ABSTRACT
The monotheistic graphomancy of the Abrahamic traditions is only one example of the operation of art in religion. Hanuman also exhibits several other highly significant aspects of the operation of art and religion. The power and sophistication of that particular mode of religious behavior—dramatically enhanced since the Protestant Reformation in Western Europe—has very significantly contributed to logocentrism with a concomitant difficulty to remain conscious of the operations of art in religion. Particularly the depiction of an inanimate object, a statue or painting, as having an “interior,” particularly when that object is located within this type of extended matrix of stylistically related artifacts, is powerfully evocative of our ability to empathize, of something like theory of mind. Humanly wrought and experienced objects, acts, and events have only relatively recently come to be identified as “art.” The controversy over the place of music in Islam has the virtue of being open, debated, and settled in favor of art.
