It has been accepted
by many scholars that the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines
of Indian art represent the 'highest' spiritual frames to which
humanity may aspire. There is the implicit invitation in all the
images for the spectator to identify himself with them. Also, there
can be no denying that they represent too the highest type of
bodily beauty, the ideal of their times-an ideal which often
directly challenges our Western ideals. Even the ferociously self-
mortifying Jain Tirthamkaras wear the attributes of heroic beauty
in their icons. So we must realize that for the Indians physical
beauty and spiritual beauty are, at the imaginative level, entirely
cognate.
With the Indians, as
with all peoples, normal human beauty follows certain particular
admired forms. Proportions, shapes and textures play their part.
But even in beautiful humans, in a girl 'beautiful as a goddess' as
the Indians would say, there are inevitable idiosyncrasies of form
which detract from 'perfect' beauty. Without them, she would be a
goddess.
The Indian science
of iconometry, which prescribes proportional systems for images to
ensure that they are satisfactory representations of a god, and may
function properly, shows one of the ways in which the spiritual
perfection implied by bodily perfection may be incorporated in
stone. It expressly requires that idiosyncrasy is to be avoided in
iconic art. Sanskrit texts survive describing in detail how the
proportions of the figures of different grades of deity are to be
organized. So in a work of figure sculpture a close-knit order
prevails even down to the length of the eyebrows, the breadth of
feet, and size of toes. These smallest elements are usually broad
enough to make them visible from a distance, and in keeping with
the scale of the architectural detail with which they may be
associated.
The reason for this
lies in a special characteristic of Indian thought which denies any
reality to change and individuality. Ideal forms and recurring
patterns of events are more real and important than continuity or
any individual event. Time and change are condensed into closed
spatial ideas. A good visual example of this is the way the many
arms of a dancing Shiva seem to sum up in one image a whole series
of postures. Every sphere of thought in India is dominated by the
concept of perfect pattern-types. All artistic expression is
supposed to exhibit and exemplify its own special patterns as
perfectly as possible. In music the musician's task is to exhibit
the beauties that lie hidden but actually present, implicit in the
patterns of the notes of his complex scales. In visual art the
artist has to do the same with the given proportions and qualities
of his figure-types. The pattern is beyond change and motion.
Indeed, all forms and ideas in India are collective and general,
rather than particular and differentiated. Indian sculptures are
allowed to indicate movement in its generalized sense, in the dance
perhaps, as with Shiva Tandava or the dancing Apsarases. But they
are not allowed individuality of form. Their divine status is
expressed by their perfection of type, which illustrates their
relative resistance to the processes of change, and by the
motionless poise which sums up the essence of their
movement.
