The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

58 PREHISTORIC AND EPIC PERIODS
of all
the schools of Hindu thought, becomes
only another Hindu sect. The last phase of the
religion offered salvation through the priests'
recitation of unintelligible spells or dhdrdnis
and magical formulas which could be neither
understood nor recited by the devotees. Not
only is this infallibility of the priests or gurus a
parallel to the function of the Brahmin priests,
but other, even more sinister, elements came to
undermine the fabric of the Buddhist Church.
It was an evil day for the Mahayana faith when
the Buddhist holy man Asahga brought the
Hindu gods to earth to aid men not only towards
salvation but in the attainment of worldly desires.
The Hindu gods infiltrated into Buddhism
in the disguise of personifications of various
powers of Buddha. It was not long before the
Bodhisattvas themselves, endowed with many
arms and heads, could scarcely be distinguished
from the great gods of the Hindu pantheon.
The most vicious phase of Asaiiga's doctrine
was the introduction of the worship of the
Tantra, which meant essentially devotion paid
to the female energy or sakti, a concept borrowed
from the more corrupt phase of Hinduism,
that in its grosser aspects encouraged sexual
practices of every description as a means of
devotion, as a kind of physical enactment of
union with the divine. This last phase of Buddhism
flourished in Bengal from the eighth
century until the extirpation of the religion by
the Mohammedan invasions. From there it was
transplanted to Nepal and Tibet, where the
iconography and style of this last phase of
Indian Buddhism are still preserved. 13
However, the same centuries which marked
the decline and final eclipse of Buddhism also
saw the beginning of a true renaissance of Hinduism,
and this developed into the philosophical
and devotional system of worship that has claimed
the faith of Indian millions for more than a
thousand years. Nothing could more eloquently
demonstrate the vigour and power of that religion
than the magnificent works of Hindu art
dedicated in this same millennium. The final
phase of the Hindu Church represents the
complete unity
of worship and worshippers.
Although the division of worship between the
devotees of Vishnu, Siva, and Krishna may
appear clearly defined, then and now, and in the
eternity of Indian time, all these gods are but
manifestations of one god, the Great Lord in his
final and ineffable form.