Gleanings
South Indian Temples in China
That Southern Indian Art and Architecture in
various forms have crossed over to various parts of Indonesia and inspired and
developed Indian colonial art, is very well known, the most typical examples
being illustrated in the Hindu Temples in the Dieng plateau in Java, having
close affinity with the “Rathas” of Mahavalipuram. But it is less known that
there exist the vestiges of a Hindu Shrine at one of the ancient Chinese
port-towns on the coast opposite to Formosa now known as Ch'uan-chow, but
formerly known as Zayton–from which the silk stuff known as ‘satin’ derives its
name. At one time, Zayton was an international port, and very much frequented
by ships from all parts of India, carrying all manners of merchandise. That a
permanent colony of Southern Indian merchants lived in certain quarters of this
port-town can be inferred from the fact that the basement frieze of the main
hall of the K’ai-yuan Temple at the place still carries several pillars in
Pandyan style which are decorated with several bas-reliefs depicting scenes and
incidents from the Krishna-lila. The original Temple, according to the Temple
records, was destroyed in 1155 A. D. and rebuilt a little later and it is
probably at the time of rebuilding that the Indian pillars with the cubical
blocks bearing panels illustrating well-known themes from Krishna Legends were
copied by a Chinese hand–which unmistakably proclaim their Indian origins.
There is no doubt that this temple was originally built for the use of Southern
Indian merchants who had settled in the port-town, apparently for the
development of the then flourishing Indian trade in spices–and “all other kinds
of costly wares as suggested by Marco Polo.
(O. C. Ganguly in the Hindu: Sunday, 27th February
1944.)
Women in Indian Life
Much has been said of the Hindu ideal of wife-wood
in the tributes paid to Kasturba. I was amused to find among those who have
extolled that ideal some who have denounced the Sita-Savitri ideal as out of
date and unsuited to the modern Indian woman. Such is the force of a great
tradition. When the seas are smooth and our little boats are drifting
pleasantly with the breeze, we make light of traditions, scoff at them and
deceive ourselves that we have no use for them. But when the least little gust
flutters our sails and rocks our boats, we run helter-skelter to the shelter of
these very havens. They become full of meaning to us–these old superstitions.
The fact is that what has endured for centuries has done so because of its
vitality and high survival value. And this survival value itself is due to the
universality of the idea underlying the tradition which survives. The Hindu
ideal is, therefore, not peculiarly Hindu. It is universal. Sita pleads the
precedent of Savitri when Dasaratha objects to her following her husband Rama
into exile. Centuries before the Ramayana, Savitri puts off the God of Death
who begs her not to follow him: he is carrying off the soul of her husband, Esha dharma sanatanah, This is the
eternal law. No Hindu can contest that and the God of Death as an orthodox
Hindu has no answer to that. The ideal has endured and pervaded every stratum
of our society. Wives of the men who work in coal mines have felt its force.
This tradition is not confined to Hindus. It has become the Indian tradition
and all the castes and communities of this country, have come within its sway.
It is a mistake, common among outsiders, to think
that the Hindu wife is an inert soul, slavishly subservient to her husband. The
power of passive resistance is far greater than that of active. Gandhiji must
have drawn his Satyagraha from the example of the women of India who through
the ages have perfected its technique. One of the finest men I know was once
asked in the course of conversation on married life if he loved his wife.
“Love!” exclaimed he, “I fear her!” “Fear” is not the right word. Fear cannot
subsist side by side with love which the friend profoundly feels for his wife.
But it is certainly true that the Hindu man stands in awe of the utter
self-effacement, the untiring devotion, the unflinching fortitude which his
womankind consistently evince in their lives.
(RECLUSE in
the Indian Social Reformer 4-3-1944)
Art and Propaganda
All creative art, is essentially an individual
affair. It is individual in its creative process and it is individual in its
appeal. All propaganda, on the other hand, is essentially a group affair. It is conceived by a
group and propagated by it to attain its aims by a process of imposition on all other members of the
society. A propagandist group uses and exploits art, not for art purposes but
for its own purposes. It not only uses all available art products for its aims
but seeks to impose its aims on the
minds of the artists, by methods of deliberate coercion. The appeal of art
being individual is free and persuasive. Propaganda, in so far as it
transgresses the limits of freedom and persuasion, necessarily
degenerates into social coercion and regimentation of the human mind. The path
of progress lies through freedom and persuasion, which values the dignity of
every human being. Propaganda, in so for as it transgresses these limits and
adopts methods of social coercion, tramples under its juggernautic wheels the
dignity of man, leading thereby to cold-blooded murder of all human values.
Group hysteria, whether masquerading under the name of the old and ‘civilised’
imperialism or modern fascism or communism, is a menace to human progress. It
is the duty of all freedom-loving artists and writers to fight with all their
might this menace which threatens to engulf the whole world in its dehumanising
tentacles.
The way of art is the way of human sympathy and
human understanding, the way of psychological penetration, patience, and
persuasion. The way of group propaganda inspired by ready-made dogmatic
ideologies is the very reverse of this. The former leads to deeper and wider
human understanding and through understanding to freedom and progress, the
latter leads to blind and unthinking fury, inhuman, intolerance, dreadful
slavery of the many to the power-mad few and the intolerance dreadful slavery
of the many to the power-mad few and the subsequent degradation of the entire
human society.
(From the
MANIFESTO of the All India Modern Writers’ Conference.)