22 . ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

of an actual object, is it possible to be so absorbed in con-
templation, as thus in the making of images."

It cannot be too clearly understood that the-

-is- never, .„ thea &itti_ of

Probably no truly Indian sculpture has been
"wrought direct from a living model, or any religious-
painting copied from the life. Possibly no Hindu artist
of the old schools ever drew from nature at all. His store-
..., pictures,, his power of visualisation and his-
ere for his purpose finer ""mesSxaT^ for he

desired to suggest the Idea behind sensuous appearance,.
not to give the detail of the seeming reality, that was in
truth but may a, illusion. For in spite of the pantheistic
•accommodation of infinite truth to the capacity of finite
minds, whereby God is conceived as entering into all things,
Nature remains to the Hindu a^eil^njatLja^ J a]a^

art is to be something more than a mere imitation of this
may a, it is to manifest what lies behind. To mistake the
mayo, for reality were error indeed :

" Men of no understanding think of Me, the unmani-
f est as having manifestation, knowing not My higher being
to be changeless, supreme.

" Veiled by the Magic of My Eule (Yoga-Maya), I am
liot revealed to all the world ; this world is bewildered, and
perceives Me not as birthless and unchanging." (Bhagavad
G-ita VII., 24, 25.)

Of course, an exception to these principles in Indian
art may be pointed to in the Mughal and Rajput schools
of portrait miniature ; and this work does show that it was
no lack of power that in most other cases kept the Indian
•artist from realistic representation. But there the deliber-
ate aim is portraiture, not the representation of Divinity
or Superman, And even in the portraits there are many