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The Cosmic Dance
Reflections on the ‘De Musica’ of St Augustine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2024
Extract
Religious thought and feeling in the West have never, for a reason which will become apparent, evolved so direct and satisfying a symbol of divine activity in the world as that of Shiva dancing. Those who are even slightly conversant with the iconography of this Hindu god will recognize that, whether we find him represented in the wild, destructive dance which expresses his purgatorial power, as in the seventh-century stone-carvings of Kanchi, or in the gracious pas seul of the later bronzes, where his primitive force has been confined within the flowing rhythms of an exquisite art-object, here at least we are faced with the embodiment of an experience of the universe which is prior to all commentary. Our ability to recognize this fact is, however, the most immediate and sufficient proof that the experience as such is not the peculiar property of the peoples of India. I do not know whether it has ever been suggested that St Augustine’s De Musica may be considered as a fully developed treatise on this theme, perhaps even unique in its kind, but I propose in the following pages to present it in this way. Certainly I myself have found that with the representations of Shiva as an imaginative support, many of the more hidden connections in a work which involves not a few obscurities become psychologically intelligible, and that what might be judged to be a dialogue of purely antiquarian interest assumes a quite contemporary importance. As the divine activity in the world takes more than one form, so Shiva has more than once dance, and at first sight it is difficult to convince oneself that the hostile destroyer and the wholly sympathetic performer of a dance which is pure delight are figures of one and the same god.
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- Copyright © 1954 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 I owe my own acquaintance with these figures to my friend Dr Cohn of the Department of Eastern Art, Oxford.
2 Ananda Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Shiva, Bombay, 1948.
3 J. Pedersen, Israel, I‐II, p. 487.
4 H. I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, Paris, 1949, p. 580 ff.
5 ‘illa tument, ista praetereunt.’ (De Musica VI, xii, 34.) (All references are to the Maurist edition of St Augustine.)
6 Augustine uses of them the adjective lubricus, ‘slippery’, ‘deceitful’, (ibid., VI, xi, 33.)
7 ‘quia nihil in spatiis locorum et temporum per seipsum magnum est, sed ad aliquid brevius: et nihil rursus in his per seipsum breve est, sed ad aliquid majus.’ (ibid., VI, vii, 19.)
8 As a general statement showing how numbers and their multiples are thought of as types and exemplars of all kinds of proportion one might cite: ‘Ubi autem aequalitas aut similitudo, ibi numerositas: nihil est quippe tam aequale aut simile quam unum et unum.’ (ibid., VI, xiii, 38.)
9 All the examples, except the first, occur in the course of De Musica, VI.
10 ibid., VI, xvii, 57.
11 The list is Augustine's, (ibid., VI, xiv, 44.)
12 ‘Verum quia in omnibus rerum motibus quid numeri valeant, facilius consideratur in vocibus’, etc. (Epist. 131.)
13 De Musica, VI, vii, 19.
14 His enim haec scripta sunt, qui litteris saecularibus dediti, magnis implicantur erroribus, et bona ingenia in nugis conterunt, nescientes quid ibi delectet. (ibid., VI, i, I.)
15 The ‘opinabilis vita’ (ibid., VI, xi, 32) is the uncritical life of a world of phantasy.
16 Retract., I, vi.
17 ‘in quibus viis ostendit se sapientia hilariter, et in omni providentia occurrit amantibus.’ (Epist. 131.)
18 This is unfortunate because the De Musica is a subtle work and depends very much for its effect upon a sustained reading. If the following bald outline should, however, stimulate anyone to turn to the original, he can be assured that he will find it worth his pains.
19 Augustine's names for the last three kinds of rhythm are, respectively, ‘progressive’, ‘occursive’, and ‘judicial’.
20 De Musica, VI, iv, 7.
21 ibid., VI, v, 13.
22 ibid., VI, ix, 23.
23 ibid., VI, x, 28.
24 ‘Delectatio quippe quasi pondus est animae.’ (ibid., VI, xi, 29.)
25 ibid., VI, xi, 30.
26 ‘quicumque de nostra poenali mortalitate numeri facti sunt, non eos abdicemus a fabricatione divinae providentiae, cum sint in genere suo pulchri.’ (ibid., VI, xiv, 46.)
27 ibid., VI, xiv, 43.
28 ‘Non igitur numeri qui sunt infra rationem et in suo genere pulchri sunt, sed amor inferioris pulchritudinis animam polluit.’ (ibid., VI, xiv, 46.)
29 ‘nonne et istos omnes numeros agit et nullis eorum laqueis implicatur?… Magnum quemdam virum et vere humanissimum praedicas.’ (ibid., VI, xiv, 45.)