AHT AND YOGA IN; INDIA. ;53

moreover they are presented perhaps in a somewhat rigid
and extreme form. Indeed, adherence to the letter rather
than to the spirit of these formulas "may have contributed
to the -ultimate decline of the very art originally developed
-on the lines of the essential truths underlying them* How-
•ever that may be, we are able to gain from these texts a
remarkable insight into the relations of art and yoga.

The artist then, or magician (sadJiaka, mantrin or
yogin) as he is called, is to proceed to a solitary place, after
purificatory ablutions, and wearing newly-washed garments.
•There he is to perform the ' Seven-fold office' beginning
with the invocation of the hosts of Budclhas and Bodhisatt-
vas in the open space before him and the offering to them
of real or imaginary flowers, and ending with a
-dedication of the merit acquired, to the welfare of ,
nil beings. Then he has to realise in thought the
four infinite qualities (love, compassion, sympathy, sarne-
•fdghtediiess). Then he must meditate on the original purity
of the first principles of things, and on (what comes to the
same thing) their emptiness or absolute non-existence.
'u By the fire of the idea of emptiness, it is said, there are
destroyed beyond recovery the five elements"" which
compose the individual consciousness. Only when the
personality of the individual is thus set aside is he able to
invoke the divinity desired to be represented, and to attain
identity, with this divinity which last condition is strictly
•enjoined. For complete comprehension is only possible
when the consciousness is thus identified with an object of
'Cognition. All this takes place in the imagination. Th«
•divinity appears ' like a reflection* or i as in a dream.' Very
rarely indeed is any drawing made use of, even in the most
^complicated conceptions, where the principal personage i&
surrounded by disciples in the centre of a 'mancMa. It is