Review of Zimmer's Artistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred Images of India

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Sacred FormsArtistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred Images of India by Heinrich Zimmer; Gerald Chappie; JamesB. Lawson; J. Michael McKnightReview by: Joseph L. HendersonThe San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Summer 1990), pp. 61-67Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of The C.G. Jung Institute of San FranciscoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jung.1.1990.9.3.61 .Accessed: 25/09/2014 06:33

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Sacred Forms

Heinrich Zimmer. Artistic Form n Yoga in the acred Images of

India Edited by Gerald Chapple an d James B. Lawson collaboration with J. Michael McKnight. Princeton, New Jersey,Princeton University Press, 1984.

Reviewed by Joseph L. Henderson

Certain books published in the early part of this century weresources of the kno\vledge we now call depth psychology. Theywere not books about psychology but rather combined anthropology with religious history. I think of Bachofen s Mother-RightFraser s The Golden Bough van Gennep s The Rites of Passage andJane Harrison s Themi.r-forerunners to the period when the earlyworks of Jung could espouse world mythology s a field essentialfor the understanding of modern psychology. There were otherswhich helped direct the new trend toward religions of the East. Ofthese, the most important s an influence in lung s work of the1920s and early thirties w s a book by Heinrich Zimmer firstpublished in Germany in 1926. Although several later books byZimmer appeared English edited by Joseph Campbell), thisearly work, which e s t ~ l i s h eZimmer s originality s a scholar and

. Indologist, appeared in English only five years ago under the titleArtistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred Images of India. t is translatedfrom the German, Kunstfarm und Y qga.

I am reviewing this book today so s to make its contentsmore accessible to students of analytical psychology and to thosewhose personal experience of depth psychology n y have awakeneda similar response to imagery that is derived from the archetypes ofthe collective unconscious. t offers much to instruct anyoneinterested in learning more about archetypal imagery.

he San Francisco Jung Institute Library JOttm4/ Vol. 9, No 3 1990 61







rtistic Fornt and rqga provides an invaluable introduction tothis area because ofZinlmer s evocative literary style and his genuineperception of th e meaning of Hindu sacred art. \Ve do not merelyread about Hindu art; we share his own enthusiastic experience of

it at a time when, still a young man, he was entirely free fronl therigidity imposed by fomlal scholarship. Th e presence of this freedomdoes no t mean that this work is an intuitive tour force has itsow n version o f strict scholarly purpose. As described by H K. Fierz(Foreword to The n n e ~] il1gdom Images by ]oIande Jacobi [Olten,Switzerland, Walter-Verlag A.G., 1969]),

Zimmer had shown how an inner image of the psyche canbe reflected in pictorial tc rm. According to Zimmer such apicture, in order to be effective, requires definjte form (geo

metrical yantra and shape, a meamngfuJ statement about it,and rightminded attitudes ou t of which it was brought intobeing and contemplated. Zimmer, in tills way, provided impetusto\vard a more thorough elucidation of the phenomenon ofthe intrapsychic image.

Indeed, it was this book that first acquainted Jung with the symbolism of the libetan mandala and its importance for modern man.Jung s fascination led to a very personal interaction between thetwo men, whereby East and West met in a unique yet highlyinlpersonal \vay. What Zimmer meant to Jung is clear but whatJung meant t o Z im me r has another quality: Zimmer encounteredin Jung a spirit of inquiry, coming from Western science, that couldreally engage with Eastern religious thought without loss of itsidentity. Zinlmer responded with what we would call a positivetransference to Jung, \vhich is reported openly as part of the appendixto this book, Some Biographical Retnarks about Henry R. Zimmer.There Zimmer is quoted

You cannot just talk to the stars or to the silence of thenight. You have to fancy some listener, or, better yet, to knowof somebody whose mere existence stimulates you to talk andlends wings to your thoughts, \ ,Those nature sets a measure toyour undertaking. In this respect the mere existence of u n g ~

quite apart from what I got our of meeting him, the mere factthat nature allowed this u n i q u ~mountainous example of thehuman species to come into existence, was, and is, one of themajor blessjngs of my spiritual and my very earthly life, one ofthose gifts of life, no t to be imagined or prayed for, bu tshowered upon you as a secret compensation by a generousProvidence. . I begged my wife to excuse me if I werecuriously inflated for I had, so I explained, just met a

6 Joseph L Henderson reviews








specimen of human biology, the kind of which I had neverencountered before in the tlesh, and had ~ v rexpected tomeet alive in times like ours, bu t which wasve fy familiar to mefrom indu tales and dialogues of sages, yogins, wizards andgurus. (January 1943) p. 260)

Whatever countertransference ung may have made to matchZimmer s transference to him we can only guess at. Th e fact remainsthat their relationship went beyond the personal to catalyze asignificant meeting of East and West, quite similar to the exchangebetween Richard Wilhelm and Tung, which had used China, insteadof India, as its subject-and-object center of interest.

This book, in which Zimmer introduced Jung, an d now us, toIndian art, begins with a chapter comparing the Indian sacred

image with the works of Western classical art, as represented byGreek sculpture of the period of Praxiteles and by certain paintingsof the Italian Renaissance derived from Greco-Roman models.Zimmer s discussion is very instructive for people b ro ug ht upexclusively in th e Western tradition, for it helps to correct thepeculiar prejudice that art is a representation of something that isalready physically beautiful that only needs to be rendered nl0rebeautiful by th e artists skill. This Western way of perceiving artpresents certain obstacles when Indian art is approached. Zimmer

says:

Critics, schooled in classical concepts indeed arrive at apoint where they can make some meaningful statement aboutthe eternal, self-contained and pristine significance of thematerial of Iqdian art. But when they set about describing itsessence they either indulge in a subjective, rhapsodic enthu-siasm that projects their own exalted state into the icons orelse they become mired in questioning historical detail . p.3

A tootnote informs us that this condition has improved considerablysince Zin1mer made this observation, and I think he too was stillinfluenced by the prevailing att itude of the earlier par t of thiscentury, that art is essentially art-for-art s sake. Since that time theveil has been drawn which covered the whole world of primitiveand religious art; \ve are no longer victims of this nineteenth centuryillusion. The modern reader may well wish to hurry on to the bodyof the book.

In hapter II we are inducted into Zimmer s tnle contentwhen he speaks of a spiritual world in which the Indian sacredimage is firnlly rooted in the great traditions of the indu sects

Heinrich Zimmer, rtistic orm an d Yoga 63








and is therefore from beginning to en d no t artIstIC per s but

religious, the image not just to be perceived but also worshipped.This chapter ends with a brilliant and deeply felt description ofdyhana meditation, as inner vision different froIn outer sight. From

this perspective, sacred images have to be qualitatively differentfroIn other objets d art in their fundamental form. Zimmer says:

Here there is no richly colored surface, crowded with shapes,that patiently waits for an eye s roving center of focus to correctthe disturbing lack of focus and clarity. . . . is like a deepdark well, over whose edge flickering figures lean, reflected inits watery depths (p. 55)

This whole section, Outward Sight, Inward Vision, pages 53-64,should be savored, not only for its spiritual information bu t evenmore for its beauty of style. Zimmer reveals himself as a literaryartist and in this book about spiritual art reveals himself as a trueadept of both worlds, art and religion.

n hapter we are introduced to tw o figurative sacredimages, the Sri Yantra and the mandala. These yantras

. . . bring under control all the evils stemming from desire,anger, and other errors. A god worshipped in the yantra is fullof divine grace. What the body is tor the spark of life, what oilis

for the lamp s light, thatis

what the yantra represents forall

the gods (p. 66)

First, we are told about the mandala and its Inarvelous centeredness, squares within circles with doors that open upon aninner courtyard where a fourfold floor design points to a nlagicallypotent center, the vajra or diamond body, the indestructible coreof any true spiritual conviction. Thanks to Jung s work the mandalais quite well known today and I need no t linger upon the generalmeaning of the mandala as a symbol of the psychic totality. Jung scontributions can be found in volume 9, part 1 of the ollectedWorks and from an and is Symbolsedited by Jung (Garden City,Ne w York, Doubleday, 1964). The structure and iconography ofthis synlbol are well described here by Zinlmer, and his descriptionsmake Jung s work much more understandable. The description ofthe Temple of Borobudur, a mandala in architectural form, isadmirably described in this chapter.

Then COJ1leS ZiI1lmer s nlost original and least known contribution, his description of another fonn of centering, the Sri Yan-tra C I11poscd of I1laI1Y triangles within a fourfold sacred space. n

the Sri Yantra, there are:

6 Joseph L Henderson reviews







· two types of triangle, the s kti and the vahni dependingon their orientation toward the adept drawing the figure. Thesakti triangle female) has its base farthest from the adept andthe apex turned toward him is therefore, a symbol of allmanifestations of the Divine The word }7ahni is masculinein gender and has the primary meaning o f ~ f i r e ,bu t is alsoa general designation for male divinities. In the Sri Yantra tourmale triangles interpenetrate five female ones; and we are tovisualize, in dead n t r ~a do t this dot hindu point) completes the ultimate pair of triangles. The symbol as a whole hasthe force of an image of vibrant creative ecstasy the ecstasy ofthe eternally engendering divine powers whose essence isformed in the fusion of their opposing poles. p. 155) [T]wowreaths of lotus petals enclose the symbolic inter lockingtriangles in the pericarp at its center. p. 56

The Sri Yantra provides a ninefold path for meditation topursue an unfolding or enfolding course for creative energy to

circulate:

The nine spheres cakras arc the playful unfolding of pureBeing, represented by the point in the center bi1uiu as undifferentiated Being without form. . . . The nine spheres areinterrelated, like the three cosmic states, \vhich themselves aresimply attitudes of consciousness: evolution, preservation, anddissolution. p. 66

The figurative images with which Zimmer started his discussionof the sacred objects of meditation- images of the Buddha, Sivaand Sakti, and other Hindu deities-are called pratima These arenuminous to a high degree and evocative of all that lies below orbeyond ordinary levels of consciousness, but they are human andmore or less humanly experienced. Th e yantras, mandala and SriYantra, awaken a deeper response, because there is no human image only the objective psyche itself as image and affect combined.

Zimmer says of their effect:The fundamental connection of the Sri Yantra and others likeit to the p r mit and to the mandala lies in their identicalfunction. The unfolding of this densely populated organizingschema before the inner eye, as well as the life-giving insertionof the schema s inner wealth of figures into a tangibly evidentdesign, knows no higher goal than that of enabling the initiateto experience his own divinity

Zimmer continues to elaborate the meaning of Siva and Sakti

as the one-becoming-two:

Heinrich Zimmer, Art istk Form tmd Yt8a 65








Whoever is a\\, are of this sees two great goals of Indian speculative thought and Yoga together: the One, Without-aSecond 0

Siva-Sakti arc one and at the same time two 0 0 0 0

This is the reason why both Being-Bound-up-in-the-World(samsara) and Release are one and the same, and why the

pleasures of this world bhoga are no t forbidden to the Yogaadept 0 •

In the equating of Yogi and hogi the age-old conflict betweenasceticism and hedonism is laid to rest; the gap between theAbsolute and the world of maya is closed: both are one inSakti. (pp. 219-220)

These are the main points of interest in Zimmer s expositionof Hindu sacred art. Cleverly, and even originally, Zimmer showedhow we must transpose art into religion in order to do justice to

this ancient tradition. He nl0ved us ou t of our accustomed way oflooking at art as a purely sensuous impression of reality into aperceiving of the spiritual origin of all inlagery. Entering thesanctuary of Indian art-and-religion he shows us how objects ofmeditation gradually become transformed into the essence of whatwe invariably perceived independently. As he says in a final discussion( The Place of the Sacred Image, ) it is not necessary to have theexact human pratima or the yantra as an object upon which tomeditate.

A po t of boiling water can be substituted as a container of thedeity. 0 0 •

find that no t only the mirroring water surfaceof a jug in the linear organizing scheme but shiny objects ofany sort are particularly suited for this purpose. The initiatemay project this inner vision of the deity. 0 • into the flame of alamp 0 0 po 223)

FinaUy, this view restricts the sacred inlage s pretension todistinction and consigns it to a lower, material level where it Inayindeed act as an intermediary for, and guide to, the Divine. . 0 •

p 225)A wonderful thematic development has brought Zimmer s

view of sacred art into lung s range of vision; the opposites of spiritand nature nlay in human terms be recognized and united in areconciliation of asceticism and sensuality. There remains nevertllelessas an eternal challenge the final paradox proposed by Indian religion: The Indian Absolute stands in permanent contrast to any view ofthe world based on extensive differentiation. p. 228) It is nowonder that Zimlner s work had such a fertilizing influence onJungian psychology, since it affinned this Absolute in a way that

Joseph L Henderson reviews







made more understandable less remote and more accessible theconcept o f the Self

Heinrich Zimmer rtistic or nd Yl lJa

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Review of Zimmer's Artistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred Images of India

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