30_. ESSAYS IN NAfJONAL, IDEALISM^ . -

highest intellectual and emotional attachments must
be put away; art, like all else in time and space, must
Ibe transcended. Great art suggests ideal forms in terms
•of the appearances of the phenomenal world; . but
what is art to one that toils upon the TTnshown Way,
rseeking to transcend all limitations of the human intellect
i^o reach a plane of being unconditioned even by ideal
form ? For such an one, the most refined and intellectual
•delights are but flowery meadows where men may linger
.and delay, while the strait path to utter truth waits
vainly for the traveller's feet. This thought explains the
belief that absolute emancipation is hardly won by any but
human beings yet incarnate; it is harder for the Gods
'to attain such release, for their pure and exalted bliss
.ajad knowledge are attachments even stronger than these
of earth. And so we find such an instruction as this :

""Form, sound, taste, smell, touch, these intoxicate
beings; cut off the yearning which is inherent in them."—
(Dhammika Sutta).

The extreme expressions of this thought seem to us
more terrible than even the * coldness of Christian men to
•external beautyJ; we feel this, for instance, in reading
the story of the Buddhist monk, Chitta Gutta, who dwelt
in a certain cave for sixty years without ever raising his
eyes above the ground so far as to observe the beautifully
painted roof ; nor was he ever aware of the yearly fiower-
Ing of a great na-tree before his cave, except through seeing
the pollen fallen upon the ground. But Indian thought
•has never dreamed of imposing such ideals upon the citizen,
whose dharnia lies, not in the renunciation of action, but in
right action without attachment to its fruits ; and for such,
who must ever form the great majority of the people, art
is both an aid to, and a means of spiritual progress. Thi$