Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

Adventures in Greek and Indian Aesthetics

S. Krishnan

India and Greece–what a contrast they present! They conjure up before us two worlds that appear the very antitheses of each other. The awesome and austere Himalayas where all nature becomes hushed for the contemplation of the sages of the timeless past intuitively progressed from the world of relative values and appearances to the one Absolute, to realize the reality of Being. Such is the vision of India. Ancient Greece brings us the intellectual nostalgia of its academies–the centres of the eternal dialogue of the human mind with itself–where met Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and others to participate in the drama of dialectics. The contrast seems complete and irreconcilable. Yet one will discover more of affinities, in thought patterns between India and Greece, than of contrasts and this is especially true in the realm of aesthetics.

It is true that Indian art is idealistic while that of Greece is realistic. The Indian artist aimed at the translation of an inherent intuitive idea of eternity into symbolic form. Chandrasekhara embodies the pattern of perfected humanity, of complete triumph of the spirit on the body. Buddha suggests the supernal serenity of a being withdrawn into the timeless realm of yoga. Nataraja’s dance is a manifestation of the primal rhythmic energy of the universe in which he emancipates countless souls of men from the scene of illusion. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswarny truly observes: “India is wont to suggest the eternal and inexpressible infinities in terms of sensuous beauty.”

In their art, the Greeks sought to idealise human beauty–in Aphrodite, Venus, Dionysus. Hence they concerned themselves with aesthetic canons of realistic art.

The basic divergences between Greek and Indian aesthetics cannot be denied. Nevertheless there is a vast realm of affinity. According to Plato our love of beautiful things on earth is due to the search of our soul for Absolute Beauty. All visible things are types in which are mirrored the beauty of eternal archetypes. In the symposium Plato says that man has to use the beauties of the earth as steps along which to mount upwards to the notion of Absolute Beauty. Socrates declared: whatever is beautiful is for the same reason good.” In India everything was looked upon as essentially unreal though bearing the semblance of reality. This has its striking analogy in the Platonic conception of the relativity of reality. Indian thinkers apprehended that beauty on earth is but a glimpse of the Absolute and infinite beauty of God, the attainment of which is the constant longing of the human soul. In India and Greece the ultimate reality was seen as the source and embodiment of three values–Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Tagore says, in the Socratic manner, “If we see the good and the truth in perfect accord the beautiful stands revealed.” This concept of the unity of the True, the Beautiful and the Good is fundamental to Greek as well as Indian thought.

The basic Indian aesthetic concept is the concept of the Rasa and as its corollary Ananda. The Rasa or aesthetic emotion kindled in the reader or the hearer by the poet and playwright, is impersonal and universal. In the ideal world of art even pain and grief are robbed of their sting and can communicate aesthetic pleasure. The Greek rhetoricians understood that tragedy for all the apocalyptic intensity of its emotions, leads the spectator towards a state of serenity. Such is the aesthetic pleasure afforded by the tragedies of Sophocles and Aeschylus. Oedipus the king is caught in the treacherous mine of the machinations of fate and is driven from suffering to suffering until he blinds himselfand becomes an outcast beggar. There is an aesthetic element in this spectacle because it gives us an enlightening glimpse into the ultimate powers of moral valiance of the human will. To speak in the language of Indian rasas, there are the vira(Heroism), Bhayanaka(Fearful), Karuna(Pathos) and Adbhuta(Marvellous) rasas evoked by this supreme tragedy of Sophocles. Aristotle speaks of pity and fear as constituting the tragic emotions, leading the spectator towards catharsis, and recognises the comic or the droll (‘Hasya’ rasa) as a distinct element in comedy. Thus there appears to be some affinity between the Indian and Greek systematisation of human emotions evoked by a work of art.

In India art was conceived as a Yoga, a Sadhana, conceived in a mood of peace “that passeth all understanding”. The artist, in depicting the gods and the goddesses, had to discipline himself by Dhyana to achieve self-identification with the object of meditation. Dante said: “I am one who, when love inspires me, take note and go setting it forth in such wise as He dictates within me.” In Phaedrus Plato recognises the inspiration of poetry as a kind of divine madness and declares that the soul which has seen most of the truth shall come to birth as an artist. The idea of the artist as the seer was a familiar burden in Indian thought. The Indian idea of the artist’s duty to identify himself with the object of representation has a startling analogy in an adage of Plotinus: “The mind could never have perceived the Beautiful had it not first become beautiful itself. Everyone must partake of the divine nature before he can discern the divinely beautiful.”

Poetic experience, in Indian thought, was not merely a grace of cultured living but a basis of moral conduct and the highest spiritual experience. Tagore believed that aesthetic sensibility was a surer foundation for morality than moralising. The Greeks, likewise, looked to poetry for truth and moral lessons rather than for mere aesthetic delight. Plato always relates art to life and beauty of art is for him only an image of the beauty of life. Hence, he declared, that the poets must be compelled, on pain of expulsion from the state, to express the image of good in their works. Greek tragic spectacles, for all their aesthetic beauty, served as a basis for moralising as well, delineating man’s duties and responsibilities in relation to the will of the gods.

Serenity is the hallmark of Greek and Indian art alike. The Buddha, the Shiva are embodiments of serene beatitude. Even Nataraja for all the apocalyptic fury of his dance bears the same smile that lights up the countenance of the Buddha (E. B. Havell). In Indian art the animate and the inanimate, the world of man and the world of nature are shown in perfect harmony as the expression of the one spirit. In Greek art one notices the same serenity in the sculpture of the Venus, Apollo, Aphrodite and others who crowd the Greek hierarchy of gods and goddesses. Even tragedy for all its cosmic turbulence leaves the spectator in the state of Catharsis–“Calm of mind all passion spent”.

Like what you read? Consider supporting this website: