THE AIMS AND METHODS OF INDIAN ART. 2£

and given themselves over to Me, worship Me in medita-
tion, with whole hearted yoga.

" These speedily I lift up from the sea of death and
life, O Partha, their minds being set -on Me." (Bhnganad
Gita, XII., 5-7.)

.And so it is, that u any Indian man or woman will
worship at the feet of some inspired wayfarer who tells-.
them that there can be no image of God, that the world
itself is a limitation, and go straightway, . as the natural
consequence, to pour water on the head of the Siva-
lingam."* Indian religion has accepted art, as it has
accepted life in its entirety, with open eyes. India, with
all her passion for renunciation, has never suffered from
that terrible blight of the imagination which confuses the
ideals of the ascetic and of the citizen. The citizen is
indeed to be restrained ; but the very essence of his method
is that he should learn restraint or temperance by life, not
by the rejection of life. For him, the rejection of life, called
Puritanism, would be m-temperance.

What then of the true ascetic,t with his ideal of
renunciation ? It has been thought by many Hindus and
Buddhists, as it has by many Christians, that rapid spiritual
progress is compatible only with an ascetic life. The goal
before us all is salvation from the limitation of individuality,,
and realisation of unity with Unconditioned Absolute-
Being. Before such a goal can be attained even the

* Okakura, ^Ideals of the East,7 p. 65.

t True asceticism is a search fora reality beyond.conditioned
Hfe. "If we are to be excused for rejecting tbe arts, it must lie-
not because we are contented to be less than men, but because wa
long to be more than men."— William Morris.

All others who reject the arts, are able to do so only because
their ideal is one of purely material prosperity; they are willing to-
be less than men. "But Industry without art is brutality."—
RusTcin.