The Quest for Happiness: Art As A Redemptive Force
Culture in India existed in harmony with Nature and did not seek to destroy it. Instead social laws imitated natural principles and individuals were exhorted to transcend the material limitations spiritually by walking the path of self-realization. What is important for us here is the fact that this spiritual quest for freedom from natural constraints was imitated by art in its own sphere. Art acted as a redemptive and elevating force in the life of man.
Coomaraswamy said that the fundamental quest of an Indian artist is not to just imitate Nature, but to improve upon it by imparting spiritual meaning to it by using artistic license. That is why the gods have many hands and feet. They display attributes and convey different bhāvas of the artist and the yogī. They are meant to educate and elevate the viewer to a higher plane of consciousness and not just imitate Nature.
The Artist and the Aesthete
Art in India is used to elevate the consciousness of the individual to a higher plane so he cultivates higher pleasures. By doing this, he makes his path towards self-realization easier and also makes his life in this samsāra more pleasant and full of aesthetic experience. In fact, the theory of aesthetics of Indian art was developed by keeping this goal in mind. As Harsha Dehejia says:
While the artist occupies an exalted position in the Indian tradition, the aesthete is charged with an equally heavy responsibility. Art in the Indian tradition is not merely ornamental or decorative, not just an idle pastime or sport, not as outpouring of a superficial state of mind; and the aesthete in turn was not a mere spectator or voyeur but one who was expected to apply himself seriously and deliberately in the enjoyment and understanding of art. DEHEJIA 2
The aesthete is as important as the artist. Bhartṛharī maintains that meaning and beauty reside not in the text itself but in the act of reading. Applied on art, visual and otherwise, it means that it is the act of darṣana by the aesthete when the creation of beauty takes place. All pieces of art need an aesthete to appreciate them and that is why the moment in which meaning and beauty arises, the phenomenon which takes place inside the mind and heart of the aesthete is very important. The job of the artist is to bind the formless into the form. The job of the aesthete is to decode the form and reach the formless. The whole circle is a meaning-making process. The goal of such an artistic exercise is nothing short of mokṣa or at least proceed on that pathway, as Shri Aurobindo said:
The whole basis of Indian artistic creation perfectly conscious and recognised in the canons, is directly spiritual and intuitive. SHRI AUROBINDO 198
In this way, by making the aesthete as important as the artist, the Hindu tradition provided art as a means to transcend the limitations of daily life. Art not just provided a happy respite from the drudgery of daily life, but also elevated the aesthete or the enjoyer of art to a higher plane of consciousness, thereby enriching his life in more than one way.
Seeking Harmony, Balance And Creative Redemption: Culture Creatives
Dharma becomes manifest to us in the form of tradition which takes tangible forms as customs and rituals. Customs are the language of dharma. Similarly culture talks in the language of symbols. And these symbols are conveyed through art and literature. While art encodes this wisdom, the act of decoding its meaning leads the aesthete, the onlooker, onto a cultural journey. Going on this journey he comes across various stories, epic and short, religious and folk.
These stories pack great cultural wisdom in small capsules of stories, idioms, phrases and aphorisms. This is how Indian Knowledge Systems filter down to every nook and corner of the society through the agency of cultural storytelling. It is the most powerful way of spreading cultural wisdom and making everyone fall in harmonious rhythm with Nature and with our own selves. And it does not involve any top-down method of orthodox imposition against ‘heretical practices’.
In an ideal setting this filtering down of culture would ensure the demand generation for a culture-conducive policy. But something has broken down in our contemporary times, which has disrupted this civilizational process. India like all other great civilizations was more of an oral culture. And it had deep implications. As opposed to the ‘People of the Book’ and their insistence on passing knowledge only through Scripture, an oral culture relied on oral and personal means of communicating culture and its wisdom as is described above. Through the agency of great kathā vāchakas, roaming bards and mendicants, the stories contained in the Vedas and scriptures would be taken to every part of the country. And then these stories were imbibed and embodied by members of the family who would transfer this encapsulated wisdom to the next to next generation in the humble and cozy setting of a home.
It is this process of cultural continuity which has broken down. Modern civilization is not conducive to an oral culture and often ignores it completely and in the process denies its very existence. Modern education, state, and market all favor written knowledge over oral culture. Modern living and housing makes it impossible for the old story tellers to reach everyone. The atomization of society and family means that the story-tellers at home, the grandfathers and grandmothers, are no longer there to pass on cultural wisdom to the generation of their grandchildren.
This is how the beautiful tradition withers. The link with the past disappears, the communication of cultural wisdom through story-telling breaks down and we arrive upon a society of atomized individuals at the mercy of global institutions and universalizing theologies.
The infusion of this cultural wisdom in personal life will lead to psychological comfort and an ability to find solace in hardships and adversity. Culture so infused will be the cushion of the individual against the vagaries of life. At the level of society and state, this would result in a culture-conducive policy and consequently a Nature-conducive culture, once again establishing the Continuum Paradigm, resulting in sustainable living, personal well-being and ecological harmony.
Endnotes
Eiseley, Loren. The Firmament of Time. Bison Books, 1999.
Dehejia, Harsha. The Advaita of Art. Motilal Banarsidas, 1996.
Sri Aurobindo. The Hour of God and Other Writings. Centenary Edition, Volume 17, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, 1971.
Illich, Ivan. Tools for Conviviality. Harper & Row, 1973.
Illich, Ivan. The Right to Useful Unemployment. Marion Boyars, 1996
Authored by Pankaj Saxena. Published by Brhat.