The Himalayas in Indian Art

The hunger and thirst, the 'Arils of dashing streams and freezing blizzard, the pain of writhing under heavy burdens, the anxiety of wandering over trackless wilds, the exhaustion and the lacerations, all the troubles and sufferings I had just come through, seemed like dust which was washed away and purified by the spiritual waters of the lake ; and thus I attained to the spiritual plane of the No [...] Yet there are reminiscences of the four " gates " in the four ornaments which mark the corners of the capital, and there is sufficient resemblance in the whole design to show the derivation of the capital 6. -PILLAR OF THE WORLD LOTUS, AJANTA. [...] But the body of Sati is hewn into fifty-two pieces, and wherever a fragment touches the earth a new shrine is established and Siva himself shines before the supplicant as the guardian of that spot. ' One of the most celebrated of these fifty-two tirths, literally fords, by which the pilgrim can pass over the river of re-birth into the bliss of Nirvana, is at Ellora in the dominions of the Nizam of [...] " By"46 THE ARTIST'S RITUAL the fire of the idea of emptiness, says the text, " the five elements of individual consciousness are destroyed beyond recovery. " The identity of the yogin or image- maker being thus merged with that of the divinity invoked, he has but to utter the appropriate mystic syllable which contains what is called the " germ " of the divinity, to make the proper gesture, or mud [...] On the lid of the casket the image of Buddha, worshipped by Kanishka himself, is placed on Brahma's throne, as described in the Vishnu Purdna, like the seed-vessel of the lotus. " The expanded petals of the flower cover the lid.