DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45392#0411
Sculpture and Painting
or existence; the universe neither comes to be nor halts
in being.1 Life’s courses, if thou regardest them, are like
dreams and as the plantain’s branches; in reality there is
no distinction between those that are at rest and those that
are not at rest. Since then the forms of being are empty,
what can be gained, and what lost ? Who can be honoured
or despised, and by whom ?2 Whence should come joy or
sorrow? What is sweet, what bitter? What is desire,
and where shall this desire in verity be sought ? If thou
considerest the world of living things, who shall die
therein ? who shall be born, who is born ? who is a kins-
man and who a friend, and to whom ? Would that my
fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void 1
. . . righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the
Veiled Truth.”
II. SCULPTURE AND PAINTING
As little as Early Buddhism dreamed of an expression of
its characteristic ideas through poetry, drama, or music,
so little was it imagined that the arts of sculpture and
painting could be anything other than worldly in their
purpose and effect. The hedonistic prepossessions are
too strong—and this is also true of other contemporary
Indian thought—for any but a puritanical attitude toward
the arts to have been possible to the philosopher. The
arts were regarded as a sort of luxury. Thus we find
such texts as the following :
1 How like Bergson the thought that the universe never halts in
being !
2 “ He who deems This to be a slayer, and he who thinks This to be
slain, are alike without discernment; This slays not, neither is it slain.”
—Bhagavad Gita, ii, 19.
323
or existence; the universe neither comes to be nor halts
in being.1 Life’s courses, if thou regardest them, are like
dreams and as the plantain’s branches; in reality there is
no distinction between those that are at rest and those that
are not at rest. Since then the forms of being are empty,
what can be gained, and what lost ? Who can be honoured
or despised, and by whom ?2 Whence should come joy or
sorrow? What is sweet, what bitter? What is desire,
and where shall this desire in verity be sought ? If thou
considerest the world of living things, who shall die
therein ? who shall be born, who is born ? who is a kins-
man and who a friend, and to whom ? Would that my
fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void 1
. . . righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the
Veiled Truth.”
II. SCULPTURE AND PAINTING
As little as Early Buddhism dreamed of an expression of
its characteristic ideas through poetry, drama, or music,
so little was it imagined that the arts of sculpture and
painting could be anything other than worldly in their
purpose and effect. The hedonistic prepossessions are
too strong—and this is also true of other contemporary
Indian thought—for any but a puritanical attitude toward
the arts to have been possible to the philosopher. The
arts were regarded as a sort of luxury. Thus we find
such texts as the following :
1 How like Bergson the thought that the universe never halts in
being !
2 “ He who deems This to be a slayer, and he who thinks This to be
slain, are alike without discernment; This slays not, neither is it slain.”
—Bhagavad Gita, ii, 19.
323