 3-4, XV. 8. 40. Arnobius of Sicca refers

to the lost ‘Cyprica’ of Philostephanus; for the myth, see VI. 22.

16

sweat actually with his efforts41 and another runner in full

armour taking off his arms, so life-like that he could be

perceived to be panting for breath42 ; or in a Pythagoras

whose lame man43 so accurate and exact in construc-

tion that people looking at it felt a pain from his

ulcer in their own legs.43 Critics suggest that the Greeks

with their friendly attitude towards Nature evolved such an

art type. "if there is a difference of potential," writes Hulme,

"between man and the outside world, if they are at different

levels, so that the relation between them is, as it were, a steep

inclined plane, then the adjustment between them in art

takes the form of a tendency to abstraction. If on the

contrary there is no disharmony, if they are on the same

level, on which man feels himself one with nature and not

separate from it, there you get a naturalistic art."44

iii. Although a remarkable artistic taste developed

among the Homeric and Hesiodic Greeks, they possessed no

word for the artistic representation of figures. If technē

was the common word for all the arts and crafts, the root

poieō or ‘to make’ was the common word for all sorts of

making without distinguishing a figure-maker from a poem-

maker, or a weaver from a potter. All of them were

makers for the Greeks. Homer and Hesiod both have used

this root to indicate Hephaistos' representation of figures on

their shields of Achilles45 and Heracles.46 It is quite un-

certain what was exactly the shape of Pallas Athene

worshipped by the Trojans. It was dropped from the

sky’47 ; and was mostly an aniconic wooden symbol like

that of the thunder bolt of Zeus, worshipped by the Cretans.

41. Plin. XXXV-V. 71. 42. Loc. cit. 43. Pliny. XXXIV. XIX. 59.

42. T. E. Hulme, Speculations, P. 87.

43. Iliad XVIII. 360. 46. The

Shield of Heracles 315 ποιείδ. 47. Bibliotheca III. 12. 3.

Homer's word for this is xoanan 18 indicating a wooden form

in general without necessarily emphasizing a statue in

human shape. It is not at all a statue in the sense that

prevailed in the sixth and fifth Centuries B.C. Agalma

means glory, delight or honour.49 The Olympic games

began in about 724 B.C. and they attained their full form

in about the middle of the 7th century.50 The participants in

these games came of very high societies and the Greeks

honoured the victors by making their statues in the public

places. Thus the statues were the signs or the mementoes

of glory of the victors, and in a later period agalma or glory

was identified with the statue itself. Such use of the word

became quite popular in the fifth century B.C.51 Along

with the naturalistic bent of the Greek mind a motive for

memorization was thus combined. Victorious heroes, sports-

men, kings and benefactors of society were to be remembered

by the generations present and to come. It was believed

that the statues could serve this purpose to a great extent

as metals like bronze and other hard substances like stone

survive a long period. "I am a maiden of bronze and rest

upon Midas's tomb", Diogenes quotes an epitaph, "So long

as water shall flow and tall trees grow and the sun shall

rise and shine, and the bright moon and the rivers shall run

and the sun wash the shore, here abiding on his tear-

sprinkled tomb I shall tell the passers-by Midas is buried

48. Iliad, VI. 84, 295. Xoanon was used later for any life-like image

also. Strabo used it for the statue of the Olympian Zeus by Pheidias; see

Strabo, VIII. 3. 30. 49. Iliad, IV. 144. 50. Everyman's classical

Dictionary, ed. John Warrington, Lond. 1961, P. 370. 51. Herodotus,

I. 131, II. 86, 182; Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, 258; Euripides.

Helena, 262, 705; Plato used it for something in painting or words;

Symposium, 216; Republic, 517; Farnell suggests that agalma was used

for an aniconic image in the Homeric age which was replaced by

eikōn later when idolatry developed : see L. R. Farnell, Outline History

of Greek Religion, P. 61

18

52 Although there is no statue of Midas himself here, 52 the motive for memorization is clear from the speech of the statue of a maiden. Besides, it became a tradition that the pious contributors to the religious institutions had to offer their own portraits either plastic or graphic as he would be remembered by the institutions themselves and would remain an ideal for others. Herodotus records such offerings of King Amasis to the Greek temples. 53 Memorization seems to be the origin of the Greek statuary and portrait painting from the legend recorded by Pliny. Butades, a potter of Sicyon at Corinth, invented modelling from clay which was the first stage of sculpture. He did this owing to his daughter who was in love with a young man ; and she when he was going abroad, drew in outline on the wall the shadow of his face thrown by a lamp. Butades pressed clay on this afterwards and made a relief by hardening it in fire. 54 Lysistratus of Sicyon is the first man to mould a likeness in the plaster of a human being from the living face itself and established the method of pouring wax into this plaster mould and then making final correction on the wax cast. 55 Similar was the process of painting also beginning with tracing an outline round a man's shadow. 56 The Egyptians also had a system of preserving the statues of their great persons and high priests after their death and statues of the dead persons were kept inside the graves with a belief that they would remain immortal there. This system is more religious than sentimental and more practical than emotional in character. As the sensuous aspects of a human body are perishable, the statues of the Egyptians were devoid of all this ; they were stiff and static, and their geometrical and abstract style, the Egyptians believed, would escape the clutch of death. 57 But the Greeks did just the

52. Diogenes Laertius, I. 89. 53. Herodotus, II. 182. 54. Pliny, XXXV. XLiii. 151. 55. Ibid. 153. 56. Idem. XXXV. V. 16. 57. See Supra N. 54.

opposite. A sentimental artist such as theirs to remember

the heroes and benefactors and to be inspired at the sight of

their statues made them preserve all the sensuous aspects of

a man in his statue by making it as life-like as possible.

Butades had to mould the figure of his daughter's lover in

such a lively way that she would forget his absence, and

the foster-father of Aktaion had to carve his statue in such

a way that his dogs could not realize the absence of their

master.58 So the artists had to be faithful to the originals

and to preserve all the sensuous aspects through which the

character of a man must definitely manifest itself. Any

freedom of the artist in inventing or omitting a point was

always conditioned by this motive. So it was quite natural

that a statue was called an 'imitation' when in the end of

the sixth century B. C. the Archaic static style changed into

the classical vitalistic form59 and later on the use of the

word imitation with its various synonyms such as eikōn and

eidōlon was not limited only to the portrait-statues.60 Its

denotation extended to the entire gamut of plastic and

58. Apollodorus. iii. IV. 4. 59. For the history of this transforma-

tion of the Archaic art into the Classical one see Suidas, op. cit.

P. 164-65 : Franz von Rucher, Op. cit. P. 292 ff. 60. Mimēsis,

Greek werd for imitation is derived from the root mimēlazō meaning to

mimic, represent or emulate, the earliest use of which is most probably

in the Hom. Hymn to Delian Apollo. 161-65; see quoted infra No. 91.

H. Koller derives the mimēsis-group of words from Mimos, the

ritual dancer who embodies, impersonates and by his dancing

expresses the influence of the god, such as the 'bull-voiced terrible

mimos' of Aeschylus in his lost Edoni (see Strabo, X. 470). Thus the

primary meaning of mimēsthai is not to copy or imitate but to

give expression. See D. W. Lucas, Aristotle : Poetics, P. 270. But the

above passage from the Hymn certainly suggests a sense of imitation

or mimicry. For the root's sense of emulation see Thucydidē's,

Peloponnesian war, II. 37. -the speech of Pericles 'We live under a

form of government which does not emulate (mimoumenoi) the institu-

tions of neighbours.' Eikōn is derived from the root eikazō meaning

20

graphic art-figures,61 and still further, it even denoted

poetry, dance and music. As the chief subject-matters that

the Greek artist look to represent were human shapes,

whether gods or men, whether actually visible or heard of,

it seems, that, there was no essential difference between a

portrait-statue and a human figure in general. If the former

imitated an object of Nature specifically mentioned the latter

imitated the same according to his own choice. Thus the

work of both the artists became the same - imitation of

Nature. When Lysippus the coppersmith asked Euphemos

the painter which of his predecessors he took for his model,

he pointed to a crowd of people and said that it was Nature

to represent by a likeness or to portray. The word in the sense of

image was already in use at the time of Herodotus, eikōn graphe

eikasmē, II. 182. The root also means to describe by comparison,

Hdt. VIII. 162. Pliny records a history of the use of eikōn -"It was

not customary to make effigies of human beings unless they deserved

lasting commemoration for some distinguished reason, in the first

case, victory in the sacred contests and particularly at Olympia

where it was the custom to dedicate statues of all who had won a

competition : these statues in the case of those who had been victorious

there three times, were modelled as exact personal likenesses as of the

winners what are called iconical eikōn, eikōn akos portrait-statues.

I rather believe that the first portrait-statues officially created at Athens

were those of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogiton" (510 B. C.)

XXXIV. IX. 7. 17. Eikasía is another noun from eikazō meaning likeness ; Xenophon, Meorabilia. III. 10. I.

Eidōlon is derived from eidō which ordinarily means a phantom

or a hazy appearance in dreams etc. such as the vision of the gods

before the mortals. Iliad. V. 451 ; Odyssey, IV. 796 ; Hdt. V. 92 ; in

the sense of an unsubstantial form, Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 839 ; a

reflected image on water or mirror. Plato, Sophist, 266 ; its use in the

sense of an idol (Eng. Deriv.) is profuse in Hdt. I. 51, VI. 58 ;

Apollodorus, iii. IV. 4 etc. 61. Herodotus uses the root even for

the Egyptian wooden figures of the dead bodies used for funeral rites

which are hardly life-like- II. 78.

herself, not an artist whom he ought to imitate.62 In fact,

Nature was the supreme artist63 before the Greeks to which

they could never be equal, and even to imitate it one needs

its gift. Thus Pindar sings of Nature's supreme artistic

power64 that makes a true artist by her gift.65 If all the

technai were wrought by them in imitation of those of the

gods, the techne of constructing statue also was an imitation,

for the original inventors of this art were Hephaistos and

Prometheus - the god and the Titan. The latter moulded

human forms imitating the physical form of the gods but

could not provide them with divine qualities such as immor-

tality, undecaying strength and beauty. So does the human

artist—imitates living human forms in statues without

embodying them with life. His art, in fact, happens to be an

imitation of imitation—already a popular idea which Plato

used in his dialectics in a later age.

What is true of the visible arts is equally true of the

verbal art – poetry. The Greeks found a close relation

between poetry and painting as Simonides says ‘Painting is

silent poetry, poetry is painting that speaks’.66 Homer's

epics were to them as the Bible is to the Christians full of

facts and narration of actual events. The gods described

therein are not the creation of Homer's poetic fancy—mere by

phantastic stories. The poet records a true history of the

62. XXXIV. 19. 62. 63. The Greeks believed that even

the activities of lower animals of Nature are imitated by men in

their several technai Plutarch cites the view of Democritus, "It is

ridiculous that we should pride ourselves on powers of learning

superior to those of the lower creatures. since Democritus proves

that in the most important matters we are their pupils imitating the

spider in weaving : and the swallow in building and melodious birds

like swans and nightingales in song. De sollut. anim. 20. 974.

64. Pindar. Olympian Odes. IX. 103. 7. 65. Ibid. II. 86.

65. Plutarch, De Gloria Atheniensium, 3, quoted by Bowra, op. cit.

P. 155.

22

gods 67 and heroes and he is an imitator in so far as the

subject-matters of his writings are not his own invention, but

true pictures of facts already existing. What Homer did

through words. Pheidias did through stone. The Zeus of

either Homer or Pheidias was not an imaginary figure. If

Pheidias imitated the Zeus of Homer, Homer did imitate

the divine figure of Zeus. But his perception of Zeus was

not an ordinary one, for he was blind and the gods are not

perceptible to ordinary eyes. Homer was a divine seer.

Like a sooth-sayer he could perceive all the divine affairs

by his extraordinary power as clearly as an ordinary man

perceives the sensuous world. For this he requires no ordi-

nary eyes. That is why perhaps the Greeks thought Homer

and Tiresias blind. 68

The Greeks loved dancing because in dance the

body with regular gesture and motion looks more beautiful

than when it is without them, 69 and it is this body in

regular rhythm which attracted the attention of the ancient

sculptors and painters. But when they could capture only

a moment of this rhythmic motion a dancer could do the

whole of it. Gestures and postures, rhythms and motions are

all the means of expressing the emotions of a being.

Eurynome the first goddess is perhaps the inventor of dance

as her desire for creation was expressed through her dance

consisting of wild gestures and postures displaying a thro-

bbing sensation of her soul. In fact this gesticulation is the

earliest way of expression and communication before the

discovery of language. Even when language replaced

gesticulation it took its new role in expressing the sorrows or

67. Kathleen Freeman Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, P. 22.

68. Homer's blindness is well-known : Apollodorus gives the myths

behind the blindress of Tiresias, iii. vi. 7. 69. Xenophon, Symp.

II. 15 ff. Statues made by the artists of old are relics of the ancient

mode of dancing. Also see Athenaios, XIV. 629.

joys of people's daily affairs and in their performance of rites

and magic. Returning from fights soldiers showed their

friends the activities of war and how they killed their enemies

by dancing fights, and similarly before going to fights they

practised it by dancing. People tried to remember their

heroes and benefactors by re-performing the deeds of the

dead. When they suffered any natural calamity causing

shortage of corns, epidemic death of domestic animals, they

believed, they could drive them away by enacting what they

desired. Agricultural mimetic rites found in every country

are of this type. In Athens, for example, the vine god was

married to a queen in order that the creeper may be loaded

with bunches of 70 grapes : and there and elsewhere people

imitated thunder and lightning by gestures with some instru-

ments such as blowing bull-roars ( rhombos ) and throwing

torches towards the sky. 71 Not even a single Orphic

mystery was there in Greece wherein such imitative gestures

were absent. 72 In the popular rites of Dionysus people

were enacting the deeds and adventures of the god, and the

Greeks used Orchēsis to denote such gesticulative perfor-

mances which cover any series of rhythmic movements 73

whether of limbs alone or of the body and limbs taken

together. Gradually Orchēsis made itself free from the reli-

gious ancesters and in its secular form it became imitative in

so far as it narrated a story both serious and ludicrous.

Thus what Homer did through words, dancers did through

70. Frazer, J. G. The Golden Bough, ed. 1900, Vol. II. P. 133.

71. Strabo, X. 470; for imitative elements in religious rites and

magical practices see Jane Wllen Harrison, Ancient art and

Ritual, P. 47 ff; (Stanley A. Cook, ed.) Encyclopaedia of Ethics and

Religion, Vol. X, P. 674 ff.; Frazer, op. cit. Vol. I. Chap. 3.

71. Lucian The Dance, 15. 72. For the rite of Dionysus see Harper's

Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, Ed. P. 1403 ff.

73. A. W. Pickard-cambridge. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens,

P. 253.

gestures. Sometimes even dancers imitated gestures only

without narrating a story, as for example, the angelikos,74

dance was a mimic of the gesticulations of messengers. The

Skepiás,75 was a form of dance in which the dancers

twisted their necks in imitation of birds and in the forms

such as ‘the lion’, ‘the Sileni’76 activities of the animals

concerned were imitated in as lively a manner as possible.

The dance “String of Beads” was so called because in the

dance the boys and girls moved in a row resembling a string

of beads. The boys had to proceed with the steps and

postures of youngmanhood and those they would use in war,

while the girls followed showing feminine gestures properly.

Thus the string was beaded with modesty and mainliness.77

But the Greeks were not satisfied with the imitation of gesti-

culations only. As the myths and legends gradually

developed, they tried to dance a story also. On such occa-

sions a group of singers sang a song and the dancers dressed

up with proper costumes78 suitable for the characters

narrated in the theme of the song, danced it with gestures

and postures. Such a song was called a Hyper chēma or

interpretative dance.79 Thus dance stood as a separate

form of art parallel to drama and even the Emmeleia dance

with its serious theme surpassed the charm of tragedy, for, as

Lucian comments,80 in the representation of tragedy a sense

of unnaturalness was displayed when man acted in the roles

74. Pollux, Onomastikon, IV. 103. 75. Loc. cit. 76. Ibid. 104.

75. Luc. op. cit. 12. 78. Use of masks was a popular costume in

the performances of Greek drama and dance see Luc. op. cit. 27 ;

Pollux, op. cit. IV, 140. Pickard—Cambridge Collects (op. cit. 203-8)

certain types of masks of old men and women, young men and

women, rustic people and slaves suitable for different roles. Masks

had open mouths in plays, for the actors had to speak : so they looked

horrible while in dance those. having closed mouths looked more

natural. See Luc. l.cit.: for dresses see Pickard—Cambridge,

op. cit. p. 214. 79. Luc. op. cit. 16. 80. Luc. op. cit. 27—29.

of woman and the actors in general wore masks with open

mouths that inspired a sense of detestation in the visitors,

whereas in dance all this was absent— “the themes of

tragedy and dance are common to both and there is no diffe-

rence between those of the other side except that the themes

of the dance are more varied and more unhackneyed and

they contain roundness vicissitudes.” 31 And the imitation

of emotions with their proper gestures are so vivid in dance

that neither Pheidias nor Apelles could surpass it in their

sculpture and painting.” 32

Such dances had three parts—Phora, schēma and deixis. 33

The story of the character to be danced with its proper

gestures was called Schema, and the motions in general

without any specification were phorai. It seems the Greeks

used their hands more in such gestures than any other limbs.

for Lucian notes a remark of Demetrius, “I hear a story

that you are acting man. I do not just see it, you seem to

me to be talking with very hands.” 34 And sometimes there

were some conventional gestures to indicate a particular

emotion: for example, those of magic dance were to stretch

out hand with palm upwards forming a concave ( the

posture is technically called kalathiskos, literally “little

basket” ) to stretch out hand with palm downwards, to jump

up crossing the legs in tangfashion and to roll over. 35 The

third part deixis was “not an imitation but a plain down-

right indication of the thing represented.” 36 The poets use

proper names to indicate some person or a thing such as

Achilles or Heracles, but in dance the dancers by certain

order and method indicated exactly what schēma they

were performing. It served the same purpose to dance what

a name-plate would serve to a painting.

31. Ibid. 31. 32. Ibid. 35. 33. Plutarch. Symposiac Questions

Moralia, ed. W. W. Goodwin. Vol. III p. 457 ff. IX. 15. 84. Luc.

op. cit. 63. 85. Pollux, op. cit. IV. 105. 86. Plutarch, Symp.

Quest., loc. cit.

26

It is for this vivid imitative character of dance that the Italian Greeks called the dancer a pantomime87 (panto mimon literally meaning one who imitates everything) who must cl eave close to his subject-matters and can ient himself to each detail of his plots in enacting charac-ters and emotions, introducing now a lover, and now an angry person, one man aflicted with madness, other with gricf and all this within fixed bounds.88 Lucian even goes to define dance as a “science of imitation and portrayal, of revealing what is in the mind and making intelligible what is obscure” and suggests90 that a dancer should know all the stories of the myths and legends and should so clearly imitate them through his gestures that even without any interpreta-tive song the audience could understand the Schēma.

The Greek vocal music in its primary state consisted of singing the stories with tones proper to men and women in their various moods-an art resembling that of a rhapsode like Demodocus : and the excellence of the musician was judged by his power to imitate the voice of the character of whom he was singing. The poet of the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo appreciates this power of the girls who sang to Apollo and Leto -“they can imitate minesthisasin the tongues of all men in their clattering speech, each would say that he himself were singing, so close to truth is their sweet song.”91 Three modes were later developed-Dorian, Aeolian and Ionian-according to the typical characters of these three Greek races.92 The Dorian mode exhibited the quality of manly vigour of magnificent bearing, not relaxed or merry but sober and intense, neither varied nor complicated. In the Aeolian were the elements of ostentation and turgidity displaying a lack of affection in

87. Luc. op. cit. 67. 88. Loc. cit. 89. Ibid. 36. 90. Luc. cit. 91. Hymn to Delian Apollo, 160-65. 92. Ath-naios, Deipnosophistae XIV. 624-25.

their character. So the mode so called was neither bright nor cheerful, but austere having a seriousness for which it was suited to tragedy very well. Appropriate themes were to be sung in their respective modes and the singer was also required to possess the suitable character, for a man of Ionian character could not sing in the Dorian mode befittingly, nor could an Aeolian sing in the Ionian mode. Thus Damon the ancient master of music showed a close relation between the soul of being and music "Noble souls are produced by noble and Vulgar by Vulgar song." 93 The souls produce their appropriate music and music likewise repro-duces its appropriate souls. The Greeks thus considered music to be the most imitative of all arts in the sense that it could represent the emotions of a soul more approminately and perfectly, being itself of the character as the soul's ; and as such, in influencing the soul more deeply than other arts it was also a means to instruction and mystic purification.

The tendency of doing something very close to Nature noted in the ploughing scene on the Homeric shield of Achilles and in the music of the Delian girls, was a typical feature of the Greek character ; in a successful achievement of this tendency they found perhaps the utmost success of human skill. The thought was probably this : although they are inferior to Nature in power, yet they can produce something with their limited agility which will be so close to the form of its natural counterpart that a distinction between the two will be rare. They call this product an imitation, but not a duplication, for their creation is by no means another thing exactly existing in Nature. The statue of man is not exactly a man, nor does a dancer's representation of a lion become exactly the activities of a lion, nor is a singer's imitation of voice of a bull the roaring of a real bull. Pollux records the popular view of the Greeks that they call an

93. Ibid. 628.

23

artist an imitator because he cannot be a simulator or duplicator, for his product is not similar to that of Nature, only a likeness of it. A painted figure is 'a being made like' (pragma mimésin) or 'imitation' (mimēma) or 'likeness (homoiōsin) or 'a figure painted to life' (eikona eipois auto-pragma).

IV. Owing to a serious misunderstanding of this popular belief of the Greeks their arts especially sculpture and painting have been notoriously misinterpreted by the critics of various countries and ages. Their belief that a work of art is a mimēsis and eidōlon or an eikōn does by no means indicate that their artists have produced only the reflected copies of Nature. Many things are represented in their arts the counterparts of which are absent in Nature. The figures of satyrs and monsters, for example, are purely imaginary. Even when they believed that they were imitating the superb vision of the poets they were not really holding a mirror to it, rather it shows that they shared an equal vision with the poets and in this sense visible arts became complementary to verbal art. The artist embodied his own vision of what a god or a monster ought to be. The highest degree of power and beauty that he conferred on the image of a god and all the disparate limbs and features that he combined in a monster could not be derived from any single instance. For that he had to enlarge the scope of his

94. Pollux, op. cit. VII. 126-27. Pollux also describes the artistic activity (especially painting as Poiēsin or creation and takes it as a substitute for mimēsin. But this sense of the word is completely distinct from that of the English word used to-day. Poiēsin means any making in general including even the imitative activity. Pollux here records the popular Greek sense of the word which should not be confused with any free creation. As the word is used as a substitute for mimēsin, it must mean mimētikē poiēsin or 'imitative creation.'

observation and to enrich the power of his imagination. In

fact, all this required much more than a servile imitation.

The artist looked freely at Nature with a deep sensitive soul

and felt the points of beauty, features of qualities, divine or

monstrous, human or beastly and deduced principles there-

from by an inductive method. The principles such as "beauty

consists in the proportion not of the elements, but of the

parts, that is to say, of finger to finger, and of all the fingers

to the palm, and of these to the fore arm, and of the fore arm

to the upper arm and of all parts to each other,"95 and a

statue "must be neither very tall and inordinately conky,

nor short and dwarfish in build, but exactly the right

measure, without being either fat which will be fatal to any

illusion, or excessively thin that would suggest skeletons and

corpse."96 were not found by Polycleitus a priori. These

he obtained by his thorough and careful observations which

escape ordinary eyes.

Pheidias had only a few lines of Homer before him

serving the model for his Olympian Zeus : "Kronian spake

and nodded assent with his dark brows, and then the

Ambrosial locks flowed streaming from the lord's immortal

head, and he caused the great Olympus to quake."97 But

it was not sufficient for a combination of 'the powerful' and

'the beautiful'98 that Pheidias accomplished in his

statue which was so majestic in size and glamour that the

big temple was unfit to contain it "If Zeus arose and stood

erect he would unroof the temple."99 Arnobius of Sicca,

a Christian theologist, with a severe detestation for the

95. Galen, De Temperance, I.9, quoted by Bwra, op. cit. P. 170.

96. Luc. The dance, 74. 97. Iliad. I.5.528. quoted by Strabo, VIII.

3.30. 98. Upon the finger of the Olympian Zeus was written :

"Pantarces is beautiful." 'Pantarces' means all-powerful and inciden-

tally it was the name of Pheidias' boy-beloved who sat in front of

him while he carved the statue. See Arnobius of Sicca, The Case

against the Pagans. VI. 13. 99. Strabo, loc. cit.

30

Greek paganism condemned the statue identifying it with

Pantarces, the boy-beloved of Pheidias who sat for his

model.100 Such a remark shows not only want of aesthetic

sense, but of a common sense as well ; for a boy would not

be of such a colossal size. Far from being identified with

him the statue was hardly in the likeness of the boy.

Pheidias' model undoubtedly was Homer as he has himself

said to his nephew;101 he made the boy Pantarces sit before

him just to inspire his sensibility. The same is true with his

statue of the Great Athene at the Parthenon of Athens.

Zeuxis the painter did not copy any single Woman

to paint his Helen, but held an exhibition of maidens, who

paraded naked, and chose five wherefrom he selected the

best points of beauty.102 Even a realistic picture like his

bunch of grapes whereto birds flew up, or the curtain of

Parrhasius which Zeuxis himself confused with a real

one103 were not reflected images of their natural counter-

parts. They embodied all the best features that the painting

could possess in order that they can be lively. The symbolic

representations of thunder, lightning, victory, the nude

heroes which even challenged Nature herself,104 the

statues like a mad man in bronze by Apollodorus105 that

would appear not a human being, but anger personified and

many other examples of painting and sculpture that Pliny

records106 prove sufficiently that an 'imitation' was no

mere imitation.

100. Arnobius, op. cit, VI. 13. 101. Strabo, loc. cit. 102. Pliny,

XXXV. 5.62. 103. Idem. loc. cit. 104. See his records of painting

by Apelles and Protogenes. Apelles painted a picture of horse seeing

which the living horses began to neigh. XXXV. 5. 39. Protogenes

wanted that his art should contain the truth itself, not merely a

near-truth. XXXV. 5. 102-3. 105. Pliny, XXXIV. 19. 74. 106. See

his detailed description of the Greek sculpture and painting in Books

XXXIV and XXXV. Pliny records that the Greeks modelled many

imaginary likenesses also, XXXV. 2. 11.

CHAPTER II

IMITATION OF THE SOUL

i. The philosophical background of the pre-Socratic Greek thought--change of mythical outlook and rise of rationalism--Thales, Anaximenes and Heracleitus--their challenge of the anthropomorphic cosmology of the myths, but agreement with it in holding an imitative relation between the microcosm and the macrocosm, ultimately implying an aesthetic principle that art imitates Nature--the principle made explicit in the Pythagorean philosophy--art as an imitation of the principles of the structure of the universe--the cosmic and aesthetic thoughts of Empedocles--painting, an imitation through colour of the visible and the invisible objects. ii. The medical philosophy of Hippocrates--the microcosm as an imitation of the macrocosm--organic bodies built in imitation of the organic function of the universe--in production of art man's imitation of his own inner organic function--with the practical attitude of a classical Greek and of a medical scientist, Hippocrates' depreciation of statuary as an imperfect imitation of the body without the soul and organic function--the pragmatic thought of the Sophists--Gorgias--fine art having no practical value--only producing an illusion of the reality and giving pleasure by the excellence of its illusory shape. iii. Socrates the sophist--his pragmatic thought--similarity and dissimilarity with other Sophists--the beautiful and the useful--fine arts imitating visible objects--imitation versus symbolization--artistic imitation as ideal not photographic--imitation of the beautiful involving selection--plastic art imitating invisible gods in giving visible shapes to the poetic description--the emotional gestures of the body making the invisible soul visible--imitation of the soul by the artist through the imitation of these gestures--Socrates' refined sensitivity hampered by his bias towards the useful.

1. Sometimes it is held that in Greece aesthetics originated in the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy to which Plato refers.1 The Ionian philosophers of the sixth century B. C. deleted the mythical concept of the universe in the first stage of the Greek rationalism, and tried to substitute a scientific explanation for it. Up to this period the works of Homer and Hesiod were read not for any aesthetic interest. They were source-books of knowledge—of science and philosophy, “since from the beginning,” writes Xenophanes, “all have learnt in accordance with Homer.”

But the Greek mind of the 6th century B. C. was not in a mood to concede any scientific value to the work of the poets. They challenged it, or sometimes tried to read some allegorical sense into it. The first thing they attacked is the understanding of the universe in the light of human activities that it is created by the gods in a process similar to either sexual generation or artistic creation. The Anthropomorphic view of the gods was criticized by Xenophanes.3 The gods, he thought, have no resemblance to man, either in their shape or in their character; and these humanized divinities have not created mortals, nor have they revealed to them all things from the beginning—“the cosmos which is the same for all, was not created by any one of the gods or of mankind.”4 Disbelief in the existence of gods would be heretic at this stage, liable to terrible punishment and the philosophers, indeed, did not try to prove themselves atheists; rather on the contrary, they searched for an ultimate reality, all-powerful, ever-existing and omnipresent.

1. Plato, Republic, 607. 2. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. P. 22. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. P. 26

which would be self-sufficient to bring an order in the diversities. It would have no birth, no death, no suffering nor

any of the human passions, "there is one god", says Xenophanes,5 "among gods and men, the greatest, not at all like

mortals, in body or in mind....He sees as a whole and hears as a whole. But without toil he sees everything in motion,

by the thought of his mind....And he always remains in the same place, not moving at all, nor is it fitting for him to

change his positions at different times." But what can be the nature of this God ?

The Greeks were conscious of the fact that only like can produce like. "How can hair come", says Anaxagoras,

"from not-hair and flesh from not-flesh ?"6 The nature of the cause must be inferred from the nature of the effect. The

mythical thinkers also proceeded on the same line when they equalized the nature and shape of the gods with those of

men ; thus the point of difference between the philosophers and the myth-makers was not so much of a method as of an

outlook. The philosophers undervalued the sensuous aspects of the reality in details, and argued that the effect with all

its detailed sensuous aspects is not anticipated by its cause, it inherits only the essence of its cause. God has not shape,

for while a sensuous shape is fluctuating, God must be changeless to retain order among the changing effects. It

is thus a substance for Xenophanes.7

The Primal substance is water according to Thales;8 he holds this notion perhaps, as Aristotle suggests,9 obser-

ving the fact that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist and kept alive

by it ; and the seeds of all things, further, have a moist nature and water is the origin of the nature of moist in

5. Ibid. P. 23. 6. Ibid. P. 84. 7. Diogenes Laertius. IX. 19.

6. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 983 b 20. 9. Ibid.

34

things. A later surreptitious fragment 16 informs that he

was aware of the much discussed four substances-earth,

water, fire and air and held water as the chief one. Air

was the first principle for Anaximenes-"As our soul, being

air holds us together, so do breath and air surround the

whole universe"; 11 and according to Heracleitus Fire is

the primary substance. As a contemporary of Pythagoras,

he was probably influenced by his concept of harmony or

measure as the organizing principle of the universe; and for

that his "ever living" Fire is "kindled in measure and

quenched in measure". 12 Fire first changes into sea; and

"of sea, half is earth and half fiery water spout...earth is

liquefied into sea, and retains its measure according to the

same law as existed before it became earth". 13

This shows that although these philosophers attacked

the way of understanding the universe in the light of human

affairs-their process of procreation with its concrete

sensuous aspects, yet they agreed with the mythic cosmology

that the sensuous commonplace world is so related with the

ultimate reality that the substances of both are the same in

kind though not in degree. Mythology says that the form

and substance of the mortals participate in or are imitation

of those of the gods, their creators, only with the difference

that mortals lack the degree of longevity which the gods

possess. The philosophers now say that the objects of the

common sensuous world participate in or are imitation of the

ultimate reality which is one and unending in so far as their

substance is one in kind. The difference of shape among

phenomena is due not to the creation of the Reality but to

its transformation or modification by purely natural processes

such as rarefaction and condensation. This may be the

ground of a quarrel between poetry and philosophy, accor-

10. Anc. P.S. Phil. P. 19. 11. Ibid. P. 19. 12. Ibid. P. 20. 13. Ibid.

P. 27.

ding to Plato, but the philosophers concerned did not think

so. The object of their conscious attack was neither poetry

nor paganism, nor even religiuos ideas. They simply

attacked the current beliefs regarding the nature of the

ultimate reality. This attack was like the challange of one

philosopher or school of philosophy against another. They

would not have had Homer and Hesiod been read not as

philosophers but as poets in the modern sense of the term.

Throughout the whole course of the development

of Greek philosophy one may notice the change of the notion

of this Reality and the process of its transformation, but the

relation between the commonplace particular objects and the

universal reality was always the same—the particular

participates in the universal or the microcosm is the imita-

tion of the macrocosm. Ultimately it coincided with an

aesthetic principle, sometimes implicitly and sometimes

explicitly, that the artistic creation is an imitation of the

commonplace reality.

Pythagoreanism, perhaps for the first time, more

explicitly mentions the imitative character of the fine arts.

Pythagoras is said to be a pupil of Anaximander who was

also influenced by Anaximenes. Pythagoreans represented

the world as inhaling 'air' from the boundless mass outside

it and this air is identified with 'the unlimited.'14 But this

system differs from the earlier doctrine in holding that the

process of transformation of this primeval substance is not

natural such as rarefaction and condensation. The unlimited

matter takes forms by the influence of Limit or Form, and

this limit consists of elements like proportion, order and

harmony which are all brought into effect by number. Thus

Pythagorean philosophy occupies an eminent place in the

history of Greek thought in discovering the importance of

14. Arist. Metaph. 985 b 25.

36

'form' without which matter cannot be transformed into

various shapes. Matter and form both are necessary for the

cosmic creation. Plato and Aristotle were later influenced by

this thought to a great extent; and for the student of aesthe-

tics it is one of the crucial points of emphasis. As in the cosmic

creation, so in the artistic product, form and matter both are

necessary. But unfortunately this school was so much allured

by this 'form' and its aspects - proportion, order and harmony

based upon mathematical numbers that it undervalued

greatly the presence of matter. Later Pythagoreans thought

air as a kind of moist and still later a void.15 Thus number

became the ultimate reality and the happy balance of the

earlier thought was lost. Things according to this school

exist by imitation of numbers;16 and mathematical

principles are the principles of all things. Pythagoreans

tried to justify this mathematical nature of the universe

by examples of the arts like music and medicine which,

they thought, are imitations, like other existing things,

of the universe. It is the business of the physicians to

bring a proportionate blend of different humours.

Similarly musical harmony is founded upon numbers.

"The difference of notes is due to the different numbers of vibrations of

the sounding instrument. The musical intervals are likewise

based upon numerical proportions. The model of this

human music is the harmony of the Celestial bodies."17

The pitch of the notes in this heavenly harmony is

"determined by the velocities of the heavenly bodies,

and these in turn by their distances which are in the same

ratio as the consonant intervals of the Octave."18 The

soul is also an imitation of the celestial harmony being itself

an attunement, based on musical proportion; and it takes so

much pleasure in music, an imitation and vehicle of

15. GP. P. 51. 16. Arist. Metaph. 985 b 25. 17. CHGP. P. 35.

16. FGP. P. 306.

the divine melody, as both are of the same nature. On this

basis Pythagoreans held medicine and music as purgatives

for the body and the soul respectively.

Pythagoreanism may differ from the previous thought

regarding the nature of the reality, but it agrees with it in

admitting an imitative relation between the universal and

the particular—the microcosm imitates the macrocosm, the

human art imitates the divine art. Some might smell a

mythic symbolism in the Pythagorean explanation of the

universe especially when it attempts to identify different

qualities with different numbers. One, for example, is point,

two is line, three is plane, nine is justice, ten perfection and

so on. But these are all the whims of the immature thinkers

all of whom were not of the same opinion19 in matters of

detail. When they are counting the ten rotating heavenly

bodies on the basis that number ten is perfection and heaven

is also perfection, the argument is based upon an invalid

analogy. Pythagoras was, as it seems, involved in the mythic

exercises of the Orphic sect and at Delos he was influenced by

the idea of catharsis of the soul of the Apollonian religion20.

That is why music and medicine held an eminent place in

his philosophy. But he was more a rationalist than a mystic.

He differed from the Orphic sect in holding that philosophy

is the highest ‘music,’21 and that rational thought also can

purge the soul. In fact, the tone of mysticism is very weak

in Greek thought. It was rather more prominent in the past

Creto–Minoan culture—in the worship of the thunderbolt

and in the dance of the kouretes. Even the attempt of

Anaxagoras to explain Homeric epics as allegorical express-

ions of truth indicates no mysticism or symbolism. He has

rather tried to prove that the epic poets are scientists, they

have personified the scientific facts only for the easy under-

19. Arist. Metaph. 985. b 25 ; CHGP. P. 37. 20. GP. P. 41 21. GP.

P. 41.; 21. GP. P. 41 ; CHGP. P. 82.

standing by the masses. The Pythagorean doctrine is essentially an attempt to give a physical explanation of the

universe. Their lesser emphasis on matter (e.g. air) may point to their more longing for the formal characteristics of

the universe, but yet it will be probably wrong to say that they wiped out the matter completely, for how can sound be

produced unless air is there ?22 The example of human music does not contain merely a metaphorical interest. It is

no metaphor at all as being causally connected with the celestial music, it becomes a microcosm, a human attempt to

imitate the macrocosmic melody, in order that the soul having the same harmonic structure in imitation of the

universe will take pleasure in it. For the Pythagoreans, then, it is an imitation of the principles of the structure of the

universe in a smaller scale.

Empedocles suggests this idea more strongly. But before turning to him we need a discussion of some fundamental points here. In the myths the position of human

beings is very poor : they are merely puppets in the hands of the divinities. This complete control of human power by

the divine beings undervalues the human talent. Out of their own accord the mortals can do nothing. They would

remain uncultured had not Prometheus, the Titan given them fire and provided them with the skill of the divine arts. A

reminiscence of this view is in the voice of Epicharmus, a comedian of the 5th century B. C.—“The human logos is

sprung from the divine logos, and it brings to each man his means of life and his maintenance. The divine logos accom-

panies all the arts, itself teaching men what they must do for their advantage, for no man has discovered any art, but it

22. The idea that sound is produced as being the concussion of air is said to have been first mentioned by Archclaus of the fifth century

b. C. Diog. Laert. II. 17. It may not be improbable to say that the idea was already present in the Pythagoreans which Archclaus made

explicit.

is always god.23 But his is not the voice of the age; it

contains little philosophical value, since Epicharmus is more imaginative than reflective in his temper. A demand for

human freedom becomes acute as the Greek civilization

proceeds. As human shape takes prominence in art, so

human talent becomes prominent in all human activities.

The Orphic sect busies itself in practising the rituals by

which the human soul will gradually be free from the fetters

of mortality and will become immortal ultimately. Thus the

scope of humanity is no more limited and restricted by the

supremacy and whims of the divinities; it ventures to have

an equal place with gods. This is obvious in the voice of

Xenophanes the Ionian—“Truly gods have not revealed to

mortals all things from the beginning; but mortals by long

seeking discover what is better.”24 It should not be assumed

that the mortals have so much independent power as to

produce something totally new. But at least this much

freedom and power they have that they can improve to some

extent upon the creation of God by their talent, which is

itself a gift of god. This humanism develops gradually and

reaches the apex in Socrates who draws the attention of

the philosophers, busied in reflecting upon the nature of the

universe by a mathematical or astronomical calculation or

physical investigation, to the interest of men, and invites

them to determine the nature of only those things which

are related to practical human interest.

Empedocles determines the artistic activity with a

striking insight into the individual talent of the artist in

producing the resemblances of physical objects. As a philosopher his eclectic character is obvious in his borrowing the

thoughts of eminent predecessors and blending them into a

new one. His concept of cosmic creation is based on the

cosmology of the Ionians, Eleatics, Pythagoreans and

23. Anc. P.S. Phil. p. 39. 24. Ibid. p. 22.

46

Heracleitus. The Ionians referred to two primeval elements --

water and air, and Heracleitus to fire; Empedocles now

adds one more--earth. He agrees with Parmenedes that

"what is Is".25 The Being cannot pass into not-Being, nor

becoming can ever be Being for example, fire cannot

become Water, nor Earth Air. He also supports Heracleitus

in that change is possible, although he differs from him in

holding that the Reality is not a flux, but a solid matter.

Although the root principle is solid and indestructible it is

yet capable of transformation, as for example, water can

become brass or iron, and mixing with fire it can be air.

Here he is more akin to the Ionians than to the Eleatics ;

and differing from the Ionians he holds that the force

required in such transformation is not coming from within

the roots themselves, such as in rarefaction and condensation

it comes from outside. He asserts that there are two forces--

Love or harmony and Hate or discord in addition to the four

roots. Parmenedes, of course, admitted the force of love

before.26 Love is the force of creation, and the resemblance

of this cosmic Love can be found in the sexual urge for union

among the animate beings in a smaller scale. Hate is the

force of destruction or separation. But these two are not

diametrically opposed, rather Hate supplements love. It is

because male and female are separated that they long to

unite. Thus separation is the cause of union, and in creation

both act with equal prominence. This separation and union,

however, do not occur arbitrarily. There is a law or princi-

ple following which these two actions make creation possible;

and here come the Pythagoreans. To explain this, Emped-

ocles gives a concrete example of a painter's activity :

"As when painters decorate temple-offerings with colours ;

men who following their intelligence are well-skilled in

their craft ; there when they take many-coloured pigments in

25. Ibid. P. 431f. : CHGP, P. 82 26. Anc. P.S. Phill. P. 45

their hands and have mixed them in a harmony taking more

of some, less of another, meat from them forms like to all

things, making trees and man and women and animals and

birds and fish imitated in water, and even long lived gods,

who are highest in honour27… The passage suggests obviously

that a painting is fundamentally an activity that

produces likenesses of objects animate and inanimate, either

visible such as trees, birds (flying beings), fishes (swimming

beings) and human beings that live on lands or invisible

beings such as the gods. But this production of likenesses is

not merely a passive act of imitating something blindly as a

mirror reflects an object. The role of the artist’s intelligence

is emphasized here—painters are men, who following their

intelligence are well-skilled in their craft. Thus an artist

does not merely copy the objects of Nature. He collects some

colours and mixes them choosing more of one and less of

another in such a harmonious way that it appears like an

object of Nature. This choice of colours and the process of

mixing require the talent of the artist. While compared with

the cosmic creation the colours seem to be materials, the

process of mixing is the cosmic harmony, and the forces of

union and separation come from the artist himself. The

artistic likeness, thus produced, cannot be said to resemble

the original in both form and matter : The artist’s materials

are considerably different from the materials of the cosmos :

and in this respect, the artist is incapable of imitating Nature

perfectly. It is the form of the cosmic creation which

contains harmony and order that the artist imitates. Artistic

imitation, then, is only formal. The order, the process of

arrangement of the parts with the whole, which makes a man

or a tree in Nature, must be the same in painting; and as the

painter varies regarding the material of his creation, it is

impossible to find an exact counterpart of the painted man

27. Ibid p. 53

or fish in Nature. Thus a painted man's colour may be so

bright, the entire construction so muscular that in Nature

its original may be rare, but it must not be so painted that

it will be unlike a man in its formal arrangement i.e. the

fixation of eyes, proportion of the head to the body and the

place of the hands must have the same order as we find in

Nature. This is, as it seems, the nature of artistic imitation

according to the Empedoclean passage quoted above,

wherein the genius of the artist is obvious in his production

of the likeness out of materials that are very unlike those of

the original creation. It might have cast immense influence

upon Polycleitus whose Canon of sculpture suggests that

beauty consists in the proportion of the parts to the whole.28

ii. In the writings of Hippocrates, however, it is

strange to notice that the intelligence required in the artistic

imitation is overlooked. The cosmic creation for Hippocrates

too, involves matter and form. There are only two mate-

rials—water and fire, and form involves the process by

which the two materials of opposite nature unite so as to

create the universe. The very essential principle of creation

is the combination of contraries such as hot and cold, giving

and receiving, increasing and diminishing, union and separa-

tion, visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious, right

and left, ups and downs and so on. All the opposites are

only verbal and apparent. In truth, they are the same. While

two men saw a log, one pulls it downward, and the other

upwards, but they do the same thing i.e. they cut the log.

So the two opposite elements, fire and water or hot and

cold, mix in various proportions and the world is created.

What is true of the cosmos, is also true of man, the micro-

cosm. He is like all other animals composed of two opposite

elements—fire and water. His breath is cold and body is hot.

28. See quoted Pt. I. Chap. I, supra.

In the belly the two elements—water and fire mix to digest

his food, and both moist and dry are necessary for his life.

The soul is intelligent and conscious while the body is uncon-

scious and non-intelligent. But the whole being of man is

possible for the proportionate combination of these two

opposite elements. The soul cannot be conscious unless the

belly takes food and the belly cannot be active unless the

soul is in the body.

Everything is changing. A child grows to manhood,

and in this process of change he gives up the childish habits ;

and in this sense diminishes. But in this diminution he

increases also—he grows in figure, knowledge and experi-

ence. The becoming ceases to be what it was, and becomes

something that it was not, and the being loses something

in not being the becoming. Such is the outline of the physio-

logical philosophy of Hippocrates. It is obvious that he was

greatly influenced by his predecessors. The Ionians, Eleatics,

Pythagoreans and Heracleitus equally contributed to his

philosophy with whom he agreed in holding that the micro-

cosm is an imitation of the macrocosm.

Regarding the creation of arts and crafts Hippocrates

agrees with Xenophanes30 that these are all human crea-

tions not given to man by the gods wholly. Of course it is

not completely something new as it is an expansion of the

fundamental formula by which he himself is created. The

principle and materials are supplied to him by the gods

upon which he improves. Thus fundamentally his thought

is very much like the mythical explanation of the artistic

activity. “But men do not understand,” says Hippocrates,

“how to observe the invisible through the visible. For the

arts, they employ, are like the nature of man, yet they know

it not. For the mind of the gods taught them to copy

(mimeisthai) their own functions, and though they know what

29. Regimen, I passim. 30. Regimen, XI.

43

They are doing yet they know not what they are copying mimeontai."31 The sense is that a practising artist carries out the function of imitation within himself, but is not aware of the nature of this function rationally. The artists are thus only blind imitators of the truth principle of the universe whereas the philosophers (including himself) possess the rational faculty of knowing this truth.

we get the idea then, that man in producing arts imitates the function which must within himself, and this function in human body is an imitation of the cosmic function, for Hippocrates says that the construction of human body is a copy (mimésin) of the earth.32 As function is the union of the opposites, it may be said that Hippocrates agrees with Empedocles that artistic imitation is formal in nature. But a great difference is to be noted also. For the latter, the artist imitates directly the cosmic function, while for the former, he imitates the human function which is itself an imitation of that of the cosmos : the artist thus imitates an imitation.

Hippocrates is trying to prove his thesis ingeniously by citing the function of certain arts and crafts.33 Secrecraft combines the visible with the invisible as it passes from present to future : a physician’s art unifies the opposites such as hot and cold into an organic whole so as to produce a balanced proportion to cause good health : when carpenters saw, one pulls and the other pushes, "imitating (mimeontai the nature of man"34, who draws breath in and expels out.

from the same notes come musical compositions that are not the same, from the high and from the low, which are alike in sound. Those that are most diverse make the best harmony, those that are least diverse make the worst. If a musician composed a piece all on one note, it would fail to please. It is the greatest change and the most varied that

31. Loc. cit. 32. Ibid. X. 33. Ibid. X. 12. ff. 34. Ibid. XVI.

please the most.35 A cook mixes vegetables of different

kinds and spices of different tastes to produce a single curry.

The arts of the seller and the actor are combinations of

deception and admiration-the seller is admired if he can

deceive the customer, and in acting the actor is admired by

the audience when the actor deceives them and the

audience are deceived consciously.36 Similarly the

statue-makers copy (mimēsin) the body without the soul, as

they do not make intelligent things, using water and earth,

drying the moist and moistening the dry. They take from

that which is in excess and add to that which is deficient,

making their creations grow from the smallest to the

largest. Such is the case of man. He grows from his

smallest to his greatest, taking away that which is in excess,

adding to that which is deficient, moistening the dry and

drying the moist.37 A statue-maker's (in fact, of all the

artists) way of imitation is obvious and it is undervalued by

Hippocrates for it copies only the body without the soul and

even that body built with clay and water is quite inferior to

a body of flesh and bones. One can see here how practical

is the motive of Hippocrates which is very natural for a

physiologist. He suggests that every art is essentially imita-

tive, such as music, acting in a play and statuary. But

while other arts are described with a tone of appreciation,

only statuary is depreciated bitterly, the only cause

being, not probability, its uselessness. Sculptural imitation

is merely formal as it imitates only the outward form without

the inner organic activity, while the imitation of music

is connected to some extent with the soul. He recognises

the pleasing effect of music and it is not improbable that he

believed in the purgative power of music as it was a familiar

notion at that time; and as a physician he recommended

music on the very ground that made him recommend

35. Ibid. XXIII. 36. Ibid. XXII. 37. Ibid. XXI.

46

medicine. Both of them have the healing power-if medicine

heals the body, music heals the soul, and the soul is the very

essence of life. But a statue is of no use ; it is even inferior

to a dead body.

Here is noted a considerable change in the Greek

classical thought from that of the myths. Pygmalion was

once allured by the charm of a statue of Aphrodite which he

took to his bed avoiding even the fairest of the living women

of his age, and Butades' daughter got enough consolation

from the statue of her lover in his absence ; and Empedocles,

a philosopher, appreciated a painted likeness as a work of

genius. It is not permissible to think that the statuary of

the time of Hippocrates lost its charm, which is contained in

the early times. History rather tells us that the Hellenic art

was on its summit in the middle part of the 5th century B. C.

It is from about the late 5th century onwords that the

Greeks began to be more practical in their attitude to life

and more rational in their speculation on the systems of the

universe. A plain belief in the things and a frankness in the

expression of emotion lost their strength now. So the statue

of a woman that once attracted Pygmalion seems now hate-

ful, as it lacks the warmth of a living body, in the eyes of

Aeschylus' Menelaus in the absence of Helen :

"The grace of shapely statues

Is hateful to her husband,

And in the eyes' starvation

All love drifts away."38

This pragmatic outlook can be well marked in the cosmology

of Anaxagoras, who believed with Empedocles that the forces

acting upon the root materials come from outside.39 These

forces were physical or material according to Empedocles

and the atomists. But for Anaxagoras these were non-

38. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 416-19. 39. Arc. P.S. Phil., I. 59. 11-12

physical. It is intelligence which produces these forces, for

these are directed towards some particular purpose. The

world is not a chaotic organisation governed by chances. Our

observation shows that Nature adopts some means to achieve

an end : and this purposive function cannot be carried out

by blind physical forces. An intelligent power or mind is

the controller of Love and Hate directing them to create

harmony, order and beauty to bring a rational cosmos out

of chaos.

From this rational and practical outlook sprang forth

the Sophistic philosophy. It was least concerned with the

astronomical or physical problems of the universe. With an

awareness of the limits of man's knowledge the sophists were

led to preach a sort of pragmatic philosophy. Man's main

concern is with the society in which he lives, and his best

object of life should be to live with an establishment, both

social and political. As they confined themselves only to

the sensible means of getting the knowledge of reality of the

world, they became sceptic. "About the gods," says Prota-

goras, "I am not able to know whether they exist or do not

exist, nor what they are like in form : for the factors preven-

ting knowledge are many : the obscurity of the subject and

the shortness of human life."40 Thus any attempt to know

the reality behind the sensible shape will end in a deception.

As for example, when one tries to identify the works of arts

with the reality beyond it, he is deceived. Of course he gets

pleasure in such deception : but it is in no way the pleasure

derived from the knowledge of the reality. "Tragedy by

means of legends and emotions," says Gorgias, "creates a

deception in which the deceiver is more honest than the

non-deceiver, and the deceived is wiser than the non-

deceived."41 A play is not real, but it only appears as real or

rather imitates the reality in a concrete sensuous shape. The

40. Anc. PS. Phil. P. 126. 41. Loc. cit.

13

moment we try to consider it as real we are deceived. So

the path from appearance to reality leads to illusion or

error.

Thus art, as is suggested by the sophists, has no

practical value which is well preserved by crafts. It is an

imitation either of the thing directly perceived or of the facts

told in the legends : and their imitations, in order to be,

successful, should be so vivid that they would allure the

observer to accept it as the real and thus will deceive

him ultimately. The aim of these imitative or rather

'deceptive' arts is only to give pleasure and, far from being

useful, its value is strictly limited to emotion only, for none

will like to be deceived in the practical field.

Gorgias admits, too, the emotional value of painting

and sculpture. 'Painters,' he says, 'however, when they

create one shape from many colours, give pleasure to sight :

and the pleasure afforded by sculpture is divine.' 42 We

may conclude on the basis of the above passage of the philo-

sopher that he admits art to be imitative, and that both

painting and sculpture give pleasure by the excellence of

their illusory shape. While comparing Gorgias with

Hippocrates one finds that according to Hippocrates

all arts are fundamentally imitative. Among them some

are useful while others are not. Music is most probably

included in the useful class for the reason mentioned above :

and although acting has some value, it is regarded as

deceptive. 'The actor's art,' he says, 'deceives those who

know.' 43 Gorgias, on the other hand, gives almost the

same view regarding the actor's art or rather the art of

drama. But he would not hold that all arts are imitative,

agreeing with the fundamentals of Hippocratic cosmology,

for as a sophist he would be sceptic regarding the nature

of the universe. His classification of arts seems to be two-

42. Ibid. P. 133. 43. Hippo., Regim. XXIV.

fold, useful and deceptive or imitative. Thus the separation

of fine arts from the useful arts or crafts seems to be present

in germs long before Plato, who only categorically mentions

it.

iii. Socrates, too, is a sophist,44 and so he deals

much with the useful. He agrees with other Sophists that

it is no part of man's business to search after the astronomi-

cal or physical mysteries of the universe. For him the best

object to know is himself. He differs from other Sophists on

the point that while they denied any possibility of an objec-

tive standard of knowledge in admitting sense-perception as

the only means of knowing that led to consider all knowledge

subjective, Socrates founded knowledge upon reason which

must have an objective standard: "all knowledge is

knowledge through concepts", and a concept means the

universal characteristics. But he was not a metaphysician to

apply this formula to the knowledge of Reality. With a

very practical motive he started his career as a philosopher,

and that motive was to acquire goodness. Among all arts

the royal one was to know how to live well. To live well

depends upon the attainment of Good which is equal to

virtue including all the human qualities such as tempe-

rance, prudence, foresight, benevolence, kindness etc. Thus

the beautiful is identified with the good and ultimately with

the useful. He discusses with Aristippus45 that the good

and the beautiful are the same and they are judged by their

usefulness. A golden shield may not be beautiful if it is not

useful, while a useful basket of dung can be considered

beautiful. The same thing, then, may be ugly and beautiful

according to the purpose it serves. What is beautiful in

regard to wrestling, is ugly in regard to running.

44. G.P., Chap.VIII ; CHGP. Chap.X. 45. Xenophon. Memo-

rabilia, III. 8.1-7 ; IV. 6. 9.

In his discourse on arts like painting and statuary

he observes, however, that they are imitative, because they

represent visible objects. In fact, the object of imitation

must be sensible, otherwise imitation would be impossible.

The sensible representation of something imperceptible is

called a symbol : the abstract quality of virtue, for example,

is represented by white colour and courage by a lion. So

white colour is not an imitation of virtue, nor is the lion an

imitation of courage. They are symbols. The Greeks

worshipped the statue of Zeus not as a symbol, but as an

imitation, for, as we saw, they thought, the poet had seen

the god through his divine eyes and the statue-maker imita-

ted this perception which the poet had expressed in words.

But when the Cretans worshipped Zeus in the mystic rites of

Kouretes of the Creto-Minoan culture in the shape of a

thunderbolt, it was a symbol-worship. The greeks would

never agree that the thunderbolt is the imitation of Zeus.

It is for their love of the concrete shapes that they substi-

tuted images for the symbols.

Socrates suggests that a painter imitates, not symbolizes.

But this imitation is not an exact copy of the visible

object point by point.4 for such copying is impossible only

through the use of colours. Besides, as the painters aim at

an ideal imitation i.e. an imitation of the object, beautiful

(and the beautiful is the useful) in the physical world, his

function should differ from that of a photographic camera,

for it might be difficult for him to find an object perfectly

beautiful which he wants to imitate, and for that he would

have to select some points here and some there. So imita-

tion of the beautiful involves selection, and this selection is

guided ultimately by the standard of the useful for a practi-

cal purpose. Hence this standard of choice is, to a great

extent, objective.

46. Ibid. III. 10. 2.

If imitation requires a visible object, invisible

spirits such as the soul cannot be imitated. "How can they

be imitated (mimēton) Socrates" says Parrhasius, the painter,

which has no proportion nor count, nor any of the

qualities you just mentioned now, and is not ever a visible

object ?"47 Parrhasius is a painter, he has no power of

speculation over his work. He simply imitates what he sees

before him. He can well imitate emotional expressions in a

man such as friendly looks etc. : but he cannot think of

imitating the invisible soul. Socrates here makes clear that

the painter does not know what he does. He, in fact, imitates

the soul which is concretized through the emotional expres-

sions of a man; and if the painter can imitate these ex-

pressions successfully, he will be said to have imitated the

soul.48

Hippocrates, we saw, condemned the art of a statue-

maker as non-intelligent, because it imitated only the body

without imitating the soul. That was a natural voice of a

physician for whom the soul is the form of organic action,

such as breathing, digesting, talking and perceiving. But for

a philosopher emotional expressions are much more powerful

than the physical reactions. A man may not actually kill a

person, but if any emotional sign to kill him is seen in his face

47. Ibid III. 10.3-4. 48. For Panḍe however, suggests Comparative

Aesthetics, Vol. 2, P. 10; 551-2) that this imitation of the soul is

symbolization. But this interpretation is confusing for, as we saw,

mysticism, the font of symbolic attitude was mostly alien to the

Greek thought, and besides, where they could see the images of the

gods as the imitation of the concrete shapes of the divinities viewed

by the poets, and held that nothing can be imitated in art which is

invisible to the eyes either directly or indirectly, it is doubtful to say

that they attempted to symbolize the invisible soul. If the gods were

visible through the poet's eyes, souls were also visible through the

actions of the bodies and in following the words of the poet and the

actions of the body they were imitating, not symbolizing, they believed,

gods and souls.

or is suggested in his gestures, then he should be rightly judged a murderer. A painted figure, if it imitates these

emotional activities, or suggests their physical reactions, would be lively and would give pleasure. "Do you make

your statues," Socrates asks te the statuary Cleiton, "appear more life-like (ap-eikazon) by assimilating your work to the

figures of the living? ...Do you not then make your figures appear more like reality and more striking by accurately

imitating (ap-eikazōn) the parts of the body, that are drawn up or drawn down, compressed or spread out, stretched or

relaxed by the gesture? ...And the exact representation (apo-mimeisthai) of the passions of men engaged in any acti

does it not excite a certain pleasure in the spectators...Must you not accurately copy (ap-eikasteon) the menacing looks of

combatants? And must you not imitate (mimētea) the countenance of conquerors, as they look joyful? A statuary,

therefore, must represent (proseikazein) in his figures the activities of the soul."49 This shows how Socrates thought

that a successful product of art must have a soul, a view that develops over the Pythagoreans and Empedocles who

gave emphasis upon the imitation of the proportion only. But this proportion or formal imitation is not sufficient; art

must be an emotional imitation as well. and one can imitate the emotion of the soul by imitating the actions of the body.

This outstanding suggestion of Socrates regarding the mystery of art creation was taken up and developed over by

Aristotle which shines as the light post of the Greek aesthetic thought.

Inspite of a fine sensitivity, Socrates, however, could not be a perfect aesthete for the idea of the good or useful

was haunting his mind. Being allured by his pragmatic attitude he considered that painting and coloured decoration of the walls give us less pleasure than the walls

49 Xenop. Mem. III. 10. 7 ff.

do.50 For him wall paintings are useless and hence less

pleasurable than the useful. Similarly, painting imitating

good-looking men gave him more pleasure than those imita-

ting had only.51 The common taste of the Greeks was, of

course, of this nature throughout the Hellenic period. Thus

guided by the contemporary taste Socrates lost the balance of

his sensitivitiv to the fine arts. It is said, "he used to express

his astonishment that the sculptors of marble statues should

take pains to make the block of marble into a perfect likeness

of a man (hopos homoiotatos) and should take no pains about

themselves, lest they should turn out mere blocks, not

men."52 This is why perhaps he left statuary, his paternal

occupation and devoted his entire life to the attainment of

the Good, the Supreme goal of human beings ; but unfortu-

nately having been misunderstood he lost his life in prison.

50. Ibid. III.8. 51. Ibid. III.10. 5. 52. Diog. Laert. II. 33.

CHAPTER III

IMITATION OF IMITATION

i. Plato an Apollonian - an outline of his cosmology -

the sensible imitating the intelligible - wide denotation of the

term imitation - its connotation in general - role of imitation

in cosmology, psychology and linguistics. ii. Cosmos, a

product of divine art, God's creation out of a play - its

creatures, puppets in His hand - human creation imitating

the divine creation - division of human creation into purposive

(or practical) and imitative (or fine) arts - the specific

notion of imitation in the imitative arts - two principles of

artistic imitation - qualitative and quantitative proportions -

these proportions more empirical than mathematical - imita-

tive character of sculpture, painting, music, dance, poetry

and drama - psychology of aesthetic experience involving an

imitative process - its two factors transportation and identi-

fication. iii. Proportional correctness not enough for artistic

imitation - necessity of beauty - beauty of artistic imitation

not consisting in only a perfect likeness - necessity of formal

attractiveness - Platonic conception of beauty in general -

artistic beauty inferior to Natural beauty. iv. Plato's polemic

against the Imitative arts not from an aesthete's, but from a metaphys-

ician's and a statesman's point of view - Colling-wood's

argument - criticism - Verdenius' argument - Criticism -

Conclusion.

i. Plato was a representative of the Apollonian

aspect of the Greek culture. The Greeks believed that he

was Apollo himself in a human birth and was born with the

purity of heart and clarity of expression, both pleasing and

rational. It has been said1 that Plato's father was very

1 Diog. Laert. III 2.

much keen about a sex relation with his mother before the

child-birth and which Apollo appeared to him in a vision in

fear of which he left the attempt; and Plato was born on

the birth-day of Apollo. Besides, Socrates saw in a dream

a cygnet on his knees which flew away with a sweet voice;

it was on the next day that Plato was introduced to him.2 He

was indeed a white swan that sang a song of reason. Poetry

and philosophy were perhaps for the first time blended up

uniquely in the history of European culture. He was an

Apollonian as opposed to Dionysiac in the sense that he

preferred reason to emotion. But nonetheless he was sensi-

tive to art. It is said that he brought Sophron's mimes for

the first time to Athens, and his genuine love for it can be

deduced from the account of its copies being found under

his pillows.3 He read all the extant works of his literature

and modelled the dramatic forms of his dialogues on the

style of Sophron, for he wanted to popularize philosophy.

As a philosopher Plato was highly eclectic.4 Although

he was a disciple of Socrates, his philosophy arose from the

unique combination of the ideal of the Pythagoreans, Elea-

tics and Heracleitus. Plato agreed with Socrates' view that

all knowledge is knowledge through concept. But while

this concept or definition was for Socrates a rule of thought,

Plato made it a metaphysical substance. Knowledge of

truth (or substance) is possible only through reason or

intelligence, while no knowledge of the sensible things is

possible, as they have no stability of existence. How can

one know a thing which changes every moment? Plato's

physical object (phainomenon) is thus Heracleitus' flux or

Parmenides' Becoming. Parmenides' Being is Plato's truth or

eidos; and the relation between phainomenon and eidos is

one of imitation.6 a relation which his predecessors traced

2. Ibid. III. 5. 3. Ibid. III. 18. 4. III. 8. cf. Arist. Metaph. 937b 10.

3. Stace. op. cit. 153. 6. Pl. Parmenides. 132; cf. Burnet. op. cit.

P. 336ff.

56

between the macrocosm and the microcosm. Phenomenon imitates the idea, its very essence. Thus there are many phenomena but one Idea. White objects are many, but the reality i.e. whiteness is only one. For every class of physical objects, then, there is one Idea. Thus Plato's system of Reality starts with an idealistic attitude but ends in a pluralistic realism. That is so because he could not be free from the essentially realistic outlook of the Greeks. His Ideas were only the abstracted forms of the mythical divinities existing in a world of their own, invisible to eyes but intelligible to reason. Although the world of the ideas and of the Olympic gods are not the same, the hierarchy of the former is analogous to that of the latter.

The imitative relation between the sensible or becoming and the intelligible or Being is the essential point of the Platonic philosophy. This establishes Plato's typical bias for an imagistic way of thinking which was unique in the formation of the Greek thought.7 We have seen how the cosmologists conceived of an imitative relation between the microcosm and the macrocosm, but Plato extended the area of this relation to other spheres such as linguistics, dialectics and aesthetics. Hence the word imitation (mimēsis) or a class of words having the sense of imitation is used not within a limited circumference. As Theaetetus says, imitation is a very comprehensive term which includes under one class the most diverse sorts of things.8 Its scope is universal and application is indeterminate owing to its use in several contexts. Plato uses ordinarily three roots —

eidō (its derivative eidolon), eikazō (eikon, eikazein, eikastike or eikasio etc.) and mimelazō (mimēsis)9 to indicate the sense of imitation irrespective of any specific choice of words, as if taking them as synonyms.

7. G. F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics : The Argument P. 27. 8. Pl. Sophist, 234. 9. Else, Op. cit. P. 26.

57

Although it is highly risky to give any absolute

definition of the term imitation by counting limited numbers

of its use in the texts, we can, nevertheless, suggest the most

essential aspects of its sense following two important passages

occurring in Plato's writings. Socrates argues in the

Cratylus10 that an image is something necessarily different

from the original of which it is an imitation; and, as an

imitation, it must lack some essential characteristics for

which it is inferior to the original. If a thing contains all

the characteristics primary and secondary, essential and

contingent, that are contained by some other thing, then

it would not be an imitation, but a duplication. If an artist,

for example, would make a body of flesh and bones with all

the organic features of a human being, it would be, then,

another being, not an image of him. So in the Statesman11

true imitation (here true imitation means reproduction)

becomes itself truth, not imitation. Similarly in the

Sophist12 the stranger asks Theaetetus to give an idea or

definition of any image, and after citing examples of water

reflection, sculptured and painted figures, Theaetetus holds

that an image is an apparent duplication of a thing—something

fashioned in the likeness of the true; and the stranger

but produces an illusion of truth. Thus the Platonic concept

of imitation means essentially an inferior activity. Even

when imitation would be understood in the sense of

emulation, Plato would give the same notion—a person

emulates another because he feels inferior to the person, he

imitates in certain respects, at least he lacks that quality

which he imitates; and, in fact, it is a feeling of want that

arouses an urge for emulation. Plato believes in the degrees

of this inferiority in the sense that an imitation may be more

or less like the original and can be divided as good and bad.

10. Cratylus, 432. 11. Statesman, 297 12. Sophist, 239.

58

Plato's dialectic, psychology and cosmology are closely

connected. As he divides the faculties of mind into two—

reason and sensation, so also he considers existence itself to

be comprehended by these two faculties of mind. The intel-

ligible are the areas of truth, while the sensible or the

phenomena of the physical world are not, and as science is

concerned only with truth, cosmology is not science for it is

concerned with the changing world. It is only a 'likely

tale' as a kind of play (Paid ia).14 Cosmology is related to

science in the same way as sense is related to reason, pheno-

menon to reality and particular to universal. The universal

phenomena constitute the reality and an account of them

is science, as they are rational in character. If cosmology

is a 'likely tale' or opinion, objects of the physical world are

also likenesses. Thus becoming is an eikōn of the Being15

or the physical object is an imitation of the Idea. White

objects are many, but the idea of whiteness is only one; and

if the object is an imitation of the idea, the particular is

also an imitation of the universal.

The divisions of mind into sense and reason and of

existence into being and becoming or intelligible and sensible

led Plato to hold that every creation is an appearance as

opposed to reality, and every created sensible object involves

the factors17—the material, the pattern (Paradeigma)18

and a moving or efficient cause which impresses the idea

upon the matter. This Platonic matter is indeterminate

like the Pythagorean void. A piece of gold is so because the

idea of goldness is impressed upon it. If the idea is taken

out, it ceases to be gold or anything else. Its name and

nature are both determined by the presence of the idea. But

the exact nature of this matter—whether the matter of a white

house, a black swan and a yellow flower is the same, and

13. Burnet, op. cit. p. 349. 14. Laws, 803, 644; Cf. Burnet, op.

cit. p. 345. 15. Burnet, ibid. 16. Timaeus 29. 17. Ibid.; Cf. F.M.

Cornford, Plato's Cosmology. P. 27 ff., 39ff.

whether the thing differs only in accordance with the

difference of ideas present in them—is not sufficiently deve-

loped by Plato. This is done perhaps intentionally, for Plato

believed that nothing can be spoken categorically or assuredly

of the physical world as it is to be comprehended only by the

senses, and in the senses there is no truth, but only

confusion.

The physical world thus becomes a formal imitation

of the truth or the world of ideas which existed independent

of any other world of creation. God is the efficient force who

has impressed these ideas upon matter. To the question—

what motive had God in creating this world—Plato gives a

mythical answer that God is good and self-ordered, so he

brought order in creating the sensible world out of the visible

mass of matter, moving in a disorderly fashion, by impressing

the forms, existing independent of him, on matter. But this

impressed form and the original paradigm are not the same.

The form is only an imitation of the latter. These are

imitations of what is ever.20 For Plato the concrete figure

of geometry and its ideal form are not the same. Plato says

in the Seventh Letter21 that three factors are required

for the knowledge of any existent thing—the name, the

definition and the image or concrete shape. But the Idea of

this is beyond all. The form of a circular figure on a piece

of paper is not exactly the same as the Form or Idea of a

circle. The former is an imitation. Thus the order in the

creation of created world is an imitation of God's order

and its objects are imitations of the forms, and as such are

inferior to both.

If a phenomenon is an imitation of Idea, time is a

moving image (eikōn) of eternity22; and the same is true in

18. For a critical estimate of Plato's doctrine of Ideas see Stace, op.

cit. P. 234ff 19. Burnet, op. cit. P. 342. 20. The Seventh Letter.

342 a. 21. Timaeus 37; cf. Diog. Laert., III. 67; Burnet, op. cit.

P. 342.

60

the sphere of linguistics. In the Theaetetus Socrates says

that an explanation has three meanings—“In the first place

the meaning may be manifesting one's thought by the

voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the

stream which flows from the lips as in a mirror or water”.22

Singular letters are nothing but imitations of emotions which

the speaker wants to convey and ultimately words and

speeches are images of thought. A name is a vocal imitation

of that which it names or imitates.23 This linguistic imita-

tion is different from musical imitation. Music imitates a

sound while a name imitates the essence of a thing.24 The

letter P (ρo), for example, imitates motion and all the words

containing this letter indicate a sense of motion (such as

tromos-trembling ; traxus-rugged ; Kroiein-strike ; thrauein

crush etc.)25 A name is an imitation of the thing, not

the thing itself. As the portrait of a man cannot be

attributed to a woman, so the name of one cannot be used

for the other ; and ultimately a name cannot be given to

something which is not of its nature. So the primitive names

were almost pictures.26 Representation by likeness is

infinitely better than that by any chance-sign.27 If the

name is to be like things, the letters out of which the first

names are composed must also be like things ; and in produ-

cing a correct likeness one must execute all the appropriate

characteristics.28 Some omissions or additions may give a

likeness, but not a good one. Besides, these words or vocal

gestures and bodily demonstrations are also imitations of

thought or of the nature of the thing in action, for example,

the raising of our hands to heaven would mean lightness and

upwardness, while letting them down would indicate heavi-

ness ; in describing running horse or any moving thing we

produce physical gestures, as far as we can, in likeness of

movement.29

22. Theaetetus, 206. 23. Cratylus 423. 24. ibid. 426. 25. loc. cit.

23. ibid. 431. 27. ibid. 434. 28. ibid. 431. 29. ibid. 423

As anything expressed is thus an imitation, its correctness should be judged by the original, and if the original is

ordinarily visible, the imitator is to be cautious in its execution, for even a slight touch of inappropriateness will

expose its failure before the public who are capable of comparing the original and the imitation. But when the

original is invisible the imitator is more free.30 To speak something or to paint a picture of a man is more difficult

than to do that of a god, for in the former case the folly of imitation can be more easily detected than in the latter case.

A correct imitation, then, necessarily involves the knowledge of the original. But both kinds of imitation—

accurate and inaccurate—are inferior to their original, completely so in kind, although they may be similar in degree.31

The psychological processes of memorization and recognition also involve an element of imitation. Memory is

nothing but a stock of imitations. There exists in the mind of every man a block of wax, which is of different sizes in

different men; and are hard, moist and pure of varying degrees.32 On this block are impressed the perceived sounds

and sights, their strength and concreteness being in accordance with the quality of the material and the force of the

impression. Memory is possible when this impression is strong enough to present itself before thought, and recog-

nition is possible when the thing perceived before is assimilated to its imitation on the mental block properly.33 But

all these evanescent images are far from giving us any knowledge of truth.

ii. Plato’s account of the cosmic creation, then, stands half way between myth and science. When God creates the

30. Cratus. 107. 31. Cratylus. 432. 32. Theaetetus. 191. 33. Ibid.

62

entire world by impressing the ever-existing Forms on the disordered matter. He is reminiscent of the mythical creator,

but his way of creation is not that of Prometheus, who created the world out of water and clay. This part of Plato's cosmo-

logy tends towards science although he never intentionally tries to make it so. As God's creations, we are puppets in

the hands of our creator, who creates us out of a play,34 and it is difficult for us to know with any certainty whether there

is any purpose behind it or not. But man is not spoken of by Plato with any low opinion. God has imparted certain

freedom or will power to man and an automatic force to the entire universe. As an ordinary potter he is not always

personally present in the creative and destructive processes. He has just started it and all things change imitating and

following the condition of the universe and of necessity agreeing with that in their mode of conception and genera-

tion and nature.35 Similarly God created man; Prome-

theus gave them fire and taught them the arts of Athene and Hephaistos,37—and then they had to order their course

of life for themselves and were their own masters, just like the universal creature whom they imitate and follow, ever

changing as he changes, and ever living and growing at one time in one manner and at another time in another.”38

Among human beings a disciplined society was

formed, for a single man cannot fulfil all his needs. Food, shelter and cloth are the bare needs of man, and for them

several things like the implements to build a house or cook food with, or to make vessels to keep things in are necessary.

Moreover, human beings are not mere pigs to remain satisfied with these bare needs, they strive to become

civilized, and in a civilized community fashionable houses of delicate designs with painted walls, embroidered clothes

34. Laws, 644, 803, 804. 35. Statesman, 274. 36. ibid. 37. Protagoras.

320 ff. cf. Philebus. 11. 38. Statesman. 274.

and shoes, ornaments, masks, plays, poetry, rhapsody, acting,

chorus-training and sculpture etc. are necessary as well.

Thus the arts (technai) were created, not created exactly,

rather were developed out the basic art activities that

prevailed among gods. Thus Plato divides all the arts into

two primary classes - divine and human according to their

origin. The entire world with its minute parts including

human beings, animals, natural phenomena and heavenly

bodies was created by God : this is divine art.4' To this

may be added the decorative household arts of Athene and

manufactured arts of Hephaistos. Human arts, on the other

hand, are all that are wronght in imitation of the models

of divine arts.4' This again is divided into two subclas-

ses productive or useful and imitative or fine arts. Those

that are required in the everyday life of man are productive

arts such as tools like chisels and sickles, vessels, vehicles,

dresses, arms, walls, and enlobatures.4* To them should be

added the activities like productions of materials such as

papyrus cords, cooks gold etc., growing food-grains and

preparing food out of them and others like slaving, herding

animals and so on.4' These arts do thus have a serious

purpose - serving human beings in their practical needs of

life, but the other class has no pragmatic interest. This is

connected only with the emotional aspect of a human mind,

and is solely meant for pleasure. It is not productive, but it

imitates a production, either divine or human. A painter,

for example, may paint a man, which is a divine product, or

a cot, a human product : but in both the cases they are only

imitations of the originals. That is the only purpose, if there

is any, which the imitative arts serve. Music, dance, poetry

sculpture, rhapsody etc. besides painting, fall into this class.4°

39. Republic 369, 372, 40. Ibid. 373. 41. Sophist. 265. 42. Ibid.

265-66. 43. Statesman 287. 44. Ibid. 287. 45. Imitative arts are

further divided into two sub-classes. Some like painting and sculp-

ture imitate through instruments like chisel, brush etc., others like

acting without such instruments. Sophist. 267.

64

This is an outline of the Platonic idea of the origin of

art. What we call fine arts Plato classified under imitative

arts; and critics46 suggest that he did not improve upon or

modify the conception of imitation as it was prevalent among

his predecessors, he simply elaborated it. The influence of the

traditional Greek thought upon Plato is obvious47; but to

limit Plato's creativity only to the elaboration of the preva-

lent ideas would be an erroneous judgement. Plato's power

of assimilation and modification was unique as we saw in

the general foundation of his philosophy. Similarly in his

speculations on aesthetics he grounded the popular ideas on

a philosophic system.48 The common concept of imitation

received in him a psychological and metaphysical scrutiny,

although it is very difficult to say how far Plato's views on

art are systematic. In fact, he had never an intention to

formulate a system of aesthetics. Except a few passages in

the 'Republic' all other references to artistic activity and

aesthetic experience occur only as analogies to simplify the

abstract ideas of dialectics and politics. Nevertheless, these

scattered passages contain certain elements which, taken

together, suggest Plato's ideas in this regard.

We noted that according to Plato a sensible thing is

created and every created thing is an imitation as it imitates

a form, an absolute ever-existing entity, the impression of

which upon the sensible receptacle makes it what it is to

our sense. Thus the entire universe, the work of divine art

is also an imitation and so are the art products of Athene,

Hephaistos and human manufacturers both purposive and

pleasure-giving, as they are all sensible. But among these

only the fine arts are specifically imitative. Imitation is

46. K. C. Pande, Comp. Aesth., Vol. II. P. 19. 47. See our Chap.

I, Part. I for the trend of traditional thought. 48. Treatises on

aesthetics are said to have been written in the Pre-Platonic period

which are now lost. See Diog. Leert. III. 84. 122-23.

more a process of emulation in the human productive arts

as they imitate the useful arts of the gods. A painted or

sculptured figure is an imitation in the same sense as the

ordinary sensible objects are copies. In fact, the process of

God in creating the world and that of the artist in creating

his work are the same. Both of them have models first, and

then they imitate or copy these forms in impressing them

on matter. But the distinct sense of imitation in the fine

arts should be gathered by contrasting it with the purposive

production.49 Critics very often misunderstand this concept

in contrasting it with the modern notion of the

nature of artistic function i.e. creation or expression, and

read the confusing conclusion that the Platonic imitation

refers to a slavish50 copy. It is equally confusing to consider

that the Platonic imitation and the modern creation

are the same. Plato's distinction of the imitative arts from

the productive arts was based on a pragmatic view. We

use the objects of the physical world — we write with a pen,

sleep upon a cot, smell a flower, live in a house and enjoy

a woman physically. But artistic representations of these

things are mere copies of these things completely without

any purposive value. From this point of view they are like

reflections on water or in mirror or are like shadows and

dreams. All these are on the same physical level, for all

would be illusions of the same type. A stick looks bent

under water, a face is reflected in a mirror and a tree casts

a shadow. These effects are due to the media such as water,

mirror and sunlight ; when we remove the media, the effects

are also gone. Similarly a cot is painted or man is sculptured

through the media of colour and stone; and when these

media are disturbed the things also vanish. A poet can

49. Cf. Bosanquet, A Companion to Plato's Republic P. 380 ff.

50. Verdenius, Mimesis in Plato ; see the discussion of Wilamowitz

and Otto Apelt.

narrate in his epics the stories that have no truth; and a

sketch of a house by a painter is a sort of daydream. All

these transitory and illusory objects are placed by Plato

under the name of eikasia, as opposed to pistis. If the God-

made physical phenomena like trees and hills etc. are pistis

the man-made productive arts like cois and houses etc. are

also so, and their reflections, shadows or imitations in art

are all eikasia.51 From the metaphysical point of view

also, a shadow, a reflection and a picture of a coi are on the

same level, for they are thrice removed from the Idea of

coi.52 But are they on the same level from the aesthetic

point of view? Do the painting and the reflection of a coi

involve the same process of generation? Do they have the

same type of similitude to the original? And do they appeal

to our sense of beauty in the same way? Plato seems to be

aware of a distinction here.

Imitative arts use pistis or the concrete visible

objects, both divine and human products, as models of

their imitation. These are eikons—the objects of eikasia—

as they possess certain affinities to other objects of this class

such as reflections and reveries. But whereas the divine

eikasia is an exact image of the pistis and produces an acute

sense of illusion, human beings are incapable of achieving

that excellence in their imitative products (arts). As the

man-made house would be inferior to the god-made house

at Olympia, so also human eikons would be less accurate

copies than the divine eikons.

The principles of artistic imitation53 involve both

qualitative and quantitative proportions. In painting one

does not produce the exact counterpart of living man with all

51. Sophist, 266; cf. H. J. Paton, Plato's theory of Eikasia, Proc.

Arist. Soc. Vol. XXII, 1921-22 P.76, I. 52. Republic, X. 597.

53. Sophist, 235 ; Cratylus, 432 ; Laws, II. 667-68 ; for the necessity

of measurement in art, see Statesman, 284.

the details regarding the exact height of his body and limbs

and its exact colour which a mirror can reproduce. The

imitation is concerned with the essential characteristics of

the physical construction-the number of the limbs, their

independent construction, their relation with each other,

and with the whole body. This is what Plato understands

by the principles of quantitative and qualitative proportions.

Thus a painter may not represent the exact height of a man

in his painting-a man of six feet height, for example, may be

represented within the compass of one foot only, but the

ratio of the relation of one part to the other, and of all the

parts to the whole body must be exactly copied. The same

is true in case of colour. The extant Greek paintings show

that the use of colour was not sufficiently developed at that

time. Cicero counts only four colours and no evidence is

available regarding the skilful technique in producing shades

and lights.54 So one cannot expect that the Greek painter

of Plato's time could produce the exact colour of a human

body. Plato says that a good picture must possess appropriate

colour. It will be ridiculous to paint the eyes with red

colour on the ground that among the limbs eyes are the best

and so is red among colours. The proper colour for the eyes

is black.55 Plato would thus admonish that a good painter

must know first what he is going to imitate-whether a man

or a god or a dog, what are its essential or universal

features : and then he has to represent it according to the

aforesaid quantitative and qualitative principles.56 Imitation

of a visible thing thus requires more care than that of an

invisible thing, for in the former case the artist has to bring

out a perfect likeness of the thing visible, a slight difference

otherwise may make the observer depreciate its value as an

image, while in the latter case, the original being invisible,

54. Reber, op. cit. p. 338. 55. Republic IV. 420. 56. Phaedrus, 261

68

such as the things of past and divinities, the artist is more

free to add or omit without destroying the capacity of his

product to be convincing as a likeness. But he must follow

the principles of propriety here.57 The image of a god must

differ from that of a man with the former's superiority in

grandeur, grace, and physical structure.

It is significant to note that Plato with his deep

insight and sensitivity realizes from the practice of his contem-

porary artists that the artistic propriety is not strictly

limited to the mathematical measurement. Artists may not

observe the proper measure in all situations. As the object of

these arts is to produce an illusion of reality, consisting thus

of an empirical value only,58 an artist may not make his

images always of the same proportion. What will look, for

example, proportionate from one perspective may not look

so from another. Small statues and painting, finely executed

may serve their purpose if kept near the observer, but will

be almost invisible, if placed some thirty feet high and so

will fail to serve the purpose. Two parallel lines look like

one line from long distance, so look the ceilings of a long

hall. But in this case the architect does not prefer sense

experience to mathematical measurement, nor does one

demand that the ceilings of a house should always seem apart

from whatever part of the house it may be looked at. So

architecture needs a strictly mathematical proportion.59

But if the concave lines on the pillar of a Greek temple look

bent in its upper parts, its execution is valueless, for these

are made only for a show without having any relation with

its strength. It is a decoration to arouse a pleasure in the

observer by its regular geometrical pattern. So the architect

should not make these lines accurately perpendicular but

slightly bent and irregular upwards, so that they may look

regular to a man standing below. Similarly, statues kept in

57. Republic, III. 382. 58. Sophist, 236. 59. Philebus, 55.

the friezes or metopes would look quite disproportionate and

unlike a thing which it imitates if they are constructed with

a correct proportion judged from a normal distance. It has

been said that Pheidias was wise in calculation of the

physics of sight. Once, in a competition with his disciple

Alcamencs. His statue, built to be kept on a high place, was

quite disproportionate seen from a normal distance and thus

was laughed at by the spectators, but when it was raised to

the height on the proper place it looked quite propor-

tionate.60 Hence Plato observes that the empirical propor-

tion must be preferred to the mathematical proportion in

the imitative arts.61 And on this point he classifies the

imitative arts as ‘likeness proper’ and ‘appearance of like-

ness’.62

Like visual art music also is, according to Plato, an

imitation. It imitates character (good and bad) through

sound. The proportion in music is empirical since “sounds

are harmonized not by measure, but by skillful conjecture :

The music of Flute always tries to guess the pitch of each

vibrating note, and is, therefore, mixed up with much that

is doubtful and has little which is certain”.63 Music is more

celebrated than any other kind of imitation, and it consists

of words, modes and rhythm.64 Mode and rhythm suit

words and words must suit the character of the object of

imitation—that is man should use manly words while the

words used by women should be keeping with the feminine

character. Very often the writers of the words of music (i.e.

poets) fail to observe this propriety of words whereupon

they assign mainly language to woman and with the

language of a free man they would mix melody and words

of a different character.65 Mode is the way of speaking

words which depends upon rhythm and rhythm is the order

60. A Hist. Aesth.. P. 34. 61. Philebus, 55. 62. Sophist, 236.

61. Philebus, 56 ; 64. Laws, III. 700. 65. Republic, II. 398. 65. Laws, 669.

76

of motion. A mad man, for example, should speak the words

suitable for him when singing, keeping a proper manner of

speaking with a particular distance between one word and

another.

Dance is also imitation. In both dancing and singing

one adapts the character of the object, he imitates.66

According to its character dance is divided into two classes

serious or honourable and ludicrous or ignoble.67 The serious

one imitates the character either in a vehement action such

as attacking or avoiding attacks, archery, hurling of javelins

and all sorts of blows, or in a peaceful state when a man

bears himself naturally and gracefully in his state of prospe-

rity. The former is called pyrrhic and the latter Emmeleia.

In this type of dance, one derives more pleasure, if there is

more movement. The other type which imitates the

ludicrous, is intended to produce laughter in comedy.

Besides these two, Bacchic dances imitate the actions of

drunken men, Nymphs, Pan, Silenis and Satyrs.68 Choric

dance is a mixture of dance and music which imitates

manners that occur in various actions, fortunes and disposi-

tions.69 Plato thinks that the gymnastics and dances origi-

nate, in a tendency for rapid motion which exists in all

animals. But as the lower animals have no sense of order,

only human beings can imitate this internal motion through

harmonious rhythm.70

Similarly poetry, both narrative and dramatic is,

according to Plato, an imitation. If anything expressed in

language, whether a speech or a word (including even the

writings of a philosopher) is imitation, it is necessary that

poetry should be imitative, as it imitates actions of gods,

human beings and the creation of God in general. A philoso-

phy imitates through language the Form or truth, but a

66. Laws, 655. 67. Laws, VIII. 814ff. 68. Laws VIII. 816. 69. Laws,

II. 655. 65f. 70. Laws, II. 653. 71. Republic. III. 392ff.

poet imitates the events of the sensible world through the

same medium.72 Although both are imitators, a poet is

inferior to a philosopher in so far as his product is thrice

removed from the Form. A philosopher directly imitates

the Form but a poet imitates a sensible object which is

itself an imitation of the Form. So Plato says, "...his art

being imitative he is often compelled to represent man of

opposite disposition and thus to contradict himself, neither

can he tell whether there is more truth in one thing that he

has said than in another".73 Although a poet and a historian

both imitate the sensible objects, a poet is inferior to a

historian as his imitation has no factual truth. Self-con-

tradiction is possible in the case of a poet, but not in the case

Drama is more imitative than narrative poetry as

its manner of imitation is direct. A dramatic poet does not

speak himself anything about the event concerned. The agents

therein speak and act their own stories, "Drama represents,"

says Plato, "human beings in action, either voluntary or

compulsory : in that action they fare, as they think...well or

ill, and experience joy or sorrow."74 Drama thus can

imitate its object more accurately.

Acting and rhapsody are two offsprings of the poetic

art. An actor playing in the roll of a character assumes his

personality, modes of talking and acting in several situations.

A rhapsode who recites epic poems, similarly, adopts the

personality of the character concerned and walks with the

force and intensity with which the poet narrates the subject

matter. This he does by the processes of transportation and

identification.76 He forgets himself and being transported

from the normal state feels himself as one among the persons

and belonging to the time depicted by the poet. It will not

be un-Platonic, perhaps, if we consider these two processes

as the basic principles of all imitative arts. A poet, a dancer,

72. ibid. 73. Laws. IV. 719. 74. Republic, III. 395. ff. 76. Ion, 535

72

a painter and a sculptor all go out of themselves. The poet

in describing the fight between Hector and Achilles feels

himself present inside the Trojan fort, looking at the ferocious

battle. Not only that, he feels within himself the strength

and revenging force of Achilles in one and the loss of heroic

vigour in Hector in another moment. Such conscious self-

awareness, the germ of artistic creation, is due to posses-

sion of the Muses.77 An artist like a prophet and a lover

is half mad, and his imitative creation is operated in a state

of such madness which involves transportation and identi-

lication. Thus as a mad man and a technician are essentially

different, it will be impossible for an artist to produce an

exact copy of an object. Plato thus frequently mentions

that artistic copy possesses only quantitative and qualitative

similiitude of its object.78

77. Laws, IV. 719; Ion. 533; Phaedrus, 244-245. 78. Critics often tend to

interpret Plato's idea of imitation by extending its meaning to include

even symbolization. The things of real life are, in this sense, symbols

of forms or Ideas. But such notion of symbolization cannot be

ascribed to Plato. Symbolization is a convention. White colour, for

example, is conventionally associated with virtue, for we simply

assume that this abstract quality is manifest through white colour, as

this sensible thing contains a freshness (the sign of purity) which is

the essential characteristic of both. But there is no place for

such convention in Platonic conception of physical objects, as the

relation between the Idea and an object is not conventional, but

causal. Plato does not connect the Idea of whiteness with white

object in the same way as we connect virtue with white colour. "The

artist", as Sengupta says, "has the power of penetrating to the heart

of reality and giving it an ideal but living shape." ( Towards a

Theory of the Imagination P. 13-14.) But this modern view is ours,

not Plato's.

Vredenburg thinks that Plato's concept of imitation is bound up

with the idea of approximation and does not indicate a true copy.

This is true. But it seems he is inclined to extend the sense of imitation

to suggestion or evocation; nay, even more than that "I have agreed."

he says, "that Plato's doctrine of artistic imitation is based on the

Plato's psychology of aesthetic experience also seems to be an imitative process involving the two factors mentioned above, namely, transportation and identification. The listeners of a rhapsody forget themselves and their personal and social consciousness is lost, and being transported to the world of art they identify themselves with the characters of the art and thus enjoy in sharing their sorrows and pleasure, pity and wonder.49 This identification is, further, regulated by the personality of the spectator.50 A good man enjoys a play in identifying the sufferings and victories of the good character of the play with his own. An old man enjoys the dance that manifests youthful movements, for he associates it with his past vigour of youth.51 Plato agrees with the distinguished musician of the 3th century B. C. who held an imitative correspondence between art and its appreciators.

"Song and dance," says Damon, "necessarily arise when the soul is in some way moved : liberal and beautiful songs and dances create a similar soul and the reverse kind creates a reverse kind of soul."52 That is why in regulating the appropriate music for a well ordered state Plato lays more emphasis upon the moral goodness of the musical imitation. As the imitation of bad is easier than that of good most of the people will enjoy bad. and as imitation and enjoyment conception of art as an interpretation of reality and that this principle is still a sound basis for our theory of art. This is not a new discovery"

op. cit. P. 36. Interpretation of reality requires a knowledge of reality; and the modern theories of 'creation', 'expression' or 'interpretation' believe in the existence of such a power in the poet, by which he can establish a relation with reality manifest in the sensible objects. But Plato never allows this power to the imitative artist. Some scholars think that Plato divided between fine arts proper and more imitative arts which are pseudo arts. This point has been discussed in the 4th section of this chapter.) He only copies the sensible thing, although this copy is affected by the human limitation and subjective vision of the artist. 79. Ion 535. 80; Laws II. 655. 81. Laws II. 657. 82. A Hist. Aesth., P. 71.

74

are closely connected, they will soon become bad imitating

the bad character.

iii. The artistic imitation is not, then, a slavish

copy of a sensible object. It is to be only “likely and analo-

gous” to the object it imitates, copying its quantitative and

qualitative proportions only. Now it is necessary for us to

judge two fundamental questions—first, what is the value of

this imitation? We know, Plato did not assign any practical

or metaphysical value to it. But does it have any emotional

value? Plato answers in the positive. As the foundations

of art—creation is essentially empirical, its object is also

strictly an emotional experience. Artistic imitation causes

a perfect and harmless pleasure that springs from enjoyment

of beauty. Hence this imitation is also beautiful. The

Athenian stranger realizes in the Laws83 that only the

proportional correctness is not enough for the fulfilment of

the purpose of art; it has to be beautiful also. “But even

if we know that the thing pictured or sculptured is a man,

who has received at the hand of the artist all his proper

parts and colours and shapes, must we not also know whether

the work is beautiful or in any respect deficient in beauty?”

This beauty in the artistic imitation does not consist only in

the similitude with respect to the original, the work must

be well executed through its proper medium : through

words in poetry, melodies in music, rhythm in dance and

colour in painting, and ultimately aesthetic experience is

not limited to the recognition of similarity between the

model and its imitation. It involves three factors : knowledge

of the object of imitation, correctness of its qualitative and

quantitative likeness and finally, its final attractiveness.84

As this attractiveness is something beyond the mathematical

factors, its execution will not be the same by all the artists.

83. Laws, II. 668, 669. 84. Laws, 669.

A picture of a man will differ in different paintings regarding

this beauty as all of them cannot apprehend the same

points of charm of the original. Two artists using the same

model will give us two different images with the same

proportional factors, but differing in the formal charm.

This shows that in Plato's aesthetics the term 'imitation' is

not equivalent to a slavish copy. He uses the word for the

products of fine arts mainly as a contrast to productive arts

or crafts. A product of fine art is not something absolutely

new, absent in the phenomenal world previously, nor is it

'produced' in an ordinary sense as a cloth or pot or other

things are produced to serve a practical purpose. It has no

independent world and separate standard of reality. It is an

image of a thing already created by God.

The second question is—what is the level of this

beauty of the imitative arts? Is it equal to or a development

over or inferior to the beauty of Nature? And ultimately,

what is its relation to the Idea of Beauty? The whole of

the Hippias Major deals with this problem of beauty. Socrates

asks : "what is the beautiful itself?" and Hippias, the sophist

misunderstanding his question describes some of his personal

likings85: that 1) a beautiful girl is something that is

beautiful. 2) gold is beautiful and 3) the most beautiful

thing for a man is to reach old age rich, healthy and

honoured by his countrymen. The first case is not comple-

tely free from a sexual bias, the second is a useful material

substance and the third is a sound social and physical state

of living. But neither any of these three taken separately,

nor all of them taken together, can lead us reach at a

satisfactory definition of beauty. The beauty of Pheidias'

Athene86 does not consist in its feminine charm or golden

ornaments or in its offering of good health and social

35. Hippias Major, 286-87. 36. ibid, 289-91.

71

situs. Beauty, according to Plato, involves three factors--

appropriateness, usefulness and pleasurableness. 87

The Greek word prepein or fitting and its derivatives

euprepes, prepodēs refer to an order of things and to a

harmonious structure in all fields whether visible or invisible.

The Greeks were highly sensitive to the orderly arrange-

ment of things. "How good it is," says Xenophon, "to keep

one's stock of utensils in order and how easy to find a

suitable place in a house to put each set in.... And what a

beautiful sight is afforded by boots of all sorts and conditions

ranged in rows ! How beautiful it is to see cloaks of all

sorts and conditions kept separate, or blankets or brazen

vessels or table furniture ! Yes, no serious man smiles when

pans set out in neat array, however much it may move the

laughter of a wit. There is nothing, in short, that does not

gain when set out in order. For each set looks like a troop

of utensils and the space between the sets is beautiful to see,

when each set is kept clear of it just as a troop of dancers

about the altar is a beautiful spectacle in itself and even

the free space looks beautiful and unencumbered."88 The

last portion of this passage suggests, obviously, that the

speaker would be sensitive more to the circular form of the

orderly arrangement of the dancers, than to the mimetic

character of the dance itself. Similarly we know how the

Socratics of Xenophon identified the beautiful with the

useful. So in defining beauty Plato did not actually invented

something very new. He gathered the prevalent notions of

beauty from different Greek tastes and gave them a

systematic expression. Beauty is inevitably connected with

two subjective emotions love and pleasure--whatever is

beautiful is lovable and pleasurable. Pleasure in beauty is

87. Diog. Laert. III. 80. 83. Xenophon. Oeconomicus, VIII. 18. 20

then, an automatic outcome of the combination of two

objective factors—propriety and usefulness.

Ordinarily something is useful if it serves a purpose

and if in this sense ‘useful’ is identified with ‘beautiful’, then

for a robber a sword, that helps him in killing a man, will

appear as beautiful. But Plato’s idea of useful does not

include all kinds of service. His useful (chrēsimon) is necess-

arily advantageous (öphelimon)⁸⁹ or that which produces

good effect only. In the Republic⁹⁰ and in the Timaeus⁹¹

good is, therefore, identified with beautiful—the perfect

‘good’ is the perfect ‘beautiful’ which produces harmless and

sound pleasure. The combination of these two factors is

brought out by the typical Greek concept of measure and

symmetry which plays an important rôle in the Philebus⁹²

in determining the nature of the beautiful and the good.

Perfect pleasure, the necessary effect of beautiful is, according

to Plato, absolute and unconditional.⁹³ Pure pleasure is

distinguished from the sensual pleasure which one enjoys in

every day life, such as in drinking water while one feels

thirsty, or in scratching his body while he feels itching. But

here pain and pleasure are mingled, and pleasure is relative

to pain. Scratching gives pleasure so long as one feels the

pain of itching and one delights in drinking only when he

feels thirsty. Hence sensual pleasure of this sort is impure “…

there are combinations of pleasure and pain in lamentations

and tragedy and comedy, not only on the stage, but on the

greater state of human life and so in endless other cases….

anger, desire, sorrow, fear, love, emulation, envy and similar

emotions.”⁹⁴ True pleasure is derived from the love of

Beauty. The soul loves the transitory beauty of the sensible

things because they bear copies of the ideal Beauty, and it

passes gradually to the Idea of Beauty through the love of the

89. Hippias Major, 295-297. 90. Republic, VI, 506. ff 91. Timaeus

90. 92. Philebus, 64 ff. 93. Ibid. 51; Hip. Maj. 303-304 ; Laws,
91. 94. Philebus, 50.

beautiful souls of persons like philosophers and priests etc.

and beautiful sciences like laws.95 Hence the trinity of

pleasure, goodness and beauty is absolute in one source

which only a philosopher is able to realize.

Although sensible objects have no absolute beauty

used, therefore, do not cause pure pleasure, simple forms or

units of which the whole thing is an aggregate or enlarge-

ment, are said by Plato to yield true pleasure. “True

pleasures are those which are given by beauty of colour and

form and most of those which arise from smells ; those of

sound again, and in general, those of which the want is

painless and unconscious and of which the fruition is palpable

to sense and pleasant and unalloyed with pain…I do not

mean by beauty of form such beauty as that of pictures,

which the man would suppose to be my meaning ; but says

the argument, understand me to mean straightlines and

curves and the plane or solid figures which are formed out

of these by turning-lathes and rules and measures of

angles : for these I affirm not to be relatively beautiful like

other things, but they are eternally and absolutely beautiful,

and they have peculiar pleasures, quite unlike the pleasures

of scratching. And there are colours which are of the same

character, and have similar pleasures…When sounds are

smooth and clear, and have a single pure tone, then I mean

to say that they are not relatively but absolutely beautiful,

and have natural pleasures associated with them… the

pleasures of smell are of less etherial sort, but they have not

necessary admixture of pain.”96 It is not a particular thing

of tone or smell but the general object that gives us pleasure.

Voice, for example, pleases us not because it is the voice of

a cuckoo but because voice in itself is pleasing. Similarly it

is not the Lily flower as such, but the freshness of its white

colour that appears as beautiful.

95. Stace, op. cit. P 205. 96. Philebus. 51.

The same is true in the case of human creations.

Geometrical drawings, for example, are more beautiful than

the likeness paintings because they are more 'formal', and

in the picture of a flower, beauty does not lie so much in the

accuracy of its imitation as in its colouring. This colour,

of course, is an imitation of the Natural colour pattern."97

Thus regarding the relations of Natural beauty and artistic

beauty, Plato's view is that the human art cannot surpass

the divine art in beauty - an imitation in itself can neither be

more beautiful nor more pleasant than its original. It is

rarely equal, but very often inferior as a painted imitation,

inspite of its vivid attitude of life, is incapable of organic

function."98

iv. It is for its practical uselessness and metaphysical

unreality that Plato condemns the imitative arts in the

"Republic".' Here Plato is mainly a statesman and a meta-

physician. Hence one should hardly expect a sound aesthetic

judgement from him. In the second Book99 Socrates

realizes the need of imitative arts in a civilized state which

would facilitate the education of the soul. Arts, especially

poetry and music, were included in the Greek school curri-

culum. Epics had a theological function in teaching the

97. E. F. Carritt is right to hold that Plato does not even seem to

hold that imitation is pleasing in itself, but only when it imitates

pleasant things. The Theory of Beauty, P. 41; cf. Republic, 599.

98. Plato writes in the Phaedrus, 250 that however vivid may be

the attitude of life in a picture of a man, it will keep quiet if one asks

a question, cf. Bosanquet, op. cit P. 31. Plato agrees with the cont-

emporary naturalist thinkers (Laws, 889) in believing that the greatest

and fairest things are works of Nature, and those of art are artificial,

less in beauty and greatness, being moulded and fashioned after the

Natural models. The objects of Nature are of divine birth while arts

are born of mortals, which are but images-only imperfect copies of

truth having an affinity to one another, as if produced in a play :

See also No. 34 supra. 99. Republic, II. 373.

80

nature and accounts of the divinities. The students had to recite epics and dramatic poetry, to play on lyres and to sing lyric poetry.100 Plato attacks in the Third Book101 plainly this system of education and those portions of the epics which are fictitious from philosophical point of view. We noted how the Greek thinkers of the 6th century B. C. attacked the anthropomorphic notion of the divinities and how Plato changed the gods to abstract ideas following this tradition. In fact, the growing rationalism of the age felt a necessity for wiping out the gross emotional appeal of the mythical religion. Plato demands the propriety of the epic character, that is, the gods must be godly and the heroes heroic. It is an act of serious imposture to make the gods human attributing all the human follies and pollutions to them. Indeed such a religion was suitable for an age, vigorously heroic in temper, and fit to amuse and inspire its people. Plato, instead of correcting the entire epics, demanded a considerable change in these portions only. He could not discard poetry altogether for he was conscious of the powerful emotional effects of poetry that could teach the abstract truths to young ones in pleasing manner. Plato, in fact, did not condemn the force of poetic style of the epics, which had enough justification for its popularity, but condemned their content - the philosophy they taught. "It is not that they are bad poetry or are not popular, indeed the better they are as poetry, the more unsuitable they are for taking care of children or grown-ups."102 Plato concludes his comment upon the immortal and improper character of the gods and heroes with striking sympathy of a statesman and of a lover of poetry. If it is necessary for a poet to depict the immortal character of a god either as an allegory or as a matter of fact, then this portion should not be allowed

100. F. M. Cornford, The Republic of Plato, P. 65. 101. Republic, 377 ff., specially for the attacks on drama. see ibid. 396, 398. 102. ibid. III. 387.

by a statesman to be read publicly. Its reading must be

limited to a selected few, only those persons who are initiated

with a very heavy expense, so that it cannot be handed over

to the persons worthy of understanding its deep sense.

Drama is, according to Plato, the best of all imita-

tive arts in imitating the actions, sorrows and enjoyments of

human beings. While other arts like choral song, lyre-

playing and dithyramb are invented wholly for emotional

pleasure, tragedy does not aim merely at gratification or

flattery. It is more philosophical in the sense that instead

of giving only pleasure to the spectators “it proclaims in

word and song truths welcome and unwelcome.”103

Through the vice like incestuous love of persons such as

Oedipus and Thyestes, and through the agony resulting from

these vices such as the blindness of Oedipus and suicide of

Thyestes, the tragedians make their specific audience realise

the truths of life104, and as the stranger says,105 the

Athenians love tragedy because it shows them the pictures

of the noblest life, the emulation of which is the very basic

principle of the Athenian state. Likewise comedy through

its caricature of the base and ignoble persons does not

contradict the seriousness of tragedy, rather intensifies it

through its contrasting picture.106

It is for its high seriousness that Plato banishes it from

the syllabus of the Greek school boys, who with their

immature minds, instead of understanding the pitiful and

tearful results of incest etc. will rather try to practise

the acts, because it is a common feature of human psycho-

logy that imitation of the base is easier than that of the

serious; and children always like the easy and sensibly

pleasant things.107 Plato does not ask here108 the trage-

dians to change their subject-matter condemning the vicious

103. Gorgias, 501. 104. Laws, VII 838. 105. Ibid. II. 817.

104. 107. Republic, 604. 401-2 108. Republic, 396.

actions of the great persons like Oedipus (as he does in the

case of criticism of epics) which would be improper for them.

Rather, on the other hand, he realizes the deeper significance

of these situations and the probability of their happening

even in the case of noble persons. In fact, it is in such

situations that their nobility is best expressed. That is why

instead of suggesting any thematic alteration he totally

banishes them from the syllabus, without reading which

children's education would not at all be impoverished.

So far we see—Plato does not attack art at all. He

attacks the improper use of art in the system of education

and the misconceptions of the gods and demigods in epics.

But in the Tenth Book of the Republic the situation changes

apparently. Plato seems to condemn all the imitative arts

on the same ground as found in Book III, and adds only

one point more to strengthen the same ground. He cannot

admit Homer as an educator of Greece, although Homer's

epics were considered the true records of the gods and

heroes. He can admit that Homer is the best of poets and

the first of tragedians, but regarding the factual reality

Homer is no authority at all.109 Similarly, all the artists, who

boast of being wise in speaking of so many things, are all

vague, for their creations have no more factual and meta-

physical value than those of the mirroric reflections. One

artist can produce only one real thing. But in trying to

produce every thing he creates only unreal reflections, not

actual things.120 Plato's credit in the history of Greek

aesthetics is not so much in affirmation of some theory as in

attacking the pseudoaesthetic approach to the arts. Plato

rightly reproached the prevalent attitude towards arts—the

109. Ibid. X. 606. 110. Rep. X. 600. 596-7 ; Protagoras. 347; Apology

110. Pater, Perhaps. Following these passages reads the 19th century

creed of 'Art for Art's sake' into Plato. This leads to a confusion.

attributed a factual reality to it, and rightly denied a metaphysical value of the works of painting,

sculpture and poetry. But at the same time he committed

a serious mistake in judging the aesthetic truth by the

standard of metaphysics.

Thus Plato's polemic of art has no conscious or

affirmative aesthetic basis; if it presents something of that

sort, that is only what automatically follows from the factual,

moral and metaphysical elements of his argument. But

scholars have tried to put it otherwise; and it is necessary

to discuss some of them here. Collingwood, for example,

disagrees with the critics who attribute to Plato the syllogism—

“imitation is bad; arts are imitations, therefore, arts are

bad”111 and argue that Plato banished all the arts from

his ideal state. Collingwood thinks that Plato attacks art

from an aesthetic point of view, and he never attacks all the

fine arts, but only the representative or imitative arts that

showed a sign of decadence in the Greek arts of his own

time.112 He understands that the germ of the above

misconception of the scholars (i.e. Plato banished all the fine

arts from his ideal state) lies in faulty defective translation

that reached the hands of Croce, (perhaps through

Bosanqust) and grows to an established argument in this

Italian aesthetic. Croce's point is that113 Plato attacks

all kinds of the arts as they deal with the base elements of

human mind - its emotions which have no power of achieving

the knowledge of truth; and as a seeker of truth Plato

assigns credit to the intellect or reason as the only faculty

for acquiring knowledge and forgets 'intuition', the other

powerful way of knowing. In Croce's philosophy this

111. R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art. P. 46.

112. ibid P. 47

113; cf. idem. Plato's Philosophy of Arts, 'Mind' 1925. vol. 34, P.155

114; in P. 161. he speaks against Croce and holds in P. 168 that

Plato's conception of imitation in the Rep. Bk. X, is equal to imagination.

113. B. Croce, Aesthetic. P. 158-59.

114

'intuition' occupies a prominent place as the means of metaphysical knowledge and aesthetic activity. But against

Collingwood argues that Plato never considers the intellect as the only tool of knowing ; opinion is also for him a

form of knowledge. He thinks that the whole trouble arises from the mistranslation of the Greek Phrase "hē pros hēdonēn

poietikē Kai hē mimēsis" in the passage where Socrates (Plato) challenges any defence of the poetic art.114 Translators

here forget the importance of the adjective-'hē mimēseis' and write simply 'poetry' although the entire discourse is concer-

ned with the mimetic poetry (mimētikos poiētēs) which aims at mere amusement. Hence he concludes that Plato banishes

only that class of poetry (from the ideal state) which is mimetic in nature and amusing in its function, but never the

poetry as such or true poetry. Collingwood accuses Plato of a serious defect in argument as he has discussed the species

(representative poetry) without giving an idea of the genus (true poetry). In other words, he has nowhere given his own

definition of poetry as such.

But this ingenious attempt of Collingwood ends in a conclusion which is untenable. He is, of course, rightly

against the critics who misunderstand Plato's notion of imitation in general, its specific sense applied to aesthetics,

and his real purpose and ground for attacking art. This we shall not repeat here as it has already been discussed in

detail. Plato does never say that imitation as such is bad, rather the imitation of the noble is the very core of the

Athoman ideal ; and secondly, his poetic or the imitative arts is in no way conducted from an aesthetic point of view.

Collingwood's attack on Croce is also untenable. Of course we cannot agree with the latter, if he thinks that

114. Republic, X. 605. this challenge is against visual arts also-

i.e. the (painter) resembles him 'Mimetic poet in that his creations

are (in respect to reality

Plato's attack on art is on the aesthetic ground, but in every way he is right to say that reason is the only means of apprehending the Platonic truth. If Collingwood were conscious of his bias of reading his own view into Plato and thus of committing a serious mistake of attributing romantic thoughts to the pioneer of classicism, he could easily see in the simile of the "Divided Line" 1) of the Republic that, according to Plato, reason is the only means of acquiring Truth. Opinion is not at all a "form of knowledge", its object being only the appearance of truth such as physical objects and shadows etc. It is pseudo knowledge, the object of the Sophists, not of the philosophers.

Collingwood's next argument is that Plato condemns only the bad elements in the contemporary decadent arts; and by badness he means, as he explains later, its imitative character or the tendency towards creating illusions of physical objects aiming merely at amusement. Plato indeed says that the artists in their imitative products give us only the illusion of truth—the statue of a man is not a man himself, but it is executed so realistically that it deludes the spectators; and the pleasure that this illusion gives in the exclamation: "Oh, how exactly it looks like a man!" is no better than that derived from the ignorance of a child, and is in no way equal to the perfect pleasure in knowing the truth.

But his conception of bad and good art is something very different. He does not classify the arts, as Collingwood thinks, into imitative or pseudo (bad) art and art proper (something non-imitative) or good, nor does he require any more definition of this art proper, for all the fine arts have sufficiently been defined by him as imitative. While Plato's polemic is directed even against the Homeric epics, it is highly controversial to urge that he criticizes only the contemporary arts. Plato's contemporary art, far from being decadent, richly develops towards a completion of

its Republic. VI. 509. ff.

highly realistic style achieving its specific Greek character

within a craving for novelty freeing itself from the Egyptian

conventionalism, expressed in the ancient Archaic art. 'I do

not sing,' proclaims Timotheus the writer of dithyrambs

with his innovating spirit, 'what men have sung in the time

past. In novelty is power….Far from be the muse of the

old days.'118 A dramatic character of Antiphanes consi-

ders Philoxenus the best of the song-writers for 'he has

forms that are his aionc, words wholly new and that constan-

tly. As for melodies with what art he conveys and modulates :

He is truly a god among men : he knows true music'.117

Experiments in creating new metres and new musical tones

are being carried on. Phrynis mixes hexametres and lyric

verses and prepares a new kind of lyre that sounds like a

trumpet.118 Dramatists like Euripides want to expose the

reality as such (viz. the character of man as it is), may it be

morally justified or otherwise, ideal or ignoble, beneficial or

harmful. Art now starts its secular expedition. But Plato

foresees in all these attempts for novelty and realism a power-

ful germ to rot the moral plinth of his ideal state. Phaedra, a

character of the Hippolytus of Euripides, indeed, expresses

this fear of Plato, 'We know the good and we recognize it,

but we are unable to stand by it.'119 This human weakness,

Plato fears, will necessarily draw the common audience of

Aeschylus, Agamemnon or 'Sophocles', Oidipus towards

adultery and incest. His statesmanship here suspends his

powerful aesthetic taste and he cannot but prefer the

Egyptian religious conventionalism to his contemporary Greek

realism. When Cleinias exclaims120 'How extra-ordinary !'

is the conventional attitude of the Egyptians), the stranger

corrects it 'How statesmanlike ! how worthy of a legisla-

tor !'121

117. A Hist. of Aesth. P. 30. 117. Loc. cit. 118. Loc. cit. 119. Eurip-

ides, Hippolytus 380 ff. 120. Laws. II 657-7. 121. Nandi misunder-

stands the true nature of the Greek arts of Plato's time when he says

Thus Collingwood's view that Plato condemned only the pseudo (imitative) art of his time, not art proper, seems to be imaginary. Translators vary concerning the above confusing phrase quoted by Collingwood. Lee writes122 "drama and poetry written for pleasure" taking 'drama' for 'mimēsis' and "poetry for pleasure" for 'hēdonēn poiētikē.' But it is not clear whether the function of drama is to give pleasure or not. Comford's version is--"dramatic poetry whose end is to give pleasure"123 and Jowett's124

The then Greek art in being purely imitative in the literal sense, gave Plato a long hand in condemning contemporary arts. He saw imitative art only and condemned it--An Enquiry into the Nature and Function of Art p. 12. Greek art, we know, was luxuriantly realistic. Not that was, by no means purely imitative in the literal sense. No art of the literal imitation is possible. Chandhuri writes, "Plato, while he denounced art as imitation, and took imitation as the slavish copy of Natural objects, denounced only what he held to be bad art." Studies in Aesthetics p. 20. But we saw Plato never took an as slavish or exact imitation of Nature and did not place it on the same level with the mirroric reflection from aesthetic point of view.

John Warry remarks that Plato possibly lacked sympathy with the art of his time. His criticism of art he appeals to the standard of formal beauty, which is apparently lacking in the work which he has in mind--"Greek Aesthetic Theory" p. 52. He gives, indeed, in the Philebus sufficient emphasis upon the formal beauty which we have already seen above. But it is rather more probable I hold that Plato derived this judgement from his experience of the contemporary art which was, as just noted, developing with full force by an inductive method. In fact, he did not lack sympathy with the art as such; but as a statesman he was afraid of the artist's love for novelty, producing more pleasure by that to gain popularity, which, he thought, might effect the moral character of the citizens. Koller views, as is stated by Warry, p. 62, that the Greek word 'imitation' before it fell into the hands of Plato was always positive, and commentators and that it never had the meaning of deceit and imposture, which it receives in the Bk. X of the Republic, seems to be controversial, for we have seen, Hippocrates before Plato understood it in the sense of falsehood and Socrates conceived the artistic imitation as useless.122. See the Penguin ed. 1965. 123. Comford, The Republic of Plato, Oxford ed. 124. See the Oxford ed.

"sweet friend and sister arts of imitation". But all these three are confusing. Jowett is very light in translating Poietike into "sister arts" and both Cornford and Lee inconsistently introduce dramatic poetry here. Shorey's translation-"the mimetic and dubious poetry"12.5 is more literal and closer to the original than the other three mentioned. But Colling-wood's translation "poetry for pleasure's sake i.e. representative art" is quite fanciful and leads him astray to accuse Plato of a fantastic fault of identifying the amusement and representative art, for he thinks amusement art is not the only representative art, magic is also a kind of representative art. In other words imitative arts may not necessarily be amusing, or magic, a kind of imitative art is not amusing). But Plato, perhaps, had not dreamt of the fact that this simple idea would be interpreted in so startling a way. He took the common popular idea, as we have noted in detail, in distinguishing human arts into two broad divisions-productive arts that fulfil day-to-day needs and imitative arts that give emotional or sensual pleasure (not rational or philosophic). All kinds of poetry whether narrative or dramatic are included here. In the Third Book of the Republic he specifically mentions drama as imitative for its impersonating character. The excessive emotional pleasure of these arts, Plato thinks, is harmful for a good society and so he tries to delimit the scope of its circulation by arguing against it from a purely philosophical point of view that it has no factual truth and that the pleasure which people derive from it is not absolute and pure. It is on this ground that he demands a defence of poetry and of art in general.

There is another school of critics which tries to read Plato with an unnecessary sympathy. It admits that Plato's notion of artistic activity is imitation. But following a passage in the Laws12.6 it suggests that Plato believed in true

12.5. Loeb Classical Library ed. 126. Laws II. 668.

and of imitation—quite natural, have thought of two kinds of imitation and it is this bad art which he condemns. In examining some passages of the Symposium and the Timaeus and the Laws (668)

Neoplatonists like Plotinus are reminded by divine voice and that it refers to an ideal pattern (theory 127 Accordingly the artist as its visual models, is not close to true realism, but it strives to record the theoretical world—in its poor images

it also strives to make something of that higher realm of being which also appears through its material reality. It is true that Plato attaches much value to likeness in art, but this likeness does not refer to corporeal reality but to ideal beauty. A phrase like “Kalou

morphes” in the Laws is “representation of Beauty” is with a capital B.

But the whole thing was an attempt to modernize Plato into a modern conception of art. Ficino, in consequence, holds that the creation of the world by God is the work of all sensible things, because God himself

is good and divine and it makes the objects of the world as far as they can be. This indicates creation only analogous to and the more perfect is the pattern, resulting in which God creates the more is

the perfection and longevity of the creation. This phenomenon of the world is thus more analogous to the Ideal Beauty and Good as our patterns are divine Ideas. But this likeness

of the particular to the universal can be detected only by a philosophical eye through the visible goes to the intelligible world. Thus the souls of the ordinary people are attracted by the external beauty of things being unconscious of the proper relation between the idea and its image. An intuitive artist

127. Ficino, op. cit., 1.16. Ibid. did.

is far inferior to the philosopher exercising his rational power,

and for that Plato places him on the sixth step according to

the degree of reason.12° He is neither perfectly good and

unenvions like the divine creator, nor are his patterns

perfectly beautiful, since they themselves are copies. His

activity being mostly emotional, he is unable to apprehend

the intelligible Beauty. It cannot be possible for him, there-

fore, to represent true beauty. It is on this metaphysical

ground that Plato says--"Art is a poor child born of poor

parents".130 No emotional activity such as the creation and

appreciation of arts can apprehend the highest truth and

beauty...Plato clarifies it further : "...the greatest and

highest truths have no outward image of themselves visible

to man which he who wishes to satisfy the soul of the enquirer

can adapt to eye of sense, and, therefore, we ought to train

ourselves to give and to accept a rational account of them

for immaterial things which are the noblest and greatest are

shown only in thought and idea and in no other way."131

Similarly concerning the passage in the 'Laws' it is difficult

to agree with Vredenlus in reading a metaphysical sense into

the phrase 'Kalou mimēmata' because it is not fitting to the

context, where Plato argues that pleasure is not the only

standard of music and all other imitative arts. "When things

have an accompanying charm, either the best thing in them

is the very charm, or there is some rightness or utility

possessed by them"132 ; for example, food is not only for

pleasure, it is meant for nourishment, and the excellence of

food must be judged on both accounts. Similarly in imitative

arts the correctness of imitation (according to the qualitative

and quantitative proportions) is the first requirement, pleasure

being its necessary outcome ; and as a correct imitation, is

good imitation, Jowett is right to translate the above phrase

129. Phaedrus, 248. 130. Republic X 603. 131. Statesman. 285.

286 ; cf. Phaedrus 250. 132. Laws, II. 667.

into 'imitation of the good' 133 the Greek word 'Kalos' means

both good and beauty, and good does not express here

strictly a moral sense which is expressed by agathos. Good

is almost equivalent to truth here. By no means it indicates

the ultimate good or Beauty, for no question of the univer-

sality does arise here. The stranger discusses here only the

nature of sensible arts.) which should be understood as a

'good imitation' or 'correct imitation'.134 The stranger,

indeed, just in his next speech explains the phrase in this

sense : "And those who seek for the best kind of song and

music ought not to seek for that which is pleasant, but for

that which is true ; and the truth of imitation, as we were

saying, in rendering the thing imitated according to quantity

and quality."135

133. Jowett's trans. of the Laws Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.

134. Carritt is right to suggest (op. cit p. 40) that Plato had an idea

of a good moral imitation in his mind i.e. imitation of a thing or a

man of good moral character—which he would gladly allow to his state

Cf. Rep. 397, 400ff; Laws, VIII.812. 135. Laws, II. 668.

CHAPTER IV

IMITATION AND CONSCIOUS ILLUSION

Aristotle's compromise between sense and reason -

form and matter - naturalistic

imitation of causation and cosmology - cosmic creation not

an imitation of any Idea external to it but a creation by

itself applying its own form and matter - Nature a dynamic

force leading towards the best of its creation - its adaptation of

human creation as means to it - the distinction between

human and Natural creations casual not absolute - human

creations or technical being ultimately creations of Nature -

human creation as imitation of Nature not in producing its

own copies only, but in developing over it following its

principles of creation - imitation versus evolution - not

only partly imitating and partly competing the creation

of Nature - Aristotle's division of techne into productive

and imitative - imitative art not only a follower of the

works of Natural creation in common with the productive

arts - but also a maker of likenesses of Nature-products -

poetic likeness not a mimetic reflection in involving selection

and creation still an imitation for creating nothing

absolute by new, absent in Nature - imitative art not mere

copy - psychology of imitation - initiative imitative impulse inherent

in man helping him in advancement of learning - the importance

of imitative arts to delight in displaying the artistic skill

expressed through the vivid likeness of Nature-products - the

beauty of Nature was the beauty of art - both the ugly and

the beautiful of Nature equally pleasing in art - Greek

judgement - criticism - artistic imitation a sort of conscious

illusion - (iii) Aristotle's division of imitative arts according

to their means of imitation - the object of artistic imitation

being man-in-action - conception of action - ethos, pathos and

praxis - imitative character of music, dance, sculpture,

painting and imitative poetry - the nature of poetic imitation

analysed - probability and necessity the principles of poetic

and art of all the artistic imitation - a more perfect imitation

in dramatic poetry - Aristotle's concept of 'imitation' and

the modern concept of 'creation'

i.

The wide divergence on which Plato's concept

of imitation depends is absent in Aristotle's thought. That is

because the methods of approach to the philosophical problems

are notably distinct in two cases. Plato, we saw, drew an

uncompromising line between the realms of sense and reason,

form and matter, idea and phenomenon. It seems to be

achieved, and reason had to be developed and sensation deva-

lued, for sensation derives human knowledge. The objects of

sense were undetermined to a point that their existence was

denied completely, and the relation between the phenomenon

(or a sensible object and the intelligible object) was

that between copy and its original. And as the rela-

tion of the form and the phenomenon was not always of the

same type - is same type of copy, the sense of copy gained

in which - compare it is reflection of a thing on water,

there it is expression of thought in words. The half mythic

and half rational character of Plato's notion of cosmic

creation is also an outcome of his imagistic approach. If

God creates the sensible world by copying the ever-

existing Idea, all human relations are only copies of

the divine creation. The question then, stands

to be a question of copying or imitating and whether divine

or human, all creation is inert in the real essence or substance

remains apart from it.

It is from a polemic against this imagistic way of

thinking that the philosophy of Aristotle emerges. Plato is

reported3 to have been shocked by this charge on his dearest

pupil who seemed him as cold kick out at the mother who

bore them. The most untenable point in Plato's philosophy

1. Diog. Laert. V. i. 2ff.

is, for Aristotle, the separation of the essence of a thing or the

Idea and the sensible object. The Idea or the Form of a

horse cannot be intelligible without its embodiment in a

particular sensible horse, similarly a particular horse is a

horse only because it contains the essence of a horse. To

separate these two is to universalize a particular. Thus a

sense-object is not a copy or imitation of the Idea; it is not

mirrored or watery image without any solid existence of its

own : it is a combination of both form and matter. Aristotle,

then, removes the Platonic scorn from sensation - it is not a

way to deception, but a source of knowledge. It creates

memory and several memories of the same thing produce

finally the capacity for a single experience, and science and

art art of theorizing come to men through experience.2

With this notion of sensation Aristotle denies the

existence of any pure abstract form known by intelligence

only and pure matter known by sensation alone. No such

distinction as pure form and pure matter is possible. Every

matter possesses a form and a form must be a form of some

matter. Thus both the elements require sense as well as

reason for a successful apprehension. Goldness and a piece

of gold are not distinct entities. A piece of gold is gold

because it contains goldness, and although it does not have

a desired shape i.e. that of a necklace or a bracelate, it must

have a shape, the one which it contains at present, say a

circular or a rectangular one. Matter is not always matter,

nor a form form. A piece of wood is the matter of a parti-

cular part of a chair which is its form, and again that part

becomes a matter for the formation of the whole chair. Form,

of course, does not mean only shape in Aristotle's philosophy.

A proper understanding of the idea of form and matter

discloses all the branches of his thought. It is on this point

that he has tried to solve the Eleatic problem of the being

2. Arist. Metaphysics vii. 1030a ff.

and becoming. Becoming, according to the Eleatics, cannot

be being, for it is not-being. Plato makes it more compli-

cated when he thinks to have solved it by making 'becoming'

'nothing' or 'meant, following Heraclitus, and 'Being' the

absolute real. But this distinction cannot explain the changes

that occur in the world. Ideas are sterile, and if the sensible

things are the copies of these ideas they also should be static -

a fact which contradicts our experience. So becoming is not

absolute nothing, nor only Being the absolute reality.

Becoming is 'what which comes to be' or a formative stage

of being, for example, a boy is the becoming of a young man

and the spring is the becoming of summer. To explain this

movement a moving force and the purpose or native of this

force are necessary. Hence of any creation there are four

causes - formal, material, efficient and final. The building

of a ship necessarily requires the proper materials, a builder,

the motive or purpose and the form or final shape which will

serve this purpose. The builder, the motive and the final

shape are all included later in a single cause by Aristotle

which he calls formal, for it is the final form of the thing

which the builder bears in his mind while making the object.

He cannot surely cherish the shape of a chair in his mind,

the production of which, he would think, can carry things

across the seas. So the force, purpose and final shape are

all one - the formal cause. Like form matter also possesses

broad notion. If form or 'being' is actually something,

matter or 'becoming' is potentially that thing. A boy is

actually a boy, while potentially he is a young man. A piece

of gold has a potentiality of being a necklace and so on.

The value attributed to each and every particle of the

creation, to its reality and purpose is the necessary result of

Aristotle's unique compromise between sense and reason.

This naturalistic element in his philosophy makes him more

3. See Stace, op. cit. for details pp. 262ff.

it, more than any of his predecessors, for Plato creation

and change, and as it is accessible only to sense, it must

be an imitation of the Idea, being false in itself. But in

Aristotle's philosophy there is no need that every creation

should be an imitation. Natural creations, especially, are by

no means an imitation. Nothing is an external model for its

creation. Nature is an existent model that are not existing

and its actual various outcomes of its dynamic

process which tends to fulfil purposes.† Nature means both

prima and materia and Physics, that branch of knowledge

which deals with the studies of natural phenomena, must

necessarily lose its meaning. The sense of Nature as matter is

obvious when we see a chair by its nature is wood, or an

animal body; an imitation is a combination of flesh and bones.

Or a picture is a heaped clay by nature. Nature is

also a form in the sense that it includes the motivating form

finally achieving a specified shape through a dynamic force.

Nature is therefore the cause of being moved and

of being at rest, to which it belongs primarily, in

virtue of itself and not as a concomitant attribute*

and gives it meaning; and it retains certain conditions

in which rests, the heaped as external to Nature

is necessary, such

as water, air, light and earth. The force within the plant and

the final shape of the mature tree--all are Natural. The

whole process is spontaneous and this spontaneity is also a

sign of Nature.7

When Aristotle says that 'form' is also Nature, he

means by 'formal' for the sake of which or 'the end by

which'; and is defined not as the last stage of a progress.

1. Arist. Physics. ii. 1 pg 241, ii. 2. Ibid. 194.

2. Ibid 194b. 5. Ibid ii. 1. 192. b. 34. 7. Ibid ii. a 128.

but as the best one,s And if one asks how to discern this

best stage, he would most probably answer that there is no

final word about it. In fact, through the long course of

time Nature would have found out the best stage of its

creation, the world would have been completely static now.

There is no satisfaction of this thirst for the best in Nature

and it is this unquenched desire which is the root of creation.

Nature created trees with their beautiful and fragrant

flowers, sweet fruits, and delicate creepers to decorate them.

and fertile valleys for their growth. Similarly it created

caves and grottoes for the refuge of animals and primitive

men. But this stage of creation was obviously not the best.

Nature desired to develop its creation further, and so gave

power of thought and reasoning and genius to man and

following the models of the caves, man built houses, and

through ages man has been developing further and further

the forms and models of houses to which there is no end yet,

because the best or optimum form has not yet been achieved.

This is, according to Aristotle, the origin of human produc-

tion. Although there is an apparent or casual distinction

between the products of men and those of Nature, human

product is, as considered by Aristotle, ultimately Natural,

for human beings are themselves Natural products. But this

casual distinction between the two types of production is not

like the mythical gap between the divine and the human

creations which can never be bridged. The Olympian

palaces made by Hephaistos are always far superior, in the

mythical thought, to those of the earth, made by mortals,

directed originally by Prometheus in imitation of the divine

architect. Plato's myth, as we have seen, was a bit more

developed. But the sense of inferiority of the human art is

still there with him. Although the mortals developed their

creations following the direction of Prometheus, they could

8. De generatione et corruptione 336 b 25ff; Physics 194a 12ff.

by to means surpass the original creation, and as imitations

their creations are always below the level of reality.

Against this background Aristotle's conception of

human creation seems to be a challenge to all preceding

thoughts in Greece. "Much in error......are they", he says,

"who say that the construction of men is not only faulty, but

inferior to that of all other animals, seeing that he is, as they

point out, barefooted, naked, and without weapon of which

to avail himself." With such a high opinion of human

capacity Aristotle evaluates fine arts, the creation of men.

Art or technē indicates, in general, for Aristotle as

for any other Greek, the product itself as well as the

knowledge and skill of its production. In showing the relation

between the Natural creation and art Aristotle repeats the

traditional view that the latter imitates the former. This he

says in a passage in the Physics where he clarifies the concep-

tion of Nature by comparing it with the function of a doctor.

Health is a form the materials of which are biles and phlegm

etc. and it is the business of a doctor to know both because

it is in and through these materials that the form is realized.

Health means a proportionate arrangement of the humours

of the body. What is true of the art of a doctor is true of

Nature also and to know Nature one must know both form

and matter, because art imitates Nature (hē technē mimētai

tēn physin).10 In the Meteorlogica he writes, ".....broiling

and boiling are artificial processes, but the same general

kind of thing, as we said, is found in nature too. The

artifictions produced are similar though they lack a name, for

art imitates nature."11

But in what respect does art imitate Nature? and in

what sense? Some critics12 find here a sense of emulation as

if in Nature there is some ideal in view which it follows to

De partibus Animalium. 687a. 10. Physic 194a 12ff. 11. Meteorlo

gica 381b 6.1

make good its own deficiency or want. In case of emulation

the emulator is inferior to the emulated and there is every

doubt whether he can acquire exactly all the characteristics

of the ideal. In Aristotle's definition, emulation involves a

feeling of pain caused by seeing the presence in persons

whose nature is like our own, of good things that are highly

valued and are possible for ourselves to acquire; but it is

felt not because others have themselves, but because we have

not got them ourselves.12 This reminds us, according to

Aristotle, the relation between art and Nature, for the former

is a betterment of the latter. There is a similarity between

the two in some important respects. Both of them are causes,

creative forces, operating for some definite purpose, and the

faculty of operation in both is so equal that "if a house had

been made in the same way as it is now by art, and, if

things made by nature were made also by art, they would

come to be in the same way as by nature." 14 But these

subjunctive expressions also suggest the impossibility of such

interchange of products -- Nature cannot produce what art

produces, nor art what Nature does. And in fact as the

process of operation is distinct i.e. Nature uses its own

materials, whereas art depends upon Nature for these, such

difference is bound to be there. The above comparison

indicates only the point of similarity between the two regar-

ding their general active force and the gradual procedure

where each in the series is for the sake of the next." 15 The

particular process of making a chair or a house is not in

imitation of Nature, because such things are not there. It

is the development of art over Nature. That is why Aristotle

corrects his own view "art imitates nature" into "art partly

completes what nature cannot bring to finish and partly

imitates her." 16 Hence art does not suffer from any want

12. A Hist. Aesth. P. 63, see the marginal note. 13. Rhetorics,

1398a 30. 14. Physics 199a 15. Ibid. for cit. "li. Loc. cit.

18

iii. It rather copies the want of Nature.17

(ii) Art has another advantage over Nature. It can

make the objects which Nature makes, while Nature cannot

make what art produces. Natural products such as trees,

seas, sky, flowers, animals all can be reproduced in art,

though not in the same materials in which Nature realizes

those forms. Art makes an animal in stone or clay, a tree or

a flower in lines and colours. It is thus only the form of the

Natural product which art reproduces and as its material

is completely different from that of the Natural, the form

reproduced must be conditioned by the new materials used.

The function of art is not, therefore, an exact reproduction

of Natural objects with the same practical value as they

have in their original, nor is it meant for the fulfilment of

any practical purpose which Nature cannot do (e.g. building

of houses etc.); it is simply a likeness or mimicry. We saw

how the Greek tradition admits of two types of art — the

productive or purposive and imitative. This imitative art

is not, of course, completely without any end ; its aim is to

give pleasure and it refers to those objects which we call

fine arts now-a-days, although the ideas about this branch

of human activity are not the same for an ancient Greek

and a modern European. Nevertheless, it will be wrong to

say that a distinction between these two types of activity

(productive and imitative or crafts and fine arts) was quite

unintelligible to a Greek mind as Randall writes, "For

Aristotle and the Greeks, the artist is a maker, a craftsman,

like the ship-builder or the physician. The different and

separate arts are distinguished by the fact that they make

separate kinds of things — the ship-builder makes ships, the

physician makes health, the poet makes plays."18 It is true

17. He means here ‘likeness’ which he defines himself—‘Things are

like, if not being absolutely the same, nor without difference in

respect of their concrete substance, they are the same in form.’

Metaphysics, 1054b, 18. Randall Aristotle. P. 278.

that all of them were makers, but the distinction among these

makings was not merely a question of the 'kind' of objects

that they made; the nature and purpose of the products

were also to be considered in order to distinguish them. We

saw how on this ground Socrates suggested a distinction

between the practically useful and the emotionally pleasing

human products and Plato obviously distinguished between

productive and imitative arts. Aristotle has no need to

explain it again. But the valuation which he makes of

these imitative arts remains the first and the last throughout

Greek thought. Philosophers wrote treatises on painting,

poetry and music even before Plato and after Aristotle.19

But none could achieve his standard of scientific and imperso-

nal method of investigation for which only he among the

the Greeks gained so great an admiration even in the flower-

ing age of Arabic culture. It was only he who could create

a tradition which still continues in the 20th century. This

is mainly because of his proper valuation of sense and sense-

objects and a compromise between reason and sense. And

secondly, because, as a critic rightly comments.20 while for

Plato the analysis of poetry or imitative art in general

cannot be considered without any reference to education,

politics or ethics, Aristotle considered the study of imitative

arts as an independent branch of knowledge, each of the

varieties of which again may have its separate sub-branches.

Neither Plato nor Socrates nor Hippocrates could

think of judging independently the reality of imitatative arts

by a standard of their own. Hippocrates, Socrates and Plato

had a very clear notion that the arts have only a formal

likeness to reality, whereas materially they are unlike, and

19. Diog laert. III. 84, 122, 124 ; IV. 13, 18 ; V. 22, 24, 26 ; Vii. 174 :

IX. 48. He gives a list of books written by Xenocrates, Aristippus,

Simon. Simias, Melantheus. Democritus and Grito. 20. Mckeon,

Literary Criticism and the Concept of Imitation in Antiquity, in Critics

and Criticism. P. 146.

102

as such are inferior to reality, lacking organic action,

practical use and factual existence which reality has.

in fact, except music which imitates a sound through

sound, and drama that imitates action through action, no

other art has a material resemblance to the original. The

medium of poetry is language, that of sculpture is stone, clay

and wood etc. and that of painting is colour. Dance is rather

a mixture of music and drama. The philosophers realised

the import of these three. But they had to realize something

more. The common point between two things on which one

rivals the other should alone be taken into consideration

while judging their excellence or success. If form is the only

common point and if it is the form which alone the artists

imitate, the philosophers ought to have examined how much

real this imitated form was : but instead of that they consi-

dered both matter and form in judging the reality and worth

of the works of art. as if they were judging just another

physical object. This is, most probably, the reason why art

had not its separate standard of judgement, and thus was

judged ill. But in spite of the adverse comments by the

philosophers, artists were rising step by step upto the pinna-

cle of their success. The grandeur of Pheidias' style and

the novel pose of Polycletus were, of course, absent now, but

the life-like images of Myron and Praxiteles in sculpture,

and of Apelles, Protogenes and Apollodorus in painting brought

a new possibility in the Greek art when the Greeks were

colonizing over wide areas with new hopes and prospects.

The Greek artist was deaf to the scorn of the philosopher

with a robust artistic self confidence.21 And it is in Aristotle

21. See Bhavabhuti's introduction to the Mālatī-Mādhavaṃ "What do

the, who scorn us, know ?" This dictum of mine is not for them.

Since time is eternal and the world is vast, I believe that someone

will come in future sharing my own nature and will appreciate me

properly.

that the Greek artist found a ruely sympathetic connoisseur.

With all the phases of developinent in Greek art before him

and with his unprejudiced outlook towards the world and

life, Aristotle's defence of art was philosophically so sound

that through long centuries its importance has not been

diminished.

We may consider here the comment of Collingwood

that Plato condemned the imitative art of low amusement and

Aristotle defended only that art and not art proper. "The

Poetics is, therefore," he writes, "in no sense a Defence of

poetry; it is a Defence of poetry for pleasure's sake or

Representative poetry.......Plato's discussion of poetry is

rooted in a lively sense of realities; he knows the difference

between the old and the new - the kind of difference that

exists between the Olympia pediments and Praxiteles - and

he is trying to analyse it. His analysis is imperfect. He

thinks that the new art of the 'decadence' is the art of an

over-excited, over-emotionalized world but it is really

the exact opposite......The art, in fact, of a Waste Land.

Aristotle with another generation's experience of the fourth

century to instruct him corrects Plato on the facts. But he

has lost Plato's sense of their significance. He no longer

feels the contrast between the greatness of the fifth century

and the decadence of the fourth.......a native of the new

Hellenistic world, sees no gloom. But it is there."28 the

most perplexing point in Collingwood's statement is that he

thinks Aristotle's time was a period of decadence of Greek

art - the period when actually, as history proves, it achieved

an international spirit without losing its original temper. If

the fifth century was the climax of the aristocratic classical

Greek culture the fourth century was the climax of the

sophisticated Greek attitude. Decadence came after the fall

of Alexander's empire and even if there were any sign of

28. Collingwood op. cit. p. 51-52.

104

decadence, how could Aristotle, whose method is always comparative and historical, could miss to mark it? Collingwood is biased by his notion of 'Expression' and plays down the importance and significance of Aristotle's sense of imitation as the basis of all fine arts.

Now concerning Aristotle's aesthetics we have to discuss the following problems: If the sole aim of imitative arts were to delight, then what are the objects they imitate and in what is that imitation done? Secondly is it that only the imitations of objects delight, but not the objects themselves? We have seen how human art in general (both imitative and productive) imitates the essential process of Nature i.e. its force and method in the realization of a form in matter, and the Aristotelian sense of imitation in this respect is not equivalent to simple emulation but an adoptation of a process to produce something better than in Nature. But an imitative artist in common with the productive artist not only adopts this natural process but also imitates the Nature-products such as tree, flower and men-in-action etc. and imitation here means production of the mimic counterparts or likenesses, not just duplications of things in Nature.

According to his notion of likeness, as quoted above, a painted horse is not exactly like a real horse with its size, flesh and bones, skin and hairs, but its form is similar to that of the living one - so that it may be recognized as a horse, not something else. The Platonic distinction between a particular and a universal, we know, is absent in Aristotle. The artist cannot see the abstract idea of horse isolated from the concrete, particular one. The universal form with all its sensible qualities impresses itself in the imagination "phantasia" of Aristotle should not be identified with the modern notion of "creative imagination" of the artist.23 An imitative artist, further, is not compelled to imitate a thing

23 For Aristotle's notion of Phantasia see De. Anima, 428a ff.

exactly as he perceives it.24 He may make it better or worse

without changing its common characteristics by which it is

realized as so and so. An artist, for example, may not find a

single horse in his country with a full grown muscular body,

thick and hairy tail, smooth and over-flowing manes and

capable of swift movement; but it would not be improper for

him to paint such a horse. But objections would certainly

be raised if the artist fancied that a horse possessing two

horns would be more attractive. The picture here may look

very strange but cannot be called a horse. This is what is

suggested by Socrates as ideal or selective imitation, and

called by Aristotle as "better imitation".25 Similarly he

can make the horse in his picture weaker than the horses he

generally perceives, instead of making it stronger as in the

former case. The question of artistic imitation is not thus

a question of mere sense-activity, of a mirroric reflection. As

it involves addition and elimination, reason functions here

very strongly. The functions of an artist and a scientist

are essentially the same - applying their senses they gather

and store up memory, memory gives back experiences to

them, and from experiences a scientist establishes a general

24. Aristotle sometimes compares a memory impression with a picture,

see De Memoria et Reminiscentia, 450a 26ff. But there is no literal

similarity as is found in Plato. He wants to say that a thing or an

event is impressed upon memory as a picture is painted upon a blank

sheet of paper; but not that a picture is painted in the same way as

memory gets impressed. Else writes, "-there is no evidence that

Aristotle regarded poems as images or the poet as an image-maker.

It can hardly be an accident that apeikazein appears only here, in

direct connection with the visual and vocal arts, and that neither

eikōn nor any word like it is ever used in the Poetics to describe any

aspect of the poet's work - a likeness is not an image, at least for

Aristotle; and it is obvious that a melody or a rhythm cannot be a

"picture" of courage or anger in any direct sense." Op. cit. pp. 27-28.

25. Comp. Xenoph. Mem. III. 10. 2; and Arist. Poetics 1448a5.

position, while an artist constructs the form of his work

in his mind which he realizes later in matter. Philosophy

and art do not belong to two opposite spheres of human

behaviour such as rational and irrational; they are rather

two sides of the same rational behaviour. "Art, a form of

making, together with doing, belongs to the practical, while

philosophy or science belongs to theoretical side of it."26

But this virtue attributed to imitative arts, by Aristotle,

should not be interpreted as effects or results of creative

imagination, for the idea of imagination was not very clearly

expressed even in the Roman thought before Philostratus.

Besides, some critics 27 unnecessarily attempt to bring here

the word poiein or "to make" used by Aristotle to justify

their view that arts both visual and auditory are not imita-

tions but creations. Poiein certainly means 'making', but in

Aristotle's as in any other Greek's view, it refers to making

in the very general sense; and in this sense even a photogra-

phic copying will be a poiein because it is also a making.

Aristotle as well as Socrates could think of an artist painting

a beautiful woman, whose real existence might be doubted,

but they could not think of painting something which does

not exist at all, the idea of which is completely invented by

the artist. The particular woman he paints may not be

present, but the idea of his woman he derives from the

common world, and on the solid ground of this common

idea of woman he builds the structure of an uncommon or

extraordinary woman in his art. Similarly, the annmals like

Medusa, Mermaids, Centaurs and Satyrs may not exist in the

real world and may not thus be perceived by the artists, but

they exist in the legendary worlds from which the artists

derive their ideas. Bywater's suggestion, that the artists'

work in ancient Greece was not so much a creation as a

copy, more or less faithful, of something already existing in

26. Schaper. Prelude to Aesthetics. p. 58. 27. Gomme. The Greek

Attitude to Poetry and History pp. 34-46.

legend or life 28 happens to be quite justified here because

such was the actual belief and practice of the artists, and

Aristotle's generalization here, as always, follows an induc-

tive method.

An imitative artist thus, according to Aristotle is not

less intelligent than either a philosopher or a productive

artist. But why should the artist engage himself in this

mimicry at all ? To this question Aristotle's answer is very

plain. No human action is for nothing. Mimicry is an

inherent activity of man, and of all the animals he is the

most apt for this act. In a way his entire cultural develop-

ment occurred through mimicry. It is a common knowledge

that without any external direction whatsoever babies

become habituated with imitation. If somebody laughs,

they laugh, if he utters a word they also do that ; they try

to make themselves the postures and gestures which others

make, although they understand nothing ; they play at house-

keeping, shop-keeping, fighting etc. which are quite ordinary

activities and customs of the society they are born in. They

have, of course, no conscious motive behind these imitative

actions. They just do them out of the very imitative impulse

in man like other rudimentary impulses such as hunger,

thirst,sleep, sex etc. And out of this imitative impulse a

sense of emulation grows later on which forms in a way the

basis of their ethical, political, economical — in a word

their entire cultural development. Aristotle says man learns

by imitation.29 That is quite true. Further, when children

perform mimicries they enjoy them and this enjoyment

comes from a feeling of rudimentary curiosity without any

intellectual involution. Similar was, perhaps, Aristotle

would suggest, the origin of imitative arts. An ancient cave-

man sitting in an isolated mood drew or tried to draw the

28. Bywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry P.111. 29. Poetics

1448b5.

face of the animal, he had killed, just being instigated by

the imitative impulse inherent in him, and when the work

was done, he delighted in the resemblance, he had effected.

of the animal in his drawing. From this primary stage art

developed through a series of modification upto Pheidias,

Praxiteles and Polygnotus where it achieved the value of an

intelligent human activity.30 from a mimicry it developed

into a deliberate art not because it was necessary in man's

daily life or served any practical purpose, but because it

delighted him. The more was the degree of resemblance

of his imitative product with its real counterpart the more

was the pleasure in the observer. The source of this pleasure

is not necessarily beauty.31 because the most realistic

30. Cf. ibid 1448b20, 1449a 5-10. Where Aristotle also believes in

such a historical process of the development of other arts such as

poetry in general and tragedy. Some scholars include magical

activities in the origin of this representative arts and distinguish it

from true art (Collingwood, op. cit. p. 19). But Aristotle had no

idea of such origin or distinction.

31. Aristotle has not formulated

a Systematic view on beauty. It seems he gives emphasis upon the

elements such as order, sy mmetry and definiteness. Metaph. 1078a36:

Problemetica. 915b36 : for proportion see Pol. 1284b8ff. In the 'Poetics'

he combines these three elements 1450b35ff, an orderly arrange-

ment of parts together with definiteness of size is necessary for the

beauty of a living organism or any other object. Neither a Lilliputian

nor a Brobdingnagian will appear beautiful before Aristotle, however

proportionate may be the arrangement of their limbs. The effect of

this beauty is necessarily pleasant although the inverse is not true

See Rhetc. 1361b3ff. Prob. 920b30, 921a5ff for a definition of

pleasure and an enumeration of the causes of pleasure; and

Aristotle would add this pleasing character to an ordered and defi-

nite form in order to give a fuller definition of beauty, otherwise we

doubt whether he would say that a thing must be practically bene-

ficial in order to be beautiful (Rhetc. loc. cit). When he says in the Pol.

1304b15ff. 'if any one delights in the sight of a statue for its beauty

only, it necessarily follows that the sight of the original will be

pleasant to him', he understands this sense of beauty : for example, if

one delights in the statue of a woman exclaiming 'how beautiful is

this woman!' he will surely delight in the original woman.

representations of even the ugly objects (which arouse hatred)

give pleasure. And as Aristotle admits that a thing-in-

imitation does not change its original quality,32 an object,

ugly in its original form, cannot be beautiful in imitation.

It is not beauty but a realization of the artistic skill through

a recognition of similarity between the original and its

imitation, which gives pleasure. One might think from

this statement that Aristotle ignored the formal beauty of art,

well recognized by Plato, had he not also added the follow-

ing : “.....if one has not seen the thing before, one’s pleasure

will not be in the picture as an imitation of it, but will be

due to the execution or colouring or some similar course.”33

But it seems he gives more stress upon the realization of

the artistic skill in bringing a perfect likeness, which he

repeats in other texts. “For if some have no graces to

charm the sense”, he writes in the De partibus animalium,

“yet even these by disclosing to intellectual perception the

artistic spirit that designed them, give immense pleasure to

all who can trace links of causation and are inclined to

philosophy. Indeed it would be strange if mimic representa-

tions of these were attractive because they disclose the mime-

tic skill of the painter or sculptor, and the original realities

themselves were not more interesting, to all at any rate who

have eyes to discern the reasons that determined their

formation.”34 And again, “things as acts of imitation”, he

repeats in the Rhetorics, “must be pleasant–for instance

painting, sculpture, poetry – and every product of imitation.

this latter even if the object imitated is not itself pleasant.”35

These statements of Aristotle are the results of his enjoying

the realistic paintings of the Hellenistic artists such as

Apelles, Protogenes and Dionysius. Besides, this is not only

his statement : highly realistic arts of the age gave rise to

32. Politics. 1340a15ff. 33. Poetics. 1448b15. 34. De part. Anim.

515a4. 35. Rhetorics. 1341b.

110

similar opinions among other thinkers also. The Cyrenaïes, followers of Aristippus, who was a contemporary of Plato, state - "At all events we listen with pleasure to imitation of mourning, while the reality causes pain."36 We do not know why else is not prepared to allow these statements (the latter he does not count) to be the effects of the inductive judgement of the contemporary arts. He doubts whether Aristotle could see such representations of ugly things as 'Dioaysu.' Apollo killing a lizard, in his life time. He suggests that Aristotle has drawn this conclusion from the diagrams of a Zoology-lecture class.37 It may be true of Aristotle, who refers to painting and sculpture, but it does not suffice to explain the statements of the Cyrenaïes who speak of the audible arts in the same way, as Aristotle does of the visible arts. The truth is rather the fact that realism are sound aesthetic appreciations of the Hellenic Greeks which is absent in Plato. Lucas' suggestion, that Aristotle might have drawn this conclusion from the most ancient paintings and sculptures of mythic sunjects among which corpses would appear from time to time (e.g. children of Heracles and Niobe), and the swines of Circe might have served him the examples of lower animals,38 is rather more inspiring than Else's. In fact, it is not the realization of Aristotle alone, rather it is the voice of the entire Hellenic Greeks. But one needs something more from Aristotle to

36. "Tēn goun mimnomenēn thrēnous hēdeōs akouomen, tēn de kai alētheian aēdōs." Diog. Laert. II.90. 37. "What kind of eikones has he in mind? I suggest that he means drawings, models or sections of animals and human cadavers; i.e. reproductions used for biological teaching or research laboratory equipment, not works of art." Else. op. cit. P. 129. 38. Lucas, Aristotle : Poetics P. 72. Besides, as the history of Greek art is itself not fully clear to us, it will be improper to make it a premise; rather from the views of the ancient writers the history should be inferred.

avoid the danger of a supposed Aristotelian division of art

itself and the beautiful in art, which seems to follow from the

statement that one may enjoy an art-product even if it is not

beautiful.

Croce suggests that the later Roman writer Plutarch

vivifies what Aristotle has kept hazy.39 Plutarch would

ask40 a young man to know two main principles of poetry

before going to read it : if it happens otherwise, then he

would fail to enjoy the art and thus would be deprived of

the proper result of his action. The first principle is that

poetry tells us deliberately a fabulous story. One should

not expect to learn the truth from it, because it is not metre

or diction which makes poetry, but it is through an illusory

likeness that poetry as any other art pleases us - "......just as

in picture colour is more stimulating than line-drawing

because it is life-like, and creates an illusion, so in poetry

falsehood combined with plausibility is more striking, and

gives more satisfaction. than the work which is more

elaborate in metre and diction. but devoid of myth and

fiction."41 Secondly, he should not think that as in the

ordinary world only morally good and beautiful things or

actions please us, in poetry there must be an imitation of

only these things and actions. For in artistic imitation

nothing absolutely depends upon the original : may it be

ugly or beautiful. vicious or virtuous it delights

if the imitation is beautifully done : and the sense of this

adverb 'beautifully' does not mean to transform the ugly

into the beautiful- "......it is not the same thing at all to

imitate something beautiful and something beautifully,

since beautifully means faithfully and properly and ugly

things are fitting and proper for the ugly."42 In the actual

world objects like lizards and apes. and actions like killing

39. Croce, op. cit. P. 165. 40. Plutarch Moralia, Vol. I. "How to

study poetry". 41. Loc. cit. 42. Ibid. 18.

112

one's own children and mother or a hero's showing feigned

madness must be venomous, but when their likenesses are

presented in arts they give pleasure. One should not think

that the ugly things become themselves beautiful in the

hands of the artists, as for example Medusa takes such a

form in the picture of Timotheus that her ferocious shape

is transformed into a beautiful woman ; the artist rather

should try to make it more ferocious. Thus the source of

pleasure is not the same in the real and the artistic worlds.

Pleasure comes from an artistic imitation not because its

formal construction creates such feelings as it should do in

the real world, but because its likeness is so vivid that it

convinces one to realize its resemblance with the original

and we utter the words—“look here ! how the artist has

constructed an exact lizard in marble !” This realization of

Natural form in an alien matter is here the artistic skill—a

development over Nature's power which brings some

feelings of wonder and thus causes pleasure.43 Aristotle

believes, as we know, even the most ancient Homeric

connoisseur did so, that this realization of the resemblance

between the imitated and the original object is the primary

source of pleasure which has some psychological justification

in the faculty of our imagination. In the real world objects

43. Aristotle mentions Poet. 1448b 10-20 another reason of deligh-

ting in a picture. If one has not known the original his interest is not

in the recognition of the points of similarity which leads to the

realization of the artistic skill. he will enjoy the formal beauty such as

execution and colour or something like that. But to the realization

of the artistic skill Aristotle adds another point (which should not

be taken as another cause owing to the confusing composition of the

passage) i.e. the knowledge by inference. Suppose that a man has

only heard from the myths that Perseus cut the head of a terrific

she-dragon whose hairs were dreadful snakes . but he has no concrete

idea of the dragon or of the whole fact by direct perception. Now

when he sees it carved on the metope of a Greek temple, he

would exclaim— “Oh, this is then Medusa ! and this is how

with their factual reality compel us to remain attached

with them. The ugly irritates us and the beautiful pleases

us; as some gain encourages, so certain loss discourages in

real life because we are practically attached to it. We are

quite conscious that a lion will devour us if we are both face

to face; so a living lion will rouse fear in us and will compel

us to try for the safety of our life. But in art this sort of

practical attachment is absent, because we know that what

we see has no factual reality. It is a sort of illusion, though

not illusion proper, for while illusion can arouse the sensa-

tion of a real object e.g. the appearance of rope as a snake

can frighten us, artistic imitation of a snake may delights

us. We are always conscious throughout our whole course

of perception that what looks like a snake is not really a

snake; and it turns out to be a conscious illusion -

neither a subject nor an objective truth absolutely-

objective resemblance.41 Aristotle very strongly suggests

Persons cut by a real! Now I see it. What puzzle it was to me!

The same view is again mentioned in the Rhetorics 1371b--"it is not

the object itself which gives delight; the spectator draws inference

(that is, so and so, and thus something fresh) and this is

connected with the realization of the skilful imitation of the artist.

This gathering of knowledge (it is not of course quite fresh; Aristotle, it

seems, uses the word loosely) is not of course equal to the aesthetic plea-

sure as mentioned above, but is sub-ordinate to it since all are not capable

of aesthetic sensitvity and they delight in art for other reasons

i.e. its formal excitation etc. Aristotle would most probably explain

the matter in this way (Lucas, op.cit. p.72. But one cannot have

this typical kind of knowledge unless he believes that what the artists carve or

paint are true or the fact forming an analogy as follows:-

Artists imitate the facts truly.

This fact (e.g. Perseus' killing of Medusa) is imitated

by an artist in this way).

Hence this fact is imitated truely.

41. An art product must have a strong similarity to something in

114

this in his distinction of discursive thought and imagination.

The former forms an opinion that something must be either

true or false absolutely 45 and, naturally, will produce a

reaction in our body immediately. If we are convinced by

our perceptive experience that there is a snake, immediately

we become afraid, but we remain unaffected if we imagine

that there is a snake ".....but when we merely imagine we

remain as unaffected as persons who are looking at painting

of some dreadful or encouraging scene." 46 The reality of

art, then, for Aristotle, is purely imaginative, and here

he differs from his predecessors 47 who tried to judge

it by the standard of fact ; and as a product of imagi-

nation it is neither true nor false like an illusion. But

the difference between an illusion and art is that the former

is true so long as it is identified with something real, but

becomes false when the truth is realized : in case of art

there is no end to this illusion. - it is ever true and ever

false. It is an awareness of this fact that is quite essential in

aesthetic experience.

If the standard of judging the reality of the

factual and the artistic world is not the same, the standard

of judging the beauty of these two worlds must also differ.

Aristotle has not indeed separated beauty from art, as

original and the subject must be conscious that it is not a true thing

but a likeness of this or that in order that the product as a whole

should be effective : that is why Aristotle emphasise upon the subject's

knowledge of the original. as Plato did. 45 But in forming opinions

we are not free. We cannot escape the alternative of falsehood or

truth. 46. De Anim. 427b17-20. 47. Aristotle makes it clear that he

was sufficiently conscious of the common distinction between the

Nature-product or reality (with its practical utility) and imitative art

(reaton or artificial product. See De part Anim. 640b30. also comp.

Diag. Laert. V. 33.

Croce does : he rather suggests that in order to serve its

purpose ( i.e. to delight ) the product of imitative art may

not be necessarily beautiful ( i.e. may not imitate the

beautiful real objects ) in the sense in which a thing is

beautiful in the factual world. If only the beautiful ( not

the ugly ) pleases in the real world, every thing pleases

in the artistic world. In other words, the entire realm of

the imitative art is beautiful.48 The ugly of the common

world is purged of its ugliness, not by losing its ugly

character in the artistic world but by creating a conscious

illusion in the mind of the connoisseur. (iii) But not all

the objects of art, produced in whatever way the artist

likes, are equally beautiful. Beauty varies according to

objects, manners and means of imitation chosen by the

artist and according to the same organs of the connoisseur

which he uses to appreciate it. The form is always condi-

tioned by the nature of its matter. The shape of a man

made of different materials such as clay, wood, stone and

wax etc. will not be equally graceful. Nor even a statue

and a coloured painting of a man will have the same charm.

So Aristotle divides the imitative arts into five categories

according to the means of their imitation.49 Sculpture

uses form ; painting both form and colour ; actors and

rhapsodes use their voice ; music adopts both rhythm and

harmony ; dance only rhythm ; and poetry’s means of

imitation is language i.e. words with their meanings. The

18. A difference is there between two exclamations - ‘how beautiful

is this women’ and ‘how beautiful is the image’ ! The former expression

may not be purely aesthetic. The latter expression is the result of

a realization of the order and definiteness of the form and the skill

of the artist which has brought the points of similarity in general.

No hint to any practical utility or behaviour of the object imitated

is there. It is in this sense that Aristotle would say ‘all art is beautiful.

This would also be an explanation of Plutarch’s division between

the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘beautiful imitation’, provided he follows

Aristotle faithfully. 49. Poetics, 1447a15ff.

116

objects that these arts imitate are the actions of men

either good or bad, since all the actions of men are

determined by these two moral qualities.50 Actions do not

mean only the gross physical activities such as running,

killing, eating etc. As the external motor function of the

body is the manifestation of internal thoughts and desires

of men, it includes ēthē and praxeis. Ēthē means "the

characteristic moral qualities, the permanent dispositions...

which reveal a certain condition of the will"51 such as

anger, love, pride and infatuation and jealousy etc. which

are deep-rooted in the mind of every man more or less

according to his individual nature : pathē means particular

transient emotions that arise out of these permanent

characters - "the passing moods of feeling" : and praxeis

is "an inward process, a psychological energy working out-

wards : deeds, incidents, events, situations, being included

under it so far as these spring from an inward act of

will".52 Hence this broad sense of action will refer

even to a thought or determination to do something

which can be accurately expressed by some characteristic

look of the eyes only. In other words, art imitates human

actions both mental and physical, the latter being the

outward manifestation of the former. Again, where the

object and the means are the same, arts may differ

according to the manners of their imitation.53 Poetry,

for example, is divided into epic and drama on this

basis. Homer sometimes imitates the actions of better

men such as heroes of extraordinary power in language

now through narration and then through the speech of the

hero himself. Sometimes it may be purely narrative and

at other "the imitators may represent the whole story

dramatically as though they were actually doing the

things described."54

50. Ibid. 1448a1ff. 51. Butcher, op. cit. P. 123. 52. Loc. cit.

51. Rhetorics. 1448a20ff. 54. Loc. cit.

Aristotle states that the object to be imitated in

all arts is an-in-action—either a static man without

any expressive gesture nor imitate beings-in-action.

This is because the same was the practice of the Greek

artists. We know how the Greeks loved the form and power

of human body and how they did not like the Egyptian

conventional style that lacked a lively expressiveness. In

their hands the images of men both in sculpture and

painting were rich in rhythmic lines expressive of emotions.

That is why the cities of antiquity have marked an affinity

between dance and sculpture of their country. The Greeks

were an active people and found pleasure in action which

could stir their entire beings. So times static have no

place in their pleasurabil state. This love for human

action was so strong that they displayed no natural

landscape or use no motifs….of inanimate beings inde-

pendently except only as back-grounds to the former.

This characteristic habit of the Greek artists makes

Aristotle think that action of movement is more attrac-

tive as it is expressive of moral mental character;

but not all the actions, only those which are natural -

‘things akin to each other seem natural to each other’;

therefore all kindred and similar things are usually pleasant

to each other. Man will take interest in the actions

of man, not of a horse and vice versa. Besides, Aristotle

thinks that artistic creation is a result of chance and

is not spontaneous. Water, for instance, flows down,

smoke rises up and fire burns spontaneously. They are

not capable of chance or deliberate intention so that one

cannot accuse fire of burning a house, as he can accuse

a man of killing his mother. Chance is not, of course,

diammetrically opposed to spontaneous action—Every result

55. Problemata, 916b,36. 56. Rhetorics, 136b,33. 57. Ethics,

Nich. 1140a1 : Physics !974:

of chance is from what is spontaneous, but not everything that is from what is spontaneous is from chance."58 Water could not flow down if this action would not be spontaneous or in other words, it could not be naturally capable of that action, so also a man could not kill his mother if he would not be able to do so. But the difference between these two is that a man does the action with some definite purpose - he would not do that without his will, while water does not possess this will-power-there is no other way for it than to flow down. "What is not capable of moral action cannot do anything by chance",59 and moral action is that which can be judged as either good or bad. The productive artist constructs a building for a definite purpose, and thus action is good. So the action which the imitative artist represents must be either good or bad.60 Thus art is necessarily an action by chance. As inanimate objects, lower animals, children and mad men etc. cannot do anything by chance, because they are incapable of deliberate intention, so the objects of the artists' imitation must be actions, performed by man of conscience only.

Nature's basic function is to evolve harmony out of contraries, not out of similarities.61 It joins, for instance, the male and female together, not the members of the same sex for creation. So also is the construction of human soul which philosophers compare with a tuning,62 an orderly arrangement of different contrary characters such as anger and gentleness, love and hatred. Our soul is attracted by music for this natural affinity between them. As our soul is an imitation of the harmonic character of nature so also is

58. Physics, 197a36. 59. Ibid. 197b. 60. loc. cit. 61. De Mundo, 396b. Scholars sometimes doubt the authenticity of this text, and attribute it to Poseidonias -- See the 'preface' by E. S. Forster to his English translation of the text in the Oxford series). 62. Politics, 1340b5.

the art of music; and Aristotle says music is the most imitative of all arts. This is for two reasons: one is which we have just hinted, that is, it imitates Nature-its harmonic character more vividly than any other art. Every particular mode of music consists of a single definite characteristic which is brought out by an orderly combination of contrary notes and like Nature it is the most dynamic of all arts and hence is unique in imitating the movements of human souls and their moral characteristics which are the objects of imitation for all arts. Secondly, why rhythm, the means of this art imitates the moral character (ἦθος) directly.

How music imitates the moral characters directly or what Aristotle really means here is, of course, very difficult to understand for one who has not listened to the ancient Greek music himself. By music the Greeks did not mean either the vocal or the instrumental music alone. It was chiefly connected with words and was, in a sense, one of the accessories of poetry. Much of its meaning was derived from the associations it called up and from the emotional atmosphere which surrounded it. Associated with instrumental music, dance and particular religious functions alongwith their separate tones, music was effective as a whole. Plato gives more emphasis upon the verbal composition of music. He thinks, without this "it is very difficult to recognise the meaning of harmony or rhythm, or to say that any worthy object is imitated".63 But Aristotle emphasises upon rhythm -"Even if it is unaccompanied," he says of music, "by words yet has a character",64 and again - "supply imitation of anger and gentleness and also of courage and temperance, and of all the qualities contrary to these and of other qualities of character, which hardly fall short of the actual affections as we know from our own experience.

63. Laws ii. 654. 64. Problemata 919b26.

120

"for in listening to such strains our souls undergo a change".65 It seems, Aristotle is more sensitive than Plato in realizing the force of music. In fact, pure music has no need of any poetic composition to display its meaning and to effect the mind. Aristotle rightly judges the importance of rhythm without any assistance of word from its moving effect upon souls. A rhythmical voice only can express (or imitate) a particular state or feeling of mind. When, for example, one is grieved his mind will be so agitated that its movement will be agitated up-and-down and the voice imitating this state will hit the exact rhythm corresponding to the movement of the soul. The same can be said of other characters and feelings. The melody of the voice imitating love (a character) and repentance (a feeling) will be very calm and its rhythm also slow, although in different ways. The melody of patriotism is grave and the corresponding rhythm is fit for the expression of this gravity. Mental modes of movements are thus imitated in music through rhythm and melody possessing the exact characteristic movements. That is why, perhaps, Aristotle considers music as a direct imitation, for which it is most appropriate and so most graceful. As rhythm and tunes produced by voice resemble moral character more aptly because both of them are movements,68 so the ear, which perceives them is more capable of understanding

it. Politices, 1340a.15. 66. Problemata, 920a. But this imitation of character in music is very general in nature. In the imitation of anger, for example, there would be no distinction between the anger caused by the deception of a friend and that caused by the disobedience of a servant. Orestes' anger roused by the adultery of his mother, Achilles' for the loss of his friend and Medea's for her husband's deception, shall all have the same rhythmic form in music. Similarly in case of love whether filial, fraternal or conjugal. Aristotle further states that the music sung by a single voice is more imitative than that sung by many people 'for perfect imitative music contains

the moral character than any other sense organs,67 and

for this reason the Greeks used music as a means of

moral instruction. Neither sculpture nor painting, nor

even poetry could serve this purpose so suitably.

All the musical instruments are not, however,

imitative in character. The voice of the flute, for example,

is by nature too exciting. It is, therefore, effective when

used in the time of relief of the passions.68 Aristotle

reflects over the natural attractiveness of human voice

and of the musical instruments.69 Human voice may ordi-

narily be more pleasant than instrumental sound. but when

man's meaningless warbling devoid of melody or rhythm

is compared with the similar sound of an instrument the

latter will appear more attractive for it strikes notes

better than human mouth.70

Dance is regarded by Aristotle, as by any other

Greek, as imitative of human action by means of rhythm

only without melody. Pyrrhic dance, for example, exploits

the character of anger through battling activities. But

dance is not so imitative as music, since its panomimic

character is always interpreted by its accompanying music.

Sculpture and painting are, according to Aristotle, the

least imitative, for the means -- form and colour, they use,

are only signs of human character.71 By a sign he means

just an accepted mark without having any causal connec-

tion with that which it imitates. It is distinguished from

probability in the respect that a probability is always true

many changes of voice so as to create an appropriate melody corres-

ponding to the character to be imitated. But many people cannot

change their voice together keeping the melody uncorrupted. So chorus

is less imitative than nome and dithyramb, each sung by single virtuoso.

67. Probl. 919b25-36 ; cf. Politics. 1340a 15ff. 68. Politics.1340a20.

68. Politics.1340a20. 70. See supra. and consult Prob. XIX.

69. 70. See supra and consult Prob. XIX.11.

70. Politics. 1340a23.

129

which a sign is in most cases true, but not always.72 A

comet, for example, is not causally connected with famine,

but it is generally approved that the appearance of a

comet is the sign of famine or the death of some important

person etc. It is obvious that no visual art can be perfectly

expressive of human action. From the rhythmic lines,

gestures of hands and facial figures we have to imagine

or what has happened to the man previously and will

or may happen to him afterwards. It imitates a particular

state of action so to say. Painting, however, has an advantage

over sculpture since it uses colour whereby it can depict

various expressions of feeling more accurately than the

latter. The feeling of love, for example, manifests blush

on the cheeks of a woman, and a painter can imitate

it successfully by using red colour. Again sculpture, being

three-dimensional, can produce a statue in round more

life-like than painting.

The place of poetry as an imitative art is next to

music. The object to be imitated by poetry is man-in-action

and the means is language consisting of words — which do

not directly imitate action like rhythm. Plato, we saw, tried

to trace the onomatopoeic origin of73 words. Spoken words

are, according to him, mostly imitations of mental expres-

sions. But according to Aristotle they are symbols, not

images74 : and similarly written words are symbols of spoken

words. It is just a convention that we give a particular

shape to the letter sigma Σ . There is no reason that it

could not be written otherwise. Mental expressions are just

like the sealed impressions of the external world and they

are always the same in all men. But as they do not use the

same word for the same thing either in speech or in writing,

onomatopoeic origin can be traced here. A Greek and an

72. Analytica priora. 73 iii 7. Cratylus 425.426. 74. De Inter-

pretation 16a 3-7.

Egyptian have equalis the same image of a horse, but they express it by two different sounds and words. Hence a word is a symbol, not an image of the experience : and poetry imitates an action through the meaning which the sounds or words convey.

The distinction between Plato and Aristotle may be noted here. While for Plato history, philosophy and poetry are all imitations of some event, for Aristotle only poetry is an imitation : and it is only on this basis that he distinguishes Homer from Empedocles and Hesiod. Both Homer and Empedocles write in metre, but it is only Homer who imitates for which his art is called poetry. He imitates the actions of good men only, sometimes in his own words narrating the story and sometimes in the speeches of the agents, themselves who partake of the action. The word 'good' does not necessarily involve any ethical sense here for the entire action of the Iliad is motivated by the moral degradation of Agamemnon which aroused the anger of Achilles. The word 'Good' here means 'serious' with manly vigour and gravity as opposed to 'ludicrous', and 'imitation' indicates a likeness as in sculpture, painting and music.

There is no compulsion that the action of poetry should have its exact counterpart in the same place and time of the real world. It may not have any exact counterpart at all and in this sense may be an invention. One should not seek for the factual truth in poetry, for which he should read history. Aristotle even ventures to say that poets are liars. But they lie with such cleverness that we believe them to be true. In other words, like visual arts it produces conscious illusions. While we have every right to doubt its truth we cannot but believe it. We have no attachment to this action as we would have, had it been historical. Poetry may not have factual truth which history possesses; but it must be

75. Poetics. 1460a15-20.

124

more philosophic than history,76 the word 'philosophic'

meaning here universal or general. It is the duty of a histo-

rian to record all the particular events that happened in a

particular place to a particular person, may they be causally

connected or not. But a philosopher observes many indivi-

dual events and tries to find out a general principle through

the causal relation which connects them. A historian, for

example, in his annual records of a country will mark

the inimical nature of a king and the political and social

revolutions that follow it, while a philosopher reading the

histories of many countries, and noting the same events

occurring regularly in the same order will draw a general

principle that political and social disorder follows the unruly

nature of a king. Similarly, a poet observes many

actions of men of different character, gathers some general

notions about what type of actions a hero performs or

in which way the actions of men are controlled by the

will of some divine power and so on. The discovery of

these general principles in both the cases of a poet and

a philosopher is possible by an observation of the laws

of probability and necessity in Natural events. 'Probability',

writes Aristotle, 'is a generally approved proposition :

what men know to happen or not to happen, to be or

not to be, for the most part thus and this is a probability

e.g. 'the envious hate', 'the beloved show affection'.'77 But

this generally approved proposition is not just a convention :

it is not observed only by a particular class of people

as is in the case of the symbolic use of letters. This proposi-

tion is necessary being universally true in every time,

past, present and future, and in every place. Though

Aristotle sometimes defines 'universal' as a matter of

quality - 'that which can be predicted of more than

one',78 he corrects it elsewhere by saying that it is a

76. Poetics 1451b5. 77. Analprioria 70a4. 78. De Interp. 17a39.

matter of necessity--"the value of the universal is that

it reveals causal connection".79 But the difference

between a poet and a philosopher lies in the application

of this general principle. A philosopher remains satisfied

with the principle derived from the sensuous events, while

a poet represents this principle through a sensible form

which may be false (a 'lie') as there is no guarantee that its

exact counterpart can be found in the Natural world, but

is true since it embodies a "true idea" or principle.80 It may

be false that there was a man named Oedipus who killed his

father and married his mother and begot children, or

another man named Orestes who killed his mother for her

adultery; but it is true that any man of a similar character

would do the same or similar act under the similar circum-

stances. This, then, is the way in which a poet imitates the

action of men. He discovers the principle and concretizes

it through another sensuous form in such a way that though

it may lose its factual truth it does never happen to be false

altogether.

T wining understands the Aristotelian principle of

imitation as making a fiction81 which the Renaissance

critics also did. The poet invents a story and presents it

before us in such a convincing way that we are bound to

believe that it might have happened. For this, one does not

require any historical counterpart of it which people have

already known. "It would be absurd, in fact," he says, "to

do so as even the known stories are known to a few, though

they are a delight none the less to all."82 Aristotle, of course,

does not pass an absolute verdict that historical events with

the true names of the agents should never be adopted by a

poet. Rather as it was the common practice of the tragic

79. Analytica posteriora. 88a4. 80. One can agree with Butcher's

'true idea' if he interprets it without reading any Hegelianism into

it as some critics suggest. See Warr. op. cit. p. 106. 81 Thomas Twi-

ning, "Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry", P. 37 82. Poetics. 1451b20-25.

129

for it admits that these facts are surely convincing owing

to their possibility -- what convinces is the possible; now

whereas we are not sure as to the possibility of that which has

not happened, that which has happened is manifestly

possible, else it would not have come to pass."83 The old

epic poets were dealing with the particular person existing

factually in the same place and time. But the later comic

writers made their jokes on probable incidents and invented

the names of the agents. I mean when a poet imitates true

history, he should not, like a historian, make the plot discrete

and indefinite. It should be definite in the sense that

attention must be given to a single event which he wants to

display and all other events must be necessarily connected to

it so as to vivify it.84 Homer, for instance, has not narrated

the whole story regarding the abduction of Helen, from

beginning to end. As his subject is the anger of Achilles he

has dealt only with the events that are causes and effects to

this main incident.

Full attention of the poet must be focussed upon

making the plot of his poem appear as true, may it be a true

event, happening in history, or his own invention; and this

he can do perfectly by his knowledge of the general

principles. Aristotle compares here poetry with paintings85

to clarify this point. An artist may not know from his

personal experience that a hind has no horns, but he

must be careful in depicting a hind which must be

recognised as a hind; that is to say, with just the

general marks which make a hind a hind, and a horse a

horse.86 Similarly a poet might describe a running

ox.87 That follows.84 A plot must not be episodic. See ibid. 1451b30.

85. Ibid 1450b25-30. 86. But if the artist adds horns to a hind in a

painting, will it look like a hind? Is it merely a technical error?

Aristotle is not very much careful here to give this example. However,

the issue is clear.

horse with its two right legs thrown upwards, which

is no doubt a technical error, for at the time of running

it cannot be the real situation of the legs. But this

error is, however, less serious than the error in describing

a horse as it is – if the poet meant to describe the

thing correctly and failed through lack of power of expression

his art itself is at fault.⁷

As the action imitated must be probable, so also

should be the characters. Aristotle prescribes three prin-

ciples for the observation of this probability of characters.⁸⁸

First, they should be appropriate i.e. a free man (opposed

to a slave) must be manly, a woman like a woman

and a slave like a slave. A free noble man behaving

in a feminine or slavish manner would be quite improper

as would be the cleverness or bravery of a woman.

Melanippe’s clever speech is unsuitable for her sex and

Aristotle could easily have cited Medea’s murdering her

children as unwomanly. Secondly, they should be like

the reality⁹⁹ (Butcher ‘true to life’. Else – ‘natural).

Else suggests⁹⁰ two senses of ‘reality’ that (1) charac-

ters are to be like their mythical prototypes as presented

by the tradition and (2) they are to be like men in

general. He lays stress upon this second meaning, for

as we have seen, Aristotle emphasises upon the general

character of the incident and of the names. If one

gives the names of the known heroes to the characters,

he must make them heroic without necessarily giving

any attention to their exact nature in the myths. In

the Iphigenia in Tauris, for example Iphigenia is “sister-

priestess” not the particular Iphigenia of the myth and

Orestes is “another-unknown”. This is mostly agreeable.

But we should note another important point – that in

⁸⁷ Poetics, 1460 b 23. Else, op. cit. 90. Else

oj, cit. P. 160.

123

this cases where the stories are widely known to the people or where the traditional belief has been deeprooted no change is possible.91 The gods in the Iliad are quite ungodlike. ihey are neither 'like us' nor as they should be. 'ihe poet here depicts them so because they are widely known to possess such nature and if they are portrayed otherwise, that will be quite unconvincing. As the artist brings a sense of conscious illusion by the force of the convincing capacity of his products that they are true, there are cases, such as this, where the mythical prototypes should be followed faithfully.

But in these cases invention is sometimes possible. The story of Aphrodite and Adonis is not heard in the Greek myths as Ovid depicts it.92 But had he been a Greek author, even the most orthodox Greek would believe his story, because it is not improbable for the "laughterloving goddess" who had enjoyed many a good and even many a mortal lover, to have indulged with a charming shaphaerd boy. The third principle of the probability of character is consistency. Throughout the plot a particular man must have in same manner of behaviour and action. Even if some change occurs the poet must show that the change is necessary93 otherwise it would be unconvincing. Aristotle has cited the apparent inconsistency of Achilles' character in his quick change to anger and gentleness.94 He cuts off his relation with Agamemnon, who rapes his concubine, and refuses all the requests of the leader for a compromise. But abruptly after the death of his friend he jumps up to join the battle.

Again, while with a terrific anger he drags the dead body of Hector behind the car, Priam's request melts all his rage and he is moved even to weep (Iliad, XXIV).

91 Poetics 1453b3ff. cf. Memorabilia, translation in the Penguin Books, 1955, pp. 200ff. 92 Poetics 1454a25-30. 94. Ibid 1454b10.

But Aristotle justifies here the characterization of Achilles

by Homer on the ground that Achilles is "consistently

inconsistent" i.e. his frequent change of mood is an

essential feature of his character.

Human action imitated in drama is more perfect

than in any other form of poetry. For here action is imitated

through action; and tragedy, again, is more perfect than

comedy for its action is serious and in that respect more

true to life.95 The life we see before us is problematic and

full of serious events. The laughter-provoking and light

actions as we find in comedy are very rare in life. hence they

are less universal : sometimes even they are quite incredible.

Tragedy would be even more imitative than music, accor-

ding to Aristotle, in the sense that it uses all the means of

the imitative arts such as language, rhythm, melody, colour

and form. With its elaborate materials its imitation is vivid

and so easily moving; so that its effect can be felt even by

reading only, without a stage performance.96 The Greeks

before Aristotle believed in the instructive power of music, for

music can imitate the moral characters forcibly. Aristotle

tried to show that tragedy is healthy and instructive in freeing

one from the troubling effects upon the characters such as

pity and fear by a sort of cathartic process. The cause of

this catharsis lies in the vividness of imitation which is

unique in tragedy. The real events such as a mother's murder

of her children or a son's sex-relation with his mother will

increase pity and fear. But in tragedy a purgation of such

95. Critics sometimes say that tragedy has another specific merit that

it is a mingling of many things in an ordered form and as such it

gives more pleasure than the arts which adopt only one means e.g.

Prob. 921b5) and secondly, as this harmonious combination is the

characteristic feature of Nature, tragedy happens to be more imitative

than other arts in this respect. A Hist. Aesth. P. 72. 96. Poetics.

1456b15-20.

By

characters

is

possible

because

of

our

detached

interest

in

it.

Even

if

the

exact

historical

event,

which

the

audience

have

known,

is

represented

on

the

stage

perfectly,

they

would

not

believe

that

they

are

actually

happening

before

their

eyes.

Oedipus-on-stage

is

not

the

real

Oedipus,

but

some

Eudoxus

or

Philolaus

(the

Greek

actors).

So

the

spectators

are

not

agitated

in

that

way

in

which

they

would

be

at

the

sight

of

the

real

events.

Again

the

skilful

composition

of

the

dramatist

and

the

performance

of

the

actors

produce

before

them

so

powerful

an

illusion

that

they

are

compelled

to

believe,

as

if

all

this

is

happening

really.

Thus

they

are

conscious

that

they

are

believing

in

an

illusion.

And

catharsis

does

not

mean

here

a

complete

driving

out

of

emotions

in

such

a

way

that

they

go

away

from

the

spectators

for

ever,

or

at

least

for

the

time

being

in

the

manner

as

medicine

cures

disease.

They

rather

feel

these

emotions

as

forcibly

as

they

would

feel

in

the

real

cases,

but

the

difference

is

that

in

the

real

cases

they

would

be

really

moved

to

terrific

agony,

whereas

in

the

auditorium

they

do

not

suffer

from

such

pain.

As

the

action

of

the

play

is

as

true

as

false,

so

also

is

their

feeling

of

pity

and

fear.

The

Aristotelian

audience

would

exclaim—

"look,

how

marvellously

they

do

it

!

It

is

so

convincing

that

it

seems

to

be

quite

real."

Plato

suggests,

we

know,

that

one

delights

in

a

rhapsody

by

identifying

himself

with

the

character.

If

the

character

suffers

he

also

feels

himself

suffering

and

cries

with

the

rhapsode,

and

in

enjoying

a

tragedy

one

identifies

oneself

with

the

character

of

one's

own

nature,

bad

with

bad

and

good

with

good;

but

Aristotle

thinks

that

it

is

not

identification,

but

a

sympathisation

that

is

neither

true

nor

false

or

in

other

words,

as

true

as

false98

which

gives

birth

to

aesthetic

pleasure.

Thus

catharsis

is

possible

not

in

the

case

of

tragedy

whether

performed

or

not,

but

in

every

other

type

of

art

that

131

Aristotle also mentions another source of pleasure

in tragedy : 'Dramatic turns of fortune and hair-breadth

escapes from perils are pleasant, because we feel all

such things wonderful'.99 But a feeling of this type

of wonder is not the real aesthetic feeling. It is as if

one enjoys the wonderful actions of a hero in a modern

cinematic thrill-picture ; and it is meant for those people

who cannot judge the imitative nature of the work (i.e.

cannot know what object it imitates), just as one enjoys the

colours and forms only in a picture, rhythm and melody in

poetry and music out of a curiosity only without realizing its

imitative character.100 Aristotle thus seems to agree

with Plato that the enjoyment of imitative art requires

a knowledge of reality ; and Aristotle would specialize

the meaning of this knowledge of reality as the experiences

of human life - the thoughts and actions of human beings

in general.

Studying Aristotle's aesthetics one feels his sense

of imitation runs parallel to the modern notion of creation.

But the two senses never meet. By the 'creation' of art he

would have meant 'completion'. For him the source of

both the arts - productive and imitative is Nature ; and

although he would not have agreed with Democritus or

Heracleitus that human being's pride and feeling of

superiority to lower animals for his learning is ludic-

rous,101 he would have admitted the truth that the

spider's weaving and the swallow's building gave him

the impulse for developing crafts, and the charm of the

imitates the same action e.g. in sculpture, Medea's killing her children

and Oedipus' making himself blind, although a difference of degree is

present there according to the force of movement or action which the

art is capable of displaying. 99. Rhetorics, 1371b. 100. He says,

human being's curiosity in rhythm is natural for his soul is also

a tuning. Poetics, 1448b20. 101. Warry, op. cit. P. 103.

and his melodious voice him to form musical tunings.

Human arts are crafts are neither exactly like nor

completely unlike those of Nature. Human intelligence has

modified them. The principles of probability and necessity

which have created so much confusion do in no way tend

towards a theory of creation. It is not a mark of distinc-

tion between Nature and art, but between history and

philosophy. Art may develop over particular objects of

Nature, but the general principles of both are exactly

same, and Aristotle warns the artist that this principle must

be faithfully followed (or imitated) when he is developing

over the particulars. Besides, there is no object in imitative

art whose counterpart does not exist in Nature; and

which an artist is by nature incapable of any invention.

Aristotle does not specifically mention. But he suggests

implicitly that an principle an artist should not invent

something completely new; for pleasure, the only aim of

imitative arts, comes from an awareness of the illusion

of reality that the artist's skill produces or, in other words,

how realising a likeness between the original and the

art. If by keeping the general features the same as in

Nature the artist develops the characteristic points of the

particulars, it gives more pleasure. That is what Aristotle

calls - "what is ought to be". A woman, for example, is

first of all a human being with two hands, two eyes, one

mouth etc. which are in common with a man's body.

But what are attractive in her case, as special features

are scholars sometimes try to interpret imitation as 'duplication of

reality' which is quite not like the view of Aristotle; and more impor-

tant is their fancy to explain Aristotelian sense of aesthetic enjoyment

as an intellectual process of singling out the unity in the duality

or singling out unity in variety is to discover essence. To discover

essence is to be intelligent. The highest product of intelligent is form.

And it has symmetry and order and definiteness which are essential

attributes of beauty or harmony." A Hist. Aesth. P. 73.

absent in men, are her womanly signs such as developed

breasts, massive hips, sharp glances of eyes and so on.

But all these signs that indicate a woman's perfect beauty

are not generally present in one woman. So when Zeuxis

painted the picture of Helen103 he paraded a group of

women, selected the beautiful portions from several bodies,

and combined them into one. One might say this is a

new creation. That is true. But Aristotle would say this

is not altogether new. A woman is there, and her parti-

cular limbs also are there in Nature. The very fact

that the picture is recognized as a woman is enough to

prove that somehow or other its original exists there ; and

further, when an artist follows the principles of Nature

to bring certain changes, there is no change essentially.

Aristotle would have held the same opinion of the images

of Minotaur, Centaur, Medusa, Sphinx and Satyr which

are but combination of the animals common in Nature ;

and one delights in such images as he recognizes the

points of similarity between the animals and their corres-

ponding parts imitated in the image, and, above all, realizing

the harmonic combination of the particulars into an organic

whole. Aristotle's comment, therefore, that art partly

imitates and partly completes Nature, remains his last

word on imitative and productive arts.104

103. Pliny. XXXV. V. 64 104. Physics. 199a

PART TWO

CHAPTER I

YADVAİ PRATIRŪPAM TACCHILPAM

i. Geographical situation of the Āryāvarta inspiring mysticism and forming abstract notions about the cosmic creation and forces guiding it - cosmic creation not following a natural or mechanical way - but coming of a spiritual contemplation - its model not something other than the creation itself - the creation of the previous Kalpa absorbed into a psychic form by the supreme spirit and manifested again in the next Kalpa having the same course - its source being the desire for self-expansion and the way being mediation - the mystic similitude between the created beings and the mental spirit or other gods - so no need of a physical model for creation - the psychic unit or an idea assuming a visible body appropriate for its complete manifestation.

ii. The days, ideas of the artistic creation expressed through the Vedic god Viśvakarman - his gradual evolution into the divine artist Viśvakarman, the originator of all arts in the epics - divine art or devārṇa - the nature of artistic creation expressed somewhat more concretely in the myth of Tvaṣṭṛ - Viśvakarman's teaching of arts to human beings - a distinction between divine art and human art - śilpa in general meaning a skillful representation or likeness in the Saṃhitās - meaning as a skillful arrangement in the Brāhmaṇic literature - human śilpa being an imitation (anukṛti) of divine śilpa - different senses of anukṛti used in the Vedic and classical literature - human art imitating divine art in two ways - its adaptation of the principles of its creation in the Brāhmaṇic text - further judged by the Vedic definition, every art, whether divine or human, being a representation or pratirūpa not in its limited sense of physical likeness - self-manifestation being also a pratirūpa - cosmic creation a śilpa in this sense - human arts being also likenesses of either material objects or spiritual symbols of cosmic creation - this likeness, not a mere mimicry but a strange transformation of the prototype through the skill of the artist.

iii. The word Kalā used for arts in later Sanskrit literature - its derivation and connotation - indicating any product of skill with a purpose to give pleasure - its origin in sex-attraction - its wide decoration - śilpa and Kalā being synonymous - recapitulation.

i. The world in which the Indian Aryans was wide and vast and its might is unbounded.

The sky-kissing range of the Himalayas spreading from west to east was a store-house of

ice and snow. Covered with snow, its pinnacles appeared as grey-haired sages grave in contemplation

from time immemorial. It was impassable and immeasurable with its thick forests and ferocious beasts.

Trees in these forests were tall and stout : the luxuriant devadārus

and Sālas competed, as it were, with the growth of the mountains and in the tempestuous nights sang to them

songs of divinities.

A feeling of awe and wonder at the sight of such

profuse growth made the ancient Indian thinkers form an abstract view of the universe which they failed to seize

in its proper. In the primary state of their speculation, of

course, they tried to apply the mechanical and sexual or

material principles to its origin. It was so because these

were the means of their own creation. They built a house,

to live in and copulated with the opposite sex to carry on

generation. So was their conception of the universe, a house

built and inhabited by several invisible gods and goddesses,

surpassing them far in force and agility. The Vedic house

was made of wood. So they thought, the raw material

for the universe was also wood. The question was raised

regarding the tree and wood with which might possibly be the

material, and the answer was Brahmāṇ, for they were

conscious that no ordinary wood of which they built their

abodes could suffice for building the universe. Thus the

conception of the universe as a house ends only in a poetic

metaphor, the examples of which are enough in the Vedic

verses. The doors of the cosmic house are the portals of

1

A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 11.

the east through which the morning light enters. Savitṛ made fast the earth with hands, Viṣṇu fixed it with pegs and Pṛthivī supported its ends. The agents are gods either collective or individual. But their role as agents is more so understood as the construction of the house itself. All these are only metaphors. When Indra measures the heavens and constructs the earth and the high dome of heaven or Viṣṇu measures out the terrestrial spaces and makes fast the abode on high,2 it seems the gods themselves are more emphasized than the nature of their activity and how far the universe is really constructed is a picture similar to their own was not so much important as the characteristic they tried to attribute to them gods. He describes myths and an imagery like Viṣṇu were actions and attributes of the universe. The actual process of these activities were not, however, clear to the Aryans. Had the processes been clear to them the question would not have cropped up again and again through the later saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas up to the age of the Upaniṣads.

By way of explanation, natural principles were suggested, but ultimately they were left out as unsatisfactory. When Dyaus generates the sun and morning and she herself is born of Night,3 neither the generation nor its process is exactly sexual. Hence dissatisfaction with this explanation is obvious in the paradoxical views that the generated one begets the generator. If Heaven and Earth have begotten the gods, the gods also have made heaven and earth. Indra begets his father and mother from his own body.4 Sometimes the chief or the most prominent member of a group becomes its parents. So Vāyu is the father of storm-gods. Abstract qualities also are parents of those in whom these qualities are embodied. The

2. Ṛṣd. 3. Ṛṣd. X. 12. 4. Ṛvedasāṃhitā I.115.2, X.54.3.

149

gods are the sons of Immortality as well as of the Skilful Dakṣa, Agni of strength, of force, Viṣṇu of saving free and Indra of truth and Might and so on. Divine-panthcod is not thus the counterpart of the human panthcod. It would be judicious to think that the gods, who can measure the vast expanse of the universe and can sustain it, are born of a bodily union as it happens in cases of human beings and animals, who are much too limited in their force and scope. So the body loses its importance and the spirit comes to predominate. It is the desire or Kāma

In the beginning there was neither existence ( sat ) nor non-existence ( asat ). It was this Desire from which the universe with its various phenomena came out. No bodily union was required. Even if sometimes a body is conceived, it is so prolific and omnipresent with its thousands of eyes and legs that the physical element almost becomes identical with the vastness of the spirit itself. A foot of that body covers the whole world, three cover the entire heaven and by other legs it surpasses the entire universe.

With such a colossal body no female counterpart is apt to copulate. By its will only Viñāt came out and Aditi-purusa lion Viñāt, from him came this world with its various phenomena. The sun is born of the eyes of the original Being ( Puruṣa ), the moon of the mind, airs both cosmic and vital of the ears and of his mouth, and so on. No conception of body is formed in the Ṛta sūkta. Meditation (Tapas) is described as the ultimate reality. From it came Honest Desire (Ṛtam) and truth (Satyam), and also night and day and ocean. Time (Kāla) which holds night and day in the form of a year came out and controlled the world of moving animals and stationary objects. The sun, the

6. Macdonell. op. cit. P. 12. 7. RV. X. 129. 8. Ibid. X. 90.

7. Ṣuklayajurvedīya Madhyandini Samhitā. Chap.31. 9. RV. VIII. 3.43.

moon, the heaven, the earth, antarikṣa and maharloka all came out of it according to the process, imagined in the previous Kalpa by the action dhātā yathā pūrvamakalpayat).

Here the creation is without a beginning and an end. It comes of a spiritual contemplation and goes into it again in the same way as it happened before. A model for creation is suggested. But it is not something other than the creation itself which exists purely as a mental form in the creative spirit.

Creation means only an externalization or manifestation of this form. Again this force is nothing but a desire for creation. So the process is rather cyclic—the model is manifested in the creation and the creation is absorbed into the model, desire being the root of both.

This is perhaps the last word of the samhitās regarding the conception of creation that is essentially a spiritual evolution.

The earlier naturalistic approach was attempted again in the Brāhmanas in making Prajāpati or personal Brahman the father of all gods, demons and human beings.

10 Sometimes his desire only begets offspring, he himself being self-born. And at other times he is floating on the primeval waters in the shape of a golden egg.

Hiraṇyagarḅha came out of the egg breaking the shells which became heaven and earth. 11 But at once this natural process suffers a set-back when some texts make Prajāpati the begetter of the gods and the gods the begetters of Prajāpati.

12 This paradox is usually avoided in the upanisads. Though some texts make Prajāpati the father of the gods, demons and human beings,13 he is not here the personal Brahman of the Brāhmaṇas.

He is identified with heart (hrdaya)14 and ultimately with absolute reality — formless (aikāra , spotless (abrahana , veilless (asnāvira ), pure (suddha) and sinless (apāpaviddha).15 He is merely

10. Macdonell. Op. cit. p.14. 11. ibid. 12. ibid. 13. Chāndogya Upaniṣad I.2, VII.1.7; Bṛhadāraṇyakopanisat. V 2.

11. Bṛhad. Up. V.3.

12. Īśāvāsyopaniṣad. 8.

142

is sound ( Omkāra ). He is truth, mind, electric current, word ( vāc ), fire ( Vaiśvānara ), food ( anna ) and vital airs.16 He is the ear of ears and the eye of eyes,17 and no eyes, no mind, no word can conceive Him.18 That formless Reality created this universe from desire, and this desire for creation was brought by meditation whence the creation sprang forth.19 Nav, it will be wrong perhaps to separate these two; meditation is creation itself.

Sometimes attempts have been made to personify it with its head, the sun and the moon as eyes, spaces as ears, the Vedas as expressed words and air as vital spirit; the praise of the entire universe is heart, from its two legs, earth is born and it exists in all the creatures as the soul.20 It is not anthropomorphism. Like the body of the Purusa sūkta, mentioned above, it is just a metaphor, possibly with vivid imagination to those who like to form it after their own image. If one gives it a human shape, then that age will be such a colossus as to rule the location of a remarkable sense organ. It is not the form by which a human being resembles this Reality as the effect resembles the cause it is only the spirit, the soul, that is the common substance of the both. The later epics, however have compromised between a slight anthropomorphic tendency and the mystic evolutionary conception of creation. The ultimate reality is formless and it ejaculated in water, an existence subsequent to it. A golden egg was born of water out of which came the personal Brahmā who begot seven sons from his mind. For a rapid and automatic procedure of generation he divided his body into male and female shapes. The actual sex-relation thus comes very late in the process of evolution and even

if it had up. V. III. 17. Kauṣitaki.2 18. ibid. 3,5,6; Kathopanisat. II. 3,9; 19. Aitareya Up. I.1,3.4 1.; Praśna Up. VI.3; Taittirīya-pañcat III. The order of this evolution is not without a slight difference cf. Aitareya Up. I 4. Praśna Up. VI.4. 20. Mundaka Up. II. 14.

that sex union presupposes a prolonged period of austerity

and meditation, for Satarūpā, the first woman, not sex-

born, observed penance for many years to get Manu the

first man as her husband.21 In other places the self

born Svayambhu desired creation and the springing of

this desire was Nature (Prakrti) from which the universe

with its varieties sprang forth gradually.22

In any case, the cosmic creation is not possible

in either a mechanical or a natural way. Such a big

universe as was before the ancient Indian thinkers could

never be wrought in a process in which the limited power of

living creatures operates. It comes of a desire through

meditation and this desire or Kāma is the common source

of all creation whether divine or mundane.

As regards the shape of the Vedic individual

gods, some scholars23 trace anthropomorphism on the

basis of some instances. Gods are sometimes called ‘the

men of sky’ (divocarāḥ) and are attributed with the epithet

ūrjasaḥ (having the form of men). The images of gods

such as Indra are referred to. But no concrete descriptions

are given. Yāska gives a summary view of the mythical

conception of gods of which there were two opinions. Some

held that gods were of human form, for in the Vedic

hymns they are praised as human beings. Their limbs

also are mentioned. They are described to possess

certain things which are appropriate only for a human

being. But others speak against this view, their chief

argument being that although the gods like Fire, Air,

Sun, Earth and Moon are praised as sentient beings, our

very experiences say, they are not so. “…The gods which

are actually seen do not resemble human beings in form.

21. Brahmāpurāṇa Chap. I. 22 Vāyupurāṇa Chap. 3. 23. J. N.

Banerjea, The Development of Hindu Iconography, Calcutta, 1941,

Chap. II pp. 394f.

As to the view that panegyrics of the gods are like those

of sentient beings (they reply that) inanimate objects begin-

ning from dice and ending with herbs are likewise praised.

As to the view that human limbs of the gods are referred

to in the hymns (they reply that) this (treatment) is

accorded to inanimate objects.…As to the view (that in

their hymns gods are associated) with objects with which

men are associated (they reply that) it is just the same

in the case of inanimate objects.…25 Yāska simply records

the ancient views of the Vedic age without inserting his

personal interpretation into it. ‘This is the opinion of those

who know the legends’,26 he says, and expresses a feeling

of uncertainty about the matter, ‘the gods may both

resemble and not resemble human beings in form or the

gods who do not resemble human form exist in the

form of Kaman.’27 Sometimes the actions of the gods

are compared with those of lower beings : the sun

is conceived ‘as a bird having beautiful wings (suparno

garutman),27 the two-footed horse is no other than

the sun himself28 and Rudra is likened with a bull.29

Scholars think, even with such adverse evidences at hand,

that Yāska supports anthropomorphism in the Vedas for

he likes to trace the metaphorical senses of the four horns,

two hands and three legs of Fire.30 But it is a serious

error to confuse anthropomorphism with poetic metaphor

which only indicates some common aspects of things which

are not always necessary in forming the definition of

those things. A face is merely compared with a flower

as it possesses softness and beauty which are common to

both ; but these qualities are not necessary characteristics

of a face. A face is not a flower. Anthropomorphism, on

the other hand, indicates a concrete shape.

24. Yāska, Nirukta, VII 6 ff. 25. Ibid. 26. ibid. 27. RV X. 114.5

and J. N. Banerjea op. cit. 28. RV VII 77.3. 29. RV II. 33. 6, 8.

30. J. N. Banerjea op. cit.

The labians, indeed, were conceptions of various

sections and shapes of a natural phenomenon,

which it performs and assumes from time to time. So

Rudra is sometimes a bull and sometimes a man. The

sun is now a bird and then a horse. The gods are all

gigures (Viśvarūpa). Indra assumes many forms by his

māyā-power; in that human beings lack. All this results from

the realisation of a vast and indefinite natural arena with its

multifarious changing aspects. Macdonell rightly observes

the indefiniteness of outline and lack of individuality as

the distinct characteristics of the Vedic gods. They are

nearer to the physical phenomena which they represent

than the gods of any other Indo-European people. Their

mythopoeic nature is shadowy, for it often represents

only the aspects of their natural grounds and only figurati-

vely their activities. The arms of the sun

are simply its rays and the tongue of Agni its flames.38

Sometimes this indefiniteness is caused by an identification

of several gods as they share the same attributes - "Thou

art the with, O Agni, and Varuna, when kindled becomest

Mitra, in thys, O son of strength, all gods are centred; thou

art Indra with the worshipper.33 As the gods were from

human shares so were they above all human weakne-

sses and limitations. Long life, regularity, non-violence,

immortality and profound impartiality and generosity

are attributed34 to them. Varuna is the holder of Rta,

31. Yāska refers to a Rgvedic verse, ripam maginavā bodhi-

siti maya' kāya uśanvān, parivān and suggests that a god

may assume any form he desires; he has no specific shape.

Nighantu, dhātakaṇḍa, see under the god Vāstoṣpati; Brahmaṇas

of the Upaniṣats also assumes many forms according to its desire,

although essentially It is formless. Bṛhadāraṇyaka U.P. II. 3.19:

Kaṭhāup II 2. 19. 32. Macdonell, op. cit. p. 16. 33. RV.

V. 3.1. 34. Sometimes gods are said not to be immortal from

the beginning. They have acquired it by drinking soma. Indr

146

the cosmic law, which all of them must follow.35 The

cyclic order of the seasons, and the regular movement of

the sun and the moon are signs of their regularity. They

are invoked to confer long life, regularity, wealth and

power on human beings.

In denying thus a human form of the gods and

a natural or mechanical way of cosmic creation Indians

show their belief that creation is not an exact representation

of some pre-existing model. The cosmic creation and

natural creation have no similarity other than a desire of

the creator. Thus if living creatures imitate anything of the

cosmic creator either consciously or unconsciously, it is

only this desire, an emotion only. Similarly gods do not create

living creatures, especially human beings, of both

sexes after the form of their own or of some

other pre-existing beings. Their form is something very

new, a form as if imagined by the creator with a specific

purpose which could not be wrought out except by that

one. Here indeed an idea assumes a form appropriate to

it. When Brahmā divided himself into a male and a

female36 he did not follow any sensible form for them :

(even if it is argued that he was of a male sex, then

at least for the female one there was no sensible model)

it was an invention. He realized that by generating

beings from mind (Viz. his seven mind-born sons), he could

not expand the creation to its required size at ease. An

automatic creation could serve this purpose. So beings of

has conquered the heaven by austerity. Macdonell, op. cit. pp. 16 ff.

Mahidhara mentions two kinds of gods - some were born (ājanadevāḥ

and some have achieved divinity by performing deeds like sacrifices ;

see his commentary on SYMS 31.17.35. SB.3.3.4.29. 36. Brhma-

purāṇa, referred to supra. also the story of creation in the Kālikā-

purāṇa, referred to infra.

opposite sexes and a force of attraction (Manmatha)

between them were thought of.

ii. Now, searching for a concrete notion of artistic

creation we find only hazy ideas, expressed through the

character of Tvaṣṭr in the Vedic myths. The name stands for

a maker. But literally it means an artisan who forms shapes

by cutting and chiselling with an instrument such as an

axe. Yāska derives the name from the root takṣ which

means to cut or chisel forms as a carpenter does especially

of wood.37 But very often he is identified with the

creator gods such as Savitṛ, Dhātṛ, Prajapati and Viśvakarmān,38 thus ultimately a name standing for the cosmic-

creator, the originator of gods, animals, and men in

general.39 Sometimes he appears as the sun god also and

is associated with the nourishing god Pūṣan. Divine females

become his attendants while he is thought to guide concep-

tion in the wombs.40 It is perhaps the earliest stage of his

evolution as an artisan god (rūpakṛt). He possesses enough

semen and bestows it to heroic sons, who can

release human parents from a risic debt41 by bringing forth

progeny. He also forms embryos of both animals and human

beings42 and constructs the sex-organs both male and

female.43 In a Ṛgvedic verse44 different functions in

procreation of the living beings are distributed among

different gods; Viṣṇu is invoked to form the female sex-organ,

Prajapati to ejaculate, Dhātṛ to conceive the embryo, and

37. Nirukta V.21; also Uvaṭa's com. on the SYMS 20.44 38. RV.

III.55.19; X.10.5. 39. Macdonell, op.Cit. pp.116.ff. 40. Uvaṭa identi-

fies him with the personal Prajāpati Brahmā and Mahidhara with the

sun as the originator of Natural creation : see their commentaries on

the SYMS 31.17 41. SYMS 29.9. 42. Tvaṣṭā rūpāni vikarotti,

Kṛṣṇa Yajurvediya Taittirīya Saṁhita I. 5.9.1. 43. Tvaṣṭā yeṣāṁ

rūpadheyāni Veda Atharva Veda Saṁhita II. 26. Sāyaṇa comments,

"garbhagata Vatsarūpāni Kartuṁ Jānātī" and refers to the Taittirīya

Brāhmaṇa 'Tvaṣṭāvai paśūnāṁ mithunanāṁ rūpakṛt'. 44. RV. X. 184.1.

Tvastr is here to give a distinct sexual shape to the embryo of the as yet male or as a female. Sāyana here makes Tvastr stand for a body maker (Tañkāri). In another Vedic verse where Agni is involved in making the human bodies luminous and beautiful as is the form moulded by Tvastr, Sāyana traces the meaning of Tvastr by describing him as the divine carpenter and vivifies his character as a technician by identifying him with Visvakarman, the divine architect of the later epics. In the Atharva Veda also he appears as an artisan shaping wood into beautiful forms by an axe. But in all these places no concrete description of the process of his working is given. We do not know in what way he made the thunderbolt or the wooden shapes, nor do we know what were the exact designs of those things. The Vajra of Indra rather stands for his immense power than for any particular weapon. Different gods partaking in the organic procreation are rather personifications of different stages of this function than persons having distinct roles of their own. For if Visnu can make (or imagine) female sex organ and Prajāpati can create, performing thus the sex functions prior to the formation of embryos, the specific function of Tvastr in developing the sex-organs of the embryo does not seem to be original.

Tvastr is completely identified with Visvakarman in the Mahābhārata and loses his Vedic name hence forward. His individuality as an artist god is brought out concretely and his function also is sufficiently distinguished from that of Prajāpati-Brahma, the cosmic-creator. In the epics he is the divine goldsmith, the father of arts and craft

45. RV. VIII 102. 4 to. RV. I.32. 2.1. 85. 9 47. 44. XII. 3.33 48. RV. I.8.5. In Tanparava 100.23-24. sometimes he is the son of Tvastr as. Tāyupurane 53b. Bṛgavatam. VI.6, 50 Vimu purana I.9.116.

Silpāni ¹ ¹ an author on architecture ⁵² and himself an expert architect. It is in this stage that the Indian thinkers achieved a more concrete idea about art and architecture which were considered to be created under words like śilpa, and Kala or combining both the words into one as Śilpakalā. And from the myth of Viśvakarman we get the idea of the artistic creation. The idea that an artist is a maker of forms (rūpakar) both sentient and insentient was already present, as we have seen, in the Vedic age; and in the age of the later epics this tradition continued although emphasis was laid upon making insentient objects. Contemplation on an artist's relation with form makes the epic poets imagine Ākṛti or form as the wife of Viśvakarman.⁵³ Sometimes he is also told to be the son of Viśvakarman or an architectural Form.⁵⁴ If he is taken to be a personification of art-producers or a representative of master artists, his birth from Brahmavidin, a sister of Brahmaṅpati, signifies that artistic creation is associated with a yogic austerity, deep contemplation and a detachment from the ordinary worldly affairs; for Brahmavidin herself was profoundly learned and having succeeded in meditation she was detached from the sensual world and was a virgin for a long time.⁵⁵ Further, in the myth of Viśvakarman's constructing Tilotama⁵⁶ it is assumed that an artist must have a thorough knowledge of the world and its various objects and affairs. He should know the characteristic features of those things and must be aware of a deep sense of beauty, and beauty here means that quality of those characteristics of a thing which attract both the eyes and the minds of its observers.⁵⁷ Such a beautiful object can be had not by creating anything similar to that which already exists in Nature.

51. Vāyu purāṇa 105.65 52. Matsyapurāṇa 252.2. 53. or Krti, Bhāg.. Vl.6l. 54. ibid. 55. MBh. Ādi. 206.27⁶ (Deccan readings). 56. MBh.

Ādi 210. 11-13 57. Ibid

150

It must be something new. The principle of achieving such

a form is to combine uniquely ( rūpenāpratimā ) all the

attractive qualities of the natural objects, an action which

presupposes profound knowledge, powerful sensitivity, deep

contemplation and skilful constructive faculty. The name

Tilottamā itself suggests the nature of this function. It

means a combination of all the points of goodness present

in the objects of the world58 and Viśvakarman did it by

a continuous contemplation ( cintayitvā punah punah ). He

who has a knowledge of the entire universe, combined in

Tilottamā “whatever was sublime, worthy of looking at

in the objects moving or static of the three worlds.”59 The

same prominence of the knowledge of the universe, power

of contemplation and skill in performance is also traced

when Viśvakarman makes the chariot of Śiva.60 Works

such as painting portraits, making weapons, building

marvellous abodes for gods and demigods, etc. go to his

credit. He is the originator of all these and he circulates

them among the mortals through his son Aparājita

or king Nagnajit.61 But as a divine being he possesses

certain power by which he surpasses the limited human

capacity ; and so all that he can do cannot be done by

the mortals ; for example, it is impossible for human

biengs to construct a living being like Tilottamā or a colossal

building like Indra's or Pāṇḍavas'. Hence if Viśvakarman

is the originator of all these śilpas, a distinction between

divine arts or devalilpa and human arts or 'mānusa śilpa' is

natural. Guṇādhya, indeed, marks the inferiority of the

latter as the former surpasses it in splendour.62

58. tilaiṁ tilaiṁ samīniyaratnanam yadvinirmita tilottamēti tattasya

namacakre pitamahah. 59. ibid.13. 60. MBh. Karṇa 34. 16-18.

61. Aparjita is the son of Visvakarmain in Bhūvanadava's Aparājita

pr.cha chap. I; for Nagnajit see H. D. Mirra, Comtribution to Biblio-

graphy of Indian art and Aesthetics pp 33ff. 62. Kathasaritsagara.

25.175.

151

But what exactly does the word Śilpa connote? It is

not a new word in the epics denoting the works of Viśva-

karman. Its first occurrence probably can be traced in the

Yajurvedic samhitās63 where the white and black spots on

the skin of a black deer ( Krṣṇājina ) are called śilpas

meaning ‘likenesses or representations’. Sāyana narrates

a story that once after being present at a sacrifice the

representative gods of the Rg and Sāmavedas went away

from the place and hid themselves being transformed into

the white and black spots respectively on the body of a

black deer, as their characteristic colours are such. Both

Mahīdhara and Uvaṭa explain śilpa as representation or

likeness65 in support of which they quote a Vedic

definition of the word—“ That which is a likeness is śilpa”

(Yad Vai pratirūpam tacchilpam).Sāyaṇa here uses the word

citra or painting as the synonym of śilpa and Mahīdhara

suggests the necessity of skill (cāturya) in such representation.

The vedic word pratirūpam as a synonym of śilpa means the

same as pratikrti representation or likeness—something

imitating either the external form or any particular feature

of the character or action of a being or a thing. Pāṇini finds

no distinction between a Pratikrti and anukrti66 or between

a likeness and imitation. Thus white and black spots are

śilpa in the sense that those are symbolic likenesses of the

gods representing their characteristic colours. In a

Brāhmaṇic passage67 the word occurs in the sense of a

composition or arrangement, being thus derived from the

63. SYMS IV.91 and KYTS I.2.2. “Rksāmayoh Śilpeṣṭhaste

Vāmārabhe.” 64. See his commentary to the above KYTS. 65. Their

commentaries to the above SYMS. 66. “ive pratikrtau kan”

affix ‘Kan’ means also ‘like this’ when the imitation of a thing is to

be expressed. Thus ‘aśvaiva ayam aśva pratikrtilḥ aśvakah’ (an imita-

tion of horse in wood or clay etc.) V.3 96,97;V.3.100. 67. Aitareya

Brāhmaṇa 30, I.

152

niṭ vil 68 or siṭ to glean, coīected or pick up) with an affix

paṭi. Here the word stands for a hymn technically called

stotra. The Ṛgvedic hymns in their usual form of composi-

tion are inaccessible to a musical tuning and so cannot be

sung in order to rouse an emotional state in the sacrificer

or in the priests performing the sacrifices, wherein they call

soṭi the forms of the gods in an ecstatic vision. These hymns

are called technically Sāstra. 69 Different Śastras are collected

from different places and are arranged into a verse so as to

fit into a musical tuning. This new integrated verse is

called a Stotra and is a work of Śilpa, for it is the result of

skill, choice, arrangement and decoration—the activities

of the divinities, and not produced by them) for it pleases

the gods. 70 All the human arts (śilpa) including weaving,

glass making, pottery and clay works etc. are stated in this

Brahmāṇic passage as the works produced in imitation of

the divine art into a stotra. “It is in imitation of the divine

art that any work of art is accomplished here; for

example a clay elephant, a glass object, a garment, a gold

jewel and a male-chariot are works of art. A work of art is

indeed accomplished in him who comprehends this (knowing

the process of making one becomes expert in voca-

tional or non-vocational art). These works of art stotras

indeed elevate the self (of the Sacrificer) and by them the sacri-

ficer purifies himself (so as to enrich him) with the knowledge

of the Vedas. 71 Śilpa thus suggests a product, something more

than K Kumedi VI. 70;SG. Bhaṇḍarkar Vol. II pp. 460, 59. Āit Bra

Sūtra for the definitions of stotra and śastra see Jaiminīya Nyāyamālā

Vistāram 70. Sāyaṇa comments on the above passage of the

Brahmāṇa: iti Nabhānevaḷhvai yami śilpāni vāni tathā deśanāṃ prithak-

tvād upaiti Uvate Nabhanedistha refers to a tūṣṭa seen by the

seer by name. 71. It seems. Gomaraswami misunderstands the

passage. He confuses sāṃhitā with samidhā and traces a similar-

than being only a likeness. It is a skilful arrangement also.

Sāyana traces a wonderful feature of such arrangement

(silpasabdaśca āścaryakarañ karma bhavet).72 Sometimes

when Śilpa is said to be derived from śil in the sense of deep

contemplation73 (samādhi), it is suggested that the act of

composition in such works needs meditation also. As Pānini

freely uses the word for any work of vocational or non-

vocational art,74 it seems, before him the word was already

associated with a type of work in which a representation or

likeness was wrought by a skilful composition of various

elements, which for its uniqueness and newness creates a

sense of wonder in the observers and thus pleases them.

Amara also includes arts like painting under it (citrakalādi-

karmasu).75

Now, in which sense are human arts said to be

imitations or anukrti of devine arts in the above Brāhmanic

passage ? The prefix anu means after and Krti means a work

or action. Hence literally the word means a work done

following some other work or object. A sense of emulation

and mimicry is natural to this word. In a passage of

the Rgveda the sage inspires his fellows to emulate

the heroism and zeal of Indra,76 and in the Atharva

Veda imitation also means magical mimicry.77 In the

ity of sense in the Jaiminīya Brāhmana (III.11) where Prajāpati reinte-

grates his self after creation. He has not tried to consider the context

of the passage also. We have follwed Sāyana's Commentary. Compare

this with his translation of the passage, Transformation of Nature in

Art p. 3 and note 8, P. 178. 72. See Sāyana's com. on this Brā.

passage. 73. Śabdakalpadruma vol. Vp. 77. 74. IV.4.55. The attix

"thak" comes in the sense of 'this is whose art' after a word denoting

art (Śilpa) such as to beat a mrdanga or to blow flutes in III. I.

145; according to him dancing, digging ground and painting also

came under silpa. 75. Śabdaklpadruma Vol.VP.38 76. RV, X,

103.6 77. XII. 2.2. Here most probably a magical performance is

referred to wherein the singers are trying to drive away diseases and

death by ritual connected with the funeral fire : Kravyāda) "aghasain-

154

Taittirīyopanisat anukrti is used in the senses of repetition,

assertion or corroboration.78 Pānini used the word anukarana

in the sense of exact imitation or a mimicry,79 and

Kālidāsa, when he says80 that clouds escape through the

latticed windows of the mansions of Alakā skilfully imitating

the shape of smokes, (dhūmodgārānukrtinipunāḥ) used the

word anukrti in the sense of a formal likeness or to assume

the appearance of another thing. Thus anukrti or anukarana

indicates any imitation of work or object with all its

characteristics or with a few necessary or contingent ones.

When in the above Brāhmanic passage human art is said

to be performed in imitation of the divine art, only the

principles of accomplishment are the objects of imitations.

The imitative relation here is not formal as the clouds

imitate the shape of the smokes or a shadow imitates a body

or a reflected image imitates the original object, for there

is no similarity of shape between a stotra and a piece of

cloth or an earthen elephant. The principles such as choice,

skillful arrangement of parts in a single unit through

contemplation and tuning it in a pleasing manner so as to

please gods and to elevate the soul of the sacrificer are

imitated or adapted by a human artist, say a weaver, who

sadbhisaṃsābhyāṃ Karmanukarenaca Yakṣmaṇica sarvam̆ teneto

mrtvṛnca nirajāmasi." Whitney translates, "By evilplotter and ill-

plotter, by actor and helper both all yakṣma and death do we hereby

drive out from here. "It seems 'helper' is not the proper word for

anukāra'. As the singers aim at driving away diseases and death even

by the same man or spirit who plots evils and ills against them, a

sense of counter magic is obvious. The singers further clarify the

plotters—who may either be an actor (actually bringing evil or be

imitator (performing imitative magic such as doing ill to their images,

shadows or to any of their bodily possessions such as hair. nail etc.)

Such practices were in vogue in ancient India. See. J. C. Frazer.

The Golden Bough, vol.I.e.16. 79. V.4.57. Here an exact mimicry

of an inarticulate sound like paṭat paṭat is referred to.

30. Meghadūta .57.

chooses some threads of diflerent sizes and colours and

in a skilful way joins them together ultimately producing

a fine piece of cloth attractive with its embroidered borders.

Similarly an artist in making an elephant of a lump of

clay and a carpenter in making a chariot of wood and iron

arrange parts into a whole through a considerable exercise

of thought and skill.

Judging, on the other hand, by the Vedic definition

of Śilpa that it is a formal likeness, all the arts, whether

divine or human, must be imitations of some form. Not only

that, if śilpa means a likeness, the entire universe seems to be

a work of Śilpa, a product of Brahman's meditation wherein

He manifests himself sensibly in names and forms81, the sole

end of this manifestation being pure bliss. As an earthen

pitcher and a pot differ from each other in names and forms,

although essentially they are lump of clay,82 so also each

and every particle of this vast universe essentially represents

the supreme reality or, in other words, is its pratirūpa or a

likeness. The Jaiminiya Brāhmana indeed compares Brahman's

manifestation into names and forms with the transformation

of a piece of gold into ornaments of different sizes and names,

and suggests that this manifestation of Brahman is also a

śilpa.83 The vedic hymns are not merely metrical composi-

tions of words ; they also represent their respective gods. No

difference is observed between the god and his hymn. The

specific formation of the tuned Stotras out of the hymns or

Śastras is only to vivify this representation more powerfully.

Similarly principles as well as models either spiritual or

material are there in this cosmic śilpa in adaptation of which

human śilpas are wrought. The Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka

suggests that a human lyre is an imitation of divine lyre.84

81. Brhad. Up I 4.7;I.6.I 82. Chand. up. VI.I.4.6 83. III. I

82. atha khalu iyam daivi vīṇā bhavati, tadanukṛtirasau mānuṣivinā

bhavati VIII'9.

156

Here divine lyre is just a metaphor. Normally a lyre consists of three elements which are necessary for its playing--a stick of wood fitted with some wires that are visible and touchable, human hands that touch them and the vibrating sound that is produced. Thus three sensations are there -- visibility, touchability and audibility (rūpa, sparśa and śvara). The earth forms the visible aspect, the 'antarikṣa' the touchable and the 'div' or the higher heaven the audible aspect, their respective representative gods being Fire, Air and Sun the corresponding Vedas being Rk, Yajur and Sāma, the rṣis being Rathantara, Vāmadeva and Bṛhat, and the Vital airs being prāṇa, Apāna and Vyāna. The sage here imagines all the objects such as stick, wires, holes and figures85 necessary for playing a lyre in this spiritual image and suggests that it formed a model for the human artisan who first constructed the lyre. Similarly it seems the Kathopanisad suggests86 that the model for a chariot was a human being himself, his body being the body of the chariot, sense organs horses, mind the rein, intelligence the driver and the soul the man in the chariot. In this sense living organisms like elephants, which are products of divine śilpa ( i.e. cosmic creation ) may be said to have served models for the human art, the clay elephant, for example, referred to in the above Brāhmanic passage.

It is easy to imagine that the sages at this age would suggest that artisans made clothes after the model of a piece of bark, a mirror after the surface of water and soon. But after all, when gemineness, skill and novelty are said to be constituents of an artistic activity no hint is there in these texts to call a work of śilpa a servile imitation. The manifest universe is neither an exact image of Brahman for He transcends it, nor is it inferior to Him for it is the very sign of His sentient nature, and further because He delights in it. Human arts are a

95. Ibid.89. 86, 1. 3.3-4

further expansion of the primeval cosmic creation through

which the desire of Brahman is working. So a human lyre

is not a mere mimicry of its divine proto-type nor a mirror

of the surface of water, and a piece of cloth of bark.

These are all new objects. The artisan in making a clay

elephant or a chariot shows rather his power of realising

the principles of the universe and his skill of forming

objects, not exactly present before.

iii. In later literature, the word kalā stands for art.

It occurs in the Upanisadic texts in the sense of a mathe-

matical unit⁸⁷ and is derived from the root Kal — to

enumerate or count. The Vācaspatyam indicates its another

meaning to know.⁸⁸ It may be also derived from the

root lā meaning to receive; or give. Thus that which

gives (lāti ) pleasure (Kam ) is Kalā.⁸⁹ On the whole the

word refers to a kind of activity which needs knowledge

and skill or in its passive implication, a product of such

activity that gives pleasure.

The earlier purāṇas such as Viṣṇu and Vāyu do not

give any account of Kalās, but in the Kālikā, a later

work, the story of the origin of sixty-four arts is

found.⁹⁰ The personal Brahmā first created Prajāptis

and the mind-born sages. Then Sandhyā a charming

goddess and Manmatha, the god and love were created.

In order to expand this creation Brahmā conferred a boon

on Manmatha that no being in the universe, even he

himself or Viṣṇu or Śiva could withstand his power

which he had to display through arrows of flowers in

creating an attraction between the opposite sexes so as to

carry on a process of automatic generation. Having received

this boon Manmatha pointed his arrows towards Brahma,

the first victim of his own boon. While Sandhyā and

87. Sk vol. II chap.I, sut 526, Praśna Up VI.5. 88. Vol. III. pp.

1783ff. 89. K. C. Pandey. Comp. Aesth. Vol. I. p.513. 90 II 23. 29

158

Brahmā experienced thus a sex attraction, forty-nine feelings like love, anger, fear etc. were born of him and the Hā vas like bibhoka (the coquettish indifference and pride of a woman in love) and sixty-four arts were born of her. Feelings have, hence, a masculine origin and arts and coquettish expression have a feminine origin, all of them being associated with libido. For the thinkers of this age arts are the results of a sex-desire, not of its gross physical aspect, but of the subtle feeling, throbbing sensations and their physical expressions such as glance, horripilation, tear, swoon etc. which inspire the desire itself. And ultimately as this desire is an urge for creation, arts indicate a creative spirit indulging in and getting inspiration from its own products.

These arts are mostly sixty-four in number; but sometimes it is even eighty-seven.91 The Lalita Vistara counts eighty-six.92 Kalpāntara-Vākyāni counts seventy-two, including five arts as painting, sculpture, music, dance and poetic composition as well as other skilful displayings including even dreams. Magical and agricultural activities also are enumerated under it by Ramachandra. The Sukranitisārh mentions all the household crafts such as toilets, wrestling, and different skilful poses of sexual union, Pāñcālaan authority of Indian sex-science gives a long list of those poses,93 Vatsyāyana's collection of the sixty-four arts, taken as an authentic source for Indian arts, includes gambling, mechanism, architecture, mining, animal training, curing plant diseases etc. also besides all other fine arts and household crafts.94 In short, any activity whether of Natural science or of emotional experience skilfully performed is called art and it aims at making life easy-going and pleasurable.

91. Samarāyāsūtra. see A. Venkatassubiah, The Kalās p.9. 92. ibid op.18

92. ibid op.37ff. 94. Kāmasūtra chap. 30.

rable. An anonymous work even holds the knowledge of

Brahman to be the sixty-fourth art and is the supreme (parā)

one, while the other sixty-three are comparatively negligible

as they deal with mundane purposes.95 But in other texts

these arts are esteemed very highly. Patañjali even goes to

compare those with a mother.96 Bodhisattva is praised for

his mastery over arts97 and the arts are signs of skilfulness

in Dandix's princes.98

It appears at the first sight that the denotation of

Kalā is wider than that of Śilpa. Bānabhaṭṭa, in fact includes

all the Śilpas together with epics and histories under Kalā.99

But on the other hand Hemacandra widens the denotation

of śilpa also. According to him, fundamental arts are five

in number -- pottery, carpentry or architecture, painting,

weaving and barbery. Each of them was later multiplied

into twenty ending in one hundred divisions. The ultimate

creator of these arts is the supreme Man (Mahāpurusa)

Himself who devised these for the happiness of His

creation.100 Thus śilpa and Kalā become almost synonymous

in later Indian thought. Both originate in a desire, in

a thirst for self-expression or self representation (or forming

pratirūpos) with an end -- to enjoy the self. If the variety

of the cosmic creation is a result of the supreme spirit's

manifestation of its own self or forming its 'pratirūpas'.

so also is the source of all human arts. The human artist

observes the rules of the cosmic art following (or imitating)

which he achieves strange transformations of its cosmic

products, and thus satisfies supreme spirit's crave for

expansion that works through him. The human artist's

achievement is in no way servile to the cosmic art, it is

not a mere mimicry of it, for it is, in fact, the achievement

of the supreme artist himself. The epical Viśvakarman

95. Venkatassubiah, op. cit.pp 64 96. Mahābhāṣya I.1.57. 97. Lalita

vistara pp.179. 98. Daśakumāra carita chap.II.11.27 99. Kādambarī

chap.I 100. Triṣaṭisālakāpurusacarita I.2.950 ff.

160

thus stands on the middle path between this Supreme

Artist and his limited force in the human artist showing

him the method of transformation. The beauty of His

Tilottamā is unique, but her uniqueness does not come

from a world, foreign to him. He imparts to the latter

the skill of creating unique objects out of the same pheno-

mena quite ordinary in his knowledge. He feels the

points of charm in a Woman, and in a deep contemplation

he forms a woman wherein all the charming points are

preserved. The sensible Tilottamā is only a skilful exter-

nalization of that mental form. She is thus a śilpa - unique

in her composition. She is the same woman yet a new one.

CHAPTER II

RŪPAM :

IMITATION OF THE THREE WORLDS

i. Visual art or rūpam—definition of rūpam in philosophy — views of the Vaiśeṣikas — the Mahābhārata— sculpture and painting—architecture or vāstu (or prāsāda), essentially a likeness or bimba —its primary form in the Vedic altar. a symbolic likeness of Agniprajāpati — Vāstu, an image of Vāstumāsa — temple, an image of the god inside — temple, analogous to human (puruṣa) shape, and an image of Puruṣa and Prakṛti in combination — finally an imitation of the substratum of the cosmic creation.

ii. Idea of citra — literally meaning a composition — equivalent to śilpa — citra an imitation (anukṛti) of Nature (Prakṛti) consisting of three worlds visible and invisible—citra denoting both sculpture and painting — types of citra — the imitative character of citra in the myths— artistic imitation, not merely a mirroric reflection—the object of citra—production of a semblance of an object perceived either sensibly or intuitively — six principles of artistic imitation — rūpa-bheda, pramāṇa bhāva-lāvaṇya yojana and varṇikābhanga being the constituents of the main principle—Sādrśyakaraṇa. iii. Imitation of the objects, perceived through intuition, and of the events and objects of the remote past—the images of gods, demons, mythical personages— special application of the six principles—idealistic imitation by a selective method. iv. Art and reality—the Buddhist and Vedāntic views — art, an illusion of reality —Ācārya Saṅkua's view—art, an imitation of reality, measured by its own standard of truth, independent of the absolute and phenomenal realities — logical cognition versus aesthetic cognition— Ācārya Abhinavagupta's view—visual art and verbal art belonging to different orders—visual art imitating reality imperfectly—imitation versus manifestation.

i. In India visual art or rūpam has a long glorious history. In philosophy rūpam means a visual percept.

Praśastapāda defines a rūpam as anything which can be perceived by eyes:1 and the Kauṣitakē upaniṣat states

that a rūpam is not merely a sensible entity (Bhūtamātrā).

It has its intelligible element (Prajñāmātrā ) too. It is neither merely sensible nor purely intelligible. It is a

co-ordination of both. Śridhara says, although three elements - water, fire and earth possess rūpam, it is only in

earth that a variety of rūpam exists.2 The Mahābhārat counts some sixteen types of rūpam such as shapes like

short, long, square, circular and thick, colours like white, black, red, yellow, blue and aurora, and qualities like

hard, soft, polished, smooth, slippery and rough.3 Vasaba ndhu, a Buddhist of the Hīnayāna branch defines a rūpam

as a visual percept which includes both shape and colour. Shapes are of eight kinds such as long, short,

round, circular, up-cast, down-cast, thin and thick ; and main colours are four-white, blue, red and yellow. There

are other eight kinds of form also such as cloud, vapour, mist, dust, shadow, sunshine, moonshine and fire. These

are all the twenty forms.4 But the earlier Pali Buddhist scriptures give a very wide notion of form ( rūpam ). It

denotes four elements such as earth, water, fire and air, together with their various modifications. The Buddha

himself explains that a rūpam is that which manifests ( rūpyati ) as cold, heat and hunger, the touch of gnats,

mosquitos, the sun and snakes etc. In short, rūpam indicates

1. PPB P.251. 2. Kauṣitaki upaniṣad, III. 8 ; PPB P.75. 3. MBh. Santiparvan ( mokṣadharmaparvan ),134.25, 32-35. 4. Abhidharmakośa I. 10ff.

any sense organ (including mind) and its percept is not

limited only to the visual. Thus rupaskandha, according

to the Buddhists, means the aggregate of the six senses,

their respective sensations and the implicatory communica-

tions associated in sense perception.5

But in art rūpam is an object of the visual

organ only. All other sensations together with the mental

visions are to be given concrete visual forms consisting

of shapes and colours only. Accrodingly rūpam has two

sub-divisions Vāstu and citra. Vāstu literally means an

abode ( derived from the root Vas — to settle, sit or stay )

of which prāsāda is also a synonym ( derived from the root

sad meaning the same as the vas — to settle, live etc.), and

it refers to all sorts of architectural forms that contain the

above sixteen visual percepts of the Mahābhārata. A vāstu

or prāsāda is said to be essentially an imitation or like-

ness (Vimba lite;ally meaning a reflection).6 The entire

universe is the abode of the Rgvedic Puruṣa,7 whose vast

expanse cannot be fully absorbed by this abode. So he

transcends his abode and, in a sense, he himself becomes

the abode of the universe. If the supreme Man is the

supreme abode ( Vastu ) of the entire creation, it is necessary

for the lesser gods to construct, in the analogy of this

Vāstu, their individual abodes to support their existence.

But until the later age of the epics the individual gods

had no separate dwelling places except a common abode i.e.

an altar where the holy fire was to be burnt (Yajñavedi).8

This is, then, the primary form of the divine abode.

The Virāṭpuruṣa or Prajāpati, the cosmic Intelli-

gence, the first creation of the transcendental supreme Puruṣa,

who worked as the principle of activity, is the creator of the

5. H. I.Ph. I. 94-95. 6. AGP 61.17ff. 7. RV X90, Puruṣa sūkta

6. for Yajñavedi see KYTS 14.4.9 ; Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple P.70

164

perceptible world, of the objects animate and inanimate, of

the gods, angels, men and demons. Having produced them

he felt exhausted as if the vital air blew out of him. As he

was the very base of the creation, it was felt by the gods that

the entire creation would also fall asunder, unless Prajāpati’s

vigour were restored. Prajāpati is the food, the very source of

their life ; so they wanted to consume it through the mouth

of Agni. They heated him in the fire and when the fire rose

over him, thus heated, vital air that went out of him came

again into him and he regained his vigour. The gods then

raised him upright so as to stand, and inasmuch as they thus

raised him upright he is these worlds.9

Prajāpati is the creator, sustainer and the destroyer

of this universe. As the sustainer he is the fire, for that is the

producer of vital air and cook of food; and as the destroyer

he is the year of time for as the time makes progress, one

loses its longevity. Prajāpati thus has no concrete form.

He manifests himself through fire and year consisting of

moments, days, nights, months and seasons.10 It is not a

physical body of Prajāpati which the gods heated, but they

built an altar of bricks in imitation of his substantial form

and by putting fire over it they continued the archetypal

sacrifice (i.e. Prajāpati’s creation of this world). Thus the

restoration of Prajāpati’s vigour is a figurative process. To

restore is to continue the sacrifice which he himself did in

creating the universe. The gods, then, emulated Prajāpati

and the mortals imitated the activity of sacrifice in order to

achieve immortality. If Prajāpati could be immortal through

the continuity of sacrifice, so also could the gods and human

beings.

At their first attempt the gods failed to raise the

fire altar i.e. the likeness of Prajāpati’s substantial form; for

9. SB VII. 1.2.1-7; Kramrisch, Op. cit P.70.

10. SB X 4.3.56.

they were ignorant of the proper principles and so they used

unlimited number of bricks. Prajāpati, out of his mercy,

instructed this principle.11 As the altar is the body of

Prajāpati and at the same time his dwelling place (vāstu), the

very essence of his being should be imitated through the

concrete materials of construction. Prajāpati is first of all a

person (puruṣā. So the size of the altar must be meted out

by the size of a man—“with man's measure he metes out ;

man is commensurate with the sacrifice.”12 This altar

should lie on its back facing upwards, with its head eastward.

But as Prajāpati has no sensible body similar to that of any

mortal, the altar cannot have the likeness of a physical

body. Here only the essence or substances of Prajāpati

is embodied. This essence being time or year consisting

of a certain number of moments, days, nights etc. bricks

of corresponding number must be arranged in layers

following a fixed formula.

These bricks are of two types—Yajuṣmati and

Lokampṛṇā. Three hundred and sixty Yajuṣmati bricks

stand for the days of this number of a year and are arranged

in five layers, perhaps corresponding to the five gross

elements of which the universe is constituted. Thirty-six

bricks stand for the twenty-four half moons and twelve

months. The enclosing three hundred and sixty stones

correspond to the nights of a year of which twenty-one

are arranged round the Gārhapatya, seventy-eight round

the Dhiṣṇya and the rest round the āhavanīya hearths. Ten

thousand and eight hundred Lokampṛṇa (space-filling) bricks

stand for the moments of a year. Thus the entire altar,

11. SB X.4.3. 1-8 : Prajāpati is himself the altar. ibid X. 4.3.12 ; the

principle of constructing the Vedic altar. see ibid x.4.3. 13-19.

12. KYTS V. 2 7. 1., the Āpastamba Śrauta sūtra also says-“let the

altar measure a fathom across on the western side. That namely is

the size of man ; man is commensurate with sacrifice. XVI. 17.8.

166

the abode of Prajāpati is his own image, brought in unmitation of the symbolic substance of this Puruṣa.13

Prāsādia or Vāstu indicates the abodes of both gods and men. These are built in imitation of the body of Vāstupuruṣa, the archetypal abode (Vāstu). Vāstupuruṣa is said to be a demon. The Saivists of South India record that in ancient times when the gods defeated the giants, Bhārgava, the priest of the giants, performed a fire sacrifice by pouring oblations in which he attempted to avenge this defeat. With the oblations when his sweat of anger was also poured, a fierce demon of goat's size came out of the holy fire and asked for the order of the sacrificer that he must carry out. Bhārgava asked him to demolish the gods ; and when the demon ran after the gods, they sought the shelter of Śiva who got angry and remitted fiery rays from his third eye which chased the demon and also Bhārgava ; and both of them surrendered. While Bhārgava entered into the belly of Śiva by his power of yoga, the demon lay before him. Śiva was pleased at the cumning of Bhārgava and the modesty of the demon. He excused both of them with boons discharging Bhārgava through the channel of discharging semen. The prayer of the demon that he may have a place in the world and the gods dwelling in him may be worshipped by men, was fulfilled by the lord. As he asked for a residence (Vāstu) Śiva named him as the protector of abodes (Vāstupa).14 Varāhamihira records that once upon a time a thing unknown it its proper form and without a name was blocking heaven and earth. For its odd position the gods seized it of a sudden and laid it on the earth with

13, The image is not here of the human body, but of the order by which it is upheld. Body here means nothing but a place of co-ordinated activity, each part being the seat of special function. Kramrisch, op cit, P-71-72. 14. ISGP III, XXVI. 93 ff.

the face downwards. Brahmā named it as Vāstupuruṣa and made it an abode of gods, each god possessing the portion of the body he held.15

Varāhamihira's record suggests that the gods had no abode before and this existence (bhūta) served their dwelling place for the first time. The Saivist view seems more appropriate in holding that the body of the demon served the dwelling place of the gods on earth where they were to be worshipped by the mortals; secondly, the physical body of the demon justifies its being called a Puruṣa.

Nārada thinks that there is no contradiction in naming it Vāstunara, Vāstubrahman and Vāstudeva simultaneously,16 for nara (man) is not limited here to only the mortals, as puruṣa is equally applied for the ultimate reality, Virāṭ or Prajāpati and mortals. In fact, in all these three cases, Vāstupuruṣa is a product of Prajāpati, who as the creator of the entire world was the creator of the 'Existence' (or Vāstudeva).

The Vedic altar is the image of Agniprajāpati in so far as it gives a concrete shape to the essence of his being. There is no physical similarity between them.

Vāstupuruṣa is similarly imitated in construction of an abode. Vāstu cakra or Vāstupuruṣa mandala is the graphical site of a vāstu; in its symbolical representation it abstracts the physical figure of the demon. It is a square consisting of eighty-one squares, within it, its head being north-eastward and face downward. Prajāpati lies on the back and on its navel area fire burns; but the Vāstupuruṣa lies on the heart and the house is constructed on its back. The square is his body, the head lying stretched towards the North-east corner and the feet towards the opposite

15. BS Chap 53; Kramrisch, op. cit P.73. 16. The Vāstuvidhāna of Nārada, quoted by Kramrisch Op. cit. Vol-II P.427, comp. stanza 3. and 13.

168

south-east corner. The straight line is the spinal cord, and the

specific number of squares is imagined to represent several

limbs and sub-limbs of a man. The straight vertical and

horizontal lines stand for the veins and arteries of the body

which carry on the vital activity. As it is a characteristic

feature of the Indian thought to consider the subtle body

more important and significant than the gross physical

figure,17 the image of Vāstupuruṣa becomes necessarily

abstract. "The body here means nothing but a place of

co-ordinated activity each part being the seat of a special

function."18 Indian thought here concerns itself more with

the underlying law of Nature, its principles of activity,

displayed in the harmonious and symmetrical relation of

the parts with the whole than with the visible mani-

festation of this order. The image of Vāstupuruṣa in this

caka thus represents not the body of a human being but

the order by which it is upheld.

Along with the vital function and symmetry of the

subtle body of Vāstupuruṣa, the gods with Brahmaprajāpati

in the centre are also represented. There are concrete

figures of these divinities. They are said to have possessed

those portions of the 'Bhūta' that they held while throwing it

down. The Śaivas believe that these portions of the demon are

inhabited by the gods according to the order of instruction

of Śiva. Brahmā is in the centre - the portion from heart

to belly. From another point of view the graph appears

to be the sample of the entire cosmos, Brahmā or Prajāpati

the creator being in the centre and the other gods having

their appropriate places such as the four lokapālas - Indra,

17. For details see AGP Chap. 40, 105. BS Chap. 53 ; SSD XI. 11-14 ;

Kramrisch op. cit P. 85 ff. Rāghava Bhaṭṭa refers to Mahākapilpañ

carantra - there was a very dreadful demon previously ; the gods killed

him on the earth. That demon is called Vāstupuruṣa conμ. to Śāradī

Tilaka III. 2.ff.

18. Kramrisch. Op. cit. P. 71.

Yama, Varuna and Soma occupying their corresponding

sides, and other forty-five gods and demons holding their

portions as they are around the whole cosmos.19 This

geometrical representation of a human body is also identified

with the body of the sacrificer ( Yajamāna ) himself,

predicting a mystic relation between the two. Varahamihira

observes that the limbs and places of the householder's

body will be affected if the corresponding places of the

graphical plan and the site ( the former is the sample of

the latter ) are not nicely drawn or are affected with pegs

and weapons etc. under the ground. On the other hand,

those places should be known to be affected if the house-

holder itches the corresponding places of his body while

worshipping the Vāstuckra or if bad signs appear there.20

Apart from the graphical plan, the round structure

of a temple ( Prāsāda or vstu ) is an image ( mūrti or vimba )

of the deity who dwells in it. The temple of Śiva is no other

than Śiva himself and that of Viṣṇu is also like that. In

general the temple is the body of the Purusa or supreme

spirit and is also its seat ( ālaya ) in which his essence

dwells.21 The temple contains the whole manifestation in

which he is beheld as Purusa : and for that it should be

worshipped as Purusa. The various portions of the temple

are likened to those of a human body. The door is the

mouth, Śukanāsa the nose, Bhadras are arms, andia or Amalaka

is the head and Kalaśa the hair and so on. Lime scattered

over the temple is its skin. The Garbha gṛha ( the innost

chamber ) is the belly and inside it the image ( Pratima )

either iconic or aniconic ( like Śiva linga ) is the soul.22

19. BS 53. 41ff 20. BS 53. 54ff 21. ISGP III. XII. 1ff, the concrete

form ( Mūrti ) of Śiva is called devālaya, AGP 61.19 the prāsāda should

be worshipped as Purusa SR XIV.114. The temple is both the

house and the body of puruṣa. Mayamatam XVIII.193 22. AGP

61. 24–25

170

The Sāṅkhya School of Philosophy explains the cosmos as the manifestation of Prakṛti due to the disturbance produced by the proximity of puruṣa ; its constituents are five gross elements such as earth, water, fire, air and sky with their essential qualities like smell, taste, visibility, touchability and sound. Puruṣa is luminous and conscious, Prakṛti is unconscious.23 The temple is a microcosmic image of this Prakṛti guided by puruṣa. Its body is earth, on it rests the image of puruṣa : the void within the temple is the element of sky, the light within is the element of fire, the air that fills the space therein corresponds to the element of air ; and the water present in the stones of the temple is the element of water. It possesses the sensation of smell and touch and contains colours, sound is produced from the echo around the walls, and the feeling of bliss within a temple is also a quality of Prakṛti.24

The installation ceremonies of a building treats a vāstu as the body of a living being. Its main aim is to establish the indwelling essence of the temple (hṛtpratiṣṭhā). The builder architect and the priest ascend the vimāna and with a golden needle perform the opening of eyes (netra mokṣa) of the building. The priest then installs the building in its concrete shape (Prāsādamūrti) on the altar or pedestal. Above the innermost chamber the golden effigy of the prāsāda in the shape of a man (Prāsādapuruṣa) is installed.25 This golden effigy is something different from the deity of the temple. Apart from the deity, the soul of the temple, any building whether of gods or of

23. See Vācaspati’s commentary to Sāṅkhya kārikā II.2i. 24. Bhūmi is defined by Sāyaṇa as the support on which are established all beings and things. Taittirīya Āraṇyaka III. 7.11; for the similitude of the five gross elements see AGP. 61.19–20. 25. Pratiṣṭhā is defined by the Mahākapilapañcarātra as the perfect presence (viśeṣa sanmidhi) of the deity in general. Rāghava Bhatta’s com. to Śāradā Tilaka IV.77; ŚGP.IV. XXXIV. 65-69; Kramrisch op. cit. vol. II p. 359-60.

human beings is considered to have a life of its own. The

golden image stands for this vital essence. While the

building itself is a symbolic imitation of the cosmos in

general, the golden image represents the body of Virāt-

purusa, the spirit of which is realized in every sphere of

this cosmos. This human form is conceived as the body of

Virāt, of vāstupurusa, and of a building, not because there

is really a physical semblance among one another, but

because the vital force which they all manifest in their

essence is most perfectly expressed through a human body.26

Thus if the prasāda is the reflection (Vimba) of the cosmos

or of the vāstupurusa, it is in no way a replica of the physical

appearance of the object concerned. It is more a concre-

tization of an abstract principle than a copy of a physical

appearance. While the Vedic fire-altar imitated the time-

principle of Prajāpati, the architectural building represented

his space-principle - the vital force acting through the

26. Caraka the medical scientist clarifies this fundamental relation

between the cosmos and human form and justifies that purusa is the

perfect microcosmic representation of the cosmic operation. There

are six constituents of a purusa like those of the cosmos. The earth

elements of cosmos is the concrete form mūrti in purusa, water

is moisture, light heat, or vital force, sky the gaps in articulation

and Brahman, the supreme spirit, the soul. As Brahman's power

pervades the cosmos in the form of Prajāpati, so also the soul pervades

the body as vitality; similarly Indra of cosmos is the ego of human

being, the sun (Āditya) is the receiving power, Rudra anger, Soma

bliss, eight Vasus happiness, two Asvins blaze of body, Vāyu the zeal

and Vaisvadeva is all the organs and their objects. The qualities of

cosmos (the gunas of Prakrti) have their respective effects on 'Puruṣa'

such as Tamas is inflation and light is knowledge. As there is a

beginning, middle and end of the creation, so also are birth, growth

and death of a human being and his four stages of life i.e. childhood,

youth, invalidity and suffering are the counterparts of the four periods

(yugas) named Krta, Tretā, Dvapara and Kali; his death corresponds

to pralaya. V.4f. See also IV.13, with Cakrapāṇi's com.

172

cosmic form. The substratum of the cosmos and a vastu are

one, the latter being an attempt to visualize the invisible

essence of the former.

ii. If the architectural form is a visible substratum

of the cosmos, something more is needed to make it a vivid

counterpart of its archetype. Apart from the structure

there are objects of the world -- animate and inanimate.

These are to be represented all over the body of a temple,

and within a temple there must be an image not of Prajāpati,

but of the supreme Purusa (the originator of Prajāpati) in

his specific visible form, which the master or the sacrificer

likes to see and contemplate over.27

Thus the arts of sculpture and painting originate in

a desire to produce images of the objects and beings either

visible or invisible. Varāhamihira asks to decorate the

friezes of temples with auspicious birds, trees, full vessels,

floral scroll works and couples in sex relation.28 Someśvara-

deva allows to decorate not only the friezes of temples, but

the walls of the houses of both gods and human beings with

painted and carved images of all the animate and inanimate

objects that the artist can see before him in the world or can

think of existing in some other worlds -- upper or nether, not

visible directly.29 The subject-matter of these arts are

further clarified by Śrīkumāra, who says that an artist has

to depict the stories that bring propitious feelings and good

luck to the observer. The activities of gods and giants,

fights, deaths, sufferings, images of gods according to their

27. As the images are worshipped to fulfil the desire of the devotees,

the specific forms are meant for specific purposes. A man of dreadful

nature likes to see the dreadful image, who performs such deeds as

killing of enemies, doing harm to others etc. while the images of calm

appearance and beauty bring happiness and beauty to the worshipper.

28. BS.56/4.5,

29. ACM I. III 138-40.158-69.

hymns of contemplation, naked human beings in copulation

and hermits in sex relation may be wrought on the walls

of the temples of the gods, but except only the auspicious

scenes others are prohibited for a household building.30

It clarifies the Indian view that the house of god is

the likeness of the cosmos and as the cosmos consists of the

events divine and demonic, creation and destruction, suffering

and enjoyment, scenes auspicious and evil, a vāstu may have

the representations of all these on its walls and friezes.

These sculptured and painted figures outside the

temple and on its inside walls, except the inmost chamber

(garbhagrha) are entitled as citra, a word derived from

the root ci (to collect, to gather) which literally means an

arrangement or composition. In the Vedas the word citra

occurs in the sense of ‘wonderful’ and ‘beautiful’.31 As the

various events and scenes of the cosmic world manifest the

expansions and diversions of the dynamic force of creation

and at the same time make the world full of beauty and

wonder, so also these citras beautify a vāstu. As the vāstu is

essentially a representation of the cosmic structure, a citra

is defined as an imitation of the cosmic manifestation.

“Whatever there are in the three worlds,” says Śrīkumāra,

“movable or immovable, a representation thereof according

to their essential property (tattatsvabhāvatastesām) is called

citra.”32 The Viṣnudharmottarapurāṇa equalizes citra with

dance in so far as both of them are imitations—“In dance as

well as in citra imitation of the three worlds (trailokvānukṛti)

is enjoined by tradition.33

Citra in ancient India stands for both the kinds of

visual art — sculpture and painting. Its meaning as sculpture

is clear from the inscriptions of the Mohoha Bhddhist images

of 11th century in which the artist Sātan, evidently a sculp-

30. SR 46.2. 31. SYMS 47. 32. S.R.46. 33. VDP III RV.35.5,

274

to! is entitled as a citrakāra34 (one who makes a citra).

Śrikumāra divides citra into three classes35 --(a) citra proper,

a sculpture in round in which the whole body is represented

so accurately that it looks like a reflection of the reality on

mirror. (b) Citrārdha is a representation, the body of which

is shown in part or in half such as the reliefs on the walls,

fries, pillars, capitals and basements. (c) Citrābhāsa means

painting on high or low walls and on canvas. Frescoes,

canvas-painting and paintings on utensils are of this type.

Ābhāsa means any unreal appearance like hazy reflections,

shadows etc. If citra is a perfect likeness of natural

phenomena with three dimensions, citrābhāsa indicates

an imperfect likeness, for it appears to have three

dimensions although possesses only two in reality. A painted

figure cannot have the same life-like vigour which a sculp-

tured figure possesses. With its shades and lineaments, if

properly accomplished, it can only produce a likeness of

citra, but cannot become citra itself. Thus, it seems,

Śrikumāra ranks sculpture higher than painting by judging

the vividness of imitation involved in each.

Others like someśaradeva use Viddha citra for a

Citra in the above sense as Viddha means perfect or obvious.

Any work of art in which a figure is not fully drawn with

proper colours and finishing, but only an outline suggests

the object it imitates, is called abiddha citra. Dhūlicitracitracatra

seems to be a sub-class of this type. The artistic figures,

drawn on an altar or in the mandalas on occasions of some

auspicious ceremonies with powder colours produced from

unboiled rice, burnt husks, galingale, green leaves of Emblic

Myrobalan (āmalaka) and ‘avira’ (a reddish powder) are

34. Coomāraswamy History of Indian and Indonesian Art P. 110.

35. ŚR 46.143-146 ; Kāśyapa samhitā 50. Kāśyapa śilpa 50. 3-6

Mānasara 51.8.11, Suprabhedāgama 34.3-4 (both quoted in A Dictionary

of Hindu Architecture by P.K. Acharya P. 67

the examples of this type. A distinction of rasacitra and

bhāvacitra creates some confusion, for both of them refer to

perfect representations that rouse appropriate sentiments

(rasa) as soon as he observer looks at them. It seems,

bhāvacitra is conventionally used for the best type of Sculpture

(either in round or in relief), while rasa citra is used for an

ideal painting that fulfils its function through a variety of

colours.36

Sometimes painting is said to originate in portrait-

ture. Bhayajit an ancient king was so pious and perfect

a judge that irregularities were rare in Nature under his

rule. Accidentally a son of a Braimin living in his kingdom

died prematurely and his father accused the King of

sinful and unlawful activities that, he thought, caused the

early death of his son. He demanded that his son should

be given back his life by whatsoever means possible. The

King, thus insulted, asked Yama to return the life of the

boy. But when he expressed his inability, the king

started a fight against him. At last when Yama was

defeated, Brahmiṇ appeared before them and addressed the

King as Nagnafit (one who has defeated the naked ghosts)

by way of appraisai. To appease them both he asked the

King to paint exactly in colours the body of the dead boy.

That being done, Brahmā breathed life into the picture.

He further granted that the unwelcome visits of the ghosts

to this world should be prevented from that time. In

future their paintings only should be kept here.37 The

story seems to suggest that a citra is essentially a likeness,

not a new creation, but representation of something either

present or past. When the king requested Brahmā to impart

him the knowledge and means of painting he told him that

the art of painting is as old as the creation itself.38 Having

36. ACM I.III 940-944 37. Haridas Mitra's Contribution to a Biblio-

graphy of Indian Art and Aesthetics P. 386f.

38. ibid. loc. cit.

176

created the Vedas, the world and human beings, he taught

the art of drawing the picture of the Vedic altar (caitya),

for a model was necessary for constructing the altar. He

was the first artist to create men and their images ; and

next he taught the art to human beings through Viśva-

karman; and whatever is painted by them with or without an

avowed motive following the style of Brahmā's own painting

is called a citra. Thus Brahmā, the creator of this world,

only can be its master imitator, for in producing the images

of a thing its proper measurements must be known so

that an accurate similarity between the original and the

image could be brought out, and none but the creator

of the original himself is perfectly knowledgeable of all its

characteristics and measurements.

This story also suggests that in ancient India

painting was conceived as essentially a work of imitation

or production of an image of something that existed either

in this world ordinarily visible or in the insensible worlds

like the heaven or hell ; and secondly, this image was

either a piece of utility such as the portraits meant for

retaining the memory of the dear departed, or a work

moant for enjoyment without any practical motive.

But artistic imitation nowhere means a mere copy

of the appearance of an object. Even in the case of

portraiture where the image is to be exactly like the

appearance ( pratikrti ) of a being, it is by no means like

a mirror-image or water-reflection of the external form

of an individual, for the Indians believe that the whole

being of an object does not consist only in its appearance.

Reality is the very substratum which is manifest through

its appearance. One, who does not understand this, will

fail to grasp the reality and will be mistaken by the

appearance only. A visual artist has to enter into the

very core of the object, the invisible substratum, through,

its outside figure or visible aspects and it is this substratum that the visual artist imitates, not the visible manifestation only.

In the Chāndogya upniṣad when Prajāpati is asking both Indra and Virocana to realise the soul from the reflection of the body on the eyeglass, or a mirror or on the surface of water, Virocana wrongly identifies the body with the soul.

But Indra doubts it and by constant effort he realizes that the essence of a being is something that transcends the bodily appearance and even the mental states in dreams and sound sleep.39 Reality is the very essence of a being, its spirit that pervades the entire body and manifests itself through the various activities of the body.

Through these activities and appearances the spirit must be ascertained first by a deep meditation. Then only the artist will be able to make a good portrait.

It is, therefore, the substratum, the inner vital spirit, the life force that the artist imitates, never only the visual aspects of the body.

If he fails in his attempt to have an impression of the being owing to lack of proper concentration the portrait will be unlike the model.

Agnimitra, a hero of Kālidāsa's play detects a disagreement between the lustrous beauty of Mālavikā and that of her portrait and thinks, it is due to the slackening of concentration (Śithila samādhi) of the artist who ought to have preserved the total impression of the model's entire being before representing it on the canvas.40 For this a very powerful insight into the nature of things and a strong retentive capacity of memory, which ordinary people do not possess, are needed.

The clown of Rājaśekhara's “Karpūraman̄jarī” cannot retain the beauty of the heroine's form in his heart.41 Thus a painted portrait is much more than a mirror-reflection, and the activity involved therein is by no means limited to mere copying.

As the artist imitates the very life spirit.

39. VIII 7.12. 40. Mālavikāgnimitra II.2 41. I.30.

178

he has the freedom to change the actual appearance of the

model, if he thinks some particular aspects are or are not

appropriate to manifest his individual character sufficiently.

In imitating a class, the artist has to keep an

individual member before him as a model; but there he

has to give less emphasis upon the model's individual

differentia. The model stands as a representative of the

whole class, and the artist imitates only those general

characteristics, represented by the individual. Śukrācārya

mentions the way of representing a horse as an example.

An artist cannot represent anything, he suggests, which he

has not seen. He must always have a mental image or an

impression (Vim̧ba) of a horse while working, not necessarily the object itself. "The artist", he writes, "having first

made his visual contemplation (dhyātrā) on the horse and

being attentive to its forms should do his work, embodying

all the proportions of horses meet for splendour and divorced

from ill omen."42 The artist is here required to be well

aware of the physical construction with a proper knowledge

of the physiological proportions of the horse and he must

be sensitive to the portions separately and to the whole body

taken together. In his work, then, the artist is instructed to

copy faithfully, without any alteration, all the biological

characteristics of a horse. But he is absolutely free in enriching the figure with all the points of attraction which may be

phenomenally rare in any one of the individual member of

the whole class.

This conception of art activity is obvious in Viśva-karmmā's construction of Tilottamā43 and in the Viṣnudhar-mottarapurāṇas narration of the origin of painting. Once Nara

and Nārāyaṇa (probably two sages or the ruling gods of Bhāratavarṣa) were in meditation to which the divine fairies set up

a lot of obstacles by displaying their various attractive

42. SNS IV. Iv. 73-74 43. MBh. Ādi-270. 11-18

sistures. Nārāyana then painted a picture of a fairy with

mango juice, that exceeded them all in beauty, seeing

which they felt insulted and fled away. The picture looked

so life-like that later it really was transformed to a living

woman ( as the painter breathed life into it. ) and was

called Urvaśī, the most charming of all the divine fairies.44

Viśvakarmans' Tilottamā, Nagnajit's Brāhman son and

Nārāyana's Ūrvaśī all are imitations in so far as their

works are not absolutely new. Their models were all created

by Prajāpatī long before. He was the first artist, who created

the world imitating the creation of the previous 'Kalpa'.

While Nagnajit produced an image of an individual, the

other two studied the features of the whole class of their

models and combined all the best points into each one. All

these figures were so vivid that they demanded breathing of

the vital airs into them. The story of Nagnajit suggests that

if there be any means by which the law of Prajāpati's

creation can be violated; it is only the activity of an artist

and it is by the artistic activity that one can even supersede

the creation of Prajāpati. Thus the artistic imitation some-

times becomes rather a kind of invention (in case of idealistic

likeness) than being merely a passive mirror like copy of

an object.

The principles of artistic imitation further clarify

this point. Nāśodhara in his commentary on Vatsyāyana's

Kāmasūtra mentions six principles of a citra45 .... (a) differen-

tiation of forms (rūpabheda), (b) proper measurements of

these forms ( pramānam ), (c) application of proper emotions

( bhāva ) and (d) grace (lāvanrya) to these forms. (e) exertion

of similarity ( Sādrśya ) and (f) proper disposition of colours

( Varnikābhanga ). As the main aim of citra is to make

likenesses of the objects of three worlds--heaven, earth and the

under world, the fourth principle, i.e. exertion of similarity,

44. VDP III. 35 18-19; 45. SSD 71 13.15; KS. I.31.Yaśodhara's

jīvanvajrīani and Madhureva in VDP may be compared.

130

is considered by the Viṣnudharmottarapurāṇa 46 as the principal one, and the other five subservient principles are necessary in fulfilling this main principle.

The artist has first to experience a variety of forms he observes himself or learns from other reliable sources.

The particular form which he has to represent must first be drawn in outlines on a canvas, if it is a painting, or in the materials like stone, clay, metals, or wood, if it is a sculpture.

This being the first stage of his work he should finalize what objects exactly he has to represent and having a concrete image of these objects in his mind, he should give them primary visual shapes which are distinct and differentiated.

A. N. Tagore does not accept the view47 that a rūpa is limited to the visual perception only.

On the basis of the sixteen forms given by the Mahābhārata he tries to suggest that all our five senses together with mind, the internal organ, supply forms and the mind has to analyse and synthesise these forms to acquire correct knowledge of them.

This correct knowledge of form is, according to him, rūpabheda, the first limb (aṅga) of a citra, and this correct knowledge is achieved when the artist illuminates all forms with his aesthetic taste and at the same time receives enlightenment from the forms both visible and invisible.

But it seems, this view is too subjective to suit the view of Yasodharā.

Although the subjective taste of the artist plays an eminent role in modifying the forms he perceives, it is highly controversial to urge that right knowledge of forms emanates from this taste.

Besides, A. N. Tagore cannot justify his view that rūpa is not limited to the visual percept only.

The Mahābhārata, his authority, emphatically mentions that all the sixteen forms are the objects of visual perception only.

The mind has forms no

46. VDP III.42.48 47. Principles of Indian painting : A Review, Rūpam, Nos. 19-20, 1924, P.130ff.

doubt, but these forms are only the impressions or after-

images of the forms perceived by the eyes, and even when

it constructs purely imaginary forms, independent of visual

perception, it is called as the internal eye or manaścakṣu.

Secondly, rūpabheda is not a kind of knowledge only. As

it is the first stage of the artistic activity, it positively

indicates an action which the artist has to work out.

Others read here48 a very subtle meaning into the

term rūpa. They accept Siṅgabhūpāla's view that some-

thing is called a form (rūpam) by virtue of which the limbs

undecorated with ornaments appear as if they are actually

ornamented.49 They admit that form here refers to the

visual percept, not to its external appearance only; the

inner natural beauty is here indicated. This beauty is

rūpam which avoids the notice of ordinary men, while the

artistic sense easily discovers it, and manifests it with skilful

manipulation of lines which affect division (bheda or

vibhaktatā). But this view of rūpam is not appropriate

here. It may more appropriately be the explanation of

grace (lāvanya) which Yośodhara puts as a separate

principle. At the very out-set of his work one cannot expect

that the artist should achieve the perfect accomplishment.

Proper beauty that is needed of this art-form can be

manifested only when the entire course is run. No subtle

meaning of rūpam is conceived here, except its ordinary

sense i.e. any object that can be directly perceived by the

eyes. Hence rūpabheda is not a knowledge only. It is both a

knowledge and an activity. The artist first acquires the

48. Ibid, H.D.Mitra, op. cit P.43 49. Rasārnavasudhākara I.57.180.

Critics like H.D. Mitra consider this definition of rūpaṁ and that of

lāvanya given below as of Rūpagosvāmī. But this is misguiding, for

these two definitions are found first in Siṅgabhūpālas Rasārṇavasu-

dhākara of 14th century (1330 A.D. Sec T. Ganapati Sastri's preface).

Rūpagosvāmī might have borrowed the definitions from Siṅgabhūpāla.

182

knowledge of several forms by his sensitive eyes and after forming the images of particular forms he visualizes them

in his work, first in sketches only with a distinctness of each figure therein.

These distinct figures must have their appropriate measurement of construction. Each limb should be in

proportion with the others and all the limbs taken together are to be symmetrical with the entire body. This is what is

indicated by the second principle. In logic the word Pramānam means the way (Karanam) of obtaining perfect

knowledge (Pramā). Pramā is defined in various ways by the philosophers of various systems although all of them

agree unanimously that truth is the essential characteristic of Pramā.50 The Buddhists have a pragmatic idea of

Pramā in so far as they hold that it leads to the achievement of some end or reveals an object which serves a purpose

(artha).51 According to the Naiyāvikas it makes us realize something in a place where it really exists; and the Sāñkhya

school regards true knowledge to be in harmony with other experiences.52 “An object is known”, says Vātsyāyana,

“through an instrument of knowledge; its validity is known by its workability. There is neither valid knowledge of an

object without a pramāna nor successful action without valid knowledge of it.”53 The monistic Vedantins, however, do

not agree with the Buddhists who urge against all the orthodox schools that as the causal efficiency (arthakriyā

kāritva) is the only criterion of reality (sattā), the same is the basic criterion of every form of right cognition.54 Even a

50. D. M. Datta The six ways of knowing P. 19ff 51. ibid; H.I.Ph. P. 15 ff; Nyāyabindu I.I; Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic vol. II P. 3ff.

51. Iatta, op, cit P. 20; for the Sāñkhya theory of Pramā see Vācaspati's comm. to the Sāñkhya kārika 51 53. Nyāya Bhāsyal I.1

P. 16ff; Gñoli, The Aesthetic Experience according to Abhinavagupta P. 37 Foot note.

mistake, observes Dharmakirti, is sometimes a source of

right knowledge if it does not deceive the perceiving

subject. "Between two people approaching two lights"

he cites an example, "the one produced by a jewel, the

other by a lamp (without being conscious of what they

really are) with the idea that it is jewel, there exists a

difference in respect of causal efficiency, but not a difference

of mistaken cognition."55 The Vedantins, on the other

hand, urge that this causal efficiency cannot be the essential

criterion of reality, for if even a false cognition can fulfil a

purpose, how can one consider it as the fundamental charac-

teristic of pramā or true knowledge?56 They hold that

it is the uncontradictedness (abādhitatva) of our experience

(anubhūti) which is important here. Anything which is

cognized once as true must not be contradicted by any

other experience later. This school adds novelty as a second

criterion of pramā to uncontradictedness (avisamvāiditatva).

Knowledge pramā reveals something new. It is not merely

a reproduction of something already experienced. True

knowledge or pramā is thus both uncontradicted and

novel,57 and Pramāṇa is the unique means through which

this perfect knowledge is achieved. Six such ways or

Karaṇas are accepted by the different schools of Philosophy,

although all of them are not accepted by each one except

the Vedānta school. Perception, inference, testimony,

comparison, non-cognition and postulation are these ways.

55. quoted from the Pramaṇa Vārtika of Dharmakīrti by Abhinava-

gupta fee Gnoli op cit P.36 56. When distant bright jewel emits

lustre "We mistake the lustre for the jewel and desiring to get the

mistaken object for our knowledge, approach it and actually get

jewel. In this case, therefore, the knowledge of the lustre as the jewel—

which is clearly a false cognition leads to the attainment of the jewel

a nd thereby satisfies our purpose, though eventually we come also to

know that the initial cognition which caused our action was false."

D.M. Datta quotes from the Tattvapradipikā Citsukhī op. cit P. 21.

57. D.M. dutta. op cit P. 21ff

If the logical pramāṇa is the activity of acquiring

knowledge, the aesthetic pramāṇa is the acquired

knowledge itself, which literally means perfect (Prakṛṣṭam)

measurement (mānam); and as such this is to be obtained

by the logical pramāṇa and to possess the characteristics of

pramā. But which one out of the six should be its proper

way ? As the objects of artistic imitation are not always

directly visible, sense perception cannot be the means in

all the cases : and even in the cases where objects are

visible the norm of measurement is not achieved by an

inductive method, for, as we have already remarked, the

Indians did not consider the outward appearance of an

object as self-sufficient. It is sub-ordinate to and is regulated

by the inner vital principle or Sattva. Hence instead of

studying the minute particular differences or similarities of

each body of a class, they thought it better to study the very

vital principles ; and the causal relation between these

vital principles and their phenomenal manifestations is not

fixed always by the dual method of agreement (anvaya)

and difference (Vyatireka),⁵⁸ for these are possible in case

of the visible world only. The testimonial records about the

things and their nature revealed to the sages by means of

a mystic intuition serve a better means of acquiring the

aesthetic Pramāṇa than any other logical pramāṇa.

Nature or Prakṛti in Indian philosophy is not

limited to the visible world only. It is the ultimate source

of vital principles and as such pervades the other worlds as

well which possess life spirits, although invisible to the

ordinary human eyes. Hence the ways of cognizing the

visible world only are not sufficient for a perfect cognition

of this nature. A strong power of contemplation and intui-

tion in addition to these other five ways reveal that Nature

has three constituents, essentially three qualities—Sattva,

58. See the Nyaya theory of vyapti, H. I. Ph P. 345ff

Rajas and Tamas. But it is unconscious. When owing to

the proximity of Purusa, the principle of consciousness is

inserted into it, it is startled and the creation begins with

the conglomeration of the three qualities in various propor-

tions. Thus the nature of things in general and the persona-

lities of the beings and their physical constructions are

regulated accordingly. Caraka, the eminent Indian physio-

logist, divides the vital principles (sattva) of human beings

into three types - pure (suddha), mixed (rājasa) and impure

(tāmasa). The first type again is divided into seven sub-

types Brāhma, Ārsa, Aindra, Yāmya, Kauvera, Vāruna and

Gāndharva. Similarly the other two types also are divided

into six and ten sub-types respectively.59 Although the

bodily appearance and physical construction of the entire

human race is similar to a great extent, most of the essential

features, nevertheless, differ according to their vital

principles. Physiologists, for example, observe that a man's

length is three and a half by the length of his own hand

which is equal to eighty-four angulas (the breadth of the

middle finger of his own hand). This standard measure

indicates happiness and longevity of man.60 But this

standard length is not an exhaustive measure. It increases

and decreases according to the type of the personality. The

Aindra sub-type of the pure sattva class, for example, is

said to be longer than the standard measure and is suffici-

ently rich in appearance (dīrghadarśī) and wealth

displaying thus a warrior (Kṣātra) personality.61 The

physical form is so much sub-ordinate to and regulated by

the inner vitality, vision and volition that both Caraka and

Suśruta agree with the Vedic testimony that whatever form

59. Caraka Samhitā, Śarīrasthāna IV 34. ff Suśruta ssmhitā, Sārirasthāna

IV. 73-76. 60. Vāgbhata AHS. 221. 61. Caraka. op. cit. Sārīra,

IV 37ff.

135

the mother will think of at the time of copulation, the baby

in the womb will assume it exactly.62

The bodily features including the personality of

human beings are again said to be regulated by the three

humours -- wind, bile and phlegm. 'Windy' persons are thin,

tall and weak ; their eyes are grey-coloured, round and

ugly-looking appearing like those of a cadaver. Such persons

become athirst and quarrelsome. Bile is a fiery substance.

Hence the person, in whom this humour is prominent, is of

fiery colour; his face, feet and nails are copper-coloured,

hairs are tawny, eyes are small, reddish-brown, and he

possesses small eyelashes, and so on. Personal characters

also are conditioned by these humours. While the behaviour

of a 'windy' personality is like that of dogs, jackals, camels,

swallows and rats the behaviour of the phlegmatic perso-

nality is like that of Brahmā, Rudra, Indra, Varuṇa,

Garuda, swans, lions, horses, cows and bulls.63

Vāgbhaṭa gives the standard of an ideal body that

is capable of long life and happiness. The hairs of such a

body are smooth, soft, subtle, strong and consist of many

roots. Its eyes are clear with distinct black and white

portions and eyelashes are thick ; the nose is straight, fleshy

and uplifted; the lips are red and uplifted from below; the

teeth are of equal size, smooth, white, closely fitted and

blazing; the tongue is red, wide and thin; the shoulder is

uplifted and fleshy and so on, making thus the whole body

appear faultless and most attractive.64

62. Caraka, Op. cit. Sarīra II. 25 (see Cakrapāṇi's com ) Suśruta,

VIII. 14. 63. AHS P.213-220 64. ibid; Vāgbhaṭa suggests that

a beautiful body is indicative of good character and health--"yatrakā-

tistatra guṇā vasanti" BS. 76.23; for this interrelation of bodily features

and personal character see RS 68.60ff. Varāha also gives some descrip-

tions of a good physical appearance which with lotus colour, softness,

closely connected fingers,ainless feet etc. is indicative of long life

and prosperity.

The sage Samudra by his sublime intuition selects

five best types of personality on the basis of physical features

such as height (māna) from the top of head to feet, breadth

or thickness of the body (unmāna), nature of movement

(gati), mutual unity of the limbs with the whole body

(samhati), colour of the body (varna), love and affection

(sneha), voice (svara), nature and behaviour (prakṛti)

and above all, the vital principle (sattva). These types are

named Hamsa, Sasa Rucaka, Bhadra, and Mālarva.65 Astrologers afterwards observed that these types are regulated by

the characters of the planets who guide the actions of human

beings. Thus a Hamsa is a Jovian whose height

differs from that of normal bodies of eighty four angulas.

By his own figure his height is ninety-six angulas. His head

and eyes are round, the colour of face is golden, cheeks

are fleshy and red in colour, nose straight and uplifted,

nails are red coloured and the whole appearance is pleasing

marked with signs of fishes, conch-shells and ‘dūrbā’ grass

etc. Śaśaka is a Saturnian whose height is ninety-nine

angulas, body is not excessively thick, nails are short,

cheeks are full and teeth a little uplifted, and so on.66

Besides these five main types, standard measure-

ments of pignies, crooked ones and persons of inferior

character such as Jaghanīya and Mandalaka are also counted

by Vāthammira.67 Beauty and happiness, according to

Samudra, cooperate each other depending upon the inner

vital principle which manifests itself through a physical

form which consists of a symmetry in the construction of

limbs that neither sweat much nor display much veins

over the skin which is soft and lotus-coloured. Fingers

of hands and feet are also closely connected and the shape

65. For Sāmudrikā see Garudapurāṇa 63.2,64. 1-17; AgP chap.179, 180;

for five mahāpurusa laksana see BS 69.ff SSD. 81.90-96 66. BS 69

1-23 67. BS 69.32,33-39

188

of feet is just like the back of tortoise with uplifted centre lowering downwards, and hairs over the body are very subtle. Like the structure of males, that of females is also regulated by the essential life force and expresses beauty and richness if the characteristic female organs are well grown. The breasts, thighs and hips, for example, should be well developed and without hairs, the hairs of head smooth, long and blue, and the fingers closely connected with pointed tips, and the nails, copper coloured. The area of the genitalia must be wide and its shapes should be like an ‘aśvattha’ leaf. Besides, lips are to be red and fleshy, eyebrows like halfmoon, nose straight with nostrils of equal size and neck like a conch-shell etc. Thus according to their character and bodily appearance women are divided into sixt types Mrgī, Padminī, Citriṇī, Vadavā, Hastinī and Saṅkhinī one being inferior to its immediately preceding type.68 Not only human beings, lower animals also are classified according to their construction, their formal beauty and physical features. Although all the cows are marked with good signs, some important symptoms mark their superiority to other cows. If the hoofs are parted full, and head is longer than a normal size, neck is short and thick and back lowers to centre, a cow is not fit for domestication. Similarly the auspicious symptoms of horses and elephants etc. are also given in details.69

Now these three divisions -- philosophical, physiological and astrological--do not contradict one another nor are they on completely different grounds. Rather they are the results of different attempts made to analyse the same truth (Sattva) from different points of view. Metaphysics, astrology and physiology are three branches of the same science. While the last one is strictly limited to the sphere

68. Bs 70 1-9; ACM I.III. 1893ff 69. BS 61. 14; 62.1; 66. 1; 67. 1-7.

of visible living beings, the first two venture into the

invisible arena of creation. But as the invisible expresses

itself through the visible, physiology is supplemented by

and itself supplements metaphysics and astrology. Their

mutual co-operation is evident from the fact that the

metaphysical Śuddha Sattva type is commensurate with the

physiological phlegmatic type which includes the five

distinguished astrological types. While the ‘intelligence’

stuff (sattva) gets prominent in a being, his physical appea-

rance changes accordingly—the eyes blaze and become calm,

the entire body, free from diseases, radiates with beauty.

The prominence of the ‘mass’ stuff (tamas), on the other

hand, brings all the opposite symptoms so that the diseased

body is disfigured by projecting veins, backbone and skeleton:

and loose articulations all over signify death at an early

date.70

The above classification of visible beings, according

to the nature of vital spirits they embody, is in no way

dogmatic or merely conventional; for classification is the

Indian way of understanding the facts of Nature and, as

we have seen, the whole process is based more upon the

yogic perception or a mystic intuition than upon any

inferential process, for the Indians believe that only a

portion of the visible world is accessible to the inductive

generalization while the yogic perception enables one to

achieve the knowledge of the entire universe and finally

of the absolute Reality, and thus it is only by this pramāṇa

that one’s cognition is beyond any doubt or challenge.

The artists are, therefore, required to follow these testi-

monial records in order to achieve a sound imitation of

reality in their art.

The first two principles Rūpabheda and Pramāṇa

concern themselves with the representation of the external

70. AHS p 230

190

appearance. But as the reality of a being does not consist

in its outward structure, mere anatomical perfection of an

image is unable to express the inner life of the original.

The representation of a warrior going to battle field cannot

be perfect if the artist only differentiates the separate

limbs and preserves the appropriate measurement -- such as

a tall figure, knotted muscles, flesh articulations etc.

The figure must be expressive of emotions. A feeling of

heroism must be displayed in it such as anger in the eyes,

swelling of muscles in the body and a spirit of daring

personality throughout the appearance. This is called the

appreciation of emotions (Bhāvayojanā), the third principle

of an artistic imitation. It is very difficult to find an

accurate English synonym of the Sanskrit word (Bhāva),

the denotatation of which is much wider than what the

words like emotion, feeling, thought, idea and sentiment

refer to. Bhāva is here defined as certain attitudes or

states of citta which are productive of changes in the organs

both sensory and motor.71 Citta is very often translated

as mind. But it is a completely different entity in Indian

philosophy; it includes intellect (buddhi), ego (ahaṃkāra) and

senses, and undergoes incessant changes like the flame of

a lamp.72 Essentially it is a large stuff of pure intelli-

gence (sattva) -- substance that constantly moulds itself from

one content to another. Such states of citta are in accor-

dance with its response to the objects (artha) that the

senses perceive. It becomes calm and undisturbed if it pays

heed to the activities of the senses. Both the stages of citta

disturbed and undisturbed -- are manifest in the external

appearance of the body through the sense and motor

organs which are called anubhāvas73 (after products of

71. N.S VII. 1-3 see the rtti also, "Sārirendriyavargasya vikārānām

vidhāyakāḥ/bhāvā vibhā vājani tā scittavṛttayaḥ iriāḥ, ii" source unknown

quoted by H.D. Mitra, op. cit. P.43. 72. H.I Ph. P.262 73. N.S.VII.

5 vṛtti also

bhāvas). When one perceives, for example, a snake before

him all on a sudden his citta is startled with the emotion

of fear, and at once this bhāva is expressed through the

movements of organs such as running away, widening of

the eyes and herniplation of the body and so on. Similarly

the death of a friend brings tears in eyes, choking of voice

and distention of limbs. On the other hand, if the worldly

affairs do not cast any impression on the citta, a state in

which it is undisturbed ( niruddha ) with an indifference

towards the objects of senses, the eyes become calm and

vacant. The body radiates with a lustre and the activities,

such as talking, sleeping and eating all become restrained.

Such expressions of the body, especially of the eyes denote

rasadr̥śi.74 Thus an Indian artist is not satisfied only with

the proper measurements of body. Unlike the Egyptians,

he conceives of the body as a medium for expressing the

vital spirit and the inner emotions through the rhythmic

movements of the limbs. He takes the vital spirit as the

object of imitation in his arts. Bharata, the son of the

king Daśaratha is astonished at the artistic genius which

can display bodily expressions of emotions vividly even in

the stone images.75 Madanikā similarly detects the exact

representation of Cārudatta's tenderness of eyes, the most

characteristic feature of his appearance, in his painted

portrait ; and by this point she appreciates the portrait

as the perfect likeness of the original ( susadr̥śī ).76 Durvo-

dhana notes the emotional expressions of the Pāndavas

in their painted picture of the rape of Draupadī's lock.

Yudhiṣṭhira tries to control the anger of Bhīma by his

glances, Aryuṇa's eyes are full of anger and his lips are

trembling, and by attracting the thread of his bow

he shows that he is just on the verge of attacking and

will jump up if Yudhiṣṭhira gives any hint; Nakula and

74. SSD Chap 82. 75. Pratimanātaka III 76. Mrcchakatika IV

192

Sakadeva are showing very severe faces with their upper

lips biting the lower ones; the king of Gāndhāra is smiling

proudly while playing at the dice. Droṇa and Bhiṣma are

hiding their faces to avoid looking at the pitifully weeping

face of Draupadī. The entire picture is indeed rich in

expressiveness (alo bhāvopapaṇnatā!).77

A particular bhāva is exposed through its corres-

ponding organs. Tear, for example, expressing sorrow is to

be shown in the eyes, not elsewhere. Similarly sweating

indicating certain excitement of nerves (out of fear etc.)

is shown on the skin of body. But to bring the liveliness of a

represented figure, emphasis should be given by the artist on

the entire body. The feeling of love, sorrow or fear must

springing forth from the attitude of the whole body. This is

what is called applying of grace (lāvan ya vojanā). Íśvara

saṃhitā, a Pañcarātra text distinguishes between g ace

(Lāvan ya) and beauty (saundarya). Beauty is caused by a

harmory of proportions, but grace is something which does

not necessarily accompany beauty; it is the expression of

the inner man, his thoughts and feelings and the very

spiritual essence.78 Śṛngabhūpāla defines grace as that

which manifests in the limbs just in the same way as does

the liquid lustre out of the pearl-bead. It is that quality

which vividly manifests a particular state of one's citta in

the whole body, not in any particular portion of it.79 Thus

lāvan ya denotes a quality wider than expression of emotions.

Something without being rich in emotional expressions

cannot be graceful while its converse is not necessarily true

i.e. something expressive of emotions may not be necessarily

graceful. Simply to weep, for example, is not enough to

express the grace of sorrowfulness. It requires sorrowful

attitude of the whole body displaying the inner suffering

77. Bhāsa, Dūta vāk yam 7-12 78. Fundamentals of Indian Art P 104.

78. Rasārnava sudhākara I.57.161

spirit. Thus the artist should try to intuit the very essence

of his object in a particular state and should try to represent

it as exactly as possible.

In sculpture emotional expressions and gracefulness

of the figures are wrought by the lines (rekha) and points

(bindu) which are subtle but clear-cut. Weak lineament

is one of the defects of a citra. Painting has an advantage

over sculpture that by using proper colours it can verify

emotions and grace more powerfully. Blushings, for example,

the expression of shame or love can be perfectly exposed in

painting only. This appropriate disposition of colours

(Varnikabhanga) is a specific principle of painting being

absent in sculpture. Dhoyodhana praises the richness of

colours in the above picture (atha asya varnadhyatah).80

Now sadrsya, the accomplishment of which is the

fundamental principle of citra to which all the above five

principles are subservient, or of which those are constituent,

literally means a semblance of something visible (drśya).

The artist has to cognise first the object visible of which

he has to produce a semblance. Visual perception of an

object according to the Nyāya realists consists of two

stages—undeterminate and determinate. The first stage

is the immediate awareness of a real object that is

a substance with qualities, movement, general and

specific characteristics, but without the knowledge of a

subject-predicate relation and a name appertaining to it

which is fulfilled in the determinate state finalising the

function of perception.81 Thus a mere visual sensation is

different from perception that ends in some definite knowl-

edge. Simply a visual awareness of a horse, for example,

does not enable an observer to realize the proposition—“This

is a horse”. At first he is conscious of a thing of certain

80. Bhāsa, Dūtavikram 12. 81. H I. Ph. P.333ff.

194

size and colour, either static or moving with some characteristics which place it under a particular class and differentiate it from others. But to know what the thing exactly is, one depends upon a name that comes from the memory of his previous realization of a subject-predicate relation between the thing itself and its qualities etc., which make the perception determinate. A mental vision may be an after-image of the object just perceived physically or something constructed from memory. Purely imaginary visions also are mental and so are the mystic perceptions of the yogins.

The object of the artistic representation is thus a determinate percept—the universal (sāmānya) as well as the particular (viśeṣa). A universal is defined as that which by its presence in two very different things (Sattā), makes them appear as the same.82 The idea of horseness, for example, consists in its essential properties such as shaggy and thick tail, strong and stout legs, imparted hoofs, muscular body and long ears etc. Its colour decoration and movement are accidental properties. A horse may be white or black, may sleep or run. An artist has to represent both the properties essential or universal and particular or individual. The choice of a model should not be made at random. It is to be suitable for the purpose the artist is going to satisfy in his work. When, for example, a king is represented as going to battle on horse, the artist should not use here a model of any ordinary horse, but only that type which is competent in war and brings victory to the rider. This type he may either realize himself by his superb experience or learn from other testimonial records. But in other cases where he has to depict a battle field and a large number of horses, he should not follow a single model. He may change the accidental properties while preserving

82. PPk. PP. 29, 742, 744; H. I. Ph. P. 317

the essential ones of a warrior-horse. Similarly he is more

free in imitating horses grazing on a field, where only the

universal features are retained and the individual features

vary according to his own choice.

While all the individual and universal characteri-

stics of a real horse are accessible to all the sense organs of a

human observer, an artist has to preserve only those charac-

teristics that are sensible only to the visual organ. The

typical smell and sound of a horse cannot be represented in

a citra, and although a shaggy, tactual sensation can be

preserved in a sculptured horse painting is completely unable

to preserve it. Thus a citra does not aim at reproducing all

the characteristics of reality, but only a semblance of it

which is according to the Nāya system an identity-in-

difference. Something is similar to a different thing if it

possesses some fundamental characteristics common to

both. A face, for example, is not the moon itself, but

similar to it as it radiates delight and charm etc. the

characteristic features of the moon.83 A citra thus is a

different entity from the object it imitates e.g. a horse and a

painting of horse are not the same thing, the former is a

living being whereas the latter is a patch of colours on a

piece of paper or cloth. it shares only those features in

common with the living horse that are accessible to the

visual organ. These features must be displayed as exactly

as a mirror reflects an object before it. Here mirroric reflec-

tion does not indicate any passive copy, for he has to represent

not only the surface of the object but the very essence

through its outward manifestation. Hence an artist needs

an acute insight and powerful intellection to dip into

83. H.I.Pt. P.33 Footnote No.2 : Viśvanatha quotes this definition-

“Sādrśyamapi na padārthāntarīnam. Kintu tadbhinnatve sati tadgata-

bhāvodharmavartitvam” from the Lilāvatī Prakāśa, Bhāṣā Pariccheda

(Prakāśa Vṛttihāsa) Vutti, 12.

196

the bottom and give physical expressions to the inner emotions and thoughts. That is why king Bhoja counts some seven indispensable qualities of a good artist -- powers of intuitive contemplation or meditation ( Prajñā ), careful observation, technical skill of the hand through long practice, knowledge of the science of metre or balance, anatomy of different bodies of animals and men in steadiness, movement and under diverse passions, ready intelligence ( Pratyutpanna-matitva ); and finally self-control and character.84

A mirror reflects only the things present before it, but art imitates the objects of the past and the events that may happen in future also. Nevertheless a mirror is compared with the citta of an artist, for like the transparent surface of a mirror the artist's citta must be indifferently receptive and reflective. An ancient story narrates that once two painters competed in the court of Indra in heaven. Both of them worked separately on the wall of the court behind screens. In due time the pictures were inaugurated. One of them painted the Rājasūya sacrifice of king Yajāti excellently and received its due appraisal from the gods present in the court. But the picture of the second one was more applauded, for it was an exact representation of the present scene of Indra's court. Indra awarded him as the successful competitor, for while the former painted an event from the past days, already painted by nature, this painter depicted something which was to take place in future (i.e. the artist could know the situation of Indra's court at the time of inauguration--long before the actual inauguration.) Thus it was a novelty85 of his subject-matter which was the result of his strong far-sight. At this the winner artist expressed the truth that there was no picture at all painted by him on the wall. He had simply rubbed a portion of the wall so

84. F.I.A. P. 121. 85. Novelty thus becomes an essential characteristic of both valid knowledge and an art object.

skilfully by a piece of stone that it became transparent like

the surface of a mirror which not only was reflecting the

court-scene present before it, but would reflect whatever

would come before it in future. No picture will remain

fixed on this wall. So should be the citta of the artist

indifferent in receiving the objects and facts and in represen-

ting them as exactly as he receives.86

As a dirty mirror cannot reflect an object clearly

so a citra is regulated by the nature of the artist's citta.

A man of inspid heart, for example, is unable to realize the

nature of love and to detect its expression through physical

organs. Hence his representation of a couple in love will

remain imperfect. Similarly an old man cannot usually

realize the vigour of youth, an ugly (in citta especially) the

charm of beauty, and a person sick at heart the bliss of

health. That is why the Devipurāna comments that the

mental and physical forms of an artist mould the nature of

his products (Lekhakasya ca yadrūpam citre bhavati

tādrśam ).87

Sometimes critics distinguish the reality from its

appearance and hold that art imitates only this appearance

(or dŕśya), not the reality, and on this basis they distinguish

real art from the art of Photography. A photograph is a

copy, according to this view, of the object as it is, while a

portrait is that of the object as it appears to the artist

without being necessarily related to the reality of the object.

The model himself and his portrait may not be exactly of

the same form, but the impressions derived from both must

be the same. Hence the above definition of sādrśya by the

Nyāya systems holds good in case of the artistic representa-

tions only, not in case of mirroric reflection or photographic

copy. That is to say, in the above sense of the term, not a

copy. That is to say, in the above sense of the term, not a

86. The story is referred to by Srimat Purnananda Brahmachari

Saral yogsūdhan (Bengali) P. 36-38 37. VDP 93 148-151

198

mirroric reflection, but an artistic copy is a semblance ( sādrśya ) of the object concerned. But this impressionistic interpretation makes art too subjective to suit the ancient Indian idea of the artistic semblance ( sādrśya ). 88 Had it been so, the mirroric reflection would not have been cited as an ideal of the artistic semblance. A reflection and an image both are different from the original objects and are similar to them in so far as they possess only those characteristics that are subject to visual perception only. But as a mirror is an inanimate object its reflection is a mechanical passive copy of the object, while the artist is unable to bring such accurate likeness in his work. A mirror can reflect exactly neither more nor less ; but an artist prefers alteration whenever he thinks that the essential spirit of the object is not sufficiently expressed through its appearance. A lover's emotion, for example, may not sometimes be sufficiently expressed in his outward appearance and gestures, which being reflected on a mirror exactly, will not give an observer the idea that he is a lover. But an artist will modify him suitably in his portrait in order to reveal his real character as a lover. The artist here imitating the real makes it ideal. That is why in India art has not such divisions as realistic and idealistic ; here the real is the ideal. To bring perfection to Śakuntalā's serene beauty Duṣyanta needs a representation of the calm surroundings such as the stream of Mālinī and on its sands swan pairs resting, foot hill lands of the great Himālaya's sacred ranges where the yaks are seen, and under the trees that bear bark hermit dresses on their high branches, a doe rubbing her left eye on the buck's horn (expressing her love to him). 89 For he thinks, Śakuntalā's

88. Principles of Indian painting ; A review; Rupam, Nos. 19-20 1924 P. 130ff.-see the criticism of A M. "Sadryam dṛśyate yattu darpane pratimbabata" SR 46.14.5; comp. "Sadṛśyam likhyate yattu darpane pratimababata". ACMI. III 939. 89. Kālidāsa, Abhijñāna Śākuntalam. IV.

essence does not lie only in her physique ; it is amidst this

peculiar natural settings that her person is blown ; apart from

this she cannot be what she is. Against this background

she is rendered so life-like that it seems to the king as if she

is articulate ; and Miśrakesí praises the king as a good

painter for his representation of Sakuntalā makes her see the

living girl before her.90 Nevertheless, equal importance

was given to the vividness of each particular object. Reality

was sought not at the cost of appearance. Indian artists

were well aware of the charm of physique and did their best

to bring its likeness even upto a point of illusion. Duṣyanta's

painting of the bee, in the said picture, that flies around

the face of Śakuntalā is so similar to a living bee that both

the king and the clown forget for a time that it is a lifeless

imitation. The king is so deluded that he even orders the

bee to leave alone the face of the girl.91 Padmāvatī in

Bhāsa's play praises the picture of the heroine as having the

perfect semblance ( ati sadṛśī ) of her.92 Madanikā in

Sūdraka's play judges the perfect likeness ( Susadṛśi ) of

Cārudatta's portrait, for the painter has preserved the tender-

ness of his eyes, which is the specific feature of his appea-

rance.93 Rāmacandra possessed a youthful warrior figure

while he broke the Śiva-bow at the palace of Janaka. Hence

his representation in a painting possessing a muscular and

comely body with a charming grace is highly praised by

Sitā in Bhavabhūti's play, for the picture was perfectly

similar to the real personality of Rāma.94 But on the

other hand, although the Buddha was a prince with a

warrior-like figure in his youth, it should not be retained in

his portrait after achieving the wisdom. For his persona-

lity was utterly changed then. As the heroic spirit was

90. ibid VI 91. ibid IV 92. Svapnavāsavadattam, VI. II ff.

91. Mrcchakatikam, IV. trans. by R.A.Oliver. ed H.W.Wells P.92

92. Uttararāmacaritam, P.361

206

changed within into a meditative serenity, the muscular and

study figure without had necessarily to undergo a change

into sombre appearance that would indicate a control over

the passions and sense organs. That is why the Greek-

Gāndhāra style of the Buddha's icons representing his

youthful vigour was not accepted by the Indian mind, and

was replaced afterwards by the later schools of Indian art.95

The likeness of dresses, costumes and colours of people are

standardized according to the local features and traditions.

The people of Andhra, Drāviḍa, Kośala, Pulinda and

Southern India are brown in colour ; those of North reddish

yellow and those of Anga, Bangga and Kalinga faint blue.

Ascetics wear rags and barks, women of North tie their hair

high on the head, while those of Avanti and Gauḍa twist

their hair into a single ornamented traid. A woman whose

husband has gone away wears dirty clothes and forbids

ornamental decoration.96 Similarly representations of

natural scenes are in accordance with their general appea-

rance. The sky, for example, in day time is pale-coloured

with birds flying and at night black, dotted with twinkling

stars. Mountains should be shown as full of stones, peaks

and covered with trees ; a city as consisting of highways,

gardens and houses,97 and so on.

iii. As art is thought to imitate Nature which

consists of worlds both visible and invisible, imitation of the

invisible also comes within its scope. There are the objects

and beings of the immortal world or heaven and those of

the nether world. Among these the imitation (Vimbi,

95. It is a historical fact which can be realised by studying the

Buddha types of Kuṣāṇa, later Āndhra, and Mathura periods. For

the Buddha lakṣaṇa see B.S. 58-44; for pictures see History of Indian

and Indonesian Art. Plate no. XXVII, picture No. 75-98. 96. NS

(KM.ed) XXI 1.9, 57-69,100-114 97. VDP 111.42-57ff.

literally reflection)98 of the gods is important, for as we

know, they are the off-springs of the Virātpuruṣa or

Prajāpati (himself the creative aspect of the supreme

Puruṣa which is beyond Nature) and are to be worshipped

by the mortals in the temples (the body of Vāstupuruṣa)

in order to enable them to achieve the Summum bonum of

life through material (artha and kāma) and moral (dharma)

prosperities. In fact, the worship of these individual gods

is ultimately the worship of the supreme Puruṣa,99 the

ultimate reality who is absolutely formless and can be

realized only by deep meditation. But as this meditation

of the Formless Being is very difficult on the part of ordinary

human beings,100 the worship of the images of various

gods, who are essentially the embodiments of various

aspects of the supreme puruṣa, is preferred.101

As the gods themselves are worshipped in the images

(Pratimā, literally likeness),102 not in the materials like

wood, stone, clay etc.103 of which they are made, the

images are required to be exactly like (abhirupa) the forms

of the gods, otherwise the gods won't be present in them.104

But how can one know the exact forms of the invisible

gods? Sometimes it is believed that the gods in the first

98. For the use of the word 'vimba' for an image (Pratimā) SNS IV.

IV.75 99. BG IX.23-24. 100. ibid XII.5. 101. VDP III.46.2-5;

Kāśyapasamhitā 35 ; "dhyānāvasthā samsiddhyai pratimā lakṣaṇam

smṛtam", SNS,IV. IV.71. 102. There are other synonyms of pratimā

(in the sense of images) also, such as Pratikṛti, saṃstha, ārccā, mūṛti

etc. see J.N.Banerjee. The Development of Hindu Iconography

chap II P.39ff. 103. for the materials of images see SNS IV. IV.72:

SR 46.5-71 Kāśyapa śilpa 50. 7-9 Upagupta, a Buddhist monk admits

that the Hindus worship the god in an image not its materials—

"Those who look at earthen images (mṛmayī pratikṛti) do not honour

the clay as such but without record thereof honour the deathless

principle (amarasamjñā) referred to in the earthen images " Divyāva-

dāna. XXVI 104. "Yathā devastathā citre kartavyaḥ prthivīvara"

VDP III. 42-1

202

three age-cycles -- Satya, Tretā and Dvāpara--were visible to

human beings and no images were then required for their

worship. But when the fourth age-cycle or Kali yuga

approached, people became sinful for which the gods did not

like to show themselves in persons. Once Lord Viṣṇu

appeared before the King Ambarīṣa and asked him to make

an image of his body as it was visible to him, for being

overpowered by human folly and forgetfulness he might not

be able to retain for long his image in his memory.105

Thence forward devotees, sages and yogins preserved the

descriptions of the forms of the gods as they visualized

them sensibly or by yogic perception. These descriptions

have been standardized for the artists of the Kali yuga.

These gods do not invariably possess anthropomo-

rphic forms, for the ultimate reality is without any specific

form. In its desire for creation it diversified itself into

various forms and names. Thus every object of the universe

whether animate or inanimate, ugly or beautiful, mobile

or static is in no way less or more divine than others,106

although a particular aspect of this reality is more

expressed in one form while it is less in others. Although

the supreme Puruṣa is himself free from the guṇas, Nature

(this creative aspect, the very desire for creation, variously

called as the Virāṭ, Hiraṇyagarbha, Brahmaprajāpati,

Prakrti or Māyā), being related with whom he creates the

worlds, is a conglomeration of these guṇas--sattva, rajas

and tamas. Every object, therefore, as a product of this

Puruṣa and Prakrti, consists of three guṇas with the

predominance of any one of them. Sattva, for example,

predominates in Brahmins and sages, rajas in warriors

105 VDP III chap. 1, 46; T. P. Bhattacharya, The Canons of Indian

Arts P. 338 (Alberuni India Part I p. 114ff.). 106 The Buddhists also

believe thus -- 'I am neither deva', says the Buddha, 'Gandharva, Yakṣa,

nor Man'. Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography. P.24

and kings, amas in the people of lower castes who lack

wisdom and heroism. Similarly, among the beasts the lion

embodies the tāmasic qualities such as dreadfulness, violence

and anger etc., while a cow or deer or elephant manifests

the sāttvic aspects. The spring season with its quiet atmos-

phere and beautiful landscape is sāttvic while the tempes-

tuous nights of the rainy season are tāmasic, and so on.

Every form or shape has its advantage. A bird can

fly in the sky, while fishes and crocodiles can live under

water, and monkeys jump from tree to tree. Although man

surpasses all these by his intelligence and certain deeds

which others cannot perform, he at the same time is

inferior to them as without a boat, for example, he cannot

cross a river nor can he swim under water for long period;

he lacks the power of flying in the sky and the power of

running swiftly like a deer. Thus every being has its impor-

tance in the creation and its form possesses some special

advantage. So the forms of the gods are not limited only to

those of human beings. They can possess the forms of any

beings which can suitably embody the particular idea

( Bhāva ) and aspects they manifest and serve the particular

function to satisfy their devotees.107 The almighty Viṣṇu

assumed the body of a fish to save the seven sages and

Vaivasvata Manu at the time of the great dissolution or

Deluge named Brāhmaṇa when everywhere there was water.

With the body of a fish he had a human face to indicate his

intelligence and to narrate to Manu the entire epic named

The Matsya.108 Similarly he assumed the body of a

tortoise for there was need of a certain being which could

exist under the surface of water to hold the mount of

Mandara upon its back at the time when the gods and

the giants were churning the Milk Ocean.109 A tortoise

107. Sevya-sevaka-bhāveṣu pratimā lakṣaṇam śrutam. SNS IV. IV. 159.

108. AGP Chap. 2 109. ibid chap. 3

204

is only fit for this purpose which is a bit round in size with

a very hard back so as to resist stone. Viṣnu's incarnation

in a human body with a lion's head and its violent

character at the time of killing the giant Hiraṇya Kaśipu

suggests the embodiment of his tāmasic aspect which is

destructive in nature110 --- A lion's head would be more

ferocious and violent than that of any other creature. It

could devour human bodies sucking its blood. A human

body would be more suitable in fighting against a giant who

got a similar body. Thus the gods can assume any form

they like and feel necessary for a specific purpose. The

peculiar combination of a human body and a lion's head

is not the only form of his. He also appeared before

Nārada with a fiery appearance in somewhat like a

human shape.111

The deities are mostly conceived in human forms

for these forms are more conceivable and lovable for human

devotees. The supra human universal form ( Viśvarūpa )

of the lord Kṛṣṇa was so vast and inconceivable for Arjuna,

his devoted friend, that he could not tolerate it longer

and requested him to assume his previous human shape

with a friendly appearance.112 But as the deities are not

human beings, their images must only be analogous, not

similar to human forms. The same rule is also applied

when other beings, invisible in this world, are imitated

(Viz. Yakṣa, Kinnara, giants and other mythical creatures).

Although in most cases a mystic method was applied to fix

the right proportion of the images of the visible objects, it

had not to go against the direct sense perception. But for

the images of the invisible beings no such external verifi-

cation is possible. In the former cases the internal standard

( fixed by yogic perception ) was to coincide with the

110. ibid chap 4. 111. T P. Bhattacharya,OP. cit. P.339 112. BG.

XI 4-46

common sense perception ; but in the latter case the

testimonial records are the only source of pramāṇa and the

standard of verification. In neither case, however, is the

mystic perception dogmatic, for the pramāṇas are merely

conventional. Like the visible beings the invisible beings

also manifest their vital spirits. Hence the principles of

their physical manifestation are analogous, though not

exactly similar, to those of the visible ones. The height of

the gods are fixed according to the superiority of power

and sex ascribed to them. Lord Viṣṇu, the supreme god,

is one hundred and twenty four aṅgulas (or the best ten-tāla)

Brahmā, Saṅkara, the goddesses like Śrī Umā, Sarasvatī

will be of 120 aṅgulas; Indra, Aditya, Candra, the goddess

Durgā, the sages Bhṛgu and Mārkaṇḍa etc. of 116, giants

of 108, Bhūta and Kinnara of 36, and so on. As human

beings of particular size have their limbs proportionate to

each other and to the whole body, the bodies of these

invisible beings must contain a similar proportion also.

Each figure has its separate ratio of proportion. An image

of 108 aṅgulas, for example. is divided into nine parts or

tālas ( one tāla =12 aṅgulas. ), each tāla being sub-divided

into four parts or aṃśas. The portions from the middle of

forehead to chin, from collar bone to chest, from chest to

navel and from navel to hips possess one tāla each ; from

hips to knees and from knees to insteps are of two tālas each ;

and from forehead to the crown of head, neck, knee cups

and feet taken together are of one tāla, each being one

aṃśa.113 The same proportion is to be observed in case

of human forms of equal height. But as the divine beings

are superior to human beings in their spiritual power,

their physical appearance cannot be exactly like that of the

latter. A god thus may have five heads, ten hands and

113. For pratimā lakṣaṇa see Matsya purāṇa, chap. 259-260; Vaikhānasā-

gama, 26; AgP chap. 49-52, SSD77; BS.58. 29-44; Kāśyapaśilpa chap.

46-49.

206

three eyes in each head etc. as it is necessary for the

perfect manifestation of his essential spirit. In this regard

there is no relation between a human and a divine image.

As the scriptural testimony is the source and

standard of the proper measurement of a divine image, its

beauty and grace, too, should be judged by the same. Any

kind of free invention of the artist is not allowed here.114

An artist is not allowed, for example, to substitute a head

of a man for the elephant head of Gaṇeśa or to minimize

his swelled belly into a normal human size so as to make it

more beautiful by the standard of human form. In that

case he rather makes the image ugly. Nevertheless the

genius of the artist has to play an important roll here. First,

he has to intuit the divine form instructed by the scriptures,

and for the understanding of this form a very matured

sensitivity towards the visible world is required. Although

the exact counterpart of the form of Gaṇeśa is not available

in the sensible world, yet his elephant head, a small and

fat human body with a big belly are all the objects of

sensuous experience, which the artist has to combine in a

unique way exercising his creative imagination. Thus from

the sensuos he has to pass to the supersensuous.

In many cases where the divine forms are greatly

analogous to human forms, their figures are to be idealized by

a process of selective imitation, the exact counterparts of which

are absent in the visible world, for divine beings are superior

to the mortals. All the best points of feminine beauty are

selected and combined in the images of Rādhā, Lakṣmī and

Durgā etc. Rādhā's complexion is like a white ‘campaka’

flower; it blazes like a crore of moons. Her abundant hair

is twisted up fashionably and is decorated with Mālatī

114. SSD. 78; Pratimā “laksanayuktā sannihitā sicdhidā bhavati” BS.

58.29; Mānato nādhikam hīnaṁ tadvimban ramyamucyate, SNS IV.IV.74

“Śāstramānena varamyaḥ sa ramyomānya evahi” ibid 104.

flowers. She smiles slightly but attractively.115 Durgā’s

breasts are fully developed, round and tightly pressed to each

other ; those are so high and heavy that it seems, her

waist has been narrowed by thier burden. Small hairs

appear above the hips as if Cupid is germinated there anew

after lord Siva burnt him by his fiery anger and the thighs

are broad but soft as the trunks of plantain trees.116

Lakṣmī is youthful and extremely beautiful! with her attrac-

tive and slightly curved eye brows, round cheeks, slim

waist and heavy buttocks etc.117

In the images of dreadful deities, similarly, all the

fearful elements of the visible objects are selectively combined.

Cāmuṇḍā's teeth are displayed fiercely, hairs disarranged, fly

upwards. She wears a string of skulls, skin of tiger and

covers her breasts with the skin of elephant, and so on.118

The image of Kīrtimukha, a mythical figure born of Siva's

third eye is an embodiment of anger, a terrible being with a

face like a lion's. a protruding tounge, eyes burning with

fire and hairs flying upwards etc.119 These is, in fact, not

a single counterpart of this figure in the visible world which

is to be copied directly ; but a number of dreadful animals

are here combined in an idealized form.

Sometimes, it is held that the divine images must

always be depicted as young, never old, although rarely infant

like.120 But it seems this view is not invariable. As the

Hindus give emphasis upon the essential spirit and idea of

a deity, none of its outward form can really be standa-

rdised. The same authority classified the images in

accordance with the vital state they embody. An image

115. Nārad pañcarātram II. 3-4. 116. DP 32. 19ff 117. Kāśyapaśilpa:

see under "apsaro lakṣaṇam" 117-120. 118. ibid.46.83-86 119. For

the myth of Kīrtimukha see chap. 17. kārtikamāsa mahātmya of the

Viṣṇukhaṇḍa; for its representation in art see Rūpam

Skandapuraṇa; Viṣṇukhaṇḍa; for its representation in art see Rūpam

No. 1, 1920. P.16, plates 20-30. 120. SNS IV.IV. 201

208

which expresses a tranquil inner state in its sombre appearance sitting in a Yoga posture ( yogamudrā ) and being worshipped by others is called Sāttvikā. That which is in active attitude holding weapons ready to kill the enemies is Rājasi, and an image actually destroying giants assuming a dreadful appearance, displaying thus a tāmasa bhāva is called Tāmasī (also saṃhāra mūrti).121 On his own principle Śukrācārya cannot urge that a deity with elderly bhāva within will assume a youthful appearance without.

Brahmā is alwyas old for he is the eldest of all the created beings as he was first born in the beginning of creation.122 Dhūmāvatī is similarly depicted as an old, ugly widow, tor she embodies the tāmasa aspect of the goddess Durgā.123

An artist in imitation of the thing invisible (dṛśya), thus, should give special attention to these two principles of visual art - pramāṇa and sādrśya while the other four principles are to be regulated accordingly.

iv. Besides the above mentioned characteristics of visual arts according to the general Indian tradition, some specific outlooks regarding the imitative relations between the reality and art are noted in some important philosophical systems and eminent art critics. The Buddhists deny the existence of a permanent reality. Every reality ( satta ), they say, is causally efficient ( arthakriyākārī ) and as such is momentary, for the same object cannot produce the same effect more than once; a seed which has germinated once, for example, cannot do so again, and an ordinary seed and a seed fit for germination are not the same.124 Every object is again either sentient or insentient (or matter). The latter consists of the Rūpa Skandha only, while the

121. SNS IV. IV 76-33. 122. That is why he is called “Pitāmaha” (the grand father) 123. Tantrasāra. see the hymn to Dhūmāvatī

P.365 124. Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha P. 38ff.

forms consist of five skandhas with a vedanā (feeling of pleasure, pain or indifference), samjñā (conceptual knowledge), sam̧skāra (synthetic mental state, with the functioning of the compounded sense activities, compound feelings and compound concepts. It includes memory impressions and the impressions of the actions of a previous life or birth also.) and vijñāna.25 The jātaka stories suggest that even the lower animals possess all these characteristics, although in a lesser degree while compared with jñāna beings,126 among whom a few can only achieve perfect wisdom, the supreme development of samjñā and vijñāna in a continuous, sincere practice of meditation such as the Buddha did. Thus although the Buddhists deny the existence of a permanent soul127 they supply the latter four skandhas as the difference of sentient beings. Now, the materials of art such as rūpas, sthās, colours etc. consist only of the vijñāskandha and as such they are unable to produce likenesses of sentient beings consisting of five skandhas. They are still not unable to produce a likeness when the being in question has attained perfect wisdom and sublime consciousness. When the king Vimbisāra asked his court painters to paint the likeness of the Buddha whom they had already seen before, they expressed their inability to paint without his bodily presence before them, for they said, they had not been able to retain in their memory the Buddha was brought to the palace but still they were unable to grasp his Buddhist essence. At last the Buddha asked for a canvas on which he cast his shadow and instructed them to fill in the outline with colours.128

127. As it is said in the Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra, devoid of passing and possessing the skandhas of elements, devoid of past and future qualities.125 His Pāli

128. Quoted infra XXXVII p. 161.

210

The Vijñānavādins, however, do not admit the

real existence (paramārthata) of any external thing for its

discriminating nature. It is only the constructive imagination

of mind that builds up the things. 'As the waves appear

instantly on the ocean, or images in a mirror or a dream so

the mind is reflected in its own sense-fields.' 129 As the

things are unreal owing to their relativity, the words

referring to them are also the same, for in speech one

cannot speak anything without relating it to some kind

of conditional relation. The real truth Paramārtha thus can

never be referred to by such words for truth transcends

relativity. The Buddha himself states that his verbal

instruction cannot express the wisdom which he wants to

convey, for truth is to be realized by a deep meditation.

Although both the signifying words and the referred objects

are false, it is simply a conventional śāstra to speak of

things as known. Now, unless the verbal instruction has a

pragmatic value, the Buddha himself compares the

utility of his verbal instruction with a citra on a canvas

A good painter and his disciples try to represent an object

with colours on a canvas, but in fact, neither on the canvas,

nor on the plate nor in colours does the object exist; but in

order to attract the attention of the people a citra (of an

object) is only imagined in colours; so also is the truth

— simply imagined as embodied in the words. Nevertheless,

both the instruction and citra have their practical or pheno-

menal (vyāvahārika or samvṛti) value. 'As a king or a wealthy house-holder, the buddha says, 'giving his children

various clay-made animals pleases them and makes them

play with the toys; but later gives them real ones, so I

making use of various forms and images of things, instruct

my sons...' 130. 131 The relation between truth and words is

thus explained.

129. Laṅkāvatārasūtra II. 181, and II. 183-23. for the discri-

minating nature of words see Suzuki's trans. P. 75-77. 131. Suzuki's

trans / 81.

analogous to that between the real living animals and their clay models. Thus art both verbal and visual, according

to the Buddhists, is only an imperfect representation of truth and phenomenal reality (samvṛti). If the

visible world is wrongly conceived as really existing, visual art is still more wrongly conceived as real objects and is,

therefore, ‘once removed from the absolute reality ( pāramār-thikā sattā ). This imaginative and illusory character of the

visual art makes it a very striking example to explain the illusory character of the visible world itself:

‘As an artist makes a picture painted

Of what is not a monster that he fancied,

So, in this world’s transmigrate

By false ideas innate.

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,

A mock show, dew drops, or a bubble,

A dream, a lighting flash, or cloud,

so should we view what is conditioned.’ 1312

The monistic Vedāntins, however, do not suspend the existence of the external world unlike the Vijñāna

vādins. nor do they attribute any absolute reality to it. It exists with all its varieties only from a phenomenal

(Vyāvahārika) point of view. The dream objects appear as real only in a dream but when the dream evaporates one

becomes conscious of its falsity. similarly all the worldly affairs are true for an ordinary human being who has no

knowledge of Brahman, the absolute reality, and becomes attached to the world, heavily affected by its pleasurable or

miserable experiences. But the world melts away before one who possesses the knowledge of Brahman like the

illusion of a rope as a snake vanishes after one’s careful observation.’ 1313

2. Buddhist Scriptures. Prajñāpāramitā, II. 443ff.

In the context of the phenomenal world the plurality of the jīva souls is also true from the absolute (Pāramārthika) point of view. They are but the same as the supreme soul, although the individual soul appear as different from the universal soul on account of its reflection on a mirror seems to be different from and identical with the original object. The Vijñāna Bhikṣu in his Vidvat Samnyāsa explains that an ābhāsa is neither the thing itself nor an altogether different thing. It is a point of view, for example, on the one hand, is not really the sun itself, nor something other than the sun. Though the individual soul in its pure form is identical with the universal one, it seems as different from it, for it is afflicted by ignorance.134

Vijñānabhikṣu compares this world which is an ābhāsa to the art of painting. An artist represents different people according to their clothes of different colours on canvas. But the difference of these clothes are false as they have no separate existence from the canvas on which they are painted. This while the canvas is a real cloth, the clothes of painted people are only illusory (vāsthabhāsa). In the same way an artist paints all the objects in visible and invisible worlds. Hence there is no essential difference between a mountain (jada) and a man (cetana) in a painting, for essentially they are all nothing other than the canvas. Thus if the phenomenal world is an ābhāsa (reflection, imitation or copy) of the absolute reality, the artistic world is an ābhāsa of the phenomenal reality.135 Bhuvanadīva, an eminent author on the canons of Indian arts elaborates this Vedic view in detail. His Viśvakarmaṇ instructs his son Aprajāita

134 Sankara refers to the Brahmasūtra. II. 3.50 135 Pañcadaśī

that the origin of citra is as old as the origin of the universe

itself, for it is essentially an ābhāsa. To judge from the

absolute point of view, there is no world, and no phenomena

with immanent realities. As the water-reflection of the

moon (jalamadhyam api) has no separate existence from the

moon itself, so also is the relation between the world and

Brahman, and between the phenomenal object and its

representation (pratibimba).136 A man with the knowledge of

Brahman looks at the world indifferently, so also a man

with knowledge of the phenomenal reality considers the

reflectory character of arts. The former does neither suffer

from sorrows nor enjoy the happiness, for he knows that

there is nothing in the world which causes such feelings in

reality. So also one conscious of the nature of the phenome-

nal objects does neither like to marry a sculptured girl

nor fear a painted tiger, for he knows that these are mere

likenesses incapable of serving any practical purpose. If the

cosmic art (the world itself) is the reflection of Brahman

on Māyā, the human art is the reflection of Nature on the

heart of the artist which he visualizes.

Together with this illusionistic view of the world,

the lila theory suggests a very important insight into the

aesthetic activity. Brahman is pure existence (sat), pure

consciousness (cit) and pure bliss (ānanda). Although he is

self-satisfied (ātakāma), just for the sake of a play he desires

to diversify himself, and thus being united in his will

for creation, his own māyā power, he becomes many. He

is thus both the material and the instrumental cause of the

world. It is not that he creates himself as a potter creates

pots out of clay. It is as if a man cuts into a room, the

walls of which are set with mirrors and thus himself diver-

sified into many images. But it is not that this desire is to

fulfil some wants that he has. As he is the only reality, he

136. Aparārka, op. cit., 224 1-24; 233 17-18.

214

cannot want something other than himself. His play of creation is for the sake of bliss, and bliss is not available when one feels lonely. Thus his blissful nature implies that he must enjoy himself in his own varieties.137

The same is true with the artistic creation. Everybody who enjoys a painted horse is conscious of its unreality. Hence the reason of its enjoyment is not its practical utility that he gets from a living horse. On the contrary, the more conscious he is of its phenomenal unreality, the more is his enjoyment, for it is the accuracy of likeness of something accomplished through the materials, which are very unlike its original, that the aesthete appreciates. Thus as a phenomenal world and a dream world have their own standards of reality, so also the aesthetic world constructs its own standard of reality, and its proper enjoyment is impossible by the standard of phenomenal or absolute reality. Brahmā relishes his own creation although he is conscious of its falsity (not absolutely true). So also an aesthete enjoys a painted horse although he is conscious of its falsity (not phenomenally true). In both the cases enjoyment is pure, free from any attachment or detachment of mind; and this indifferent nature is due to the knowledge of the object’s falsity.

Saṅkuka, an eminent dramatic critic, thinks, too, that all art is essentially an imitation (anukṛti) of an event or object of Nature of the past or present time, and as such it is different from both the absolute and the phenomenal truth (tattva). But he disagrees with the Vijñānavādins and the Vedāntins in denying that it is an error (viparyaya) or mistaken perception (mithyā); it is neither a doubt (saṃśaya) nor merely a similitude (sādrśya). None of the following cognitions, for example, is aesthetic — “this

137. See the com. of Saṅkara and vācaspati to the Brahmasūtra II. 133.

picture ( of a horse ) is really a horse", "is that ( picture )

a horse or not ?", "The appearatice of that ( Picture ) as a

horse is illusory" and "that ( picture ) is like a horse". In

other words, aesthetic cognition is completely independent

of a logical cognition, and its nature cannot be explained

by a logical analysis. Sankuka suggests that art imitates

Nature in such a way that it arouses a cognition in the

aesthete such as "This ( Picture ) is a horse", and the aesthe-

tic cognition is mostly like a yogic perception or intuition

which "involves no contradiction notion and thus it is

impossible to say that it is a form of mistake ( viplava ) ;

it is an immediate perception ( anumubhava ) evident in and

by itself. What sort of argument, then could put it in

question ?138 Abhinavagupta, an opponent of Sankuka,

agrees with him that visual arts are imitative, but argues

that all the arts are not of the same nature ; especially

poetry is certainty of a different order from the visual arts.

A picture of a cow, for example, aims at producing an

imperfect copy of a real cow as it copies only its physical

compositicn. The conscious elements of a cow is inaccessible

to painting for the materials like colours and canvas which

it uses are all insentient. How can sentient being be

perfectly manifested through only insentient object ? Visual

art is thus not a manifestation, as some critics think, of a

real object, but only imitation of it ; for imitation is

according to him an imperfect likeness ( sādrśya ) of an

original.139 "Some people say", he writes, "The pigments

• opinion, etc. undoubtedly compose, ( samany ) a cow.

Now, if the word 'compose' is understood in the sense of

manifest ( abhivyak ), these people also are in error. For we

cannot say that minimum etc. manifest real ( pramārthika )

cow like the one which might be manifested by a lamp etc.

All they do is to produce ( nirva ) a particular aggregate

138. Gnoli Op. cit. 37-38 139. N.S. ( Abh ) p.5

216

( sādrśya ) similar to cow. The only object of the image,

'it is like a cow ' is simply this minimum etc. applied to

constitute a particular arrangement ( sanniveśa ) similar to

the arrangement of the limbs of cow." 149

149. Cf. Ānandavardhana also had to fall down upon citra as an inferior type of a art

in comparison with poetry. His definition of the 'picture-poetry'

( citrākṣapa—Dhvanyāloka iii. 43 ) suggests that a picture is simply

an intelligent replica of a thing (so far as a painter does nothing

new but simply imitates the things which are already there. Ānanda-

vardhana would agree with Abhinava that a picture is an aggregate

of only visual aspects of a thing, wanting its soul or essence together

with its other sensible aspects.

CHAPTER III

VĀNMAYAM: IMITATION AND RE-PERCEPTION

i. Music—essentially a rhythmic movement — a representation of cosmos and the basis of all the fine arts — the theory of Nāda—Nāata and Anāhata in cosmos and human body—Nāata as incomplete representation of Anāhata e.g. all the ordinary sensible sounds including vocal and instrumental music — representation of human emotion in music—Svarū, Svarā and Rāga—Rāga the final form of music—Rāgi an audible image—Rāga and picture. ii. Dance — an imitation through rhythmic movement of body—its object — the actions of three worlds—different types of dance — Nrtta, Nrtya and Nātya—differing in ways of representation—four kinds of representation used in dance—their symbolical nature Nrtta the primary form of dance — Nrtya an advance. over it —more representative than Nrtta. iii. Nātya the most imitative of all arts—a visual reproduction of a verbal composition of full story—poetry or verbal composition—essentially a transformation of Nature according to the principles of probability and propriety — a probable likeness of Nature. iv. Nātya or drama—Bharata's conception — an imitation of states and actions of three worlds—his followers—Dhananjaya and Dhanika—Viśva-nātha—Bhaṭṭa's commentators—Bhaṭṭa Lollaṭa—Sañkuka's imitation theory—Abhinavagupta's refutation — imitation versus re-telling — his theory of re-perception—criticism of Mahimahābhaṭṭa.

i.

The Viṣnudharmottara Purāṇa states that music

especially vocal music is the basis of all the fine arts; and

so without a fundamental knowledge of music, knowledge

of other arts is impossible. This statement suggests that

among all arts vocal music is the first born. It gave rise to

instrumental music from which dance developed; and

painting, the two dimensional visual art, took dance as the

model of its technique upon which ultimately statuary, the

three dimensional visual art, was brought into perfection.1

Such a trend of artistic development is conceived

by Indians, because they think that a rhythmic movement

which forms the basis of the entire Natural creation is also

the basis of all the artistic creations. According to the

Sāṅkhya school, before creation, unmanifested Nature

(the Material principle) was with her three constituents--

'sattva', 'rajas' and 'tamas' in a state of equilibrium. Owing

to her proximity with Puruṣa the Spiritual Principle, she

moved, and this movement led to creation. Nature's move-

ment was not chaotic or anomalous. In an orderly way the

three constituents mixed in various proportions as a result

of which the world appears variegated.

The Śaiva School agrees with the Sāṅkhya that

movement (spandana) is the beginning of creation but

explains the process in a slightly different way. Matter and

Spirit are not here two separate principles. Both belong to

Lord Parameśvara, the Absolute Creator of the Universe.

But he is not directly concerned with this creation. He

first created Power (of creation); and when a desire for

creation arose in this power (Śakti) she moved; and out of

i DP III.53-7; Cf. SRK Vol. I, II. 1-12

this movement Nāda (Sound), the fount of manifested Nature was created.2 In the Prapañcasāra3 Puruṣa is luminous ( jñotih ) and Prakṛti a conscious or vital principle. Roused by desire for creation Prakṛti mixes with Puruṣa and modifies

himself to some definite solid point (Vindu). This macrocosmic point creates the world by dividing itself into Nāda (Sound), microcosmic point (Vindu) and Vīja (Seed) of all the things. These confusing opinions are clarified in the

Sārada Tilaka,4 which states that Vindu is Śiva or Pārameśvara and Vīja is Śakti, his consort or power. From the combination of these two seed is produced. The entire universe is thus essentially a sound which is audible not to

any ordinary ear but only to a human being in deep contemplation. Prior to his practice and contemplation ( dhyāna ) a beginner hears various chaotic sounds; but as he becomes absorbed in the first stage of his contemplation he can hear

rhythmic sounds of the seas, clouds, springs, bells and drums. These sounds then become more subtle like that of tiny bells, flutes and lutes and like the sweet humming of black bees. Sounds become sweeter and subtler as one merges deeper and

deeper in his contemplation until his individual consciousness is completely lost in the universal one in a state of samādhi.5 There is a limit to this macrocosmic sound and no sound is heard in the ordinary world which this Ethercal Sound

excludes. In fact, all the ordinary sounds are the gross manifestation of this macrocosmic ethereal sound.

As the human shape is the perfect representation of the universe in a microcosmic form, the macrocosmic sound is also said to be produced in and pervading through this body as its microcosmic counterpart. The manifested Nature

consists of five gross elements such as earth, water, fire, air

2. J. C. Chatterji, Kashmir Shaivaism, Part I, p. 41 -44. 3. I. 44

I. 17-18: "Vindu sivātmakam sthātur Vījam śaktvātmakam". Raghava Bhatta commentary on Prapañcasāra,5 I. 5-8: "Nādavimarśanādi II. 1-111."

224

and sky each generating from a potential energy and thus possessing this as its characteristic attribute. Sound is the potency of sky, touch of air, colour of fire, taste of water and smell of earth. The Nāda-theorists accept the Sāṅkhya system of evolution with a little alteration. They think sound, the potency of sky, is not a single unit. It is not homogeneous, present in all other four potentials, but heterogeneous – a compound product of fire and air. Fire is the source of power and air of vital force. Combined with and kindled by this air the generates and expands the universe which is essentially sound. Siva or Parameśvara, the fount of power (Sakti) is the Fire potential and Śakti is the vital Principle. A combination of both generates sound : and this sound is the first creation.6

The Nāda-theorists, like other schools of Indian philosophy, believe that the body of a human being is the perfect representation of the entire universe, their explanations, however, vary in accordance with their notions of the universe. A living human body is composed of five gross elements each of them having its circulating centre (cakra) inside the spinal cord. The centre of earth is at the bottom (mūlādhāra) and those of water, fire, air and sky are situated respectively in an upward direction – water between the navel and the sex organ, fire at the navel, air at the heart and sky at the throat. The sixth centre situated between two eyebrows on the forehead is the place of consciousness and above all these Śiva himself exists in the most powerful centre at the cerebrum and Śakti in the lowest centre (of earth) as a power-point (Vind u).7 It is thus a union-in-division of Śiva and Śakti which tends to creation, and when the two unite absolutely

6. Vbhinnāruḍa, samagammadah samprajāyate, Śrngabhin nāda quotes from Matanga’s Brhaddesí. See his com. to SRK vol. II H 3.

7. Śatcakra. ed. Haripada Deva Sarma, Cal. 1357, st. 5 Sept.

the creation ceases. A human being who aspires for the supreme bliss above all sorts of the worldly happiness limited within the fluctuating gross elements must unite the two extreme centres of his body (the microcosmos), and by that he must go above all the mundane affairs. But he cannot unite these two avoiding the gross elements, for these are the essentials for his very existence. He has to awake the 'power' which is dormant, as if contracted into a small point (Vindu) and has to make it pass by some peculiar practices through the centres of gross elements successfully and to unite it finally with Siva in the cerebrum.8

As in the macrocosmos the supreme sound is always created by the regular movement of power (Sakti), the same happens inside the human body also. If the macrocosmic sound is created by the vibrations that are due to a contact of Siva and Sakti and to her frequent movement as she transforms herself variously every moment, the microcosmic sound is created by the natural attraction between Siva and Sakti situated in two ends of the body. Both the sounds are, however, inaudible to ordinary ears. Although the vibrations start from the earth-centre where Sakti lies dormant at a point, its sound is not heard even by the Yogins unless they pass through the centres and air.9

So both the sounds are of the same nature -- produced automatically in a natural way, for which they are called Anāhata (unstruck). In the physical world common experience shows that sound is produced where two things are struck against each other. These ordinary, sensible sounds are called 'Ahata' (Struck) by the Nāda theorists.10 Although the ethereal or divine sound is due to the movement caused by the contact of two principles, neither the contact nor the movement is ordinarily perceptible. That

8. Ibid 51 Sq.4. 9. SDM PP15-16 10. SRK Vol. I. II. 3.

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is why it is distinguished from the normal āhata or 'struck' sounds. Although the process of sound creation is always the same, the former is 'primary' whereas the latter is 'secondary'. It is like a distinction between natural and artificial or between an original and its imitation; and although the sound of the cosmos and that of the human body are both automatic and share equal nature, yet as the human body is built after the pattern of the universe and so is a representation of it, the sound inside it must necessarily be representation of the cosmic sound. The two sorts of representation are not, of course, without some fundamental distinction. While the unstruck sound of the human body is a perfect representation of the cosmic sound, the struck sounds of the perceptible world are only its imperfect representations.

Now, as the Āhata sound is an imperfect representation of the Anāhata, it is naturally incapable of expressing perfectly the force of the latter. Thus the sounds pronounced by human beings imperfectly represent the inner rhythmic vibration of the perpetual sound, for they are the effects of the strikings of some sense organs and organic parts such as the tongue, lips, throat, palate etc. When such vocal sounds are used by human beings to express their inner feelings and desires, they are moulded in accordance with the peculiar rhythmic vibrations occurring in the flow of Anāhata sound in a particular state of feeling or willing. This flow of peculiar vibrations starts from the microcosmic earth centre (Viṇdu), and while passing through fire and air centres forms the Anāhata sound and then reaching the cerebrum comes back and passes through mouth as Āhata manifesting only certain portions of its force.

11. R. K. Bhattacārya Sabdatattva ( Bengali ) P. 252.

happiness, fear and courage etc. their vocal representations

must change accordingly. Hence there are various modes

of vocal sounds representing their corresponding inner

vibrations under various states of emotion. There may be

innumerable modes of vocal sounds. But all of them are

not rhythmic and so are not pleasing to the human ear

e.g. ravings of mad men. As the aim of music, like that of

any other art, is to please, it uses only those modes as its

medium which are regular, rhythmic and are in perfect

consonance with the inner rhythmic vibrations. These modes

are called Śrutis by the theorists of music.12 There may be

as many śrutis as possible in accordance with the innu-

merable types of regular vibrations, it is impossible for a normal

being either to pronounce or to listen them all. Almost all

the theorists accept only twenty-two such modes that can be

pronounced by a normal human voice and can be listened

to by a normal human ear distinctly. All these twenty-

two modes or vocal vibrations represent regularly certain

definite emotions which are named by the musicians in

accordance with their nature. Ćhārdavati, for example,

indicates peace of mind, heroism and generosity ; Raudri

wrath, warmth and enthusiasm ; Kumudvati simplicity and

gaity ; Sandipani kindling of love and affection and so

on.13

The Śrutis form the parts of several musical compo-

sitions or Rāgas as the limbs form the parts of a body.

Hence the recitation of a Śruti only cannot please a human

ear so much as the singing of a Rāga will do, for the

separated limbs of a beautiful body are not pleasing to one's

sight. The Śrutis first form certain notes or Svaras by a

12. Matanga, Brhaddeśi (Trivendram) P.5. See also st. 29-30; Datti-

lāṃ (Musical Journal), Oct. 1957; Rāśtradīve, Sangītasamayasāra

(Adyar) P. 74.

13. O. Goswami, The Story of Indian Music (Asia

P.H.), 1957, Pp 218-220.

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systematic combination of which Rāgas are formed finally.

But philosophers are of different opinions regarding the

generation of Svaras. The Buddhists think that there is no

fundamental difference between the two -Śruti and Svara.

According to Dharmakirti two things cannot be related as

cause and effect unless an identity (tādātmya) of essence

is granted. Thus the effect and the cause are essentially

the same.14 The musicians of this school propound that

the difference between a Śruti and Svara is that between an

individual and a race. Both of them are essentially identical

on the ground that they are all audible percepts.

The monistic Vedāntins, however, follow their

theory of illusion, a key to the explanation of the world-

creation as well as to the causality. The effect, according

to them, is essentially the same as the cause, but it only

appears to be something different as a reflected image seems

to be different from the original object. We saw in the

preceding chapter how these philosophers explain the world-

creation as well as the products of visual arts as illusory

appearances.

The same principle they apply in judging the

relation between Śruti and Svara. Śruti is the basis of

it and as such Svara, that is generated from it, cannot

have any independent existence. Both of them are audible

percepts - a Svara, which is essentially a combination of

certain Śrutis cannot be something different from them.

It is like a mirror-reflection of certain Srutis. The Naiyāyikas,

as usual to their theory of causation, suggest that a svara as

an effect is not identical with the Śrutis, its cause. Common

sense shows that milk loses its existence after producing

curd. Hence in a Svara Śrutis are united in a unique form

without having individual identity. The Sāṅkhya school

opposes all the above views. Mātaṅga an eminent authority

14. H. I. Ph p. 155.

of Indian music explains this relation in the light of the Sāñkhya theory of causation. According to him although a svara is a modification of certain Srutis it is neither identical with nor an illusory appearance of the latter. Sruti and svara indeed are different but not wholly as the Naiyāyikas think, for in a svara all the constituent Srutis can be distinctly realized if one detects with care. In fact, they are not lost in the svaras. With all their individual features they are rather modified into a new unit. Svaras are manifested by the Srutis as the objects in dark places are by a lamp.

Svaras are, then, new units formed by a regular combination of Srutis, the primary vocal units. There are seven svaras16 each consisting of some Srutis of particular number and nature, and aiming at arousing a particular emotion, which the constituent Srutis manifest unanimously, they finally produce an aesthetic experience of the same nature when used in a Rāga, the final form of musical art. Gāndhāra, for example, has four constituents which indicate hardness, determination and wrath etc. which, if prominent in a Rāga, generates a sentiment ( Rasa ) of Fury ( Raudra ). Pañcama, likewise, generates a lustful emotion ( Kāma ) distinct from that of love or affection, not necessarily of a sexual character, generated by the note Madhyama for which it contains the Srutis like Kṣiti, Raktā, Sandipanī and Ālāpanī that manifest an attachment of gross and exciting nature ; and the latter comprises Priti and Mārjanī that indicate a deep, sincere and sober affection.

All the seven notes are said to be uttered by the lower animals and birds regularly and successfully. A cuckoo coos Pañcama, an elephant sounds Niṣāda, a peacock crows Ṣadja and so on. It is sometimes stated that

15. Siṅgabhūpāla in SRK. 16. SDM. P. 30 17. Saṅgītadarpana (ed. S. M. Tagore, Cal. 1881) P. 22.

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human beings learnt music in imitation of these brutes.18

But as the organic construction of human beings is the

perfect microcosmic counterpart of the whole universe

which is identified with the supreme Ethereal sound and

the ultimate source of Nāda, all the śrutis and svaras can

be most successfully represented by human beings only.

Nevertheless as the animals and birds sound it in a natural

spontaneous way, not by a deliberate effort as human beings

do, their utterances are comparatively regular ; and an

Indian musician might suggest here that in cases of failure

a human singer may follow a cuckoo and a pea-cock as the

singers of Pañcama and Ṣadja.

Although each of these notes is capable of rousing

a definite emotion, it is only a tune (Rāga), the final form

of music, which gives a perfect shape to this emotion by

bringing an organic union of the individual notes. Etymolo-

gically a Rāga means that which colours (ranjayati) the

heart of a being (i.e. pleases) by the emotion it expresses.19

The number of the constituent notes in a tune is not always

the same. Some contain all the seven at a time (e.g. Naṭa

and Vasanta etc.), others six or five (e.g. Mallāra) ; and

the character of a tune as a whole is determined by that

of the note which predominates its co-constituents. The

tune Vasanta, for example, embodies love and attachment

which kindles lust and passion as Pañcama is its predomi-

nant note.20

Now, this tune, an audible percept, is not some-

thing essentially different from a visual percept (e.g. a

picture etc.). Rather it represents the same thing through

different medium. If a picture is a visual image (Mūrti),

a tune is an audible image (Rāgamūrti) ; for as we have

seen, art in general (śilpam), according to the Indians,

18. SDM pp. 30-37. 19. Ibid pp. 34 sqq. 20. SDM p. 31.

is an image or representation (Pratirūpam). Both the arts

audible (vānmayaṃ) and visual (rūpam) represent the inner

rhythmic movements in both man and Nature ( both the

aspects : visible and invisible --- "trailokya" ). That is why

all the thirty-six audible images (Rāgas ) are translated

into visual images ( Citra ) and verbal descriptions. The

tune Mālavā, for example, is depicted as a king of a

parrot's complexion ( Śukadyuti ) decked with ornaments

( like earing ) and garlands, intoxicated with a love for both

art and woman (as the mark of a damsel's kiss is obvious

in his lotus-like face ) he enters the chamber of music in

the evening. The entire atmosphere is that of an enchanted

evening when a sensitive hero just starts his actions

motivated by a strong desire for luxurious enjoyment. To

suit this atmosphere and to bring out its perfect effect

the singers are directed to play on this tune only in

the evening.21 Thus an acsthete will enjoy the tune

Mallāra, sung in the evening and a picture, representing

its essential emotion ( as given above ) with equal spirit.

Both the percepts, in other words, give one the same

sensation. When Śārṅgadeva attributes distinct colours to

different svaras22 he is not a physicist to prove that the

sound waves and light waves are of the same character. His

thought seems to be based on purely aesthetic grounds that

the visual percept can have its appropriate audible counter-

part and an interchange between an audible image and a

visual image is quite possible. If colour is a constituent of

a picture, a note is so of a tune. Thus a patch of colour

and a musical note are identical if they rouse the same

sensation. The note Pañcama for example, is said to be

of a faint blue colour (Asita) for both of them generate a

sense of exciting attachment.

21. Ibid P. 41. 22. SRK I. III. 54-55 ; Cf. Colours of Sentiments,

Bharata. NS VI 42-43

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Vocal music is thus an image. It represents the

rhythmic movements of Nature through the vocal sound,

which is itself an imperfect representation of the ultimate

ethereal sound that is present inside the human body in a

microcosmic form. Vocal and instrumental sounds are of

the same category as both of them fall under the ‘Struck‘

( āhata ) class and are related to the ultimate sound in the

same way. When instrumental music is said to be dependent

on vocal music, it seems that according to the theorists like

Mārkaṇḍeya, Śārṅgadeva and Mataṅga23 man first felt

the charming representative (or expressive) character of a

struck sound from his own voice. Later on, while he conte-

mplated deeply, as the Nādavindu Upaniṣad suggests,24 he

could realize the charm of various other sounds in the Great

Ethereal sound, which, he felt, he was unable to produce by

his own voice. Attempts were then made to bring out

these sounds effectively in artificial ways. Thus the instru-

ments of music were thought of to be produced after the

model of the structure and organic function of the whole

universe. We know how the Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka suggests

the construction of lyre ( vīṇā ), the finest of the Indian

musical instruments ( as only this instrument can produce

effectively all the twenty-two modes or śrutis ), in this

process.25 When the scriptures suggest that a spiritual

practitioner hears sounds of different instruments such as

bells, flutes and lyres in different stages of his contemplation

of the Great Ethereal sound. It is easy to infer that the

presence of these particular sounds in the absolute one is

so far prior to their artificial reproductions by the respective