I

• According to Indian traditional theory of art, art’s primary aim is to provide the impersonal joy of detachment from the real world.
• Art achieves additional purposes:
  • It subjects the artist to a process of discipline.
  • It serves as a medium for culturing the senses and emotions, contributing to character refinement.
  • It allows the audience to reconstruct situations and extend the horizons of their experience.
• The moral aim of art lies in fostering impersonality, detachment, and disinterestedness, which form the foundation of morality.
• By helping others achieve detachment, the artist performs a moral act.
• Art involves a systematic and organized use of energy and skill to restructure reality, addressing wrong or evilaspects in life.
• Art shares this goal with ethics, aiming to remove evil and improve life.
• Ethics and aesthetics are connected in the Indian mind through the disinterestedness at the core of both practices.
• Art is not morality, but morality and art share the goal of purging humanity of selfishness.
• Art activity is a moral activity because it involves the reconstruction of life’s facts to reflect a detached and disinterested experience.
• Art is a human activity, and its value must be connected to other human activities and values of life.
• The artist must relate their art to other human values to offer a criticism or reconstruction of life.
• Art’s criticism of life may be considered a moral act because it aims to improve life and align with higher values.
• However, art is contemplative and transient, while morality is active, constant, and sustained by inner strength.
• Art experience is induced by an external stimulus, while moral behavior is self-sustained.
• Art does not directly aim to teach morality but is intrinsically a moral activity due to the process of creation.
• In the Indian tradition, art’s content should also align with moral implications, even if dealing with ugly, vicious, or cruel facts.
• Art should present these facts in a moral context, leaving an ennobling effect on the audience.
• The good, great, and beautiful are seen as synonymous in the Indian mind.
• Art is a social activity that contributes to the elevation of both individuals and society.
• Art should not be didactic, but its overall impact should convey a moral tone that benefits humanity.
• The indirect method (through dhvani and vyañjanā) in Indian poetics is significant in conveying this moral impact without being overtly didactic.