The Purpose of Beauty

April 3, 2007

MARCH 31, 2007: In most cultures, beauty has been seen as an attribute

of the divine. Satyam, Shivam, Sudaram. Truth is God, God is

Beautiful. But did that not refer to Indian beauty? Nobody told the

artists. They went about adorning palaces and temples with images of

beautiful men and women identified as gods, heroes, nymphs and kings.

So powerful has been the impact of these works of art that now almost

every society associates beauty with all things good and wonderful and

ugliness with something terrible, inauspicious and even evil. All

heroines of fairy tales are pretty. The villain is usually scruffy.

God is beautiful. The Devil ugly.

In Vedic times, beauty was so important that it had a goddess. She was

called Lakshmi, hence the popular Indian cosmetic brand called Lakme,

Lakme being the Europeanised `Lakhmi' which is the vernacular form of

Lakshmi.

But isn't Lakshmi the goddess of wealth and power? How did she get

involved with beauty? The ancients believed that beauty was a talisman

for good luck and fortune. Where there was beauty there was fertility.

Bees and bulls were attracted to the most beautiful flowers and cows,

resulting in more procreation, more productivity, hence more

prosperity. So the goddess of wealth also became the goddess of beauty.

In ancient India married women were literally forced to make

themselves beautiful for festive occasions. This beautification

involved bedecking the body with 16 charms or solah shringar in the

ritually prescribed way. The word shringar means that which makes the

body or anga, worthy of Lakshmi also known as Shri.

THE RITUAL OF BEAUTY

Ritual beauty had less to do with how one looked and more with how one

ornamented oneself. Ornamentation was ruthlessly enforced because a

suitably ornamented woman—one dressed with anklets, armlets,

bracelets, rings, toerings, noserings, necklace, sari, and

flowers—attracted good luck for herself and her family.

Besides, a bejeweled bride or mistress was clearly an indicator of a

family's prosperity. Thus beauty was both a talisman for wealth as

well as its indicator, which is why in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain

shrines, one often finds images of fat men (wealth) accompanied by

ornamented women (beauty).

Beauty in India did go beyond ornamentation. Look at the definitions

of natural beauty in Kalidasa's time: `moon-faced, elephanthipped,

serpent-necked, antelope-footed, swanwaisted, lotus-eyed'. The image

that comes before us is that of a soft voluptuous young girl bursting

with sensual promises.

A far cry from the ideal of female beauty in the Western classical

world, which consisted of small breasts (sculptors in India modelled

the female breast on the round Bilva fruit), wide breast separation

(sculptors in India were advised that the breasts should be separated

enough only to let a thread pass in between), shapely though not

overly large buttocks and relatively wide hips (but certainly not

`thighs like plantain stalks' that Kalidasa so admired).

CHANGING DEFINITIONS

What constitutes beauty has always varied with history and geography.

In the Stone Ages, obese women were adored as they represented wealth,

power, food and fertility. They inspired the carving of innumerable

Venus figurines. But today fat is not beautiful. If anything it is

deemed repulsive. It has been associated with ill health and sloth and

gluttony. In the East, ornamentation made a person beautiful. In the

West, simplicity was the hallmark of beauty.

A study of Indian and Euro-American brands reveals a clear cultural

divide in the notion of beauty. Typically, in Indian beauty brands,

the gaze is external and usually male. Ponds, Fair & Lovely, Lux,

Sunsilk, Lakme all thrive on external validation. These brands make

you beautiful in someone else's eye.

For the boyfriend, for the husband, for the family, for the fans.

Western brands, by contrast, beauty is all for the self not the other.

Thus L'Oreal says, " Because you are worth it. " The other's point of

view does not matter. Dove celebrates a woman's beauty and advises

them to celebrate themselves for what they are. Western beauty brands

rarely show an admirer. The woman stands there alone. Her unsmiling

expression proof that she is not seeking to attract you.

The root of this perhaps has perhaps something to do with the Indian

and Western worldview. In Greece, Christianity and Islam, the

beautiful seductress—whether Eve, Delilah, Judith , Pandora or

Helen—brought trouble in her wake. More value was given to the

unadorned simple maid.

She became the mother of God. In India, the Apsara seduced the Rishi,

so that the monastic life could be abandoned and the material world,

with all its sensuality, enjoyed. So while the enchantment of beauty

was constantly feared in the West, in India it was worshipped and

adored. In the West, the modern beauty pageant is a thumbing of the

nose to traditional religious austerity. In India, such a pageant is

viewed with suspicion as it treads the fine line between worldliness

and hedonism.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

While selling a beauty product today, it is important to see beauty in

a cultural context: What does the consumer consider beautiful? Who is

the judge? What purpose does beauty serve?

A casual look at soap operas show the obsession of the Indian woman

with ornamentation. Simplicity is associated with widowhood and sorrow

and bitterness. A refusal to enjoy life. In Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam,

the heroine bought cosmetics because it promised to lure her husband

back to her. In Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, the heroine goes through a

makeover because inner beauty is not enough to get the man of her

dreams. In Khoon Bhari Maang, beauty makes a woman powerful.

All this indicates that the notion of being beautiful for one's own

sake does not seem to be very popular in India. Beauty products are

not purchased to celebrate one's beauty. That seems too

self-indulgent. The aim of beauty seems to be to get a response from

the external world, to be constantly pleasing to the beholder's eye.

Outer beauty can always be seen. Inner beauty may not always be noticed.

Indiatimes/ The Economic Times. Beauty has a purpose too. By DEVDUTT

PATTANAIK & RAJAN KRISHNAN. TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, MARCH 31,

2007 01:30:09 PM]

URL: http://tinyurl.com/2ew2yy

April 3, 2007

Hi DB

Kaalidaasa has given a beautiful definition of beauty in Kumaarasambhavam thus:

'Priyeshu sowbhaagyaphalaa hi chaarutaa'.

JR

Devi Bhakta <devi_bhakta wrote: