Kanheri to Elephanta–A Study of the Indian Mind

By KRISHANLAL SONDHI

Recently I visited the Buddhist caves at Kanheri, dated about 200 B. C, and the Hindu caves at Elephanta, across the harbour at Bombay, dated 800 A. D. My object in this article is not to give a description of these caves but rather to trace the development of the psychology of the Indian mind from its state of agony and distraction in the Age of Buddha to integration and virility in the Hindu medieval age, i. e., about 600 A. D. to 1100 A. D. I have purposely chosen this period of Indian art and history for study, because, to my mind, the Buddhist age is very similar to present-day India in its licentiousness, disintegration and vulgarity. And, therefore, a study of the development of the Indian mind from the Buddhist age may help us in getting an insight into the nature of our present-day problems and their possible solution. I will rely on the art of the Buddhist and Hindu caves to develop my thesis, for a nation’s art reveals the various stages of its spiritual history.

At the outset I should like to make one point. Two great teachers, Buddha and Mahavir (the founder of Jainism), appear on the Indian scene about the 6th century B. C. It is the period of the Great Enlightenment, but we find that this spiritual consciousness does not find its expression in the arts, religion and public life in India till the Gupta period, i. e., the 3rd to the 5th century A. D. In fact, the period immediately following the Great Enlightenment for some centuries is of darkness and perversion. We see, therefore, that it took about eight to ten centuries before the spiritual awakening of Lord Buddha could find its expression in the soul of India. To my mind there is a remarkable similarity to this in the present-day position in India. The second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century in India have seen the appearance of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Ramtirtha, Pherozsha Mehta, Dadabhai Naoroji, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Lokamanya Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Lala Lajpat Rai, Dr. Jagadish Chander Bose, Dr. C. V. Raman, Pt. Vishnu Digamber Paluskar, and many other illustrious sons of India, who, like a galaxy of brilliant stars, cast away darkness from the despondent, despairing horizon of Mother India. The mind of India was suddenly lighted and shone luminously. In no way was the experience less profound than the Great Enlightenment of the Buddha. The Indian mind was alive in all aspects of culture–religion, politics, arts, philosophy and science. But there is before us the enigma that this enlightenment has been followed by our present age which is exceedingly corrupt and rotten. This paradox is a riddle unless we see it from the perspective of the Buddhist age, and realise that the age of Buddha too was utterly corrupt, and it took about eight centuries for the spiritual ideal of Buddha to find expression in the national life. Mr. Nehru, therefore, is perhaps fruitlessly exercising himself to transform India into a mighty power in haste, and it will be well for him to remember that there is hardly anything more painful and slow than spiritual growth. We see the same phenomenon in the history of Europe, where the spiritual significance of Christ did not find its expression in European culture till many centuries after the crucifixion of Christ.

I shall now take up in detail the age of Buddha. And, by reference to art and history, we shall see how amazingly it resembles our own. Just about the time of Buddha (520 B. C.) India was invaded by Darius, King of Persia, who established a vast empire on Indian soil, similar to the British Empire in our times. The mind of India thereafter was completely dominated by foreign ideals, and India lost consciousness of her own personality and identity. The country was politically disintegrated; the four large kingdoms of Magadha, Avanti, Kosala and Vatsa were constantly at war with one another. Political murders were the order of the day. For example Bimbisara, the King of Magadha, was killed by his son Ajatasatru. All this is not without a parallel in our own times. Linguistic states are fighting over their border issues with a shameless fervour which would make one think they were foreign countries at war. Only the other day the Chief Minister of Mysore assured his State legislature that he would not give any of the disputed land to Bombay State nor would he allow the Centre to decide the issue. As for political murders, they are not quite unknown today. If anything, in its shameless vulgarity, loss of national idealism and irresponsibility, the present-day Indian political scene is as rotten as, if not more than, the Buddhist. For a few centuries after the time of the Persian invasion of Darius, India the glorious land of purity and culture and thought, sold her soul to the foreigner and her expressions in politics, art and religion were the coarse experiences of a prostituted mind. The condition of the country was so distracted that it invited one aggressor after the other who ravished and outraged her and left her denuded of her treasures, both material and spiritual. Of these, the Greek invasion of Alexander in 300 B. C., and the Scythian and Hun are the more prominent. The intimidation of India’s political integrity is in evidence these days, and makes confusion and trouble for Mr. Nehru’s foreign policy. India is sought to be bullied by any power, however small and insignificant, which takes it into her mind to do so. Portugal continues to humiliate India in Goa. Mr. Nehru almost kept on philosophising, listening to his own voice, while China swallowed Tibet and now threatens more outrages. The Chief Minister of Nepal, B. P. Koirala, had the audacity to go to Peking and sign a border treaty with China, right in the face of India’s discomfiture on this issue. Burma signed a similar treaty with China. The first statement made by the recently elected Prime Minister of Ceylon, made in a condescending tone of superiority, was that she would endeavour to settle the “Indian problem of Ceylon.” Pakistan has issued stamps showing many parts of Indian territory in Pakistan. The truth is that what are now Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, Burma, and Ceylon have, historically, all been inviolable parts of Greater India. It is Indian culture and trade and philosophy and customs and civilization which nurtured these, and lent them a characteristically Indian outlook. But India is weak today and these unruly, thankless offshoots have the courage to face her with discomfiture. If Mr. Nehru looks at the political scene from the vantage point of the history of the Buddhist age, he will not mistake himself into believing that his foreign policy is a bird of a rare species. His policy of appeasement and weakness has reduced the country to a state of disintegration and distraction far worse than that of the Buddhist age. The Persians, Greeks and Scythians were able to wield power in India, not because of any innate superiority in their systems, but because the Indian kings were disunited and disloyal to their own country and invited the foreigner in order to wreak vengeance against a neighbouring power. We have again witnessed this phenomenon recently when the Communist Party of India has, to all intents and purposes, sided with China on the border issue; and in Kerala the Congress has entered into an unholy alliance with the Muslim League, whose aim is to disintegrate India. We know that Alexander particularly exploited this situation to further his ends and took care not to alienate the sympathy of powerful local princes who were prepared to help him. We are only too familiar with this experience in the establishment of the British Empire in India. Both instances point to a deadening of the Indian national consciousness and of its fixation to greed and meanness which makes a foreign ideal, however treacherous, readily acceptable.

Religion in the Buddhist period was marked by two characteristics. Firstly, Buddhism was almost unknown. It was a minor sect in the Gangetic Valley. Hinduism in this age consisted of blind idol worship accompanied by animal and human sacrifices. We are familiar with this experience even today. As Swami Vivekananda put it tersely: “Hindu religion has gone to the kitchen and become a creed of touch-me-not-ism.” Religious life in India today continues to be either agnostic and atheistic, especially among the rich and upper middle classes; or a narrow and dogmatic ritualism, in spite of the many spiritual giants who were born and who preached in India in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Secondly, the Buddhist age was marked by degradation in the Hindu society as a result of casteism. With this also we are familiar today. India abounds in conflicts of Brahmin vs. non-Brahmin, South vs. North, Dravidians vs. Aryans. And fanatical bodies like the Dravida Khazagam publicly burn the Ramayana and the Indian Constitution. Untouchability, too, if anything is on the increase, in spite of legislation, and in spite of the efforts of Gandhiji in this direction.

All these tendencies were reflected in the art of the Buddhist period. To my mind, two distinct effects were visible. One was on the art in the Indian tradition. The first thing that strikes us is that there was very little of it. The most representative piece is the “Parkham Statue” in the Mathura Museum, which has an inscription referring to King Ajatasatru who, as we mentioned above, killed his father Bimbisara. This is what one would expect of the age–monuments being erected to the unworthy. We know of portraits and busts of Congress Ministers and other local dignitaries being unveiled so frequently these days. This art in the age of Buddha was primitive, lacking in imagination, in philosophic introspection, or in devotion, and there was no trace in it of romanticism or refinement. It was utterly material without any sign of spiritual quest. These remarks apply equally to our age. Firstly, there is a very meagre literary and artistic output, and what little there is utterly material and mechanistic. Pseudo-communist schools represent the coarse literary quality. In painting and sculpture, the modern school of nihilists, existentialists, cubists and what not are producing a kind of art which represents nothing but their own twisted ego. The second characteristic of art in the age of Buddha was the dominance of a foreign ideal on the Indian mind. This is seen in what is known as the Gandhara School. We can take up discussion of this school along with the age of Buddha, even though it actually relates to a later period–about 100 A. D.–because it owes inspiration to the Greek influence. The Gandhara art is represented in the mains by Hellenistic Buddha statues based on Greek models. It is a thoroughly hybrid art, effeminate and sensual and totally lacking in virility. It aims, in the tradition of Western art, at representation of reality, whereas the aim of Indian art has always been metaphysical and symbolic. This Gandhara Hellenistic art, therefore, is foreign to the Indian genius, and has no place in the development of Indian art and ideals. We are very familiar with hybrid art and music in our times. Indian films are shameless and corrupted copies of English films. Even the titles are English, as in “Love in Simla,” and the posters have begun to display semi-nude women in the Western tradition. Film music is even worse. It is an unabashed mixture of jazz, rock and roll, Western hilly-billy and negro spirituals. From the point of view of aesthetics, we notice corruption in Indian women’s dress. The sari as a dress is an evolution in keeping with the development of Indian philosophy, art and aesthetics. As we have said above, the essential principle of Indian art is that, unlike the Western artist who aims at the representation of the real, the Indian artist aims by symbolism to bring out the hidden metaphysical and spiritual content. Therefore, Indian art subdues detail in order to emancipate the essential spirit and mood of the theme. The expression takes the aid of an intricate symbolism. This is the genius of the sari. The sari worn in the traditional Indian style, whether Gujarati, Bengali, Maharashtrian, South Indian or any other, attempts to subdue the female physiognomy to the utmost in order to bring out her femininity to its best. It subdues her physical voluptuousness, so that the mind may readily attune itself to her essential feminine quality. And this is encouraged by symbolic design–long hair, the vermilion mark in the parting of the hair, the “bindia” on the forehead, ear-rings, “nathee” in the nose, bangles, “payal” in the ankles. Gurudev Tagore sang of this symbolic, spiritual, aesthetic aspect of woman when he said:

“The sea gives its pearls, the mines their gold, the summer gardens their flowers to deck you, to cover you, to make you more precious.

“The desire of men’s hearts has shed its glory over your youth. You are one-half woman and one-half dream.”

But with one stroke the champions of the modern Indian woman have cast all this to the winds. Their essential advice to women is “Don’t act like women, act like men. In your manners, dress, desires, be masculine, coarse, aggressive. Give up meekness, shyness, modesty. These are degraded feminine qualities.” The sari already does not cover the heads of Indian women today. “Eve’s Weekly” would have it off their shoulders too! Not content with this, the blouse has also been corrupted. It is backless, low-necked and shows a bare mid-rib. Add to this: transparent nylon material, cropped hair, smudges of lipstick and rouge, and you have the horrifying seductive figure of the modern Indian female–an utterly naive, materialistic, unaesthetic, vulgar and primitive prototype.

Before we close our discussion of the age of Buddha, we must examine Mr. Nehru’s personality, because an outstanding personality symbolises the aspirations of the age. Mr. Nehru has two characteristics: the rose in the button-hole of his ‘achkan’ and the baton in his hand. The crisis of Mr. Nehru is that the baton has very nearly smothered the rose. Mr. Nehru’s essential personality is represented by the rose–the poet, the dreamer, the idealist, the man of letters. The rose symbolises florescence of culture, integration in the Indian tradition, “capacity for stillness,” yoga, introspection, self-reliance, meekness, humanity, spiritual growth, poetry, art, philosophy, in short, fineness of feeling and depth in the personality. The baton is the unleashed brute, atomic power, steel plants, massive inhuman plans, power politics, bigness, hurried movements, hasty steps, indecision, communism, that is, a coarse and rabid materialism. Mr. Nehru is a true picture of the Indian mind today, which, at an inner subconscious plane, has repressed all feelings of culture, humanity, enquiry, self-reliance, adventure, experimentation, devotion. Instead, the uncontrollable Brute, the monster Thing, the seductive foreign Passion, fixation to Greed and Lust, and desire for quick Exploitation obsess her mind like the desires of a mad person. This is India’s problem of personality today. This too, was the problem which the great Lord Buddha conquered through his ordeals and the Enlightenment. And we shall now see how this was translated into life in the next phase of Indian history and how the Indian mind gradually came out of this abysmal torture of darkness and death.

In the course of spiritual growth the pendulum inevitably swings from one extreme to the other–from licentiousness and abandon to asceticism and revolt. It follows the Hegelian development from thesis to the antithesis. This development we see in the age of the Mauryan Empire, which follows the age of Buddha. If the Buddhist age was characterised by loose morals, obsession with a foreign ideal and treachery, we now enter a period of Indian history and art where there is a sudden and complete revolt from this position, and the Indian mind submits itself to asceticism, control and a heroic attempt to revive Indian values. The very first example we have is in the personality of Chandragupta Maurya. While still a lad, he met Alexander in the Punjab and offended the King by his boldness of speech. Alexander, therefore, gave orders for Chandragupta to be killed. But Chandragupta escaped, and sought asylum and tuition from the astute and learned Brahmin, Chanakya, who with the help of other Indian princes, helped Chandragupta to organise a vast Indian Empire. Here then we have all the elements of the age: revolt against foreign ideals, reliance on Indian wisdom and tradition, and looking for help to Indian princes, and not to a foreigner, for establishment of power. It symbolises a restoration of self-reliance and self-respect in Indian politics and thought. In India today, we are yet very far from this ideal. Indian Government teams are constantly going to foreign countries for every conceivable and petty object. We are studying the Japanese method of rice cultivation, the Russian method of steel-making, the American quiz methods of examinations and all sorts of other fads. But these are not being assimilated into Indian life, because, fundamentally, wisdom and self-reliance are lacking in the Indian personality. Brave attempts are afoot to organise opposition to the blind tyranny of the ruling parties and to wean the body politic from its pre-occupation with foreign aid and foreign ideals to nationalism and self-reliance. Chandragupta’s efforts met with success and he defeated Alexander’s general Seleukus. Thereby vast territories of foreign land including Baluchistan came under the Mauryan Empire.

An even more outstanding personality was Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta. He continued his predecessor’s policy of aggression and brought Afghanistan, Baluchistan and the whole of India, except Tamilnad, under his sway. But the sight of misery in the Kalinga war smote Asoka’s conscience and changed his personality. It brought him repentance and sorrow, and thereafter he is a lonely figure undergoing penance and suffering. He made a deep study of Buddhism, and turned this local sect in the Ganges valley into a world religion. Instead of games and hunting and court pomp, he now travelled among the people and preached the gospel of Buddha. Such men have yet to appear in our public life. Vinoba Bhave is but a sign on the scene. There is no repentance in our public men. Our public men are not sorry for the sins they are daily responsible for. They are not men whose conscience suffers the sorrow of the country. They are very far from the ideal of Asoka. The Indian personality is still having its merry fling; retribution and sorrow have not yet set in.

Another characteristic of Asoka was his tolerance. Although he had adopted Buddhism as his own religion, he not only tolerated but always respected and helped Brahmins, Jains and persons of other faiths. This quality is sadly missing in our public life. Our public men are intolerant in the extreme, and one of the biggest drawbacks of Mr. Nehru’s Government is its inability to tolerate criticism. Even the Press in India today is subdued, and it fears expression of ideas which the Government may take amiss. This is a very unhealthy situation, and could lead to the most dangerous consequences, because criticism like steam must have an outlet, otherwise it explodes the machine.

Before we close this discussion of the Mauryan period we must note one important thing. Although the Indian mind has developed considerably, there is still a great deal of repression in the personality, which stifles expression. The Indian personality has turned its face away from the world and is dutifully engaged in lonely penance and suffering. There is yet too much guilt (what in Yoga philosophy is called “samskara-vasanas,” i.e., auto-inherited tendencies) in the personality to allow an easy and fearless relationship with life. The personality is occupied with vague fears, remorse, guilt and complexes. And, therefore, the age is engaged in a terrible struggle against spiritual death. This takes the form of asceticism, renunciation, austerity and puritanism. Buddhism takes the form of rationalistic search and, therefore, there is no scope in it for poetry. The morbid and guilty temperament does not permit any metaphysical expression in art. In fact the arts and music are suppressed. The Markandeya Purana at this time writes: “Nothing should be done by a Brahmin for the sake of enjoyment.” Chanakya classes musicians and actors with courtesans. Manu forbids the householder to dance or sing and thinks of architects and actors as unworthy men. The Buddha even condemns the presentation of the Dhamma in an attractive literary form. We are familiar with the beginnings of these tendencies in our times. Society today looks down on teachers, thinkers, poets, writers, actors, painters, musicians and all those who are engaged in high intellectual, literary or artistic activity but who are not wealthy. Society, and along with it every prospective mother-in-law, has much more respect for any jackanapes who is in commerce and has amassed wealth by any means, however doubtful and undesirable.

All these tendencies we see reflected in the art of the Mauryan age. Buddhist caves like Kanheri, Karla, Bhaja, Bedsa and Lena are situated in out-of-the-way, far-off places, usually on lonely distant mountain tops. The architecture is simple and austere. There are no carvings on pillars or walls and the only sculpture one sees is a solitary pair of “ dwar-palas” (gate-keepers). Buddha sits at the end of a huge “chaitya” hall–a lonely figure in deep thought and suffering. These were all big monasteries like Nalanda and Taxila. There are small cubicles for the monks. They lead an austere life of asceticism, study and contemplation.

We now enter the third and final phase of our subject–the Gupta Age. If the age of Buddha was material, the Mauryan religious, then the Gupta age was truly spiritual. The rigorous “sadhana” of Asoka and his age bears fruit, and the Gupta age finds the Indian personality completely emancipated. Hinduism revives with all its traditions and vigour. Buddhism is absorbed into Hinduism. Buddha becomes an “avatar” (incarnation) of Vishnu; and Mahayana Buddhism develops a mythology and art (as at Amaravati) similar to the Hindu pantheon. It is an age in which all foreign influences have been absorbed and Indianised, and its character is self-possessed, urban and exuberant. India after many centuries of darkness, is now again truly conscious of her own personality. In the age of Buddha, as in ours today, the Indian personality was obsessively fixated to material reality, and had completely given up idealism. The Mauryan age saw the other extreme where India turned her face to reality, and in the seclusion of Buddhist caves launched on an austere effort to recapture a vision of lost Indian ideals. But it was only in the Gupta age that the rescued Indian idealism found its beautiful expression in daily life. This was, therefore, an age of song and dance, an age of the poetry of Kalidasa, an age of the nine brilliant gems in the court of Vikramaditya, an age of the vast military campaigns of Samudragupta, his personal accomplishments, his polished intellect, his knowledge of scriptures, his poetic skill and proficiency in music. The Indian personality again experienced a fundamental unity of character which transcended all political, racial, linguistic and sectarian distinctions. There were no guilt repressions in the personality. It was an age which could afford the fullest enjoyment of life, by right of innate virtue. It combined brilliant intellectual and spiritual development with the utmost sensuousness of experience. Politically the country was integrated, and possessed a vigorous national consciousness which found expression in the grand military campaigns of Samudragupta and Vikramaditya, in the annexation of vast territories, in the establishment of Indian colonies in distant parts of the world, and in the emergence of Greater India in a florescence of political, intellectual, artistic and spiritual attainments. All this found beautiful expression in Ajanta, where, it has been said, “renunciation and enjoyment are perfectly attuned, in an art at once of utmost intimacy and reserve.” The work of the early medieval period had even greater force and national taste. And when we turn to the sculpture of the 8th century–of Ellora, Elephanta and Mahabalipuram–we are face to face with the zenith of Indian art. Shiva and Parvati on Mount Kailas at Ellora and the Trimurti at Elephanta are the quintessence of the Indian genius. They have a silent spiritual force, at once calm and vital. And so true is the art that the stone passes away from sight and the essential spirit immediately moves the devotee. If the age of Buddha showed the Indian personality fixated to a degraded concept of sex, and to a coarse, perverted relationship of man and woman, the Mauryan age was a complete negation of sex and the Buddhist men of the age refused to even look at women. It was in the Gupta or the medieval age that a healthy and elevated relationship in sex was restored. Gurudev has sung truly of this mood in:

“No, my friends, I shall never be an ascetic, whatever you may say, I shall never be an ascetic if she does not take the vow with me. It is my firm resolve that if I cannot find a shady shelter and a companion for my penance, I shall never turn ascetic.”

In literature it finds expression in the remarkable work “Kama Sutra,” and in the temple architecture at Konarka and Khajuraho–a beautiful imagery of sensuousness, poetry and vital living. Here we truly understand that where religion ends, spirituality begins. The aim of religion is not to make people turn their back on life, but rather to make it as intense and vigorous as possible: not to live in the spirit, away from the material, but rather to invest the most material with the essential spirit. No aspect of life, therefore, can be excluded from the religious, least of all sex–the most vital quality in the human being. It is characteristic of the Indian genius in this age that Konarka and Khajuraho and others, which are actually temples of worship, should not only not disregard, but spiritualise and deify the sexual principle by depicting in sculpture all aspects of sex life.

We are today very far from this ideal. The Indian personality today is obsessed with a degraded concept of sex, largely due to the impact of a foreign culture, and it is this which more than anything else, has denervated and emaciated the Indian personality.

In all aspects of our national life and culture today there is no attempt at originality. We are, to use Gandhiji’s expression, “aping the Englishman” blindly. Gurudev Tagore has said somewhere that there can be no intercourse between a beggar and a prince. And it is as beggars that we approach the West today, thinking the West a prince. If it is a college student, he approaches Shakespeare not for audience, like a respectable man, but for a few mouldy crumbs from the dingy backdoor of notes and guess papers. If it is technology, our engineers have no ingenuity to understand peculiar local requirements and the use of indigenous materials or skills; we are going headlong in a mad race to build a carbon copy blueprint of European industry. If it is finance, we do not take to austerity and sacrifice, but send Morarji Desai round the world with a begging bowl.

Similarly, in our social life, our art, our aesthetics and crafts, we have done with original thinking, and we have resorted to the more convenient expedient of copying the West. We may here recall that, in some ways, even more than the work of the Indian nationlists, it was the effort of noble and idealistic Britons which first shook India out of her lethargy, and made her realise that she had lost her personality completely, and had become a mere parasite of Britain. Now we seem to have again slipped into that hypnotic state. And, more than ever before, we have now to realise that, unless self-reliance and self-respect are restored by a revival of Indian ideals, we as beggars will never be able to eat at the same table as Europe or taste the choice fruits of Europe’s virile culture, without being poisoned or falling ill.

The struggle is hard. The journey is long. And, with all humility and in utter devotion, let us start on the journey, praying with folded hands, after Gurudev:

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth:

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the

dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into over-widening thought and action,

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

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