46 ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

Universe, that is, His dance is within the cosmos and the
soul.*

" Our God/' says a Tamil text, " is the Dancer Who
like the heat latent in firewood diffuses His. Power in Mind
and matter and makes them dance in their turn." Sivan
here is one with Eros Protogonos, Lord of Life and Death,
-of whom Lucian spoke when he said, " It would seem that
-dancing came into being at the beginning of all things, and
was brought to light together with Eros, that ancient one,
for we see this primaeval dancing clearly set forth in the
choral dance of the constellations, and in the planets and
fixed stars, their interweaving and interchange and orderly
harmony."

The necessity for such an explanation emphasizes the
apparent difficulty of understanding Indian art; but it
must be remembered that the element of strangeness in
Indian art is not there for its makers and those for whom
they worked ; it speaks, as all great national art must
.speak, in a language of its own and it is evident that the
grammar of this art language must be understood before
the message can be appreciated, or the mind left free to
•consider what shall be its estimate of the artistic qualities of
a work before it.

Here then is a rough sketch, drawn by an ordinary
•craftsman, and representing very fairly just that amount
of guidance which tradition somewhat precisely hands
'Oil for the behoof of each succeeding generation of imagers.
This conception is fairly often met with in Southern
India, sculptured in stone or cast in bronze. Some of
these representations have 110 especial artistic excellence ;

* Pope, * Tiruvachagam.' p. LXIII. ; Nattasawmi Pillai
* Sivagnana BothamJ Madras, 1895, p. 74.