This whole theory of
Indian sculpture is based upon dance and the theatre, and at first
sight may not seem to have very much to do with either nature or
sculpture. In fact, there is a profound inter-relationship. The
expression of the forms of sculpture, the metaphors they contain
are best explained in terms of dhvani. The 'latent traces' the
forms evoke are visual and sensuous memories of all those other
experiences—tree-trunks, fish in a pool, elephant trunks,
flower petals are really only a few of them—whose emotional
charge is added to the meaning of the sculpture. But there is an
even closer connexion between the ideal theatre and the art of
sculpture. For sculpture in India is intentionally tied to the
expressive modes of the Indian dance-drama. It is also most
probable that the art of the sculptor has exercised a reciprocal
influence upon the dancer's art, of course; but this is a natural
relationship. For there can be little doubt that the figure
sculptures with which Indian temples are encrusted parallel closely
the dancers who were at one time associated with the temples. Today
only a few major temples, chiefly in the south, continue the
tradition of maintaining a corps of dancers. Once, however, the
practice must have been widespread. On the gateway towers of the
temple of the dancing Shiva at Chidambaram.in South India, is
preserved a complete record of the dance postures of the middle
ages. They are carved in relief, in a series of bands. Their sole
religious significance is that at certain times of day the resident
corps-de-ballet performed dances before the shrine, which were
based upon the divine legends of Indian mythology and literature.
Hence dancers were constantly 'realizing' the roles of the deities
of the legend.
The temple dancers,
the devadasis, were also available, at a fee, to perform for those
who could pay; and the temple corps-de-ballet overlapped with the
court troupes of the local princelings. So that, in fact, the
visual experience of sculpture was always intimately related both
to that of the dance, and of love.
Thus, what we have
to look for in Indian sculpture, granted the sensuous, haloed
quality of the sculptor's forms, is a further kind of expression.
Again it is not easy for Westerners to read it— especially
since modern art has more or less forbidden us to look at
figurative art with the right kind of attention and
interest.
What we have to look
for is the mimetic expression of the whole figure. And we must
remember, too, that the human figures represented in Indian
sculpture are always engaged in some mimetic expression. Even those
figures which may seem to us to be sitting or standing doing
nothing in particular are, in fact, intended to be expressing
repose', or ease', by all the postures of their body and limbs. All
the figures are always 'on stage', as it were. They are sculptured
dancers embodying their roles with all the resources of the Indian
dance. But whereas human dancers will have, by the mere fact that
they are human, all those lapses from ideal canonical beauty which
are inseparable from humanity, bodily defects which mar the
completeness with which they can convey the essence of their roles,
the sculptured dancers are embodied in forms which are wholly apt
to what they have to express. It is not that the sculptures refer
to actual dancers. They really represent 'the dance' as
something outside and beyond themselves. With sculptures there is
no danger of the spectator reacting as to a real person. But they
do share the resources of the dance in this sense—that they
evoke groups of memory traces, by presenting the
'effects'—postures, gestures, expressions—of
'causes'—i.e. people once experienced emotively in various
expressive guises—and among their means are static images of
gesture and posture, as well as form. The dancers themselves are so
generalized in type, so idealized, that there is no mere human
likeness left in them. They are ideal images of ideal dancers.
Thus, sculptured figures will act as determinants in all sorts of
ways, displaying evolved evocative symbols of social communication
in their forms, and in their dance-gestures as
figures.
Of course, the
figures shown in sculpture are deprived of actual movement. Among
the canonical postures and gestures of the Indian dance a few
depend upon actual motions of body, head, arms, hands, eyes and
eyebrows. It is for these that the dhvani qualities of form, the
suggested aura of significance, must compensate. But most of the
repertoire of the Indian dance consists of static positions
combined and presented in a sequence of image-units. Hip postures,
leg-positions and arm-positions are relatively few in number. So,
too, are the head positions. In combination, however, they can
express an immense variety of situations. However, the greatest
wealth of meaning in the Indian visual arts is conveyed by the hand
gestures, called mudras. These, one more function of the magically
versatile Indian hand, have been elaborated into alanguagesorichand
subtle that entire narratives can be carried through in mime
alone—no setting or explanation is necessary. Of course, for
the gesture language of the dancer to be understood demands that
the audience be accustomed to reading the language of the hands.
And this is not easy for Westerners. Very few have attained the
necessary degree of skill, demanding as it does constant
practice.
Such gestures, of
course, are in the highest degree stylized. They must, at some
distant period of time, have evolved from a mixture of observation,
custom and creative analysis. So that there is a kind of residue of
immediate emotional expression in some of them, as in the
open-palmed hand, stretched downward, which indicates 'giving', or
the pointing hand that indicates compulsion or driving. Others are
obviously formally imitative, such as the clenched fist with first
and fourth fingers erect whose primary meaning is the cow (horns on
the head), or the upward-pointing hand with straight fingers
gathered together, which indicates the closed lotus-bud, and all
its associated meanings.
How wide such a
range of meanings can be appears, for example, with the Sola-padma
hand (also called Ala-padma), representing the full- blown
lotus-flower in which the fingers are separated and curved. This
means the open lotus, a fruit, turning, a breast, mirror, full
moon, yearning for the beloved, a golden cup, a hair- knot, a
moon-pavilion, a village, height, anger, lake, chariot, a
chakravarka bird, murmuring sound or praise—according to
context, and according to the hand and postures with which it is
combined. A pair of Ala-padma hands, for example, held on the chest
and twisted upwards, means husband, humble words, the breasts, 'I
am beloved', conversation, and indicates desires. Held to the eyes,
such a pair of hands indicates large clusters of flowers; to the
head a sal tree, or a mountain. The possibilities of such
combinations to express emotions, objects and action seem endless,
and have been preserved from teacher to pupil through the
centuries. Such things as fear, discussion, circumference, a
partridge, actor's costume, slowness, impartiality, light food,
concealing a child, sprinkling, shooting, testing prepared
medicine, listening, winding, milking, are commonplaces of this
subtle hand- language.
