CHAPTER V.

INDIA, PERSIA, ASSYRIA, AND BABYLON.

Our tree of art, with its manifold branches, flowers, and fruits, rooted in the unknown origin of the three great groups of humanity, shows that the Negro, or black branch, had a very short growth. It still lives on in savage art, but is crippled, and has no vitality. Next we have seen the long line of Turanian art, represented by the Chinese; it originates in the geological age, passes through the mythical, traditional, and historical periods, and continues uninterruptedly to modern times. We have up to this point treated of the artistic productions of the Negro and Turanian groups, both of which stand without the pale of real history.

We now take up the art-history of the Aryan, the historical group. The birth-place of this group undoubtedly was Central Asia. Thence the pure Aryan group took two divergent roads. One division crossed over the Himâlâya Mountain chain, and settled round the Brahmapootra, the Indus and Ganges rivers, and the other remained on this side of the mountains. The Aryans may, therefore, be best divided into Trans-Himâlâyans and Cis-Himâlâyans. In these two groups we find the oldest traces of a power slowly awakening to full consciousness. We can perceive in remote ages, only measurable by means of analogy and deduction, an endeavour to solve the greatest problems of our existence.

To find answers to these _three_ questions: Where from? What for? Where to? To measure the _three_ dimensions of space and time; to trace the cause of which the _three_, ever stable and still ever varying, phenomena are the effect; and to know what creation, preservation and annihilation, or rather only transformation, are, has been the chief aim of the Aryan mind; and, as history teaches us, they have found more or less distinct answers to these questions. We are not only capable of philologically tracing the development of the different languages of the Aryan group step by step to one common parent-language--the Sanskrit, but the art-historian may trace every mysterious conception of the powers of nature, every form of personification or incarnation, and every religious tenet or mystery, symbol or myth, to these same Indians, who with the words _Pitâ_, _Matâ_, _Brahtâ_, _Duihtâ_, have taught us the holiest relations of our family life. For words, like pictures, are only representatives of outward impressions. To the Trans-and Cis-Himâlâyan Aryans we can trace all theogonies, cosmogonies, systems of esoteric pathology and mythic anthropology. They first saw in geometrical forms the phenomena of the material as well as the spiritual world; gave meaning and interpretation to these mystic types; peopled heaven and earth with visible and invisible, good and evil, gods, goddesses, and spirits. They first acknowledged the ‘noumenal,’ or invisible, divine nature with its creative force; and recognised the ‘phenomenal,’ or visible, nature of the world as an emanation, evolution, development, outgrowth, or mere work of the invisible Creator. All the gods of the Persians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and a great number of the customs of Hebrews and Christians, may be traced back to Indian conceptions, forms, and modes of worship.

Not historical events only, but the whole life of humanity centres round religion. For science and art were in olden times the direct offsprings of religion. Neither science nor art can be understood, unless we have a clear insight into the mythologies and religious conceptions of the ancient peoples. Our great mistake has been, that till very lately we detached one of the different branches of the tree of knowledge. We criticised its bark, leaves, blossoms, and fruits separately, never concerning ourselves about the ramifications of the root, the soil in which it first spread, the chemical substances on which it fed, the conditions of climate under which it flourished or withered, never enquiring whether it brought forth only flowers and never fruits, or for what purposes its fruits and flowers were used by those who gathered both. Now without such understanding artists are mere unconscious machines, groping in the dark of ignorance, never capable of a clear reproduction of forms. Education and a higher conception flow like invisible magnetic streams through the hand, whether it hold pencil, paint-brush, chisel, or engraver’s needle, and endow the work of art with a vitality which forms its real charm. It is never the technical correctness that appeals to us most strongly when contemplating even the smallest work of art, but the thought which animated the artist when constructing his forms.

Whilst the savage scarcely ever acquires a correct notion of time and space, and the Turanian only a limited one, the Aryan gathers from them the first dim recognition of the Infinite. In time and space perceptible changes take place, through the influence of an invisible power which creates all visible things. In time and space all created things are preserved, and in time and space all either perish or assume different forms. The Aryans endeavoured to express these abstract, yet concrete phenomena by signs. A triangle with three equal sides appeared best to express the mystery of the three equally powerful forces--creation, preservation, and transformation.

In the very earliest dawn of civilisation, therefore, the triangle became the hallowed symbol of the Divinity. After the _Symbolic_ and _Dialectic_ period had given place to the _Mythological_, time and space were looked upon as the origin of all things, out of which Brahmā, Vishnu, and S’iva had sprung. These three incomprehensible forces were expressed by geometrical figures, or, so to speak, crystallised, before they became incarnate persons. The creator had the sign of a double triangle [Illustration: (apexes upwards)] which formed three triangles symbolically representing the three forces in ONE, the CREATOR. Vishnu was designated by an equilateral triangle with the apex pointing downwards, [Illustration] meaning the preserver; whilst S’iva had for his symbol a triangle with the apex upwards, [Illustration] denoting the transformer.

The divinities were placed in the following order: S’iva first, then Vishnu, and Brahmā last, to whom no temples were built. This was the case with nearly all the races of the Aryan group; there are scarcely any temples to Amn, Brahmă, Zeruane-Akerene, Uranos, Wodan, &c.

The order of the symbols, as given below, with their five significations--

produced the most sacred word--

=⋀VM= or =ÔM=,

expressed by this triangular combination--

This was the mysterious TRIMURTY of the Indians, from which in time, according to the influences of nature, the degree of intellectual development, and the social and political condition of the different groups of the Aryan races, grew the different mystic conceptions of the _triune_ power in _one_, working in nature.

Whilst the Trans-Himâlâyans, influenced by a gorgeous nature, allowed their imagination to run wild, and to distort the primitive mystic simplicity of these religious conceptions, the Cis-Himâlâyans remained more faithful to the first impressions of nature, and worshipped Light and Fire as the symbols of intellect, righteousness, and virtue, in opposition to Night, as the symbol of ignorance, injustice, and sin. To the triangular forms, the circle, [Illustration: (circle)] the serpent, was added, the form without beginning and end; no wonder that, encircling the equilateral triangle and joined to the square, it became the symbol of the mysterious, incomprehensible forces of nature. The [Illustration: triangle, square, and the circle] united, intersected, combined, isolated, and crossed, formed the fundamental lines of temples and their decorations. It was only at a later period that animal and monstrous human forms were conceived to personify abstract divine powers. The attributes of Ether, Water (Indra), and Fire (Agni), were transformed into acting persons. The three equal sides of the triangle, influenced by the imagination of the expounders of matters divine, were changed into an individual with three heads, so as to give a more comprehensible form to the incomprehensible divine power.

The Trans-Himâlâyans, once settled on the gigantic triangular peninsula stretching into the Indian Ocean, had leisure to work out a vast theogony, which has served the Aryans down to our own days as a store-house for different mythologies and religious systems.

The _Divespiter_ of India (Deus pater, Jupiter) became the Lord of the sky, the Lord of hosts; his weapon was the thunderbolt. He possessed a splendid garden, the paradise, _nandana_.

_Gânesa_ is Janus, the god with two heads. He was the guardian of ways; he had a _rod_ or _sceptre_ in his hand (the shepherd’s crook or crosier) and a _key_--symbolic of his power to enter upon all the important undertakings of mankind.

_S’rî_ or _S’rîs_ (Seris--Ceres), also _Lakshmî_, _Padmâ_, and _Camalâ_, was the goddess of abundance, sprung from the sacred Lotus.

_S’iva_, the Greek _Zeus_, the Egyptian _Jao_, the Hebrew _Javeh_, the Roman _Jovis_, with their analogous attributes of revenge, jealousy, indomitable caprices, terror, and irreconciliation, all point to one and the same origin. Of S’iva (as of Zeus, Jovis, or Javeh elsewhere) it is recorded in Indian mythology that he had to fight with Daityas (Titans, or fallen angels), the children of Dity. Indra, on this occasion, provided the God of Fire, Justice, and Transformation with fiery shafts. Again, Jove overthrew the Titans and giants, whom Typhon, Bisareus, and Tityus led against the ruler of Olympus. The same is done by Javeh or Jehovah, who hurled the legions of proud and overbearing angels under Satan’s rule into the infernal regions. The analogy is too striking to require any further comment.

_Paulastya_ (the Greek and Roman _Pluto_), or _Kuvêra_, the Egyptian _Typhon_, the Hebrew _Satan_, bears a general family resemblance to the conceptions of the chiefs of the lower regions.

_Garuda_, the beautiful bird with a lovely human face attending on Vishnu, is the prototype of the youthful, blooming _Ganymede_ attending on Zeus, not only in similarity of name, but especially in similarity of function.

_Durga_, who takes her name from brandishing a lance, is, like _Pallas_ or _Minerva_, the Indian representative of heroic valour and reflecting wisdom. Both _Durga_ and _Pallas_ slew demons and giants with their own hands; both protected the wise and virtuous who paid them due respect and adoration. _Seraswati_ and Minerva have also much in common. The Minerva of Italy invented the flute, and Seraswati presided over melody.

_Is’wara_ and _Is’i_ of India are undoubtedly the originals of Osiris and Isis.

_Dypuc_ read backwards gives us _Cupid_. The Indian name is derived from _De’paka_, the inflamer. The mischief-maker of India and Greece had one and the same name. We find his name and character in Shakespeare’s masterly delineation of _Puck_.

These analogies go much farther and deeper than is at first sight apparent.

_S’iva_ is said to have had three eyes, symbolic of the three dimensions of time. A serpent, denoting the measurement of time by years, formed his necklace. A second necklace of human skulls marked the lapse and revolution of ages, and the extinction and succession of the generations of mankind. He holds a trident in one hand, signifying that the attributes of the other gods are united in him. S’iva is also called _Trilôchana_ (three looks--_lôchan_, the eye, the look). Pausanias tells us that Zeus was honoured with the name of _Triophthalmos_ (three-eyed), and that a statue of Jupiter had been found at the taking of Troy exhibiting the father of the gods with a third eye in his forehead.

Vishnu appeared on earth in several incarnations. The Indians look upon the planets as habitable. The sun was set down as the motor, directing the movements of these planets, furnishing them with light, and endowing them with the genial heat of vitality. _Krishna_ (the black or blue one) was, like the Greek Apollo, the symbol of the sun, of light, of purity, and of love. He is represented as the promised Saviour, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu. According to the Vedas, the Earth complained to Vishnu, and demanded redress. It then received the promise of a Comforter and of a total renovation. Time is then said to have hastened to the birth of _Krishna_, ‘that bright offspring of the gods, who sets forward on his way to signal honours. The world with its globular, ponderous frame, nodding signs of congratulation, when the _sweet babe_ will distinguish his mother by her smiles!’ Krishna, whom the Samaritans believed to have been Joshua, the long hoped-for Messiah, at last appeared on earth, where he passed a life of a most extraordinary and incomprehensible nature. He is said to have been the son of _Devaki_, a virgin, by King _Vasudévas_, but his birth was concealed for fear of the tyrant _Kansa_, his uncle, to whom it had been predicted that a child, born of that mother, would destroy him, and put an end to his dominion. Krishna had to hide, and was brought up in _Mal’hurâ_ by honest herdsmen. He performed most amazing miracles, saved multitudes by his supernatural powers, raised the dead, and descended into the infernal regions of Pátàla, where the king of serpents, Séshánàga (suggestive of the name of Satana), ruled, that he might reanimate the six sons of a pious Brahman, who had been killed in battle. Krishna obtained a glorious victory on the banks of the _Yamuná_ over the great serpent _Kaliya Nága_, which poisoned the air, destroying the herds of that region. _Apollo_ also destroyed with his arrows the serpent Python. The whole legend, in both instances, took its origin in the action of the rays of the sun, purifying the air, and dispersing the noxious vapours of the atmosphere, which bred loathsome animals. Krishna and Apollo are thus identical in their actions. Krishna is disappointed by Tulasi, Apollo by Daphne; both conceptions liked the companionship of shepherds and shepherdesses. The _Tulasi_ (or lotus) was sacred to Krishna, as the _Laurus_ (laurel) to Apollo.

These and similar legends ought to be studied by artists to enable them not only to understand Indian art from a higher point of view, but to learn that many a monstrous form had a sacred symbolic meaning, that outward signs may be hallowed by hidden conceptions; and that, wherever this is the case, art will not succeed in reaching the bright spheres of beauty. The finest sculptured Durga without her necklace of human skulls, the protruding red tongue, the four arms with outstretched fingers balancing severed human heads, &c., would no longer convey to the mind of an Indian worshipper the idea of the goddess of valour and wisdom. Thus we may understand how a baked clay Indian idol, in spite of its revolting form, may be the symbol of some grand idea, through which it obtains value in the eyes of the credulous believer. In considering the causes that produced the peculiar development of Indian art, we must not omit to refer to the continually increasing power of the Brahmans.

Symbolism and mysticism were used by the priests of all ancient nations for thousands of years in preparing intoxicating draughts of superstition for the people, and proving the necessity for making sacrifices. At first depraved passions only were to be sacrificed, but by degrees they tried to typify those passions by animals, with analogous propensities. Goats became the representatives of licentiousness; bulls, types of indomitable fury and insubordination; and these animal types were offered to the gods. As soon as the priests had convinced the people that the blood of animals, the smoke from their burning bodies, the odour of roasting sheep, might appease the anger of S’iva, fanaticism went a step further, and drew human beings into the awful vortex of prejudice, and thousands of men and women were crushed, joyfully screaming, under the heavy wheels of Jugurnaut’s, S’iva’s, or Harris’s cars. Men and women were burned alive; intellectual progress stopped, asceticism and blind submission to priestly despotism were enforced, and the possibility of a progressive art was crushed for thousands of years.

This desolate state of society required reform, and _Manû_ stepped forward. He divided society into four distinct layers: the Brahmans, Kshattryas, Vaisyas, and S’udras, of which the two first were Aryans, the third caste Turanians, and the fourth Negroes; consequently, in spite of the excellence of his laws, which were assumed to have been dictated by Brahma himself, no real art was possible.

The Indians have two great national epic poems, containing nearly the whole substance of all the epic poems of the other Aryan races, and the many scenes from the Ramâyâna and Mahâbhârata in carvings and sculptures stand in the same relation to Greek art, as these poems to the Iliad and Odyssee. In both, scenes of heroism are displayed; but, whilst symmetry and proportion rule in the Greek poems, fantastic irregularity, wild incongruities, exaggerations and impossibilities are heaped up in the Indian. The beauty of some thought is effaced by overburdened metaphors, gushing forth in an endless stream like the waters of the Ganges. There are passages in the 28,000 double verses of the Ramâyâna surpassing anything written.

As an indisputable proof I will quote a few lines from the opening passages of the Ramâyâna. The gods are assembled before the first, incomprehensible cause, and address it in the following words:--

O Thou, whom _three_fold might and splendour veil, _Maker_, _Preserver_, and _Transformer_, hail! Thy gaze surveys this world from clime to clime, Thyself immeasurable in space and time: To no corrupt desires, no passions prone: Unconquered conqueror, infinite, unknown; Though in one form Thou veil’st Thy might divine, Still, at thy pleasure, every form is Thine. Pure crystals thus prismatic hues assume, As varying lights and varying tints illume; Men think Thee absent, Thou art ever near; Pitying those sorrows which Thou ne’er canst fear. Unsordid penance Thou alone canst pay; Unchanged, unchanging--old without decay: Thou knowest all things--who Thy praise can state? Createdst all things--Thyself uncreate!

The endeavour to give forms to such sublime abstractions made the Indians lose their regulating power in pictorial and plastic art. A god was to be made powerful, and he was provided with four or twenty arms, and three heads. The miraculous and symbolic were the greatest enemies of Indian art.

In the Mahâbhârata, exceeding Homer’s combined poems seven times in quantity, having not less than 110,000 double verses, we read of sentiments, feelings, and deeds which are our own--but nothing is within the pale of the credible. The birth of all the heroes is miraculous. Their deeds surpass the standard of human acts. They constantly associate with the gods, talk, argue, and dispute with them; their palaces are of immeasurable grandeur and splendour: ivory gates inlaid with jewels, golden pillars, diamond thrones, glittering with the splendour of a thousand suns; their armies are reckoned by millions; their heroes uproot trees, and kill hundreds of thousands at one blow; time and space have no meaning with them. Kings reign 27,000 years; Prathama-Raja reigned 6,300,000 and lived 8,400,000 years.[1] How could art in a higher sense exist under such conditions?

[1] By striking off the zeros, which are put on by the Brahmans _out of respect_, the figures may be reduced to some natural compass of possibility.

Art in a more comprehensible form appeared in India only when Buddha came to attempt a second regeneration of the people. He abolished castes, preached equality and freedom, and succeeded in awakening a high force of artistic activity in the dreamy Indians. But their art was altogether confined to the construction of rock-hewn temples, of stupas, topes, and religious buildings--architectural constructions in comparison with which even our greatest cathedrals dwindle into mere child’s play. Their works of art are tinged with the same exaggerations as their great heroic poems, and when Buddhism was stamped out in its birth-place about the seventh century A.D., the Brahmans constructed their temples, vying with those of the Buddhist artists in architectural grandeur. They went back to their monstrosities, but they could no longer check the artistic power of the Aryan spirit.

The rock-hewn and isolated temples of India have details in stucco, of ornamentation, foliage, and general decoration, which, like their mythology, their heroic poems, and their abstruse philosophy, went through all the artistic metamorphoses of pliable, plastic, elastic and solid substances. In all we observe an unbounded play of imagination, uncontrolled by any law of symmetry. The walls are decorated with the most exquisite shawl and lace patterns, either in stucco or hewn in stone; a proof that before the application of those delicate forms to wall decorations they must have existed as textile fabrics of high finish. The rock-hewn temples exhibit clear imitations of rafters and cross-beams; wood had, therefore, been long in use before they attempted to imitate it in stone. Their sculptures are wood-carvings, terra-cotta or plaster-of-Paris works, turned into stone. The pliability of the softer materials visibly predominates. The gateways before the Sanchi Tope (see the masterly cast of one of these in the South Kensington Museum), though hewn in stone, are a close imitation of wooden posts and cross-beams joined together. This imitation is so faithful that even the rough and crooked outlines of the badly-cut posts and beams are preserved. The richness and variety of their decorative patterns, as also the minuteness of the details, prove that such patterns must have been carved in wood or fashioned in clay long before they were executed in the harder material--stone. Stucco must have served as a means of transition from wood-carving to sculpture. In the Ramâyâna the town of Agodhyá, built by _Manû_ (the father and lawgiver of _man_kind), is thus described: ‘It was adorned with beautiful palaces, high as mountains, and with houses of many stories; everything shining as in Indra’s heaven. Its aspect had a charming effect. The town was enlivened by ever-changing colours; regular bowers and sweetly-blooming trees delighted the eyes. It was full of precious stones. Its walls were covered with variegated-coloured fields resembling a chess board,’ &c.; the latter allusion giving a description of tesselated or mosaic work with which the walls must have been decorated. In a description of a palace in the Sakuntalâ, by Kalidâsa, who lived a century B.C., we read: ‘Over the gate rises an arch of ivory; above it float flags of a deep yellow hue, the tassels of which appear to beckon and to call to you: Step in--step in. The _panels_ of the door are of gold and stucco, glittering like the diamond breast of a god. Look here! there is a row of palaces shining like the moon, like shells, like the stem of a water-lily. _The stucco is laid on as thick as a hand._ Golden steps adorned with different stones lead to the higher rooms, from which _crystal_ windows surrounded with pearls look down, glittering like the bright eyes of a beautiful maiden.’ The passage that the stucco was laid on as thick as a hand can only mean that the ornament was worked in relief. Richly-painted ornamentation in stucco with mosaic and other patterns must therefore have existed. These undoubtedly originated, like the Persian, Assyrian, and Babylonian wall-decorations, in textile fabrics, which, having been found to perish too quickly, were made of a stronger, more durable material, preserving, however, all the character of the original patterns and material.

The Indians are distinguished by a keen observation of nature, and, so far as the conventional treatment of flowers, fruits, creepers, trees, and animals is concerned, we may learn much from them; but we have carefully to avoid their over-ornamentation. In their treatment of architecture, want of subordination of the single parts to a well-proportioned total is the greatest fault; in their sculptures of the human figure, the soft and waving lines predominate, creating a kind of voluptuous sensuality which is entirely opposed to good sculpture. Their naturalism is objectionable, and leads to a wild, fantastic coarseness which can never be pardoned in art. Measure and harmony are wanting. Gorgeous and mean, powerful and petty, sublime and ugly, are their products. Indian art, religion, and poetry are so closely united that it is impossible to understand the one without a diligent study of the other two. We have in Indian art the first attempts of humanity to step out of childhood. To children, wisdom is best communicated in symbols, mystic signs, fables, legends, and fairy-tales, and therefore Indian art is distinguished by these characteristics. The _tupo_, _sutupo_ or _sutheouphu_, from the Sanskrit _stûpa_, a heap (our word _top_) or a pile of earth, corresponding to a tumulus, was at the same time a symbol of the religious principles of the Hindoos. It is said of Buddha that he once preached to his disciples, on the shores of the Ganges, on the instability of all things, the frailty of human life, on the grief and sorrows of our existence, comparing life to a water-bubble, consisting of the four elements and still perishing so quickly. The water-bubble thus lent its form to the tope and _daghopa_, which latter, according to W. v. Humboldt, means ‘hider of the body,’ destined for the reception of Buddha’s relics. The tower which rises inside the tope is symbolic of the nine incarnations of Vishnu. We have in the Indian temple, as in our Gothic churches, a homily in stone. The arched dome has to remind us of the perishableness of life; the daghopa, with its seven or nine divisions, tells us that there is hope for the immortal soul to reach heaven through seven or nine degrees of purification. The protecting canopies (umbrellas) are symbolic of Buddha’s intercession, which he is sure to accord, if we only recognise the _nihilism_ (nothingness) of our earthly existence.

The religious construction was also extended to every-day utensils, a tendency which was universal with all the people of the Aryan group. To these typical ornamentations belong the lotus flower and the tree and serpent ornament. The religious conception is everything with the Indian. It is not the form itself that he cares for, but the religious thought which is expressed emblematically, allegorically, or symbolically. This is the reason why he clings to his fourteen-armed divinities. It is God and His powers that he wishes to represent; but, whenever man attempts to express the incomprehensible or the abstract in visible and concrete forms, he errs. The soul of the Indian is absorbed in God: in Him is everything; the world is _without_ Him and still _within_ Him. All beings take their origin in Him and return to Him. An everlasting _emanation_ and _absorption_ is continually proceeding before the eyes of the Indian, and, looking for a type of this wonderful process, he found it in the ‘_Aswatha_’ tree, the Indian fig-tree (_Ficus Indica_). The banyan takes root, so to speak, in the air, grows downwards, grasps the earth with its branches, shoots upwards again, and repeats this process ‘ad infinitum.’ Everything coming near its feelers is embraced, covered over, and in this mystic encircling, annihilated. From time immemorial this sacred tree has been the _tree of life_, the symbolic tree of the petrifaction, vivification, and incarnation of God’s spirit in minerals, plants, animals and man. This pantheistic conception is not favourable to art: it crushes the powers of the artist, who has to deal with too great an ideal weight in forms.

There is another species of fig-tree (_Ficus religiosa_) which does not take root again, but the leaves of which appear eternally to tremble; it became the symbol of the ever-moving and oscillating spheres filling the universe. The tree combines two working cosmical forces, it partly remains the same and still continually changes and varies; it is now covered only with leaves, by degrees with leaves and blossoms, and at last with leaves and fruits; then its vitality apparently dying away, leaves, blossoms, and fruits vanish, to be renewed again with the same regularity and abundance. The mind, not yet accustomed to account for every phenomenon by simple or compound gases, globules, or atoms, set in motion by affinities, is altogether absorbed by the miraculous phenomena of nature, and, having been kept for thousands of years in this absorption, is incapable of seeing objects in their proper light. It sees in every form a metaphysical cause, which leads in ornamental art to those entwined, confused, monstrous, and bizarre combinations, which mar _symmetry_, mock _eurythmy_, distort _proportion_, have no _direction_, and, trying to express the inexpressible, have no _expression_ at all.

The artist, if he wishes to work in the Indian style, must make himself acquainted with the feelings that animate the Indian mind. He will do best by generally using their arabesques, and arranging them after a careful study of the antique into symmetrical forms. The Indian conventional treatment of plants in surface-decorations is unsurpassed, and in this we may learn from them; but we have to beware of their monotonous excellence, and their everlasting repetitions. We may, here and there, use their forms, but we must bring order and measure into the wild and unintelligible chaos. If we want to produce entirely Indian patterns we must not alter them, or else we destroy their effect; but we may be original in merely using the form, and endowing it with a spirit of our own; this being the great advantage of the historical study of art.

Indian architecture has been well systematised by Mr. Fergusson. We have in the north the Bengallee, in the south the Dravidian, and in the west the Chalúkyan style; besides these we have three distinct religious styles--the Brahmanic, the Buddhistic, and, at a later period, the Mahomedan.

Turning to the Cis-Himâlâyans, who appear under numberless names of tribes, nations, and races, and by degrees peopled Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Northern Europe, Italy, Spain, France, and England, and carried religion and civilisation into Egypt; we begin to tread, for the first time, on really _historical_ ground, for we shall be able to place events in time absolute.

Persia--the Hebrew Elam, the Indian Paraça, from Pars, or Fars, or Fardistan--differs entirely in geographical position, climate, and natural products from China or India. Hekatæos, Artemidoros, Eratosthenes, and Strabo describe the climate and soil of Persia as cold and sterile in the north, temperate and fertile in the central or valley regions, and hot and enervating in the south. We have, therefore, enterprising activity, energetic courage from the north, and a counteracting regulating element in the centre, tinged with the dreamy idleness of the south. The aspect of nature is less oppressive. Instead of gigantic creepers, the vine, with its juicy grapes, clings to tall and fruitful trees; bright-eyed gazelles abound; lions and tigers excite to daring hunts; exquisitely-coloured and fragrant roses perfume the air, and open the mind to the gentler impressions of a tender beauty. The Persians, Assyrians, and Babylonians rose to power, declined, and passed away with all their grandeur; but in these very changes there were activity and life. The Persians were the first to proclaim a governing universal _unity_, which endowed men with forces, enabling them to become virtuous and intellectual _by their own exertions_. They remained faithful to the first impressions of nature, in which the Eternal Spirit revealed himself.

The Persians, like the Indians, expressed the cosmical elements of creation symbolically by means of geometrical signs, which are given below.

This _five_ in _one_ comprised the creation; it was the work of Chudâ (Khuda), Choda from the Sanskrit Svadâtta (self-given, God-given). From the Zend word Chuda, or Choda, we have the words GOTT and GOD. At a later period man’s imagination soon perceived in these abstract signs a concrete form; it turned _Cha_ into the head of a being, _Ka_ into the arms, _Ra_ into the chest, _Wa_ into the lower parts of the body, and _A_ into the feet, and thus the first embryonic, ill-shapen incarnation, or embodiment, of the creative power of nature was formed. This embryo, by degrees, developed into the master-pieces of Greek sculpture.

In Persia, the pure and exalted consciousness of a first, incomprehensible cause leaving its products, the special manifestations of its creative power, _free_ in themselves, was fostered and developed. To the Persians we owe the first clear conception of a God independent of nature. Spirit and matter are not _one_ with them, as with the Indians. With the Persians God is separated from His creation--the universe. God, as the ruling Spirit, acquires subjective reality; man, His creature, whether good or bad, whether poor or rich, whether righteous or unrighteous, whether high or low, is, as His creature, equal and free. Man thus obtained a free position face to face, if we may say so, with the Supreme Being--the Creator. What a totally different mode of thinking to that in China or India! In China man is a mere machine, regulated by stereotyped moral maxims. In India duties and rights depend on the chance of birth; the Brahman is a born priest, whether he has talent or not for his vocation; the Kshattriya, a born soldier, though he may be the greatest coward; the Vaisya, a born merchant or artisan, in spite of his utter incapacity for business; and the S’udra, a born slave, though he may be gifted with greater wisdom than the Brahman, more heroic virtues than the Kshattriya, and more talent for commerce, trade, or art than the Vaisya.

In Persia the Aryans acquired, for the first time, a kind of collective freedom, but not yet an individual consciousness as free agents. The Indian language and Indian metaphysics, in the garb of mythology, were undoubtedly components of Egyptian, Persian, Assyrian, Chaldæan, and Babylonian art, and the forms thus produced, in their turn, became the direct elements out of which Grecian art in its infancy developed itself.

The Persians are direct descendants of the Zend people. Their language is nearly the same as Sanskrit. Out of ten Zend words, seven or eight are Sanskrit.

Persian history may be traced back into time relative; for, when it passes into time absolute, the advanced state of the people in science, especially in astronomy, their social condition, and their architecture and ornamental art, prove that they must have existed in a social bond for thousands of years, in order to develop and to attain that progress which excites our astonishment even after the lapse of more than 6,000 years.

Their history may be divided into the following periods:--

1. The mythic period, from an unknown time down to the foundation of the vast, well-organised, and powerful Persian empire by Kai-Khorus, or Kyrus, in the sixth century B.C.

2. The second period affords reliable accounts of the existence of the empire down to Alexander the Great, from 560 B.C.-330 B.C.

3. The history of the Persians, as members of the Greek-Makedonian empire, ending with the conquest of Persia by the Arabs from 330 B.C.-137 B.C.

4. The empire of Central Persia, under the Arabs, down to its extinction by the Mahomedans in 651 A.D.

5. The dominion of the Kaliphs down to its destruction in 1258 A.D.

6. The last period continuing to our own time.

The mythic and historical periods of Persia resemble two diverging lines, of which the undoubted fact of the reign of Kai-Khorus forms the connecting point. Whilst the historical line grows more and more distinct as it proceeds, the mythic line retreats farther and farther into the dim region of the unknown. Passing from the known to the unknown, we must assign to the development of Zend thoughts, institutions, mode of writing, and mode of building, a greater antiquity than to the Assyrian and Babylonian monuments. Of Persian remains we possess nothing but skeleton buildings, which, from the entire absence of connecting walls, lead us to infer that they were still mere tents, and that the textile fabric had not yet undergone the further process of incrustation in stucco or stone sculpture.

This is not the case with Nineveh and Babylon, the great towns, or, as we should say, the great empires, on the Tigris and Euphrates. Through the indefatigable exertions of the Right Hon. Mr. Layard, M. Botta, Lord Loftus, and Mr. Rassam, we possess now, in London and Paris, tablets with records more than 3,000 years old. The boundary stones prove that some fixed laws regulated territorial property, even at these remote periods. The personal ornaments, consisting of mother-of-pearl studs, silver rings, bracelets, gold and pearl earrings, beads, and shell-bosses with bronze pins, testify to a high civilisation. The mode of writing in Nineveh and Babylon was borrowed from the Zend people; and the religious conceptions of the Persians are undoubtedly older than the already-complicated idolatry based on the astronomical notions of the Assyrians and Babylonians.

The Zend-Avesta (meaning the living word) may be said to be like an Egyptian Nile-meter, erected on the primeval soil of history, measuring the yearly deposits and alluvial sediments of by-gone ages. Through the pure crystals of myth and poetry we may see the inner formation of society, whilst from without the vast construction of history is mysteriously going on. We wander through endless lines of Memnon statues, all resounding with the legends of past ages, in perusing the Zend-Avesta, and are suddenly led before the fountain of all matter, at which the high-priest stands, commanding in the harmony of the seven planets the birth of the world, and the origin of all things.

Our first parents, according to the Zend-Avesta, dwelt in _Eriene Veedjo_, or _Iran Veji_, or Aria, Aturia, Asshuria, meaning the _fiery_ or _bright_ land, figuratively the blessed land, in a happy garden, the paradise, assigned to them by _Ormuzd_--contraction of _Ahura-Mazda_ (the divine Being or the Great Lord). From this they were driven by Agrômainyus, _Ahriman_, the murderer from the beginning, who changed the seasons, transforming the _seven_ beautiful summer months into _ten_ cold and dreary winter months, leaving only _two_ tolerably warm months. The division of the year into _twelve_ months is clearly proved by this mythic statement. Can anyone count the ages, and describe the means by which Persians, Chaldæans, Medes, Egyptians, and Indians arrived at a systematic arrangement of time, dividing the year into twelve months? After the reign of the Abads (fathers, _abbas_) _Azer-Abad_ ruled; then _Dshey-Afram, Kedor-la-Omer_ (Cadam, Adam) followed; he ruled 560 years, and attained the venerable age of one thousand years. We find here, as in all old records, the tendency to ascribe to man a longevity which he has long lost. Like shadows which are more gigantic in the rising and setting sun than in the broad mid-day, historical facts in the first dawn of consciousness are exaggerated and turned into fables, which again vanish in the bright light of scientific criticism. _Cadam_ was followed by _Siamek_, who was succeeded by _Tahamur_, who conquered the Devas, or evil spirits. He learned from them the art of writing and reading, constructed aqueducts and viaducts, and taught his people music and the use of iron. The Aryans on this side of the Himâlâyas had passed the savage state (the _palæolithic_ period of art), entered into the nomadic (the neolithic period), settled down and used bronze instruments, and then were taught, _no longer_ as with the Indians, Egyptians, and Greeks _by a divinity_, but by one of their rulers, to extract iron from the ore and to work it. With Tahamur we step into the iron or historical age.

_Dshemshid_, the Greek _Achæmenes_, the Biblical _Nimrod_, the mighty hunter before the Lord, _pierced the earth with a golden dagger_--allegorically meaning that he improved agriculture. Dshemshid ruled 616½ years; he built Persepolis, or Takt-i-Dshemshid (the throne of Dshemshid). He was, however, conquered by _Zahok_ and _sawn into two pieces_, meaning that the empire of Dshemshid had been divided by _Zahok_, who was a descendant of the cursed race of Aad. He is said to have been the _Sesostris_, or _Sesoosis_, of the third dynasty of the Egyptians, the 332nd king after Menes the builder of Memphis, a great conqueror who went to India, took possession of Thracia and Skythia, and united Æthiopia, Libya, and Egypt into one mighty empire in the fortieth century B.C. He is also said to have been _Ninus_, who with Semiramis, the night-born queen of doves, and the daughter of the water-sprung _Derceto_, is set down as the builder of Nineveh, and the founder of the empire of Babel. Takt-i-Dshemshid existed before either Nineveh or Babylon; its priority is borne out not only by these records, but, as we have said, by the very ruins left of the Persian metropolis. The name _Parsagad_, or _Passagarda_, means ‘_camp_ of the Persians,’ and points to an early, unsettled state of society; as also do the ruins, which may be divided into two classes:--

1. The ancient Persian monuments of Dshemshid.

2. The monuments of the reign of the Sassanides.

The name Persepolis was first used by the Greek historiographers who accompanied Alexander the Great, to denote that part only of the vast town in which the tomb of Kyrus was situated, and this gave rise to much confusion.

Passagarda, Isthakr, or Estakar, was situated on the border of one of the richest and most beautiful plains of Central Asia, watered by the Bendemir (the Araxes of the ancients), and surrounded by lofty mountains, ‘whose rugged masses rise from the verdant plain like islands from the ocean.’

The _oldest_ monuments are:--

1. The ruins of the palace now called by the Arabs _Tshil-Minar_ (the forty columns), and two great tombs close by.

2. Four other tombs, about four and a half English miles to the north-west, and in the plains of Murghab the ruins of Passagarda, built by Kyrus to commemorate his victory over Astyages, who came from Hamadan (Ecbatana). Here is situated the pyramidically-constructed tomb of Kyrus, made of white marble blocks. Farther north are the ruins of _Bisutun_.

Passing to the monuments under the reign of the _Sassanides_; they consist of reliefs and inscriptions hewn in rock at a distance of about four and a half miles from the ruins of Persepolis. They are called _Naksh-i-Rustam_ (the image of Rustam), because it was assumed that the exploits of this hero were here glorified. De Sacy, in his ‘Mémoires sur diverses Antiquités de la Perse,’ has explained the inscriptions as referring to the kings of the Sassanide dynasty. The reliefs are portraits of these kings, recognisable by their head-dresses.

The distance from Passagarda to Tshil-Minar is about forty-nine English miles, and this space is crowded with Persian monuments. It is most probable that the more recently-made subdivisions did not exist, but that the capital of the ancient Persian empire extended from Passagarda to Tshil-Minar, including Isthakr, Naksh-i-Rustam, and the king’s palace, called by the Greeks Persepolis. The palace was cut out of the beautiful grey marble rock towering over it, and stood on three well-defined, gradually-rising platforms. The arrangement was like that of the Indian, Egyptian, and later Greek temples; the first terrace corresponding to the Pronaos, where the people paid their homage to the king; the second to the Naos, where the ambassadors of the different nations assembled; and the third to the Adytum, where the king had his special temple and private abode. The whole foundation was constructed of bold Kyklopean masonry.

At the gates stood colossal fabulous animals, fantastic representations combined of the lion, the bull, the horse, the wild ass, the rhinoceros, the ostrich, the eagle, the scorpion, and the unicorn. Besides these there were winged and horned animals, and others having the winged body of a lion, the feet of a horse, and the head of a man, with well-curled, long beard and crowned with the tiara--the symbol of the king’s power, endowed with intellect, force, and swiftness. The bull with the Persians was, like Nundi with the Indians, Apis with the Egyptians, and Taurus with the Greeks, a sign of strength and power.

The capitals of Persian columns were not yet made to support a heavy stone weight, but only a light wooden beam. The foundation walls were, like those of Nineveh and Babylon, covered with sculptures, the designs of which were all of textile origin. But in these sculptures, as in those of Kouyunjik and the Palace of Nimrod, the theological, or religious, and symbolical element is entirely left in the background. We have the friends, relations, and servants of the king; tributaries submitting to kings; officers holding fly-flaps of feathers; horses crossing rivers; kings hunting and slaying lions; armies before besieged towns; warriors returning from battle; battering rams; chains to destroy the action of rams; soldiers mining ramparts; infantry with bows and shields; removals of cattle and spoil from captured cities; boats floating on rivers; galleys going to sea; damsels and children with musical instruments; and mathematical tablets with calculations of square roots. We have man active, warring, scientific, and only here and there some scenes of a religious character, and these more frequently in Nineveh and Babylon.

The cause of this phenomenon was the religion of the Zend people. Its founder was Zarathustra, Zerdusht, Σοροάθεος {Soroatheos}, Zoroaster--partly a mythical, partly a real person. His name appears to have been derived from the Sanskrit Sûrya-dêvas, meaning ‘the Sun-god.’ According to Aristotle Zoroaster lived 6,000 years before Plato. The Biblical Abram, Sesostris the Egyptian king, and Moses, were all honoured by this name. Svedius mentions a Zoroaster 500 years before the Trojan war. The historical Zoroaster, the compiler of the religious tenets of the Zend people in the Zend-Avesta, lived about 589 B.C.; he was therefore a contemporary of Confucius, Pythagoras, Jeremiah, and Ezra. He received the holy books from Ormuzd on Mount Elbruz.

The Zend-Avesta assumes _one_ Universal Being, clothed in an outward form, but this form is _Light_. Light is neither a serpent, nor a stone, nor a four-handed monster, nor a three-headed Brahmā, nor a bull, owl, or hawk; it is a simple manifestation, it has no particular existence, it perceptibly pervades universality. It admits of a highly symbolical interpretation; it is virtue, it is truth, proficiency, knowledge, and directing will. Light involves an opposite--darkness, just as virtue has an antithesis--evil. Both light and darkness took their origin in the unlimited All (Zeruane-Akerene). We have here clearly a purer Trinitarian conception. We have (1) the Infinite All, producing (2) light or good (Ormuzd), and (3) darkness or evil (Ahriman). With the Indians _Brahmā_ is ether; _Vishnu_, water; and _S’iva_, fire; and in spite of all spiritualisation we have _matter_ before us. The Persians, in becoming conscious of light and darkness, destroyed the innocence of mankind, but proclaimed to the world _moral_ consciousness. Without a knowledge of evil there is no knowledge of good; to be virtuous is to know the evil and to do the good.

This led the Cis-Himâlâyans a step further. The two opposing phenomena, light and darkness, were placed, like good and evil, purity and impurity, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, in eternal conflict. Creation was thus considered as in everlasting strife. This strife was life-activity in honour of Ormuzd or Ahriman. This activity was carried beyond this world; for the followers of Ormuzd, there was a heaven, and for the followers of Ahriman, a hell in the future. Ormuzd had _Fervers_ as attendants; Ahriman, _Dews_ or _Devas_ (in Keltic _Dusii_, devils). On the Persian and Assyrian slabs we see, floating over the heads of the kings, their winged portraits; these represent their protecting Fervers, one of whom continually watched over each good man, and protected him from the influences of Ahriman’s servants.

The worship of Ormuzd, in whose sight all creatures were _equal_, but equally dependent, was threefold:--

(_a_) _Pure thoughts_, through which alone we may approach the beginning of all things, wisdom and light--God.

(_b_) _Pure words_, the word of God (the Logos), which is no longer personified as some visible form, but is the mere vibration of the spirit of God, embodied in abstract signs in the Zend-Avesta.

(_c_) _Pure deeds_, accomplished by one’s own efforts, as we are endowed with perfect individual freedom.

This religion was the cause why the Persians had no special temples, but only small altars. The vaulted azure heavens were the glorious temple of Ormuzd, which he was compelled to share with Ahriman. Neither light nor darkness, however, could be carved or painted; the dynamic force of the artists was therefore directed to matter-of-fact scenes, to ornamentations, showing a better balance between forms and ideas. The rosette, the palmette, the sun with its disc, the moon, the pine-cone, the pomegranate, intermixed with clearly-defined, and not much entwined, geometrical patterns, were the principal means of ornamentation.

At a later period a tendency to allegorical and emblematic figures appeared. The artists composed cherubim, chimeras, basilisks, griphons, kentaurs, and sphinxes; undoubtedly influenced by Indian and Egyptian ideas, for Nineveh and Babylon were the ancient Venice and Genoa of the far East, situated as they were on the commercial high-roads, the twin-rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Babylonian textile fabrics were highly appreciated from time immemorial. Serpents and trees, winged witches and flying-fish, were first spell-bound in Babylonian tapestry, and then carved in stone on the walls of Nineveh. The immense riches which we possess in the British Museum, enable every student of art-history to see before him the active life of the Cis-Himâlâyans, whether as Assyrians, Persians, Medes, or Babylonians, in clear and distinct outlines. Their knowledge of embossing gold and silver was considerable. Their household furniture, drinking cups, tables, candelabra, bracelets, and rings are of strictly _architectural construction_. We miss that overburdening confusion in ornamentation which distinguishes the Indian products; and the more correct treatment of ornamental outlines, especially to be seen in their mosaics and tesselated pavements, approaches Greek forms.

The commercial spirit, which swayed this portion of the river-valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, engendered a powerful activity in a practical direction. Whilst we build railways--the Babylonians dug canals, connected the two rivers, and constructed aqueducts. They built palaces at Nineveh, castles (El Kassr) at Babylon, and an immense nekropolis at Vurka, about 180 English miles from Bagdad, and about 8 miles to the east of the Euphrates. At every step in the interior of these ruins we find clay-coffins piled up to a height of from 15-20 feet. All these ruins are now covered with saltpetre, small shells and broken pottery. The remains of the walls are from 12-22 feet thick, partly of unbaked and partly of baked bricks. The construction everywhere closely imitates wood-work, and the decoration reproduces textile fabrics such as carpets and striped tent covers. There are capitals in stucco of the Ionic and even of the Corinthian type; though the leaves are those of the palm-tree instead of the Acanthus. The volute of the Ionic capital is rather in the form of two serpents drinking from a cup, than in the form of rams’ horns. We might call this old Babylonian stucco capital, the proto-Ionic type.

On the two shores of the Euphrates, as far as Babylon, coffins of green glazed clay and small terra-cotta tablets with cuneiform inscriptions have been found by thousands. These coffins were imitations of dead bodies, swathed in cloths and tied with cords. In addition to this reproduction of textile fabrics in clay, we find with the Cis-Himâlâyans a tendency to overlay wood-carvings with metal coatings. When they advanced more in metallotechnic they still held to patterns which clearly had their origin in wood-carvings. The plant-like forms predominate; then we have the quilloche, palm-leaves, or feathers arranged in the form of palm-leaves, and the pine-cone, which is often used in eurythmical variation with the conventionally-treated open or closed tulips, and open or closed lotus flowers.

The pictorial art of the Assyrians and Babylonians shows us two distinct periods--an older and a more recent one. The older works had a bluish-green ground; the later a light, either whitish or yellowish, ground. In both styles the outlines are marked strongly in black or dark red. In the older, the sinews are more rope-like and less correct in their anatomy. In the more recent style a finer treatment, and a more correct knowledge of the human frame, may be traced. Wild animals are reproduced with a keen eye of observation, and a strong tendency to naturalism.

Polychromy was known to them, but it is very difficult to decide whether they coloured in tempera or in fresco, with wax or by some other means--perhaps even in oil. The incrustation of clay walls with baked and painted, and even glazed, tiles it is difficult to explain. In many instances, as at Vurka, each cone has its own colour, and, by a proper arrangement, squares, imbrications, diapers, and networks were produced; but at Babylon and Nineveh the tiles show clear marks of painting. Diodorus (probably after Ktesias) gives us a description of the interior circular wall of the royal palace at Babylon, and says: ‘It was decorated with all sorts of coloured human and animal forms baked in clay, much resembling nature. The whole represented a hunt. The figures were more than four yards high. Semiramis was to be seen by the side of her husband Ninus, she killing a panther, he piercing with his dart a lion.’ The principles of decoration with the Assyrians far surpass mere ornamentations in geometrical patterns. Dramatic life of a higher kind is introduced, showing greater artistic power than the reliefs in stone. The outlines are neither black nor red, the treatment is tasteful, the colours a tender blue, brown, white or yellow, and the ground a lightish green. These paintings are not mosaics, as at Vurka.

The baking and glazing must have taken place in the following manner. The unbaked tiles were arranged and numbered in a horizontal position on the ground, then they were painted and placed vertically on the wall as a tapestry decoration. When the wall was finished it must have been heated, so as to change the light and fluid colours into a kind of enamel, giving the clay-wall a thin terra-cotta coating.

The utilitarian purpose was everything with the Persians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. This is evident in their furniture, especially in their tables, chairs, and footstools. The construction of the frame was taken from plants and trees, whilst wild animals were used as silent and obedient domestic creatures. In supporting their furniture with the legs of the lion, tiger, or leopard, they used these animals for an excellent ornamental purpose. The legs of the brute were made to support, the body was turned into a seat, and the head was conventionally used as a side-ornament for the backs or arms of the throne or chair. We see in the Cis-Himâlâyans, in accordance with their greater activity in life, a further progress in art. Merely geometrical figures do not suffice; not monstrous divinities, but animals and men, are the most important subjects of sculpture. Their architecture was without symmetry and proportion, the material of their buildings in no accordance with the monumental tendencies of their construction, and their efforts did not carry them further than the vague attempts of half-settled nomads. Their walls, which once consisted of textile hangings, retained this character, stretching for thousands of feet without any interruption, except that the doorways had their colossal symbolic guards, which to a certain extent relieved the monotony of the construction. The art of Persia and Assyria is in every sense the transition-link between nomadic and monumental art.