ABSTRACT
Hindu religious art is basically a space-saving exercise, struggling, ever unsuccessfully, to express in material form abstract concepts symbolized; in this art, aesthetic considerations seem to be of little consequence. Even when uncomprehending Western critics hit upon the correct explanation for multiple arms and heads in Hindu religious art, lack of perspicuity on their part as to context and purpose tends to vitiate their artistic observations. Hindu religious art was always intended to teach the beholder in more or less specific fashion what the deity was about, and how, accordingly, the deity was to be approached with definite objectives in mind. From very early times Hindu religious images have been multi-armed and – more occasionally –many-headed in character. The gigantic sculptures of Hindu art, the reduplication of limbs, etc., are a token of the naïve desire to exhaust a universal norm on the one hand, and cram in, on the other, as much significance as possible in limited material compass.
