1. Published in E.T., March 1940.
2. In English, we may to a certain point avoid the ambiguity by agreeing to render scholastic 'form' as form, and 'form' in the ordinary sense as shape; but, in French, it is impossible to find two words allowing a similar distinction.
3. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, III.2.12.
4. Jaiminiya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa, I. 35.
5. Ibid., III.9.
6. It is no less true that angelic nature, like all that is manifested, necessarily comprises a mixture of 'act' and 'power'. Certain people appear to have purely and simply assimilated these two terms to 'form' and 'matter', which indeed do correspond to them, but which normally have a more limited meaning. And these differences of terminology are capable of creating certain points of confusion.
7. We will recall here the symbolism of Plato's case.
8. On this point, and also for a good part of other considerations shown in this article, see Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, 'The Part of Art in Indian Life,' in the Commemorative Collection of Shri Ramakrishna's centenary, The Cultural Heritage of India, vol. III, pp. 485-513.
9. Cf. Byhadāranyaka Upanisad, I.4.17.
10. It must be added nevertheless that, in certain cases, sight and its organ can also symbolise intellectual intuition (the 'eye of knowledge' in Hindu tradition, or the 'eye of the heart' in Islamic tradition). But it is then a question of another aspect of the symbolism of light, and consequently of 'visibility' different from the one we have to consider at present, for in this latter there primarily intervene the relationships of sight and hearing, or corresponding sensible qualities. We must always remember that traditional symbolism is never 'systematic'.