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New Approaches to South Asian ArtAuthor(s): Donald M. StadtnerSource: Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 4, New Approaches to South Asian Art (Winter, 1990), pp.359-362

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N e w Approacheso

South Asian A r t

By Donald M. Stadtner

hen Alexanderof Macedon ailed to

cajolehis troops ntodriving deeperinto India, Western civilization lost thefirst of many opportunities o acquaint t-self with a rich and varied culture.The

timidity of Alexander'sarmy sparedthesubcontinent rom yet one more crushinginvasion, but this brief exposuremarkedthe beginning of an enduringinterest inIndiaon the partof the West. Two millen-

nia have elapsed since Alexander'scon-quests, but his legendary curiosity aboutthe life andbeliefs of the peoples beyondthe River Indus stands as a provocativemetaphororourapproacho Indiancivili-zationtoday.

As heirs to the same tradition o whichAlexanderbelonged, we remainpoisedonthe outside of Asian cultures,looking in-side sympatheticallybut framing ques-tionsbaseduponour ownpeculiarassump-tions and values. Our posture towardAsia-from narrow, cademicconcerns oa trivial interest in the exotic-can no

longerbe sustainedon thisshrinkingglobethreatenedby nuclear war and environ-mental disaster.A deeper understandinghasbecomeimperative,also in lightof ourown society's increasing pluralism. In-deed, the success of multiculturalism,helatestbuzzword n Americancampuslife,rests n partupona receptiveand informed

professoriate, f it is not to be added to a

growing list of fads in higher education.Arthistory,unlikeinternational inanceor

geography, anplaya leadingrole, for our

study is based upon what other peopleshavecherished.

The standardsurvey

texts of art are

sprinkledwith the obligatorysections onIslam, Asia, Africa, Oceania, etc., but I

suspect hat ew arthistorians eel comfort-able introducing his unfamiliarmaterialinto crowded semesters. In the spirit of

awakeningan interest in the artof India,these essays demonstrate some of the

strongnew approaches n this discipline.The formalstudyof Indianartemerged

from the intellectual currents of earlytwentieth-century uropeandAmerica.A

pivotalfigurewas AnandaKentishCoom-araswamy1877-1947) whose philosophi-

cal approachto Indian art continues to

shapecertain hinking. Sonof aSinhalese

lawyer n Sri LankaandanEnglishmother,his mixed parentage n a colonial societyhelps to explainhis complex personality.Aftercompletinghis studiesin science atthe Universityof London,he returned oSri Lankato head the MineralogicalSur-

veyof Ceylon.During heseyearshe grewintriguedwith the traditionaland ancient

arts of his countryand wasdismayedoverthe loss of village crafts at the hands of

encroachingmodernization.His firstpub-lication, Medieval Sinhalese Art (1908),was brought out by William Morris'sKelmscottPress. A strongdiscontentwithindustrialismper se and its spread intoAsia were themes in this book that wereechoedin the latenineteenth-centurydeasof Morrisand JohnRuskin.2

ButCoomaraswamy'shief missionwasto argue that ancient Indian art was

groundedon a spiritualbase. The purestexpressionof this thinking s found in his

Transformationf Nature in Art (1934).The Indiansculptorwas thoughtto haveachievedthroughtraditional rainingandvarious forms of yoga "a highly spe-cialized techniqueof vision" that allowedhim to intuit ranscendentalorms.3 n ad-dition, there were underlying religiousconcerns hatunited heaimsof traditionalIndian art and the aesthetics of medievalWesternart. Both civilizations were moti-vated by similar philosophies that pro-duced works of art whose purposes es-chewed a narrow, literal depiction of

reality.This idealisticaspectof Indianandmedieval artwas held as an ideal

againstwhich to judge the secularismandrepre-sentationalism f theRenaissance ndsub-

sequent periods. Coomaraswamy ex-

poundedhis ideasin regular ontributionsto the Art Bulletin beginning in 1923.

Shortlybefore this he was named the first

keeperof Indianartatthe Museumof FineArts in Boston, where he assembled this

country's irstcollection of Indianart. His

publicationsand his position in Bostonmade him the discipline'ssole representa-tive in the United States for several de-cades. The arts of China and Japanhad

been promoted n this countrysomewhatearlierby ErnestFenollosa and OkakuraKukuzo, whose center was also Bostonand the Museum of Fine Arts.4

Theissues raisedby Coomaraswamyreno longer argued so forcefully, but ele-mentsof thisessentially mysticalapproachto Indianart inger in popular hinking.Itis perhaps strongest in India where thedistinctionbetweenthe materialismof the

West andthe spiritualityof India remainsan irresistible paradigm. Such thinkingcan be traced to the second half of thenineteenthcenturywhen Indian intellec-tuals,recognizing he technicalsuperiorityof the West, elevatedIndia'sspiritualheri-

tage in a broaddefense of their culture.5

English apologists for India also relishedthis dichotomy, and their writings rein-forced hesebeliefs in India tself.Manyofthese same argumentswere held in Eng-land andAmericaattheturnof thecenturyby a numberof writers and artistswhowere nfluencedby themysticallyoriented

English socialist Edward Carpenter(1844-1929). In fact, Carpenterand thisoverall interest in "Indian spirituality"have been shown recently to have had awiderimpacton the developmentof earlytwentieth-century rt in the West thanhasbeen recognizedpreviously(see ArtJour-nal, Spring1987).6

Perhapshemost colorfulfigurebelong-ing to this intellectual ineage is the Aus-trianscholar Stella Kramrisch b. 1898).She received a classical education inViennabefore he outbreak f WorldWar ,but by this time had been stronglyinflu-enced

byIndian

thought.7At the Univer-

sityof Viennashe studied hehistoryof artwithJosephStrzygowskiandMax Dvoraikwho introducedher to the ideas of Alois

Riegl. In Londonshortlyafter he warshewas invitedbyRabindranath agore ojointhe faculty at his newly formed interna-tional university,Vishvabharati, n West

Bengal. Latershe became a facultymem-ber in 1923 at the Universityof Calcutta,where she taught until 1947. For threeyearsbeforeWorldWar I, she divided hertime between Calcutta and the CourtauldInstitute n London,where she lecturedon

Winter1990 359

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Figure 1 KandariyaMahadeva emple,Chhatarpur istrict, MadhyaPradesh,ca.

A.D. 1025-50.

Indian art. Subsequently she joined thefaculty at the University of Pennsylvaniaand also was curatorof Indianart at the

PhiladelphiaMuseumof Art. In the 1960sshe became professorof Indian artat theInstitute f FineArts in New Yorkuntilherretirementn 1982.

KramrischandCoomaraswamydid not

develop a distinctive methodology, buttheirextensivepublicationshavepromoteda tendencyto interpret ndian art from a

spiritual antagepoint. In thisview,crafts-men inhabiteda timeless environment n-fused with spirituality.The planningand

constructionof the Hindu temple stoodisolatedfromchangingsocial andculturalcircumstances.This conceptionof Indian

art, which discouraged a contextualap-proach o Indian artfor an earliergenera-tion of scholars, remains at the heart of

popularwritingon India.Suchissues standin the background o severalof the essayshere that areconcernedwith the impactof

religiously nspired extson ancientsculp-tors and architects.

Thereligiousnatureof Indianart s oneof its principledistinguishingcharacteris-tics. Patronageof temples was a tangible

expressionof pious devotionby the soci-ety's elites who wereeager to accumulate

spiritualmerit. At the same time, it also

symbolizedthe powerof individualrulerswho controlledthe resourcesnecessarytoconstruct enormous stone shrines. Thesethemesareboldlyproclaimed n the dona-tive inscriptions affixed to the templesthemselves and are majorsubjects in thefewsurvivingdynasticchronicles rom an-cient India. In one such dynastichistory,for example, kings from two separatedy-nastiesraced to complete first temples ofidentical ize intheirrespectivekingdoms.

While this competitionwasfanciful,it un-derlines heimportantole thepatronage f

temples played in demonstratingroyalpoweranddevotion.Stonetemples, there-

fore, with their wealthof sculpture, ormthebasisof ourunderstandingf Indianartbeforethe appearance f Islamicdynastieswhose sponsorshipof art assumed newdirections.8

Such a specialreligiousorientationhasrestricted o agreatdegreethebasicques-tions posed by the previousgenerationofhistoriansof Indian art. The studyof In-dianarthas thusproved speciallyresistant

to newer approachesdeveloped in otherareasof arthistory.Moreover, he primarysources of information or reconstructingIndia'spastdiffergreatly romotherAsianand European traditions. This fact haschanneled research into certain areas,while it has resulted in the neglect ofothers. Monographson individualartistscommon in Westernart-historical itera-

ture, for instance, are not possible in a

sculptural tradition that was over-

whelminglyanonymous.Issues raisedbythe independentseculartraditionswithinChinese and Japaneseart also have little

direct meaning forIndianart where dis-

tinctionsbetween hereligiousand hesec-ularareblurred.

hedistinctivenature f Indianciviliza-

tion, on theotherhand,hasstimulatedtheformulation f specialapproaches y anew generationof art historians. These

approaches avenotonlychallenged nter-

pretations nheritedfrom earlier scholar-

ship but widened into areas completelyoverlookednthepast.Thelinesof inquiryfeatured n this issue areperhapsbest ap-preciated f we firstoutlinethe basic his-

tory of India and its religions and then

suggest several of the major theoreticalissues uniqueto this field.

The earliest centers of Indianciviliza-tionwerelocated n theIndusRiverValleybeginning nthethirdmillenniumB.C.Themost numerousartifacts rom this periodaresmall stone seals incised with delicateanimal iguresandcharacters elongingtoa languagethathas defiedtranslation.Bythe middle of the second millennium,muchof thesubcontinentwas overtaken ySanskrit-speakingpeoples who enteredfrom the northwest.This period saw theformulation f India'searliestreligious it-

erature,a group of texts known as the

Vedas, which stressed complex animalsacrifices o awide pantheonof deitiesandaffirmed a social structuredivided intofourdivisions, or castes. A reaction o theformalismof the Vedasandthe caste sys-tem emerged in the form of a handfulofheterodox ects. The most influentialwere

Buddhism,begunbythehistoricalBuddha

(ca. 560-480 B.c.), and Jainism. Both

faiths, small minoritiestoday,were influ-

ential in ancientIndia andexisted side byside with Hinduism, which has alwaysbeen the country's eadingreligion.

Unlike Christianity r Islam, Hinduismhas no historicalfounderor single sacredtextrepresentingtshistoryor corebeliefs.This has encouraged he emergenceof in-numerabledivisionsthat haveemphasizeda wide varietyof teachingsandpractices.That new sects are still being formed inIndia is testimony to this faith's tremen-dous elasticity.While one family may bedevoted o Krishna,anothernextdoormayhonorthe god Siva. Both families, on the

otherhand,will participaten communityfestivalsthat celebrateeitherdeity or en-

gage in ritualbathingin a nearbyriveratthe time of an eclipse.

The entiresubcontinentwas rarelyuni-fied politically, apartfrom the period ofBritishdomination. ndependent ynastiescontrolledsmall kingdomsthatcompetedwitheach other.Suchpoliticalfragmenta-tion made the subcontinenteasy preyforIslamicpowersfromAfghanistanandPer-sia thatslowly assumedgreatercontrolofIndiabeginning in the thirteenthcentury.Except in areasheld by indigenousroyal

families,extensive

patronagewas no

longer available or the creationof large-scale Hindumonuments.The Islamic in-cursions nexorablychangedthe characterof theculturalandscape,whichhadprevi-ously been relatively cohesive and insu-lated. The complex interactionbetweenHindus and Muslims flavoredthe visualarts n waysthat areonly nowbeingunder-stood. Adherents o Islamformthe largest

religiousminority,comprisingroughly12

percentof India'spopulation,whichis ex-

pectedto exceed one billionby theturnofthe century.

360 Art Journal

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Partof the uniquenessof SouthAsia isthe survivalof a rich selection of ancienttexts whose subjects deal directly with

temples and the iconographyof images.The majorityare composed in Sanskrit,the lingua franca that united the diverse

linguisticgroupsthat havecontinued ntothe twentiethcentury. Latinhada parallelrole in Europe.) Few texts are preciselydated,butmost canbeloosely attributedocertain regions. These sources contain

specific, proscriptive, iconographicin-

structionsfor the productionof images,but few of the thousandsof extant magesfromancient India conformcompletelytothe requirementscontained in the texts.

Many scholars have arguedfor the exis-tence of lost texts that wouldexplainthese

discrepancies,butperhaps t is more con-

vincingto see these rules as an attempt ointroduce and implementuniformityandcontrol into an artistic milieu that wasmarked in fact by intense diversity,re-

gionaltraits,and ndividual nterpretationson the partof artisans.The texts wereun-

doubtedlycompiledby socially conserva-

tivemembersof society,and heir onemayreflect a complex and changing relation-

ship among various social groups in an-cient India. Such literaturewas not pro-duced n otherAsiancountries,apart romthe Buddhist iconographic manuals ofChinaandJapan,which themselvescan betraced o India.

Anotheroriginal facet of South Asianart is its conservative nature. Few suchancient civilizations have so tenaciouslypreservedheir raditions.Vedicrituals or-mulated in the first millenniumB.C. arestill performed in Madras by brahman

priests;and ancientpilgrimagesites, suchas Varanasion the banks of the Ganges,continue to draw Hindu pilgrims from

throughoutndia.I oncequizzeda wander-

ing ascetic about the origin of a certain

type of wooden bead featured n his neck-lace. He repliedwithout hesitationthat itwasassociatedwith thedeitySiva,andthat

"onlya fool" would doubtthatits use didnot stretch back centuries in time. I was

naturally kepticaluntil months aterI dis-covered n anancient extan entirechapterdevoted to these beads. The survival ofsuch traditionscontinuallyastonishes themoder researcher.At the sametime,these

traditions eflect innumerable ransforma-tions; ritualprayers rom the Vedas wereintoned nthe samewayovermillennia,butthecontextwasinperpetual lux. In a simi-larvein, although heirsurfaceappearancedisplayed a remarkable continuity, the

meaning of artistic forms was also con-

stantlychanging.Traditionsweremaintainedby artisans'

guildswhose membershipswereprobablybaseduponcaste.Pattern ookscontainingdesigns used by craftsmen have not sur-vived, but the widespread presence of

common motifs argues stronglyfor theiruse. Rarely did craftsmen inscribe theirnames on works, and so it has been diffi-cult to identify "schools" or to tracethe

development f anindividual culptor.Ar-chitects' names areoccasionallyrecordedin donative nscriptionsbelongingto tem-

ples, butwe also know little of theirtrain-

ing and social background. Anthropolo-gists investigating moder craftsmen's

organizations may provide informationthatart historianscan

cautiouslyapplyto

the ancientperiod.Another unusual facet of South Asian

art is its subtle butpowerful nterplaybe-tween asceticism and sensuality.Asceti-cism was embodied in the lifestyle of

priestsandmendicants,who wereactivelypatronizedby noblesand merchants agerto accruemerit. Sensualitywas embraced

by courtiersandtownspeople n theirpur-suitof belles lettresanda lifestyledevotedto pleasure. A passage from a tenth-

centurystoneinscriptiondescribinga citysuccinctly captures his spirit:"love-lornladies, having eyes as pretty as lotus-

petals, desiring their lovers, walk about. . on the roads wherethe finehousesof

their sweet-heartsare shownby the glow,emanatingrom hose eaping lamesof thesacrificialfire, fed by the clarified butterthrown n by theBrahmana riests ...."9

The life portrayedn this passage andcountlessothershad ittle to do withevery-dayreality,but it is noteworthy hattheseculturalcharacteristics ormed the ideal.Theplayful uxtaposition f imageryat theheartof this ancientpassage typifies the

ways in which asceticism and sensualityenhanced one another. While society's

elites wereexpectedto relish sensualplea-sure,mendicantswerepresumedo adoptalife of asceticism.Paradoxically,hese fea-tures were not viewed as opposites, butacted togetherto providea dynamicten-sion in Indiancivilization. Theseenduringtendenciesareprobably t the rootof muchof India's so-called erotic art, whichscholars are still seeking to understand.

(Expliciteroticsculpture ccursonly rela-

tively late in India's ong sculptural radi-tion, and its use is not as widespreadas is

popularlybelieved.)Sensuous magery s,of course, a current n Westernreligiousliterature,but its specialuse in India,and

its possible relation to stone sculpture,seem to be unique.

Subjectsfavored n traditionalWesternsculpturewererarelyof interest o the In-dianartisan,whose work wascenteredondeities intended or stonetemples.Deitiesinhabited mythic Himalayanmountainsthat were likened to the temples them-selves (fig. 1).This fundamental otion is

conveyed in a donative inscription inwhich the god Siva is so pleasedwith the

splendorof the shrinethat he "has neverturnedhis thoughts o dwellingon Mount

Kailasa[apeaksacred o Siva in the Hima-

layas]."10Sculpture,therefore,enhancedthis correspondencebetween the templeand a mythical, celestial world; theetherealworld of mythwas madetangible(fig. 2). This strong focus on myth mayalso explain, in part, why Indianartexpe-riencedno "renaissance,"or emulationofearlierhistoricalperiods.This specialem-

phasispartiallyexplainswhy the subjectstaken up by the Indian artist differed so

greatlyrom hose common nWesternart,

suchasportraiture,hedepictionof histori-cal events, and landscapes.These themesbecame important n Indiaonly upon thearrivalof foreign dynasties afterthe thir-teenth century,which introducedIslamicand Persianconceptionsof the visual arts.

he studyof Indian art did notjoin themainstreamof arthistoryin America

until as late as the 1950s. An early figurewas BenjaminRowland,Jr.(1904-72), atHarvardUniversity,whose varied nterestsincludedIndia. His standardhistoryof In-

dian art in the Pelican series was first is-suedin 1953. (Harvard ontinued ts com-mitment o IndianartfollowingRowland'sretirement by establishing an endowedchair.)Sincetheearly1960steachingposi-tions havebeen slowly added to majorart

historyprograms, orexample,at the Uni-

versityof Chicago, the Universityof Cali-forniaat Berkeleyand Los Angeles, Stan-ford University, the University of

Pennsylvania, ndColumbiaUniversity.Asufficient number of scholars were en-

gaged in this study by the late 1960s toformthe AmericanCommitteefor South

Asian Art. This organization ponsorsna-tional symposia and panels at the annual

meetings of the College Art Associationand issues a biannualnewsletter. ts mem-bers also include those involvedwith theartistic raditions f CentralAsia in China,Nepal, Tibet, and the various countries

making up SoutheastAsia. Each of theseareaswasheavilytouchedbyancient ndia,but thenatureof this influenceandindige-nouscontributionsarehotly debated.

Oncampuses n India tself the studyofarthistoryhasbeen closely tied to depart-ments specializing in archaeologyor In-dian culture. A movement has

emergedwithin the lastdecade,however,dedicatedtoredefining hepositionof thefield withinthehumanities.An associationof arthisto-rians formedrecently n India has contrib-uted to a sense of a common mission and

identity.Studies centeringon broader s-sues are also increasing. One especiallyinnovative pproachracesartistic ineagesandstyles throughanexaminationof writ-ten recordspreservedat pilgrimage sitesvisitedby artistsover the last two hundred

years.Thisis one exampleof how acertain

type of historical source that is virtually

Winter1990 361

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Figure 2 MusiciansandDancer,PuranaMahadevaemple,Harshagiri,SikarDistrict, Rajasthan, a. A.D. 950-75, sandstone,131/8x 37/4 inches. The ClevelandMuseum of Art, John L. SeveranceFund,69.34.

unique o Indiacan shedlighton the visual

arts.The leading collections of Indian artoutside India were for many years found

only in England, at the British Museumandthe VictoriaandAlbertMuseum.TheMusee Guimet in Paris houses probablythemostoutstanding ollectionon the con-tinent, although its Indian holdings areovershadowed by its Southeast Asianworks drawn from France's ormer colo-nies. Significantcollections in the UnitedStates today include the Los AngelesCountyMuseumof Art, theBrooklynMu-seum, the PhiladelphiaMuseum of Art,the Asian Art Museumin San Francisco,the ClevelandMuseumof Art, the Metro-politanMuseumof Art in New York,andthe Museumof FineArts, Boston.

AlthoughIndia s a signatoryof UNES-CO agreementsgoverning he exportationof stolenartworks,publicdiscussionof theethics of collecting Indian art has beenrathermutedcomparedto spectacularre-cent cases involving classical art or pre-Columbianworks.Nonetheless,theillegalremovalof Indianart is a problem n lightof the appetite of private collectors and

publiccollections, servedby thegreatauc-tion houses and art dealers worldwide.

NortonSimon'sunforgivable emark bouta spectacularSouthIndianbronze igure nhis collectionstill ranklesIndians.("Hell,yes, it was smuggled. I spentbetween$15million and $16 million over the last twoyears on Asian art, and most of it was

smuggled.")"1Few arthistorianscan citeexamples of temple sites they have re-

visited that have not been the object of

some looting.Although the study of Indian art onAmerican campuses has grown immeas-

urably ince theearly1970s,ourdisciplineis very much a newcomer.Relativelyfewart history programs, therefore, offercourses in Indian or even Asian art. Inaddition,althoughthe field has a numberof old andrespected ournals,such as Ar-tibusAsiae, Ars Orientalis,andArchives

ofAsianArt, less thana handfulof articleson Indiahaveappeared ver he lasttwentyyearsin the Art Bulletin. To the wider art-historicalcommunity, he art of India re-mains somewhatoutside the mainstream.As art historianswhose mission includes

interpretinghe past, ourexplorationsareenrichedby understanding ifferent ivili-zations that raise original theoreticalis-sues. Thetwinaims of thefollowingessaysare, herefore,o introduce omeof thenew

questions being asked in this field and toinvitearthistoriansworking n other areasto examine parallel connections in theirown investigations.

Donald M. Stadtner s associate

professorof art historyat the Universityof Texasat Austin.His publicationshavedealt with northIndiansculptureandarchitectureand morerecentlywiththeart of Burma.A studyof an importantfifteenth-century oyalBurmese ite will

appear in aforthcoming ssue of the ArtBulletin.

Notes

1 Roger Lipsey,Ananda K. Coomaraswamy:His

Lifeand Work, vols. (Princeton:PrincetonUni-

versityPress, 1977).2 ParthaMitter,MuchMalignedMonsters:History

of European Reactions to Indian Art (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1977).

3 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy,The Transformation

ofNature nArt(1934; New York:Dover Publica-

tions, 1956), 5.

4 LawrenceW. Chisholm,Fenollosa: The Far East

and AmericanCultures NewHaven:YaleUniver-

sity Press, 1963).5 RomilaThapar,A History of India(London:Pen-

guin Books, 1966), vol. 1, 16.

6 LindaDalrympleHenderson,"Mysticismas the

'Tie ThatBinds': The Case of EdwardCarpenterandModernism,"Art Journal46 (Spring1987):29-37.

7 BarbaraStolerMiller, ed., Exploring ndia'sSa-

cred Art: Selected Writingsof Stella Kramrisch

(Philadelphia:Universityof PennsylvaniaPress,

1983). This work contains a biographicalessay.8 Ancient sources estifytotremendously ichsecu-

lar artistic traditionsranging over such diverse

topicsas muralpainting, voryand woodcarving,and extiles. Palacearchitecture asnormally xe-

cuted in perishablematerials,such as wood and

brick. That so few objects or structuresn these

categories have survived contributes o our em-

phasison religiousart.

9 Epigraphia ndica, vol. 35 (1960-61), 86.10 Ibid., vol. 1(1892), 213.

11 Karl E. Meyer,The Plundered Past (New York:

Atheneum,1973), 145.

362 Art Journal

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