48 ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

Shall he reject the imagery ready to his hand, because it
is not new and unfamiliar ? Look well at the figure, with
its first and simplest motif of victory over evil; observe-
the ring of flaming fire, the aura of His glory ; the four
hands with the elaborate symbolism of their attitude ; the
Ganges and crescent moon in His hair; the fluttering
angavastiram, and the serpent garland, and think whether
any individual artist, creating his own convention and
inventing newer symbolisms, could speak thus to the
hearts of men, amongst whom the story of Siva's dance is
a gospel and a cradle tale.

The seated Buddha (Plate Y.) is a more familiar type.
Here, too, convention and tradition are held to fetter artistic
imagination. Indian art is sometimes condemned for show-
ing no development, because there is, or is supposed to be,
110 difference in artistic conception between a Buddha of the
first century and one of the nineteenth. It is, of course,
not quite true that there is no development, in the sense
that the work of each period is altogether uncharacterised;.
for those who know something of Indian art are able to
estimate with some confidence the country to which a
statue belongs. But it is true that the conception is really
the same; the mistake lies in thinking this an artistic1
weakness. It is an expression of the fact that the Indian
ideal has not changed. What is that ideal so passionately
desired ? It is one-pointedness, same-sightedness, control:,
little by little to control the fickle and unsteady mind;
little by little to win stillness, to rein in, not merely the
senses, but the mind, that is as hard to check as is the-
wind. As a lamp that flickers not in a windless spot, so is
the mind to be at rest. Only by constant labour and
passionlessness are this peace and the realization that is its
end to be attained, "What is the attitude of mind and