Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/industrialartsofOObird **! ;1 .■Jti " •i SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA The important collection of examples comprised in the Musetim originally formed by the East India Company has lately bee7i transferred from the India Office to the charge of the Lords of the Committee of Council oti Education, a7id will henceforth form a section of the South Ke7isingto7i M useu77i. This Volu77ie, for7ning 07ie of the series of Art Ha7idbooks issued 7i7ider the authority of their Lo7'dships, has bee7i prepared at their request, a7id with the co7icur7'e7tce of the Secretary of State for Lidia hi,_ Council, by Dr. Birdwood, of the l7idia Office, a ge7itle77ia7i whose wide k7iowledge of the art 77ia7iufactures of Lidia specially qualifies him for the work. It is hoped that it will be found useful not alone by visitors to the Museum, but by all who desire to acquii'e information 7-especting the arts and industries of the Indian Empire. May, i88o. THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA BY GEORGE C. M. BIRDWOOD, C.S.L, M.D. Edin., A ri liejeree for the hidian Section of the South Kensington Museum. WITH MAP AND WOODCUTS, CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited, 193, Piccadilly. Co /U .S’ /6V7 I ^SO FESTINA LENTE. ^nljat? gif ^rt ba slofe«: sbietelk let gt grofae §ji.Is ismt^ tobr« (^tm mat^ 6obbgs smalf |lai«f; §ot af wgagg, sitrgbjjg, rargg, gobgg, brgbgg, aoal^t »aif §ast g*Iaft trpb g« plaint . . . H. LE SCOT, Canticu ffilioru Beseleel. \circa Mcccc. ao'1^^ LONDON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. THEQETTYCE^JTER 1 (BRARS PREFACE. Part I, on the Hindu Pantheon, has been compiled chiefly from the well-known works of Belnos, Cole- man, Colebrooke, Dowson, Dubois, Fonseca, Garrett, Gladwin, Goldstiicker, Herklots, Sir W. Jones, Muir, Max Muller, Ward, Talboys Wheeler, Monier Williams, H. H. Wilson, and J. Wilson, and revised throughout from the Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology recently published by Professor Dowson, whose spelling of the names of gods and epic heroes of India I have endeavoured to uniformly follow. I have also had to make frequent use of the papers on Ancient Scidpturings on Rocks, on The Snake Symbol in India, on Stone Carvings at Main- pura, and on P rehistoric Remains in Ancient India, pub- lished in Ccio. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, by Mr. J. H. Rivett-Carnac, C.I.E., of the Bengal Civil Service, and of the papers on The Village named Martida in Southern Konkana, on Serpent Worship in Western India, on The Shrine of the River Krishna at Maha- balesvara, and on The Shrine of Mahabalesvara, pub- lished in the Journal of the Bombay Braftch of the Royal Asiatic Society by the Honorable Rao Sahib Vishvanath Narayan Mandlik, member of the Bombay Legislative Council. VI PREFACE. Part II, on The Master Handicrafts of India, is a reprint, with added text, of a portion of my Handbook to the Indian Court at the Paris International Exhibition of 1878. It was so well received, both on the Continent and in this country by people interested in the minor arts of India, that I resolved to publish a carefully rewritten edition of it for general sale. I began by adding to it copious notes from the annual Administration Reports of the local governments of India ; and I had examined all these reports, and all the provincial Gazetteers as yet published, when I was asked in the early part of this year -to write a popular handbook on the industrial arts of India, in connexion with the reopening of the India Museum under its new administration by the Science and Art Depart- ment at South Kensington. In undertaking this task my intention was to write such a short sketch as I have given of the Hindu Pantheon, without some knowledge of \vhich half the interest of the manual arts of India is lost ; and to add a few general observations on the artis- tic character of Indian manufactures. But on examining the India Museum collections in detail, and finding how incomplete they were for a systematic representation of the manufacturing resources of India, I saw that what was most wanted was not a handbook to the contents of the Museum, but an index to its deficiencies ; and I therefore resolved to virtually republish a portion of my Handbook, with new information, as the second part of the present work. Although its preparation has been hurried — (the Science and Art Department received charge of the Museum only on the ist of January last) — I hope that it is a fairly trustworthy index of every district and town in British India where manufactures of any special PREFACE. Vll artistic quality are produced ; and I believe it will prove of some assistance to the officials of the Science and Art Department in completing the India Museum collections, and to the general public as a guide to the places in India where they may obtain objects of genuine native art. I have been much exercised with the spelling of the modern Indian geographical names. I have never before spelled them according to the official system, but have been forced under various compulsions to submit more or less completely to it on the present occasion. I have given up Sir Charles Napier’s “ Scinde,” but I have not been able to give up Moore’s “ Cashmere.” Whoever heard of the vale of “ Kashmir ” } It has been very confusing to me to give up the old oo' s and ees for the new Es and ?’s, which latter render it impossible for cornmon English people to understand anything like the true pronunciation of Indian names. It is impossible for English people to pronounce P-u-n-a as Poona, N-i-r-a as Neera, S-h-i-r-p-u-r as Shere- pore, or D-a-m-D-a-m as Dum-Dum. Even if the natives of India adopted the Roman alphabet we ought not to spell modern Indian geographical names as they naturally would, if our first object is to preserve the proper pronunciation of them : for let it be clearly understood that by the official system of spelling we are degrad- ing their pronunciation. I saw Kurnool the other day rhymed to skull, simply because the writer of the poem, himself an accomplished Orientalist, had been, in a heed- less moment, misled by the official spelling of the word Karmd. English is English, and the spelling of English words should be left to be settled by popular English usage, and no attempt should be made to regulate it by arbitrary resolutions of government. When an PREFACE. viii Englishman hears a foreign sound he tries to render it as accurately as possible by spelling it out with honest English letters, and for the very reason that he does not adopt a uniform system, but tackles the sound in his own way, he arrives at last at a spelling of it which renders its mispronunciation almost impossible. Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, Umritsur, Jullundhur, and Lucknow, are pronounced by Englishmen very nearly as natives of India pronounce Kalikata, Madraj, Bambai, Lahawar, Amritsir, Jalindhar, and Lakhnau. It is of course convenient to have a uniform system of spelling Indian words for the use of international oriental scholars ; but the service of oriental science is one thing, and correct English spelling quite another ; and what is wanted by Englishmen is not that a dozen or so European “ pandits ” should run no risk of mistaking Indian names, but that the common people of England, who have a practical interest in pro- nouncing them correctly should not be led into error. It is therefore of paramount importance that they should “ be englished rightly.” G. B. 1 May 1880. CONTENTS PAGE PART /.—THE HINDU PANTHEON— The sacred writings of the Hindus The Itihasas The Mahabharata The R AMAYA n a The Puranas The Code of Manu The Tantras The gods of India ... ... ... ... The Vedic gods ... The Puranic gods •' The greater gods The eight Vedic “Dii Selecti” Table of the Regents of the eight quarters of the WORLD ... 6 7 23 33 35 45 46 46 53 54 64 70 The two sons of Siva 70 X CONTENTS. PAGE The Hosts of Heaven The lesser gods and deified heroes The “Dii Semones” The Vahans, or vehicles of the different gods Celestial attendants on the gods Infernal attendants on the gods Local deities Miscellaneous sacred objects Sacred trees and plants .. Sacred animals Sacred men Miscellaneous sacred things Sacred places Sacred mountains Of Mount Meru and Mount Kailasa, the Hindu Olympus ... The Hindu sects and sectarial marks The Jainas and their twenty-four Jins The Hindu temples Sacrificial utensils Evil influence of the Puranas on Indian art The antiquity of Indian art 72 73 78 80 82 84 85 SS 91 91 92 92 93 94 95 98 107 123 125 126 CONTENTS. PART //.—THE MASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA— Gold and silver plate Metal work in brass, copper, and tin Damascened work Enamels ... Arms Trappings and caparisons Jewelry Art furniture and household decoration Bombay blackwood .. Bombay inlaid w^rk ai:d Ahmedahad inoiJier-cf-poarl work ... Vizagapatam work ... Mynpuri work Inlaid work of Agra Sandalwood and other wood carving Carved ivory, hor7i, and iorioise-shell ... Carved stone... ... . . Clay figures... Lac work Delhi pai^: tings Miscellancsr.s small wares... Musical instruments XI PAOE 144 1 54 163 i6s 169 179 183 199 201 205 208 208 209 216 218 219 222 223 228 229 233 CONTENTS. Woven stuffs, lace, fine needlework, carpets, felts, AND FURS Cottons The principal place of cotton manufacture in India The principal place of silk manufacture in India Gold and silver lace Embroidery Carpets pottery The knop and flower pattern PAGE 234 241 244 272 278 280 284 301 325 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATE Map of India A. — Vedic Gods B. — ^Vedic Gods C. — Puranic Gods D. — Puranic Gods ... E. — Puranic Gods F. — Puranic Gods — Avatars of Vislmu G. — Puranic Gods — Avatars of Vishnu, H . — Puranic Gods ... I. — Puranic Gods ... J. — Puranic Gods ... K. — Puranic Gods ... L. — Buddhist Idols and symbols ... M. — Sectarial marks N. — Sacrificial utensils O. — Sacrificial utensils I . — Buddhist relic casket ... 2. — Ancient silver patera ... 3. — Chased gold vessel, Cashmere 4 — Chased parcel gilt jug. Cashmere 5. — Chased parcel gilt Sarai, Lucknow 6. — Chased parcel gilt Sarai, Lucknow To face page i „ 13^3 ... „ 130 » 130 » 130 130 „ 130 continued ... ,, 130 ,> 130 ,, 130 „ 130 „ 130 130 „ 130 » 130 „ 130 >. 144 144 „ 150 „ 150 „ 150 „ 150 XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATE 7. — Bowl and tray of pierced silver, parcel gilt [with detail], Ahmedabad ... ... ... To face page g. — Parcel gilt and jewelled coffee-pot of Mogol period ,, g [bis ). — Pierced and repousse shrine screen, Madura g. — Parcel gilt vase of Mogol period ... ... ... ,, ^ (bis ). — Gold tray, Mysore ... ... ... .. ,, 10. — Gold dish, Mysore ... ... ... ... ... ,, 11. — Section of gold dish, Mysore ... ... ... ,, 12. — Buddhistic copper vase, with detail of graven decoration... ... ... ... ... ... ,, 12 (bis ). — Tinned brass bowl, with incised ornament, Moradabad ... ... ... ... ,, 13. — Spice-box of Moradabad work ... ... ... ,, 14. — Sculptured brass Tanjore ... ... ... ,, 15. — Brass Loia, encrusted with copper, Tanjore ... ,, 16. — Copper Zofa, encrusted with silver, Tanjore ... ,, 17. — Copper Zo/n, encrusted with silver, Tanjore ... ,, 18. — Copper Lota, with hammered ornament, Tanjore ... ,, 19. — Brass dish, encrusted with copper, Tanjore ... ,, 20. — Brass figure, No. l, Vizagapatam ... ... ... ,. 21. — Brass figure, No. 2, Vizagapatam ... ... ... ,, 22. — Brass figure. No. 3, Vizagapatam ... ... ... ,, 23. — Brass figure, No. 4, Vizagapatam ... ... ... ,, 24. — Brass figure. No. g, Vizagapatam ... ... ... ,, 25. — Brass figure. No. 6, Vizagapatam ... ... ... ,, 26. — Brass figure. No. 7, Vizagapatam ... ... ... 27. — Brass candlestick, Madura... ... ... ... ,, 28. — Copper-gilt sacrificial va'e, Madura... ... ... ,, 29. — Teapot? — Nipal ... ... ... ... ... ,, 30. — Damascened work, and spice-box, damascened in gold [with detail of a panel], Panjab ... .. ,, 15c 152 152 152 152 152 152 154 156 156 160 160 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 162 164 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XV PLATE 31. — Two panels of damascened spice-box figured in Plate 30 ... ... ... ... .. ,. To face page 164 32. — Sami, damascened in silver, Hyderabad in the Dakhan ... ... .. ... ,, .. ,, 164 33. — Plate, damascened in silver, Plyderabad in the Dakhan ... ... ... ... ... ... ,, 164 34 and 35. — Vessel and bowl. Damascened in silver, Purniah ... ... ... ... ,, 164 36. — Enamelled pen and inkstand, Jaipur ... ... ,, 168 37. — Enamelled Sarai, Panjab ... ... ... ... ,, 168 38. — Enamelled ZTria stand, of Mogol period... ... ,, 168 39. — Casket [with details] of Pertabghar enamel ... ,, 168 40. — Gun barrel, damascened in gold, with details ... ,, 178 41. — Gun stock cased in ivory ... ... ... ... ,, 178 42. — Shield, damascened in gold. Panjab ... ... ,, 178 43. — Spear head, Madras ... ... ... ... ... ,, 178 44. — Necklace, Panjab ... ... ... ... ... ,, 192 45. — Necklace, Panjab ... ... ... ... ... ,, 192 46. — Silver neck ornament, Sindh... ... ... ... ,, 194 47. — Silver neck ornament, Sindh ... ... ... ,, 194 48. — Native silver jewellery of Cuttack and silver filigrain jewellery of Cuttack ... ... ... ,, 194 49. — Primitive silver jewellery of Dinajpur, Bengal ... ,, 194 50. — Primitive silver jewellery of Dinajpur, Bengal, and native gold jewellery of Sawantwari, Bombay... ,, 194 51. — Native gold jewellery of Poona, Bombay ... ... ,, 196 52. — Native gold jewellery of Vizianagram, Madras ... ,, 196 53. — Native jewellery of Trichinopoly, Madras ... ,, 196 54. — Native jewellery of Trichinopoly, Madras .. ... ,, 19S 55. — Hair comb of pearls and diamonds set in enamelled gold, Jaipur „ 19S XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATE 56. — J ewelled jade of Mogol period ... To face page 198 57. — ^Jewelled jade of Mogol period 198 58. — Inlaid work of Agra ... »> 208 59. — Sandalwood carving of Canara >> 216 60. — Sandalwood carving of Ahmedabad 216 61. — Sandalwood carving of Travancore ... 216 62. — Carved ivory comb, Saltara, Bombay > 218 63. — Carved stone, Rajputana 220 64. — Lacquered boxes, Sindh ... >> 226 65. — Lacquered boxes, Sindh »> 226 66. — Lacquered leg of bedstead, Sindh ... 226 67. — Lacquered work of Kamul ... n 226 68. — Kincob of Ahmedabad 276 69.— Gold embroidery on velvet, Mm'shedabad ... > 280 70. — Glazed pottery, Sindh... >> 304 71. — Glazed pottery, Sindh... j t 304 72. — Glazed pottery, Sindh... »> 304 73. — Glazed pottery, Sindh... >> 304 74. — Glazed pottery, Sindh... 304 75. — Glazed pottery, Sindh... ... ... i.. > » 304 75 (bis). — Enamelled tile, Sindh ... > 304 76. — Glazed [silicious] pottery, in white and blue of Delhi, and glazed pierced pottery of Madura > 304 lOO' 1880 IVepftred toi* THE snUTJIKENSlNGTOKMUSEOM.UIOIAN SECTION i>v Tifln>'.ny Saundei’s . >Anoi( 'amipi Months BOMBAY teianapT-om | 4 VRAB. UtitTtn.jh^nf I CHegraiS Sawuntwjj i.vJOne.’ Ratlm^s' sham, thu* __ Soale <£ Fw^iah liEles .CEYLON J^anSs 4 » Stan/ord^ 6eoa £sthb* 35 Ouviiw Cms. THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. PART L THE HINDU PANTHEON. The arts of India are the illustration of the religious life of the Hindus, as that life was already organised in full perfection under the Code of Manu, b.c. 900-300. Although some of the fresh- ness of its Vedic morning was then already lost, it is life still in its first religious and heroic stage, as we find it painted in the Rama- yana and Mahabharata ; and we owe its preservation, through the past three thousand years, from change and decay, chiefly to the Code of Manu. The principles of government embodied in this book were probably first reduced to their present form about B.c. 300, as a defence of the priestly polity of the Brahmans against the Buddhist revolution, by which it was threatened from about b.c. 543, the date of the death of Gautama Buddha, to the sixth and seventh centuries of our era. So securely was the sacerdotal state system of the Brahmanical Hindus fixed by the Code of Manu that even the foreign invasions and conquests to which they have been constantly subjected from the seventh century b.c. have left the life and arts of India essentially the same as we find them in the B 2 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Raraayana and Mahabharata, and in the writings of the Greek officers of Alexander, Seleucus and the Ptolemies, by which they were first made known to the Western nations. The intimate absorption of Hindu life in the unseen realities of man’s spiritual consciousness is seldom sufficiently acknow- ledged by Europeans, and indeed cannot be fully comprehended by men whose belief in the supernatural has been destroyed by the prevailing material ideas of modern society. Every thought, word, and deed of the Hindus belongs to the world of the unseen as well as of the seen; and nothing shews this more strikingly than the traditionary arts of India. Everything that is made is for direct religious use, or has some religious significance. The materials of which different articles are fashioned, their weight, and the colours in which they are painted, are fixed by religious rule. An obscurer symbolism than of material and colour is to be traced also in the forms of things, even for the meanest domestic uses. Every detail of Indian decoration, Aryan, or Turanian, has a religious meaning, and the arts of India will never be rightly understood until there are brought to their study not only the sensibility which can appreciate them at first sight, but a familiar acquaintance with the character and subjects of the religious poetry, national legends, and mythological scriptures that have always been their inspiration, and of which they are the perfected imagery. The Sacred Writings of the Hindus. The Hindus arrange their Sastras or sacred writings in four groups, namely, 1. The Vedas, or “divine knowledge.” 2. The Upa-Vedas, or “ supplementary Vedas.” 3. The Ved-Angas, or “members of the Vedas.” 4. The Upangas, or “ supplementary Angas.” Under these four heads every sort of knowledge is taught. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 3 The Vedas are four also, namely, 1. The Rig- Veda, so called from rik, a verse. 2. The Yajur-Veda, so called from yaj, worship, relating to sacrifices. 3. The Sama-Veda, so called from saman, a prayer arranged for singing. 4. The Atharya-Veda, or Brahmana-Veda, relating chiefly to incantations. Each Veda is also divided into four parts, namely, 1. The Sanhita, comprising the Mantras and Ganas, or hymns and prayers. 2. The Brahmanas, describing the details of the Vedic ceremonies for the guidance of the Brahmans. 3. The Jnana, or Upanishads, or philosophical part. 4. The Aranyakas, “belonging to the forest,” intended for Brahmans in retreat, and closely connected with the Upanishads. The distinguishing title of Aitareya is prefixed to a Brahmana, an Upanishad, or an Aranyaka of the Rig-Veda. The Sanhitas, Brahmanas, Upanishads, and Aranyakas of the Vedas are desig- nated as sruti, or “ heard ” ; and all other Hindu sacred scrip- tures are simply smriti, or “ inspired,” as distinguished from the “heard” or directly revealed word. The three great schools of Hindu philosophy [Darsana, “ demonstration ”], and their three supplementary schools, the Nyaya and Vaiseshika, the Sankhya and Yoga, and the Purva-Mimansa [“ earlier ” Mimansa] and Uttara- Mimansa [“later” Mimansa], or Vedanta, all implicitly accept the divine authority of the Vedas, but explain them differently. It was the Brahmans’ claiming the direct revelation of the Brah- manas that mainly led to the schism of Buddhism. The Nyaya and Sankhya schools were probably in existence before the time of Gautama Buddha, but the Vedanta [the “end,” “object,” or B 2 4 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. “scope” of the Vedas,] school seems to have arisen in opposition to the teaching of Buddhism, which was popularly regarded as a system of atheism. To it the Vedanta school opposed the doctrine of pantheism. But Vedantism is really nothing else than Nihilism ; and the agnostic teaching of the Sankhya school is the common basis of all systems of Hindu philosophy. Closely connected with the Vedas are the Sutras and Parisishtas. The word sutra literally means a “ thread ” or “ string,” and the Sutras are little books consisting of a string of short sentences, giving the quintessence of the Vedas in the concisest possible form, for the instruction of students in the accumulated lore of the Vedas. The Parisishtas are of later date, and, as their name indicates are “ supplementary ” to the Sutras. They are intended not for the instruction of the young, but to convey to the ignorant multitude, in a popular and superficial form, general information regarding their religion. They mark the transition from the Vedic to the Puranic literature of India. The true Vedic age has been divided by Max Miiller into four periods. The first is that of the Chhandas [“metre”], which he fixes between b.c. 1200 and b.c. 1000, when the oldest hymns of the Rig- Veda were first composed, and the Vedas had not yet been reduced to their present form. The second or Maritra period, he fixes between b.c. 1000 and b.c. 800 ; and the third or BraJi 77 iana period, during which the Upanishads also were composed, between b.c. 800 and b.c. 600. The fourth, or Sutra period, extends the Vedic age to b.c. 200. In reality the Rig-Veda is the only Veda, since from it almost exclusively the Yajur-Veda and Sama-Veda are derived. Indeed they are merely different arrangements of its hymns for special sacrifices and other rites, and for singing. The Atharva Veda also is sometimes not acknowledged to be a Veda at all, but only a supplement to the others. The last hymn \suktd\ of the third book \ 7 nandala\ of the Sanhita of the Rig-Veda consists of six in- vocations by the Rishi Viswamitra, one of which is the celebrated THE HINDU PANTHEON 5 gayatri, or verse of eight syllables, known as “ the holiest verse of the Vedas,” and “ the mother of the Vedas,” which it is the duty of every Brahman to repeat at all his devotions. It is a simple invocation to the sun, but to it in the course of ages the most mysterious significance has become attached. It is said in the Code of Manu, ch. vi. v. 7 1 : “ Even as the dross of metals is consumed by fire, so is a man purified of his sins by meditating on the mystic word [OM], and the melodious measure of the gayatri.” The address to the sun is in these words : “ Let us adore the light of the divine sun [savitrf\. May it enlighten our minds.” The Upa-Vedas are also four, namely, 1. The Ayur-Veda, or science of medicine, derived from the Rig-Veda. 2. The Gandharva-Veda, or science of music, derived from the Sama-Veda. 3. The Dhanur-Veda, or military science, derived from the Yajur-Veda. 4. Silpa, or Sthapatya-Veda, on the mechanical arts and architecture, derived from the Atharva-Veda. These are all said to belong partly to the Bi-ahmana and partly to the Sutra period. The Ved-Angas, or “members of the Vedas,” composed during the Sut a period are six, namely, 1. The Siksha, on pronunciation. 2. The Chhandas, on prosody and verse. 3. The Vyakarana, on grammar. 4. The Nirukta, in explanation of obscure words and phrases in the Vedas. 5. The Kalpa, on religious ceremonies. 6. The Jyotisha, on astronomy. 6 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. The Upangas, or “additional limbs” of the Veda, may also be arranged as six, namely, 1. The Itihasas, or epic poems. 2. The Puranas, or legendary histories. 3. The Yoga, on logic. 4. The Mimansa, on philosophy. 5. The Dharma-Sastras, on jurisprudence. 6. The Tantras, on ritual. The Itihasas. The two great Itihasas are the Ramayana, “ the adventures of Rama,” and the Mahabharata, “ the great [war of] Bharata,.” As compiled works, both are attributed to the latest period of the Vedic age. The compilation of the Ramayana may be fixed not later than b.c. 350, and that of the Mahabharata as late as b.c. 250; and neither, in their present form, can be dated earlier than B.c. 500. The Mahabharata was known to Dion Chrysostom about B.c. 150; and as Megasthenes, who was in India about B.c. 315, does not mention it, Weber places its date between these two epochs. But there can be no doubt that the legends of which both the Ramayana and Mahabharata consist have come down, by tradition, from the earliest period of the Vedic age. There are allusions in the Vedas to the existence of such popular legends; and here and there, even in the Vedas, are to be found ballad stanzas extolling the prowess of some prince of the day, or pious king of old, which Weber has specified as the forerunners of the epic poetry of the Itihasic period. The Rama- yana is considered to be the older of the two great poems ; but the Mahabharata certainly describes an earlier, or at least a less advanced, condition of Aryan society in India. The Mahabharata is a mythical history of the Aryan colonisation of Hindustan, and the Ramayana of the Hindu conquest of the Dakhan and Ceylon. The special interest ofboth poems is that, while they embody THE HINDU PANTHEON 7 authentic legends of the earliest period of the Vedic age, they are, in their present form, productions of the latest period of the true Vedic age. They thus not only afford a complete picture of the patriarchal and heroic stages of Aryan civilisation in India, such as could not be composed from the original Vedas alone, but at the same time lay bare the influences by which it was gradually brought under the religious state system of the Brahmans as organised in the Code of Manu and re- maining stereotyped to this day. At every turn the simple legends of the Aryan ballad-makers are strained and distorted until their character is wholly changed, and obviously for the purpose of asserting the supernatural authority of the Brahmans. We see the popular heroes of the Vedic age becoming gods, and the shadowy gods of the Vedas gradually taking the positive forms under which they appear in the Puranas, and have ever since been worshipped. Fortunately there is no great difficulty, so Sanskrit scholars say, in determining what in these epics is heroic history, and what the craftily contrived corruptions of their scheming compilers. The Mahabharata. The Mahabharata consists of 220,000 long lines, which are said to have been first collected and arranged together, in eighteen large volumes, by the same person, Krishna Dwaipayana, who is reputed to have been the compiler of the Vedas and earlier Puranas, and is commonly known by the name of Vyasa, or “the fitter together.” The Aryas in India, before they were divided into the castes established by the Code of Manu, are spoken of as belonging to either the Solar Race, Surya-vansa, or the Lunar Race, Chandra- vansa. The Solar Race, which reigned in Oudh, was the more celebrated, and the Rama of the Ramayana is its great hero. The Mahabharata is the relation of the long feud and final destructive battle between the kindred Kauravas and Pandavas, who were 8 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. descended through Bharata from Puru, the ancestor of one branch of the Lunar Race. The other branch was descended from Yadu, and became extinct in Krishna and his elder brother Balarama, who are the real heroes of the Mahabharata. Both Yadavas and Pauravas traced back their common lineage through Yayati, the fifth king of the Lunar Race, and Nahusha, Ayus, and Pururavas, to Budha, the planet Mercury, and Chandra, or Soma, the Moon. Bharata, the son of Dushyanta and Sakuntala, the heroine of Kalidasa’s immortal drama of the Fatal Ring, was the founder of the kingdom of Bharata, in the Doab between the Ganges [Ganga] and Jumna [Yamuna]. His son was Hastin, who built Hastinapura, the ruins of which are still traceable fifty-nine miles N.E. from Delhi. Hastin’s son was Kuru, and Kuru’s was Santanu, whose son, by the holy river goddess Ganga, was Bhishma, “the terrible.” Bhishma wished to marry the nymph Satyavati, the mother of Vyasa by the Rishi Parasara. The Rishi met her as she was crossing the river Jumna, and their son, who was born on an island \dwaipd\ in that river, was thence called Dwaipayana. Satyavati’s parents objected to her marrying Bhishma, since any son she might bear to him would not necessarily succeed to the throne, to which Bhishma was heir- apparent ; and as Santanu wished in his old age to marry again, Bhishma gave her up to his father, and vowed never to marry, or to accept the throne. She bore Santanu two sons, and so became the grandmother of the rival Kauravas and Pandavas. The elder son was killed in battle by a Gandharva king ; and when the second also died childless, but leaving two widows, Satya- vati called in the sage Vyasa to marry them, and raise up seed to his half-brother. The widows were so shocked at his frightful appearance, caused by his austerities, that the elder one closed her eyes when he came to her, and so gave birth to a blind son, Dhritarashtra, the father of the Kauravas ; and the younger turned so pale that her son was called Pandu [“ the pale ”], the reputed father of the Pandavas. Satyavati desired greatly to have a THE HINDU PANTHEON. 9 grandchild without blemish, and as the widows would not look on Vyasa again, a slave-girl was made to take their place, who became the mother of Vidura. These children were all brought up together by their uncle Bhishma, now regent of the kingdom. When Dhritarashtra became of age, he, being blind, was passed over for the throne, in favour of Pandu ; but, when the latter be- came a leper, Dhritarashtra was made king in his stead. He married Gandhari, and by her had one hundred sons, the Kauravas [so called after their great-grandfather Kuru], the eldest of whom was Duryodhana, the “ hard to subdue,” and an only daughter, Duh-sala. Pandu married two wives, Pritha or Kunti, the aunt of Krishna, and Madri ; but being a leper, he never consorted with either, and their five sons were begotten by others, their parentage being attributed to various deities. Kunti’s three sons, Yudhish- thira, “firm in battle,” Bhima, “the terrible,” and Arjuna, “the shining one,” were attributed to Dharma, a deified Rishi, the personification of goodness and duty, Vayu, the god of the wind, and Indra, the god of the firmament, respectively ; and Madri's twin sons, Nakula, “ the mongoose,” and Sahadeva, “the creeper,” were attributed to the Aswins, or twin sons of Surya, the god of the sun. Pandu acknowledged them all, and they are the Pand- avas. Kunti had had another son by Surya before her marriage with Pandu ; this son was not acknowledged by Pandu, and in the fatal rivalry between the cousins sided with the Kauravas. He was called Kama, and Kanina [“ the bastard ”], and his relation- ship to them was not known to the Pandavas until after his tragical death. The Pandavas on the death of their father were taken to the court of their uncle, the blind Dhritarashtra, who received charge of them and treated them as he treated his sons, with whom they were instructed in the military art by the Brahman Drona. When their education was finished, a grand assault of arms was held to enable the young princes to shew their skill and prowess before the court of Hastinapura ; and it was in this contest that the long gathering jealousies of the cousins first broke 10 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. into an open quarrel. Shortly afterwards the Kauravas were sent to chastise Drupada, the king of Panchala [Rohilkhand and the Gangetic Doab], an old schoolfellow of Drona’s, whom he had mortally offended by repudiating his acquaintance. The Kauravas failing in their attack, the Pandavas marched out to their support, and vanquished Drupada, and brought him back a prisoner to Drona, a feat which only the more incensed the Kauravas against them. Drupada also, burning under his humilia- tion, prevailed upon two Brahmans to perform a sacrifice, by the efficacy of which he obtained two children, a son, Dhrishta-dyumna, and a daughter, Draupadi, by whom it was promised that he should be revenged on Drona and the Bharata kingdom. The Pandavas grew so rapidly in favour with Dhritarashtra that at length he appointed Yudhishthira as yuva-raja [“ little raja ”J, or heir apparent. The opposition of Duryodhana to this act was so determined that at last the Maharaja was persuaded to exile the Pandavas from Hastinapura ; when Yudhishthira and all his brethren and their mother Kunti [Madri had become a sail on Pandu’s death] took leave of their uncle, and departed into the great jungle toward Varanavata, the modern Allahabad. Their exodus indicates the manner in which the Aryas gradually ex- tended their outposts in India; and their contests with the abori- gines, who are stigmatised under the names of Rakshasas and Asuras, “hobgoblins” and “demons,” remind the reader of the struggles of the Dutch and English colonists with the Zulus and Caffres in South Africa. While engaged in clearing the Varanavata jungle, the Pandavas heard of king Drupada having proclaimed a swayamwara, or tournament, at which his daughter Draupadi would select a husband from among her many suitors. The word swayaftmara literally means “ own choice,” but as the lady generally chose the suitor who most distinguished himself in the athletic sports held on the occasion, it came at last to signify a tournament, at which some beautiful damsel became the prize of the victor. So all the Pandavas went to the swayamwara of THE HINDU PANTHEON. II Draupadi, but disguised as Brahmans, to hide themselves from the Kauravas, whom they knew would be sure to be present. The bright Arjuna outshone all other competitors in the feats of the arena, and became the selected bridegroom ; and great was his joy in Draupadi as she went down to him from her seat, “radiant and graceful as if she had descended from the city of gods.” But great was the rage of the assembled Rajas at having been beaten, as they supposed, by a Brahman, and they were ap- peased only when Krishna made known to them the real position of Arjuna and the Pandavas. On this their uncle recalled them to his court, and divided his kingdom between them and his sons, giving Hastinapura to his sons, and Indraprastha, close to the modern Delhi, to his nephews. It was while they were at Indra- prastha that Krishna, who, after his expulsion from Mathura [Muttra], had emigrated to Dwaraka [Dwarka], paid the Pandavas a visit, and went out hunting with them in the Khandava forest, which he and Agni, the god of fire, helped them in burning, against the opposition of Indra, the god of the firmament or rain ; and it was on this occasion that Krishna received from Agni the discus and mace, which he bears as his attributes. Afterwards Arjuna went to visit Krishna at Dwaraka, whence, with the connivance of Krishna, he eloped with Subhadra, Krishna’s sister, much to the annoyance of Balarama, her elder brother, who wished her to marry Duryodhana, the leader of the Kauravas. Yudhishthira having subdued all his enemies round about him, and slain Jarasandha, the king of Magadha [Bihar], to avenge Krishna, resolved to perform the raja-suya or “ royal sacrifice,” as a solemn symbol of his supremacy over the tributary kings of Indraprastha, all of whom were required to be present. This more than ever excited the enmity of the Kauravas, who to ruin Yudhishthira invited him to a gambling match in which he lost all he possessed, and all his brothers possessed, and at last gambled away his brothers, and himself, and Draupadi, as slaves to the Kauravas. When Duhsasana dragged Draupadi forward by her 12 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. hair, Bhima vowed to drink his blood for the insult ; and when Duryodhana further insulted her by forcing her to sit on his lap, Bhima vowed to break his right thigh-bone. Dhritarashtra insisted on all the Pandavas being freed and their property re- stored to them ; but again Yudhishthira was tempted by the dice box, the agreement this time being that the winners should obtain the entire kingdom, and the losers go into exile for twelve years in the jungle, and thereafter live concealed for one year more in a city : and again Yudhishthira lost, and with his brothers and Draupadi went forth into the wilds. This is the second exile of the Pandavas. In the jungle Yudhishthira meets his father Dharma, who is personified goodness and duty. He asks his son all sorts of questions about the Brahmans, and Yudhishthira answers him in the true spirit of their rising pretensions. Bhima also meets Hanuman, the monkey ally of Rama, who tells him the whole story of the Ramayana, and afterwards takes him to the gardens of Kuvera, the god of hell and of wealth, in the Himalayas, where he found the flower with a thousand petals, the perfume of which makes the old young and the sorrowing joyful. Arjuna also, by the advice of his mythical grandfather, the Rishi Vyasa, proceeded to the Himalayas, to induce Indra to grant liim the celestial weapons which would ensure him victory over the Kau- ravas. Indra refers him to Siva, whose name is unknown in the Vedas, but whose character is analogous to that of the Vedic god Rudra [“ roarer ”], the roaring destroying and recreating god of storms, the father of the Maruts. Siva, having been propitiated by the course of severe austerities which Arjuna underwent, gave him one of his most powerful weapons ; and then Kuvera, Yama, the judge of the dead, Indra, and Varuna, the oldest of the Vedic gods, the maker and upholder of heaven and earth, and later the god of the ocean, presented themselves to Arjuna as the regents of the four quarters of the universe, the north, south, east, and west, respectively, and furnished him each with his own peculiar weapon ; after which Indra carried him away to the celestial city of THE HINDU TAN THE ON. ^3 Amaravati, where Arjuna spent many years practising his arms. He was then sent by Indra to fight against the Daityas [Titans], a race of the giants or demons of the later Hindu mythology. It is believed that the old Vedic gods, and beloved national heroes of the Indian Aryas, were associated in this myth with Siva, in order to popularise the latter, and win over the mass of Hindus to the Brahmans in their mortal struggle for supremacy with the Bud- dhists. Among the authentic incidents of the second exile of the Pandavas may probably be instanced (i) the capture of Duryodhana and Kama by the Gandharvas, a hill tribe, subsequently converted in the Vedas into heavenly beings, and their rescue by the Pandavas; (2) the raja-suya, or “royal sacrifice,” celebrated by Duryodhana, which, by an obvious gloss of later times, is described as in honour of Vishnu, whose name occurs in the Vedas only as a lesser divinity, the personification of the pervading energy of the sun, but who in the Puranic age became the most popular of the Hindu gods, and is indeed recognised by his special votaries as the supreme god of the Brahmanical triad, Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu ; and (3) the attempted abduction of Draupadi by Jayadratha, Raja of the Sindhus, and the husband of Duh-sala. In the thirteenth year of their exile, the Pandavas entered the service of the Raja of Virata [near the modern Jaipur] in disguise, and assisted him so valorously in fighting Sasarman the Raja of Trigartha [the “ three strongholds,” the modern Kangra and Jaland- har Doab], and repelling a wanton invasion of the Kauravas, that when the thirteen years of their exile were passed, and the Pan- davas declared themselves. Raja Virata gave his daughter Uttara in marriage to Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna, and resolved to assist the brothers in their attempt to recover their lost kingdom. A great council of the Pandavas and their allies was held at the marriage feast of Abhimanyu and Uttara, at which Krishna regularly moves a resolution, which is duly seconded by Balarama, to the effect that before entering on a war with the Kauravas, in which the latter were sure to be defeated, an 14 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. ambassador should be sent to them, to counsel them to restore half the kingdom to the Pandavas. This is opposed by Satyaki, a kinsman of Krishna, and by Raja Drupada, in set speeches in support of an amendment to call their allies to arms at once, and be beforehand with the Kauravas. Krishna replies. He acknowledges that the counsel of Drupada is reasonable, but as regards himself, being equally related to the Kauravas and Pandavas, he must remain neutral, and will return to Dwaraka ; adding, “If Duryodhana will consent to a just treaty, well and good, very many lives will be saved. If he will not, then summon your allies to arms, but let your messengers come to me last of all.” Then Krishna returned to Dwaraka, and Raja Drupada sent his own priest as an envoy to Hastinapura. Here another council was at once held to receive the Brahman, when it was resolved to send Sanjaya, who was both minister and charioteer to Dhritarashtra, on a return embassy to the Pandavas, accompanied by the family priest of Raja Drupada. Here it is interesting to observe how during the time of the predominance of the Kshatriyas, or Aryan nobility, among the Hindus, the charioteer was always the confidential adviser and friend of his master, and was gradually superseded only by the household priest \_purohita, literally “man put forward”] or Brahman [brahman, literally “ prayer ’’-bearer], who would appear to have originally been the family cook. Sanjaya, in turn, is received in council, and tries to persuade the Pandavas to return to Hastinapura without insisting on any pledge to receive back half the kingdom. But the Pandavas were not to be put off with mere offers of amity and protection, and in the end Sanjaya is respectfully dismissed, with the message to Duryodhana that the five Pandavas will be content with nothing less than the restitution to them of the five districts of Bharata. On his return to Hastinapura, Sanjaya had a secret interview with the Maharaja Dhritarashtra, who spent all the following night in consultation with Vidura, and in the morning called his sons to council, and sent for Sanjaya, THE HINDU PANTHEON. 15 who delivered to them the message from Yudhishthira. They could come to no agreement, and no answer was returned to the Pandavas. Then Yudhishthira applied for advice to Krishna, who offered to go as ambassador to Hastinapura; and this offer being accepted, Krishna selected a prosperous moment, and, having bathed and worshipped Surya and Agni, went his way to Hastinapura. He sent forward a messenger to announce his approach, and Vidura advised that a deputation of the chieftains should go forth to meet him, but Duryodhana objected. On entering the city Krishna was received by all the Kauravas except Duryodhana, and took up his lodging in the house of his aunt Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. The Brah- mans of Hastinapura paid the highest honours to him ; and it is evident that the compilers of the Mahabharata intend here to represent Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu. When he pro- ceeds to council, Narada the Rishi, to whom so many of the Vedic hymns are ascribed, and one of the attendants of the throne of Brahma, and the other Rishis, appear in the heavens to meet him, and take their seats beside him. Krishna counsels peace, and appeals strongly to the Maharaja to be just to the Pandavas. The Maharaja entreats him to use his influence with Duryo- dhana : “ He refuses to listen to his mother Gandhari, or to the pious Vidura, or to the wise Bhishma, and if you can move my wicked son, you will be acting like a true friend, and I shall be greatly obliged.” Then Krishna reasons with Duryodhana, and Bhishma and Drona and Vidura remonstrate with him. He only becomes more exasperated, and, being encouraged by the evil advice of Duhsasana, abruptly leaves the assembly. Gandhari brings him back and rebukes him before the council, but he again leaves it accompanied by Duhsasana, Kama, and Sakuni. Then Krishna revealed his divinity. All the gods issued from his body at once, and flames of fire from all his members, and the rays of the sun shone forth from the pores of his skin : and all the assembly closed their eyes, and there was an earthquake. t6 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. and great fear fell on all. Then in a moment Krishna re- assumed his humanity, and took leave courteously of the Maharaja, saying, “ I forgive you, but when the son is bad, the people will curse the father also.” The whole of this legend of Kirishna is admitted to be a Brahmanical interpolation, and marks a stage in the development of the Krishna of the Kshatriya ballads into a manifestation of Vishnu. There was nothing to be done now but prepare for the great battle. The Kauravas entrenched themselves in the plain of Kurukshetra, i.e. “ the field of the Kurus,” the plain between the Saraswati and Jamna, where are Taneshwar and Panipat, and elected Bhishma their commander. The Pandavas elected Dhrishtadyumna to command them ; and falling into their ranks, with flags flying and drums beating, marched forth to meet the Kauravas. They halted beside a lake which lay between them and the Kauravas, and on the other side they dug a great trench. They appointed also signs and watchwords, so that at night- time every one might pass in safety to his own quarters, and the guards be ever on the alert. For a day or two challenges were interchanged, in very abusive language, between the two camps. Then certain rules were agreed to on both sides, of the nature of a Geneva convention, for mitigating the horrors of the coming battle. There was to be no stratagem or treachery, but fair stand- up fighting j there was to be a perfect truce between the combats ; fugitives, suppliants, drummers, and chariot-drivers were to be treated as non-combatants j no combat was to take place without warning, or between unequals ; no third warrior was to intervene between two combatants ; and no fighting was to take place during the preliminary abusive challenges. In the battle which followed, which represents a real event in the early history of the Aryas in India, the combatants utterly disregarded these rules, which are clearly of subsequent Brahmanical origin. The dis- sertation on the geography of the world with which the charioteer Sanjaya entertains his royal master on the eve of the battle is THE HINDU TAN THE ON. 17 another Brahmanical interpolation ; as is also the dialogue held before both armies on the morning of the first day of the battle, between Arjuna and Krishna, who acted as Arjuna’s charioteer. It is known as the Bhagavad-Gita, or “ song of the divine one,” that is Krishna, and, with the Bhagavata Purana, is the text-book of the Puranic worship of Krishna as Vishnu. It is a protest against war, but the conclusion reached is that when fighting becomes a duty we must enter on it valiantly, without heed to the sin of slaughtering others. The battle lasted eighteen days. On the second day the King of Magadha [Bihar] and his two sons are slain by Bhishma. The third day is distinguished by a tremicndous charge of the Pandavas in half-moon formation. On the tenth day, Bhishma is wounded in single combat with Arjuna, when the com- mand devolved on Drona. On the thirteenth day Drona draws up the Kauravas in the form of a spider’s web ; into which the youthful Abhimanyu drives his chariot, and is overpowered by six of the Kauravas and slain. On the fourteenth day Arjuna slays Jayadratha, and the battle rages all through the following night by torchlight. On the fifteenth day, Dhrishtadyumna slays Drona, who is succeeded in the command of the Kauravas by Kama. On the seventeenth day Bhima slays Duhsasana. After stunning him with a blow of his mace, he caught him up by the waist, and whirled him round and round his head, and then dashed him to the ground, shouting : “ This day I fulfil my vow against the man who insulted Draupadi.” Then he cut off his head, and holding his two hands to catch the blood he drank it off, crying out, “Haha! never did I drink of anything so sweet before.” On the same day Arjuna slays Kama, who is succeeded as commander of the Kauravas by Salya, who was slain on the eighteenth and last day of the batde by Yudhishthira, when the utter defeat of the Kauravas followed. Duryodhana concealed himself in the lake which separated the two camps, but was soon discovered and forced to come out and engage in single combat with Bhima. The latter, after a desperate encounter, smashed c INJDUSTIilAL AJiTS OF INDIA. Duryodliana’s right thigh-bone, as he had vowed to do for the insult offered to Draupadi thirteen years before ; and when Duryodhana fell, he kicked him on the head, and left him for dead. This foul action so greatly excited the wrath of Yudhishthira, that after the battle Bhima fell at the feet of his eldest brother and wept and implored pardon for his sin. Then Krishna sounded his shell with all his might, and proclaimed the reign of Raja Yudhishthira; and all the people who were present rejoiced greatly, and filled the air with acclamations of “Long life to the Raja Yudhishthira ! ” The Pandavas proceeded at once to the camp of the Kauravas and obtained a great spoil. Then they went on to Hastinapura, where the most affecting interviews took place between them and the Maharaja Dhritarashtra and his queen Gandhari. Meanwhile Aswatthama, the son of Drona, had entered the Pandavas’ camp by treachery, and slain the Pandavas’ five sons. He took their five heads to Duryodhana and offered them to him as the five heads of the Pandavas themselves. Duryodhana in the twilight was unable to distinguish them, but he rejoiced greatly, and asked that the head of Bhima might be placed in his hands. With dying energy he pressed it with all his might, but when he found that it crushed within his grasp, he knew that it was not the head of Bhima, and reproached Aswatthama bitterly for slaying harmless youths, saying with his last breath : “ My enmity was against the Pandavas, not against these dear innocents.” Draupadi prayed for revenge on Aswatthama, but Yudhishthira represented that he was the son of a Brahman, and that his punishment must be left to Vishnu. The burning of the bodies of the dead Rajas followed, and it is noteworthy that there is no reference in this account to the sati, or later Plindu custom of widows immolating themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands, nor do any Brahmans appear to have officiated on the occasion. The Kauravas having died fighting bravely, their spirits ascended to the heaven of India. After the burning of the slain, Yudhishthira with his brethren THE HINDU PANTHEON 19 entered Hastinapura in triumph, and was installed as Raja, in the room of Duryodhana, under the nominal sovereignty of Dhritarashtra. When he was firmly established in the kingdom, he resolved to celebrate the great sacrifice known as the aswa7)iedha, or “sacrifice of a horse It was an assertion of a Raja’s pretension to supremacy over the whole world. A horse of a particular colour was procured, and let loose to wander a year at its will. Its entrance into any foreign kingdom was virtually a challenge to its Raja, either to submit to the supremacy of the Raja to whom the horse belonged, or to offer him battle. Moreover, a Raja who thus began an aswamedha, and failed to secure the restoration of his horse, became disgraced in the eyes of his subjects and neighbours. If, on the contrary, he succeeded in forcing the submission of the Rajas into whose territories his horse successively strayed, and thus at the end of the year brought it back triumphantly again to his own city, the animal would be sacrificed to the gods in the presence of all the Rajas who had become tributary, and the aswamedha would be closed by a grand feast, at which the roasted flesh of the horse would be eaten as an Imperial dish.^ The rite has long since disappeared from Indian life, but the mythical character attributed to it in the Mahabharata shows the deep impression made by it three thousand years ago on the minds of the Hindus, who naturally in time came to associate it with the earlier fables of the passage of the sun through the heavens. The twelve adventures of the horse which Yudhishthira loosed are twelve legends connected with the countries over which the sun is supposed to shine in his annual course. Arjuna followed the horse, and at the end of the year returned in triumph with it and the conquered Rajas to Hastinapura. The concluding cere- monies of the great function were altogether seventeen, of which the chief were the offering of the hoijia [Sarcostemma viminale] and the sacrifice of the horse, that is, the roasting of the ^ The History of India, Talboys Wheeler, vol. i. p. 378. 20 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. horse, and the brewing of the intoxicating liquor for the feast, the real significance of which was not religious but political. The aswamedha of Yudhisthira is followed in rapid succession by the retributive tragedies which close the story of the Mahabharata. Dissensions arise between Bhima and the old blind Maharaja, who cannot forget the cruel deaths of his son at the hands of Bhima. At last, with his heart-broken queen Gandhari, and Kunti, his brother’s widow, and the saintly Vidura, he retires into a jungle on the banks of the Ganges. Here, to console him, Vyasa raises up out of the river the ghosts of those who were slain in the great battle of Bharata. They appear all in their pomp as when they lived: and the Brahman compilers of the Mahabharata illustrate a deep truth of human nature when they describe the dead Kauravas as meeting the living Pandavas in perfect friendship : “ for all enmity had departed from among them, and each went forward preceded by his bards and eulogists, who sang the praises of the noble dead.” Thus the night passed away in fulness of joy between the dead and the living : and when the morning dawned, the dead all mounted their chariots and horses again and disappeared into the sacred Ganges. Shortly after this the jungle to which Dhritarashtra had retired was consumed by a fire, in which the old king and his queen, and Kunti, and all who were with him, perished. The Pandavas were smitten with super- natural remorse and horror at the event, and ever deepening dark- ness fell on them for the rest of their days. Fearful omens followed. Every one felt that something terrible was impending, but, no one knew how and when it wmuld happen. It came to pass in the destruction of Dwaraka, the capital of Krishna’s kingdom of Gujarat, by an earthquake. The apparitions which are said to have appeared to its inhabitants are evidently the visions of delirium tremens., following the abuse of wine, which was the be- setting sin of this city. The chieftains are described as constantly indulging in wine parties, and insulting the Brahmans. Suddenly the chakra or disc of Krishna was caught up to heaven ; and the THE HINDU PANTHEON. 21 ensigns of Krishna and Balarama, the palmyra-tree of Balarama, and the bird Garuda of Krishna, separated themselves from the standards on which they were figured, and disappeared in the heavens. The Apsarases, the nymphs of Indra’s heaven, appeared in the sky, and cried out to the people, “ Arise and be ye gone ! ” In a tumult created by a drunken Yadava with the Brahmans, all the Yadavas were slaughtered by one another, and the sons and grandsons of Krishna were among the slaughtered. Balarama had already taken flight, and died of exhaustion in the jungle, where Krishna, who followed him, was accidentally slain while resting against a tree, by a hunter named Jara, who mistook him for a deer. Hearing of his death, Arjuna proceeded to Dwaraka, and performed his funeral rites and those of his father Vasadeva and all the Yadavas who had been slain. The residue of the race he gathered together to take back with him to Bharata; and scarcely had they left the city when the sea arose in a great heap, and overwhelmed it, and all who remained in it. On his return march, Arjuna’s caravan was attacked by robbers j and when he reached the plain of Kurukshetra, five of Krishna’s widows, burnt themselves on a funeral pile, while the remaining widows became devotees, and retired into the jungle. When Yudhishthira heard from Arjuna all that had happened in Dwaraka to the Yadavas, he also resolved to give up the concerns of this world. He divided the kingdom of Bharata between the grandson of Arjuna and the only surviving son of Dhritarashtra, and, enjoin- ing them to live in peace and amity with each other, he took off all his jewels and royal raiment, and clothed himself investments made of the bark of trees ; and he and his four brothers threw the fire of their domestic cookery and sacrifices into the Ganges, and went forth with Draupadi from the city of Hastinapura, fol- lowed only by their dog. First walked Yudhishthira, thenBhima, then Arjuna, then Nakula, then Sahadeva, then Draupadi, and last their dog ; and they went through all Banga [Bengal] toward the rising sun, until they reached the everlasting rampart of the 22 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Himalayas, and Mount Meru, the highest heaven of Indra. But it did not fall to all of them to enter in their bodies of flesh into the heavenly city. Their sins and moral defects prevented them, First by the wayside fell and perished Draupadi, “ too great was her love for Arjuna” ; next Sahadeva, “he esteemed none equal to himself”; then Nakula, “he esteemed none equal in beauty to himself” ; then Arjuna, “ for he boasted, ‘ In one day could I de- stroy all my enemies, and fulfilled it not ’ ” ; then Bhima, “ because when his foe fell, he cursed him.” Thus Yudhishthira went on alone, his dog following him, and as he went, Indra appeared to him, and invited him to enter his heaven. But Yudhishthira re- fused to enter unless assured that Draupadi and his brethren would be received also, saying, “ Not even into this heaven would I enter without them.” He is assured that they are there already, and is again asked to enter, “ wearing his body of flesh,” but refuses, unless his faithful dog may also bear him company. Being admitted with his dog, he, by the effect of maja or illusion, does not at first find Draupadi and his brothers there, and refuses therefore to remain, and insists on joining them in hell, where they are made to appear to him undergoing horrible tortures. Far rather would he suffer with his dear friends of earth in hell than enjoy one moment of heaven apart from them. Having thus endured the last test of the true humanity of his soul, the whole scene of cruel deception vanishes, and he, with Draupadi and his brothers, and all the Pandavas, dwell for ever with Indra in joy unspeakable. Thus closes the history of the fratricidal struggle of the Pan- davas and Kauravas. It is impossible to give any account of the exhaustless legends of Krishna, the Hindu women’s darling god, apart from his connexion with the main action of the Maha- bharata; or of the separate episodes of Nala and Damayanti, Devayani and Yayati, and Chandrahasa and Bikya, three exqui- site pictures of Hindu life, illustrating, respectively, faithfulness in love, marital infidelity, and the fickleness of fortune. “The read- ing of the Mahabharata,” say the Hindus, “destroys all sin . . . THE HINDU PANTHEON. 23 so much so that a single sloka [distich or couplet] is sufficient to wipe away all guilt. This Mahabharata contains the history of the gods of the Rishis \i.e. Vedic gods] .... It contains also the life and actions of the one god, holy, immutable, and true, who is Krishna ... As butter to all other food, as Brahmans to all other men ... as a 77 irita to all other panaceas, as the ocean to a pool of water, as the cow to all other quadru- peds, so is the Mahabharata to all other histories. ... It is called Mahabharata because once upon a time the gods placed the Mahabharata on one scale, and the Vedas on the other, and because the Mahabharata weighed heavier, it was called by that name, which signifies the greater weight.” The Ramayana. The Ramayana consists of 96,000 lines, and is divided into seven books, and its author, or compiler, was Vahniki, who is represented as taking part in some of its scenes. It illustrates a far more advanced state of Aryan civilisation in India than the Mahabharata. It refers to a time when the empire of the Aryas, having been firmly established in Bharata [Delhi], Kosala [Oudh], Magadha [Bihar], Mithila [Tirhut], and throughout Hindustan, had advanced to the conquest of the Dakhan and Lanka [Ceylon] ; and the epic character of the poem is more perfectly elaborated than in the Mahabharata. It is evidently founded on fact, for all the traditions of Southern India ascribe its subjugation and the dispersion of the wild aboriginal tribes to Rama, the conqueror of Lanka, who is the first real Kshatriya hero of the later Vedic age. Rama Chandra, the hero of Valmiki’s epic, probably re- presents in himself two distinct historical Ramas, an earlier, who ruled in great glory at Ayodhya, and a later, who upheld the Brahmans against the Buddhists, and enabled them to establish the liTiga worship throughout the Dakhan. He is, in fact, the Rama of an ancient Aryan tradition, who is condemned to exile 24 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. through the jealousy of his stepmother, and ultimately restored to the throne of his ancestors, coalesced with a Rama, the pro- tector of the Brahmans of the Dakhan against the Buddhists ; for it is certain that the Buddhists were driven out of the Daldian by the worshippers of Siva, and compelled to take refuge in Ceylon : ^ nor is the presumption inconsistent with the deification of the hero of the Ramayana as a manifestation of Vishnu. Its story, as compiled by Valmiki, covers the whole period of the rise and triumph of Buddhism, and of the first reaction of the Brahmans against it : and as in the Mahabharata the Brahmans sought to enlist the popular sympathies in their favour by representing their god Vishnu as identical with the Kshatriya hero Krishna, so in the Ramayana Vishnu is represented as identical with Rama also: and Vishnu is worshipped all over India to this day either as Krishna or Rama ; while the worship of Rama prevails particularly in Oudh and Bihar. There are three Ramas in Hindu mythology, all of whom are represented as avatars or in- carnations of Vishnu, namely : (i) Parasu-Rama, literally “ Rama with the axe,” who is known also as “ the First Rama,” the im- personation of Brahmanism militant against the Kshatriyas, and is the sixth avatar of Vishnu; (2) Bala-Rama, the “boy-Rama,” or Halayudha-Rama, t.e. “Rama with the plough,” Krishna’s elder brother, w’ho takes Krishna’s place as the eighth avatar of Vishnu, when Krishna is regarded as absolutely identical with Vishnu himself ; and (3) Rama Chandra, the “moon-like” or “gentle Rama,” known also as “ Rama with the bow” [i.e. the crescent moon], the seventh avatar of Vishnu. He is the great hero of the Aryan Solar Race, or Surya- Vansa, which sprang from Ikshwaku, the son of the Manu Vaivaswata, the son of Surya, the sun : and typifies the conquering Kshatriyas advancing from Hindustan into the Dakhan, and subduing the barbarous abori- gines, and again the secular leader of the Brahmanical priest- hood, expelling the Buddhists. He belonged to the dynasty of 1 Talboys Wheeler, History of India, vol. ii. pp. 233, 23-;.. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 25 the Solar Race which reigned at Ayodhya, the modern Oudh, and was the son of Kang Dasaratha : and the Ramayana is the story of the loves of Rama Chandra with Sita ; of her abduction by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka or Ceylon] and of her recovery by Rama, with the aid of the monkey chief, Hanuraan, and their triumphant return to Ayodhya. The opening scene is laid at Ayodhya, which is described like Indra-prastha, but in far greater detail, as an ideal Hindu city and state. The king Dasaratha had three queens, Kausalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra, but no son ] and notwithstanding that beside these he took unto himself seven hundred and fifty other women, not one of them bore to him a son. Then he resolved to perform an aswa77iedha, or sacrifice of a horse, and so propitiate the gods to give him a son. A horse was let loose for an entire year, and then brought back j the sacrificial pits were dug in lines, in the form of the biid Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu, and the fires kindled; and while hymns were chanted from the Sama Veda the horse was slain, and its carcase laid upon the fires ; and the three queens were placed beside the carcase of the horse, the nearest to it being Kausalya. The Rishi Sringa performed also the ho77ia sacrifice for obtaining sons for the Maharaja Dasaratha. While the sage was sacrificing, Vishnu appeared to him out of the fire with a golden vessel filled with the divine payasa [ambrosia], saying, “O sage, do you receive this vessel of payasa from me and present it to the Maharaja.” The Rishi replied, “ Be pleased yourself to deliver this vessel to the Maharaja.” Then Vishnu said to Dasaratha, “ O Maharaja, I present to you this payasa, the fruit of sacrifice .... let it be eaten by your beautiful queens.” Dasaratha gave half of the payasa to Kausalya, and half between Kaikeyi and Sumitra ; and in due time they bore to him four sons ; Kausalya bore Rama, Kaikeyi bore Bharata, and Sumitra bore Lakshmana and Satrughna. Rama partook of half the nature of Vishnu, and Bharata of a quarter, and Lakshmana and 26 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Satrughna each of an eighth; and throughout their lives all the brothers lived in unbroken friendship, but Lakshmana devoted himself particularly to Rama, and Satrughna to Bharata. Vishnu had promised the gods to become incarnate in order to destroy Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, and in this manner chose Dasaratha for his human parent. Every section of the Ramayana is invaluable for the student of the art history of India, but it is impossible to enter here into these details. In the first section the boyhood of Rama is described with the most interest- ing minuteness; how he began to speak by saying “Pa” and “ Ma,” and calling himself “ Ama,” “ because he could not yet pronounce the letter R ” ; his first attempts at walking ; his dresses, his toys ; and how he cried for the moon, refusing to be comforted, until Sumantra, the chief minister of the king, brought in a looking-glass, and gave it to Rama to hold up to the moon, and so placed the moon in his hands. ^ We are next told of the piercing of his ears in his third year, of the rites of his initia- tion in his fifth year, of his investiture with the sacred cord in his eleventh year, and of his youthful sports. One day when shoot- ing with a bow that belonged to a companion he bent it so forcibly that it broke in two, on which his companion said to him ; “ You are strong enough to break my bow, but if you would really show your strength, you should go to the city of Mithila and bend the great bow of the god Siva, which is kept there by the Raja Janaka .... The Raja has vovved to give his lovely daughter Sita in marriage to the man who can bend the great bow of Siva.” Rama pondered much on this in his heart, and when, after destroying the Rakshasas who infested the outskirts of Kosala, the destined time had come, he set out with his brother Lakshmana and the sage Viswamitra for Mithila. When the Raja Janaka saw them approaching, he asked : “Who are these ^ In the French nursery rhymes the child cries for the moon, which is brought down to him by its reflexion in a bucket of water, into which he is incontinently tipped head foremost. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 27 two youths, bright and beautiful as the immortal Aswius?’' and Viswamitra replied : “ They are the sons of the Maharaja Dasaratha, the conquerors of the Rakshasas, and are come to try and bend the great bow of Siva.” Then Rama, smiling, bent the bow until it broke, and obtained the hand of Sita ; who was so named from sita, a furrow, because she sprang out of the ground before her father’s ploughshare while he was ploughing a field. Lakslimana was married to her sister Urmila, and Bharata and Satrughna, who came with their father to Mithila to attend the espousals, were married to the two nieces of Janaka. On their way back to Ayodhya, they were met by the terrible apparition of Parasu-Rama, the Brahman destroyer of the Kshatriyas. When Vasishtha and the other sages saw him, they cried out : “Will the great Rama again destroy the Kshatriyas ? ” But Parasu- Rama turned to Rama Chandra, saying : “You have broken the divine bow of Siva, but I have another bow which Vishnu gave to me, and with it I have conquered the v/hole world. Take it, and if you can bend it, I will give you battle.” The heroic Rama, smiling, drew it, and discharged the arrow into the sky, saying to Parasu-Rama, “ As ) ou are a Brahman I will not discharge it at you”. Then Parasu-Rama knew that Rama Chandra was Vishnu, and fell down and worshipped him. Rama’s honeymoon being passed, his father resolved to crown his son’s happiness by formally recognising him as yiiva-raja [“ little raja ”] or heir-apparent. Then at once the palace intrigues, with which all who know the life of Indian courts are so familiar, begin, and do the work of the avenging Nemesis, which ever, in the conception of the ancient world, attends on human felicity. Kaikeyi, Dasaratha’s second and favorite queen, had always been kind to Rama, but a spiteful female servant now began working on her feelings, and roused her jealousy on behalf of her own son Bharata against him ; and thus it came about that after a long struggle Dasaratha was prevailed upon at the last moment to proclaim Bharata as yuva-raja instead of P.ama, for 23 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. whose installation every preparation had been made ; and Rama was ordered into exile. So Rama, with Sita and Lakshmana, bade farewell to the Maharaja and the three queens, and de- parted into the forests amid the lamentations of the whole city of Ayodhya. They passed through Sringavera, the modern Sungrur, and Prayaga, the modern Allahabad, a sacred Brahman town at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, where they rested at the hermitage of Bharadwaja, the father of old Drona in the Mahabharata; and then came to Chitra-Kuta, a celebrated hill, south of the Jumna, in Bandelkhand, where was the hermitage of the sage and bard Valmiki, the author or compiler of the Ramayana. From Chitra-Kuta, Rama sent back his charioteer to Ayodhya, and the people of the cit)’-, seeing him return without Rama, again filled the air with their lamenta- tions. Dasaratha was distracted by his grief, and, while imploring forgiveness of Kausalya, the mother of Rama, fell back and died in her arms. Messengers were at once sent off to Bharata, who was absent, to return and assume the sovereign authority, but he refused, and, heaping bitter reproaches on Kaikeyi, his mother, declared his loyal attachment to Rama as his king, and comforted Kausalya on the prospect of her son’s speedy return to Ayodhya. After the funeral rites of Dasaratha had been duly performed (they are described with the utmost minuteness), Bharata called the great council, to which he announced his intention of visiting Rama for the purpose of installing him as king ; and at once set off for Chitra-Kuta. Rama declined to assume the Raj, until the term of his father’s sentence of banishment against him was fulfilled. Bharata as firmly refused to ascend the throne ; and at length it was arranged that Bharata should return to Ayodhya as Rama’s vice- gerent. The ten following years of his exile were passed by Rama and Sita and Lakshmana in going from one hermitage to another. In this way they visited the sage Atri, near the forest of Dandaka, the sage Sarabhanga, who sacrificed himself on a funeral pile, the sage Satikshna at Eamtek near Nagpur, and the sage Agastya, THE HINDU PANTHEON. 29 at his celebrated hermitage in Mount Kunjara, to the south of the Vindhya Mountains. Agastya received them with the greatest honour, and presented Rama with the bow of Vishnu. The neighbourhood was infested by Rakshasas, and a Rakshasi named Surpa-nakha, the sister of Ravana, seeing Rama, fell in love with him. He referred her to Lakshmana, who sent her back again to Rama, which so infuriated her that she first fell upon Sita, in defending whom Lakshmana cut off the Rakshasi’ s nose and ears. The mutilated Surpa-nakka then incited her two brothers Khara and Dushana to attack Rama and Lakshmana, and at last tempted her brother Ravana [the demon king of Lanka, the conqueror of Vasuki, the Naga king of Patala, and of Kuvera, the god of hell and wealth], to carry off Sita. Ravana came from Lanka in an aerial chariot, and, luring Rama from his house, approached Sita in the form of a religious mendicant, and thus found the opportunity for seizing and flying off with her. Rama and Lakshmana searched for her everywhere, but could not find her ; when at length they came upon Jatayus, the king of the Vultures, and son of Vishnu’s bird Garuda, lying prostrate on the ground. He had seen Ravana carrying off Sita, and had tried to prevent him, and been beaten back mortally wounded, and was able only to say : “ O Rama, the wicked Ravana, the Raja of the Rakshasas, has carried away Sita toward the south.” The mighty chief of the Vultures then looked up into the face of Rama, and his eyes becam.e fixed, and he died. At the same moment the clouds opened, and a chariot of fire descended from Vaikuntha, which is the heaven of Vishnu, with four attendants therein ; one carried the conch-shell, another the discus, the third the mace, and the fourth the lotus, which are the four ensigns of Vishnu; and as the soul of Jatayus arose from his dead body, the four celestial messengers caught it up with them into the heavens and it became absorbed in Vishnu. Then Rama and Lakshmana proceeded into the Dakhan [or “ south country ”], and on their way killed the monstrous Rakshasa Kabandha, who was 30 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. once a divine Gandharva ; and as his spirit, which was that of a heavenly minstrel, issued forth from his body, it advised Rama and Lakshmana to seek the aid of Sugriva, the king of the monkeys, or literally, woodsmen, the same Sanskrit word, bandar, meaning a monkey or a forester. He had been dethroned by his brother Bali or Balin ; and Rama overcame Balin, and reinstated Sugriva as king at Kishkindya; and in return Sugriva and his general Hanuman became the allies of Rama in his war against Ravana. Their armies passed over by “ Rama’s bridge ” into Ceylon, and there, after many battles, the city of Lanka was taken, and Ravana slain, and Sita recovered. Rama was filled with joy at seeing Sita again, but, jealous for her honour, refused to take her back until her innocence had been proved by the ordeal of fire. She entered the flames in the presence of men and gods, and Agni, the god of fire, led her forth, and placed her in Rama’s arms unhurt. Then Rama, with Sita, and Lakshmana, and all his allies, returned in triumph to Ayodhya, and was solemnly crowned Maharaja, and began a glorious reign, Lakshmana being associated with him in the government. Thus ends the sixth section of the Rama- yana in perfect happiness and peace ; and the seventh section, which concludes it, the uttara-kanda, is really a later section, and is justly held by the Hindus as too painful for contemplation. From it we learn that Rama continued to feel jealous on account of Sita’s abduction by Ravana. One day it happened that Sita, in talking to her handmaids about her captivity in Lanka, had drawn a figure of Ravana on the floor of her room, and Rama, seeing it, and not knowing why it had been drawn, flew into a rage against Sita, and determined to put her away. She was sent off to the hermitage of Valmiki. There she gave birth to her two sons. Lava and Kura. As they grew up, they distinguished themselves greatly by their valour, and were recognised by Planuman as the sons of Rama, and then by Rama himself, just as he is about to give them battle for seizing a horse he had let loose for an THE HINDU PANTHEON. 3 ^ aswamedha, undertaken in expiation of his sin for slaying Ravana, who, though a demon, was still a Brahman. Valmiki, on dis- covering who he was, went back for Sita, and, taking her by the hand, led her to Rama, and gave her into his hands, saying : “ Your sons have revenged on Rama all the evil he has done you.” And then they all returned together to the city of Ayodhya, and performed the aswamedha, and passed the rest of their days in happiness without end. In the Adhyatma Ramayana, a part of one of the Puranas, the boys wander accidentally into Ayodhya, and are there recognised by their father, who at once ac- knowledged them, and recalled Sita to attest her innocence. She returned, and in public assembly called upon her mother,^ Earth, to attest her innocence ; and the earth opened, and there arose out of the chasm a glorious throne, and on it sat, in the form of a lovely woman, the incarnate Earth, who, extending her hand to Sita, took her to hei throne ; when again the chasm opened, and the throne sank into it, and the earth closed for ever over the faithful Sita, “ the daughter of the furrow.” Rama, unable to endure life without her, “ sacrificed himself in the river Saiayu,” in other words, committed suicide by drowning. Such is the story of the Ramayana to its termination. The Hindus hold that, “ whosoever reads, or hears read, the life-giving Ramayana is freed from all sin. Whosoever reads it, or hears it read, for the purpose of obtaining a son, will certainly have one A Brahman reaps the same advantage as from reading the Vedas, and a Kshatriya conquers his enemies, and a Vaisya is blessed with riches, and a Sudra gains a good name, by reading the Ramayana, or hearing it read.” Again, it is said, “ As long as the mountains and rivers shall continue, so long shall the story of Rama and Sita be read in the world.” And nightly to listening millions are the stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata told all over India. They are sung at all large assemblies of the people, at marriage feasts and temple services, at villr.ge festivals and the receptions of chiefs and princes. Then, INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. when all the gods have been duly worshipped, and the men are wearying of the meretricious posturings and grimaces of the dancing girls, and the youngsters have let off all the squibs and crackers, a reverend Brahman steps upon the scene, with the fami- liar bundle of inscribed palm-leaves in his hand, and, sitting down and opening them one by one upon his lap, slow and lowly begins his antique chant, and late into the starry night holds his hearers, young and old, spellbound by the story of the pure loves of Rama and Sita; and of Draupadi, who too dearly loved the bright Arjuna, and the doom of the froward sons of Dhrita- rashtra. Or in a gayer moment some younger voice rings out the stirring episode of Bhima’s fight with Hidimba the Asura, or the hilarious distichs which tell of the youthful Krishna’s sports with the milkmaids ; until with laughter and with farewell greetings the assembly breaks up ; when all walk off, like moving shadows, to their homes, through cool palm-groves, and moonlit fields of rice, and the now silent village streets. In India the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Rama and Sita, Hanuman and Ravana, Vishnu and the Garuda, Krishna and Radha, and the Kauravas and Pandavas are everywhere, in sculptured stone about the temples, and on the carved woodwork of houses; on the graven brass and copper of domestic utensils ; or painted in fresco on walls, Rama, like Vishnu, dressed in yellow, the colour of joy, Lakshmana in purple, Bharata in green, and Satrughna in red. The figures can-ed on the ivory combs used by the women, and painted on the back of their looking-glasses, or nnought in their jewelry, and bed-coverings, and robes, are all illustrations of characters, scenes, and incidents, from one or other of these heroic histories. From them the later dramatists and poets have taken all their stories and songs, the historians their family genealogies, and the Brahmans their popular poly- theism and moral teaching. They contain and shew in a poetical form the whole political, religious, and social life of India past and present, and will probably continue to nourish and reflect THE HINDU PANTHEON 33 it in all the variety and picturesqueness of its traditional composition, action, and coloring, as long as the race of Brah- manical Hindus shall endure as a separate and self-contained religious polity. They are the charm which has stayed the course of time in India, and they will probably continue for ages yet to reflect the morning star of Aryan civilisation, fixed, as it were, in the heaven of Indra, and irremovable. The Persian and Greek invasions, the Afghan and Mongol [Turkoman] conquests, exer- cised no lasting effect on the national mind of India, which has ever in the end subdued to its nature all the conquerors of that glorious land, in their social life, their administration, and arts ; and the thoughts and feelings, and habits and customs of the Hindus will probably never be changed except under influences of a purely indigenous origin, proceeding from the develop- ment of the internal consciousness of the race. Buddhism, although it may have owed its establishment as a state religion to the foreign domination of the Scythic Nagas, who entered India in the seventh century b.c., was essentially a spontaneous move- ment in the democratic life of India, and endured for a thousand years, yet it also at last yielded to the organised resistance of the Code of Manu, and the mighty magic of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Puranas. The word purana means “old,” and the Puranas treat of the same historical legends and mythological fictions as the Itihasas, and in their earlier forms doubtless belong to the same religious and heroic age of Hindu civilisation as the Rama- yana and Mahabharata. But they give a more definite and connected representation of the cosmogony and theogony of these poems, and they expand and systematise their chrono- logical computations and genealogies. They reduce, in fact, the formless and fleeting religious conceptions of the Vedas, and the D 34 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. popular family traditions of the Itihasas, to a fixed body of definite mythology. The Vedic gods are mere abstractions, intangible and illusive personifications of the powers of nature, the rain [Indra], the light [Surya], the heat [Agni], and the wind [Vayu], whose effects on their crops were at once felt by an agricultural people, and to which the Vedic Aryas made their supplications according to their daily need, and ascribed their heartfelt praise when at length abundant harvests crowned the labours and anxieties of the year. In the Puranas the gods assume substantial shape and individual character 3 and for the first time a para- mount place is given to the sacrificial rites and observances of their worship. In Vedic times there were no priests. In the times of the Itihasas the sacerdotal pretensions of the Brahmans became prominent, but the father of a family, or head of a state, still performed the highest religious ceremonies, such as the marriage of a daughter, or the sacrifice of a horse, without the necessary intervention of a priest. In Puranic times the Brahman is the only possible minister of the service of the gods, and the indispensable mediator between them and their worshippers. The technical definition of a Purana is a work which treats of five topics, namely, (i) the creation of the universe, (2) its destruction and renovation, (3) the genealogy of the gods and patriarchs, (4) the reigns of the Manus, forming the periods called Manwantaras, and (5) the history of the Solar and Lunar dynasties. The eighteen Puranas are arranged in three groups, of six in each. 1. Those in which the quality of sattwika or goodness and purity prevails, which dwell on the stories of Hari or Vishnu and Krishna, named (i) Vishnu, (2) Naradiya, (3) Bhagavata, (4) Garuda, (5) Padma, and (6) Varaha. 2. Those in which tamasa, or gloom and ignorance, pre- dominate, relating to Agni or Siva, named (r) Matsya, (2) Kurma, (3) Linga, (4) Siva, (5) Skanda, and (6) Agni. THE HINDU TANTHEON 35 3. Those distinguished by rajasa or passion, which treat chiefly of Brahma, named (i) Brahma, (2) Brahmanda, (3) Brahmavaivarta, (4) Markandeya, (5) Bhavishya, and (6) Vamana. None of them however are really devoted to one god, and Vishnu and his incarnations fill nearly all. The most comprehensive and complete is the Vishnu Purana, and the most popular the Bhagavata Purana. The rest are very little known except to Brahmans. There is another Purana known as Vayu, supposed to be older than all, connected with the Siva and Agni Puranas, and substituted for either of these in lists in which the one or the other of them is omitted. There are also eighteen Upa-Puranas. The Puranas are evidently works of different ages. Probably none assumed their present popular form earlier than the time of Sankara Acharya, the great Saiva reformer and founder of the Vedanta philosophy who lived in the eighth or ninth century of our era. Of the cele- brated Vaishnava teachers Ramanuja lived in the twelfth centurj', ]\Iadhva-Acharya in the thirteenth, and Vallabha-Acharya in the sixteenth, and the Puranas seem to have followed their innovations, being evidently intended to advocate the doctrines they taught : and they must all have since received a supple- mentary revision, because each one of them enumerates the whole eighteen. There is very little true and unbroken historical record of anything in India until after the consolidation of the British conquest of India at the beginning of the present century. The Code of Manu. The IManu-Sanhita, Manava Dharma Sastra, or Institutes of Manu, commonly kno’mi as the Code of Manu, is attributed, by itself, to the first Manu [the word is from the Sanskrit root mayi, to think], Swayam-bhuva, who sprang from Swayam-bhu, the “ self-existing ” [identified with Brahm.a] ; and by others to the D 2 3 ^ INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Manu of the present period, the seventh Manu, or Vaivaswata, the son of Vaivaswat, the sun. In the Hindu mythology the name belongs to the fourteen Praja-patis, or forefathers of all creatures, each of whom presides over the destinies of men for a period, called a Manwantara, of 4,320,000 years. In the Rig-Veda Vaivaswata is the father of the Aryas and the whole human race ; and it has been conjectured that his name was applied by its compilers to the Code of Manu to reconcile the Brahmanical law to the Aryan Kshatriyas. It is far older than the Puranas, its mythology exhibiting indications of the compromise with the re- ligion of the Vedas which is observed in the Ramayana and Maha- bharata. The Vedic worship was simply the natural expression of the gratitude of men for their daily bread ■, who, before sitting down to their meals, instinctively offered of the meat and drink before them to the gods from whom they believed these blessings came. In the Code of Manu these childlike oblations of food and wine are superseded, or overlaid by an elaborate ritual of essentially a sacrificial and propitiatory character. But the Vedic gods are not yet so completely set aside as in the Puranas, although they are all rigidly subordinated to Brahma, the especial deity of the Brahmans. Nor again have we yet in the Code of Manu any indications of that wholesale absorption of the pantheon of the aboriginal races of southern India which, as the later Puranas shew, was gradually forced on the Brahmans. The Code is on analogous grounds proved to be also older than the Ramayana and Mahabharata, in their present form, for it makes no allusion to the Kshatriya heroes Rama and Krishna, who are declared in the Itihasas to be incarnations of Vishnu. Brahmanism would seem to have first originated among Aryan colonists who established themselves between the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges about a thousand years after the Aryan conquest of the Panjab. While confined to the Panjab, the Aryas still remained a Vedic people, but on crossing over into the valley of the Ganges, they gradually became Brahmanical Hindus. The original country of the THE HINDU FANTHEON. 37 Brahmans extended, according to the Code of Mann, along the slopes of the Himalayas between the Sarsuti and Kagar ; “ Between the two divine rivers Saraswati [Sarsuti] and Drish- adwati [Kagar] lies the tract of land [about too miles N.W. of Delhi] which the sages have named Brahmavata, because it was frequented by the gods.” Again : “ Kurukshetra [the field of the Kurus, the country about Panipat], the Matsyas [the country about Jaipur], the Panchalas [the Gangetic Doab and Rohilkhand], and the Surasenas [the country about Mathura, Muttra], This land, which comes to Brahmavata, is the land [Brahmarshi-desa] of the Brahmarshis ” [Brahmanical Rishis], “Here dwelt the ancient princes and sages of Hindu mythology. Here was the magnificent Sanskrit language perfected. Here the decimal notation was perfected. This is the Holy Land of India.” ^ Aryavarta, the land of the Aryas, is said to be the whole tract of Plindustan between the Himalaya and Vindhya ranges, and the Bay of Bengal [“ eastern sea ”] and Arabian [“ western ”] sea : and the Code of Manu expressly forbids any Brahman, Kshatriya, or Vaisya from living beyond the Aryan pale as thus defined. Five centuries later the Aryas had so completely occupied the Dakhan that Ptolemy, the geographer of the second century A.D., and Arrian, his contemporary, distinguished western India by the name of Ariake : and arya is the name of the Marathas among the Konkanese of the present day, and the Mangs and other outcasts who represent the conquered native tribes of the Southern Maratha Country.^ The Code of Manu thus plainly distinguishes be- tween the country of the Brahmans, and the whole Aryan land, and it was probably in Brahmavata, or the Brahmarshi-desa, that the conceptions of priestly rule formulated in the Code of Manu first originated in the contact of some Turanian tribe with the Aryan immigrants into Hindustan from the Punjab about b.c. ^ Quoted from Pope’s Text Book of India, 7 t Histoiy, third Edition, Allen and Co., London, 1880 ; ch. i. para. 5. ‘ Wilson’s /m/fa Three Thousand Years Ago ; Bombay, 1S58. 38 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 1500. In its present form It dates from probably not earlier than B.c. 500, and possibly as late as b.c. 300. We are told that it originally consisted of 100,000 verses ; that Narada shortened the work to 12,000 ; and that Sumati still further abridged it to 4,000; but only 2,685 ^^e extant. It is the only Hindu law book necessary to mention here, being the one held in the highest reverence, and the legal foundation of the whole social, religious, economical, and political system of Hindu life. The first chapter describes the Creation. The Supreme Being having willed to create the universe, first created the waters, and placed in them a productive egg, and in that egg He himself was born in the form of Brahma. The waters were called 7 iara, because they were produced by Nara, the “Spirit of God ” moving on them, and since they were his first ayana or “ place of motion,” he is hence called Narayana, or “ moving on the waters." That the human race might be created he caused the Brahmans, the possessors of the Vedas, to proceed from the mouth of Brahma ; the Kshatriyas, or protectors, from his arm ; the Vaisyas, or producers of wealth, from his thigh; and the Sudras or labourers, from his feet. These are the four original classes of Hindus, or sacerdotal, military, industrial and servile castes. The Brahmans possibly represent the Shamans, or magicians of the prehistoric Turanian immigrants into India ; the Kshatriyas their Aryan conquerors ; the Vaisyas, the mixed Aryas and earlier settlers and aborigines ; and the Sudras, the conquered earlier settlers, and true aborigines of India. The Purusha-Sukta, or “Hymn \sukta\ of the First Man” [Purusha] in the Rig-Veda, mentions the names of these castes — “ When they produced Ptiriisha . . . the Brahman was his mouth ; the Rajanya [prince] was his arms ; the Vaisya was his thighs ; and the Sudra sprang from his feet.” But the Hymn is considered to be one of the latest in date, and the passage quoted from it to be only figurative. The Brahmans in the Vedas are only a profession. The term kshatriya is used in the Vedas to denominate a person possessing THE HINDU PANTHEON. 39 power, as a raja or king, and rajanya or prince ; and the terra vaisya is applied to any householder [from vesha a house, Greek otKos, Latin vicus\ and so to people in general. The Sudras were probably a Cushite people who preceded the Aryas in India, and were dispersed by them. These four divisions of the Brahraanical Hindus are now wonderfully subdivided according to country, race, sect and occupation ; and only the Brahmans retain the homogeneity of their order, as established by the Code of Manu. Next we are told that Brahma in himself became half male and half female, or active and passive in nature, and from his female half produced Viraj. Viraj produced Manu Swayam- bhuva, and he the seven other Manus, and the ten Prajapatis, and they the seven Rishis, or Bards, and the Pitris, or Fathers of Mankind. And Brahma having taught Manu “ the Code of Manu,” he taught it to Maricha, and the nine other Prajapatis. The sacred chronology is next expounded. There are four classes of days : ist, of mortals ; 2nd, of Pitris, which lasts a lunar month ; 3rd, of the Devatas, which lasts a solar year, and 4th, a day of Brahma, which lasts 4,320,000,000 years; The year of the gods consists of 360 mortal years. The first age, or Krita Yuga, lasted 4,800 years of the gods; the second, or Trita Yuga, 3,600 ; the third, or Dwapara Yuga, 2,400 ; and the fourth, or Kali Yuga, the present, or “Black Age,” which began about b.c. 3101, is limited to 1,200 years of the gods. The four Yugas make up the Maha Yuga, or great age : and one thousand Maha Yugas form a Kalpa, or day of Brahma. This is the Brahraanical chronology of the Code of Manu, but along with it there is the recognition of the chronological system of Manwantaras, based on the reigns of successive Manus, evidently handed down from Vedic times. Each Manu was supposed to reign for 4,320,000 years. The second chapter, “ On Education, or on the Sacerdotal Class, and the First Order,” distinguished between the revealed \sriiti\ and inspired \smriti\ scriptures, defines the limits of 40 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Brahmavarta, Brahmarshi-desa, and Aryavarta, which latter is also said to be coextensive with the natural range of the Black Antelope ; and prescribes the duties of the four castes. The ceremonies to be observed at conception, during pregnancy, at the birth of a child, and at its naming on the tenth or twelfth day after birth, are fully described. The first part of a Brahman’s compound name should indicate holiness, of a Kshat- riya’s power, of a Vaisya’s wealth, and of a Sudra’s contempt ; and the second part of a Brahman’s name prosperity, of a Kshatriya’s preseiwation, of a Vaisya’s alms, and of a Sudra’s humility. The names of women, it is said, should be soft, clear, and captivating, ending in long vowels like words of benediction. In the fourth month of its age the child should be carried out to see the sun, and in the ninth should be fed on rice, “ or that may be done which by the mother is thought most propitious.” The cere- mony of the tonsure should be performed by the first three classes in the first or third year after birth : and in the eighth year from the conception of a Brahman, in the eleventh of a Kshatriya, and in the twelfth of a Vaisya, the child must be invested with the sacred cord or sacrificial thread ; or it may be in the fifth, sixth, and eighth year respectively. The sacrificial thread of the Brah- man must be of cotton only, of the Kshatriya of hemp only, and of the Vaisya of wool only. The staff of the Brahman should be of bilva or palasa, of a Kshatriya of bata or chadiva, and of a Vaisya of ■vittu or adambara. In the case of women the nuptial ceremony is considered to take the place of the investi- ture of boys with the sacrificial thread, as the last purifica- tion fitting them to enter on life, marriage being held to be the complete institution of a woman. “ Such is the revealed law of the institution of the twice-born classes, an institution in which their second birth chiefly consists.” After initiation the life of every man is divided into four stages or orders, namely, (i)that of brahmachari, or student of the Vedas; (2) oi grihastha OF married man and householder ; (3) of vana-prastha or hermit THE HINDU PANTHEON. 41 and (4) sannyasi or devotee. Few, except Bralimans, ever enter on the duties of the last two orders, but the system of these four orders is universally recognised by Hindus. The directions for reading the Vedas, and governing the relations of students and their teachers are most minute and rigorous. Three classes of Brahman teachers are recognised, (i), the acha^ya, or spiritual preceptor ; (2), the icpadhya, or schoolmaster proper, who in- structs in pronunciation, grammar, metre, the explanation of words, astronomy, and ceremonial ; and (3), the ritwij or sacrificer. The Brahman in beginning or ending his lecture must always pronounce “ the three-in-one ” syllable, AUM or OM. “ Sitting on culms of kusa grass, with all their points towards the east, or rising sun, and purified by rubbing that holy grass in both his hands, and further prepared by three suppressions of breath, each equal in time to five short vowels, he may then fitly breathe the syllable OM. Brahma milked out as it were from the three Vedas [Manu does not recognise the 4th Veda], the letter A, the letter U, and the letter M, which form the triliteral monosyllable, together with the mystical words \yyahritis\ hhur, bJmvah, swar, or earth, mid-air or sky, and heaven ; and the three measures of that ineffable text beginning with the word tad., entitled the savitri [sun] ox gay atri.” The syllable AUM is the symbol of the Hindu tri-murti, or “triple-form,” A being Vishnu, U Siva, and M Brahma; and from the Nirukta, or ancient glossary of the Vedas, we learn that the separate letters of this mystic syllable refer also to Agni [fire], Indra [sky], or Vayu [air or wind], and Surya, [sun] : and further that all the gods are resolvable into these three. Every god is thus included in the mystic syllable AUM or OM. The Brahmans, by the application of this symbol to their tri- murti, mean to assert that Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, include the whole Vedic gods. The words bhur, bhuvah, swar, earth, mid- air or sky, and heaven, signify the same thing, as also do the three conceptions of the sun as the Supreme Deity, as the God- head, and as the Illuminator of his worshippers, set forth in the 42 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. “ three measures ” of the gayatri. Thus three times before every act does a Brahman fix his mind on Brahma as the god of all gods. The third chapter is “ On Marriage and the Second Order,” in which the whole duties of a householder are prescribed, namely, the daily sacrifice at every meal to the Rishis or Vedic bards, by the reading of the Vedas; to the Vedic Pitris, or departed forefathers, by the offering of cakes and v^ater ; to the Devatas or Vedic gods by the offering of ghee, that is, clarified butter ; to the Spirits of all things existing, of the air, the water, the earth, by the offering of rice; and to men by the exercise of hospi- tality, particularly towards Brahmans. It is emphatically declared that he who partakes of food before it has been offered in sacrifice as above prescribed, eats but to his own damnation. The daily sacrifices to the Devatas, and to Spirits and Ghosts, are most instructive. The Code directs the oblations of ghee, for the propitiation of the Vedic gods, to be offered firstly to Agni [fire], secondly to Soma [the moon], thirdly to Agni and Soma together, fourthly to Kuhu [the day in its first and second quarters], fifthly to Anumati [the day in its third and fourth quarters], sixthly to the Prajapatis [the lords of creation], seventhly to Dyava and Prithivi [heaven and earth], eighdily to the fire of the sacrifice, and ninthly to the four quarters, Indra [east], Yama [south], Vanina [west], and Soma [north- east]. Here we see Indra, Yama, Varuna, and Soma, who were worshipped by the Vedic Aryans as great and independent deities, reduced to the position of guardians of the four quarters of the earth. In the propitiation of the spirits, after the rice had been cooked, eveiy twice-born householder has to offer it according to the following ritual : i. He has to throw boiled rice near his door, saying, “1 salute you, O Maruts” [storms]. 2. He has to throw boiled rice in the water, saying, “ I salute you, O water gods.” 3. He has to throw boiled rice in his pestle and mortar, saying. I 1 I 1 THE HINDU PANTHEON 43 “ I salute you, O god of large trees.” After this he has to throw rice near his pillow to Sri, or Lakshmi ; at the foot of his bed to Bhadra-Kali, or Durga ; in the middle of his house to Brahma, and the Lar ; and up into the air to all the gods ; by day to the spirits who walk in light, and by night to the spirits who walk in darkness. He has then to throw his offering for all creatures in the building, on the top of his house, or behind his back ; and what remained he has to offer to the Pitris with his face to the south. Here we find the worship of the fetish Maruts, which in the Vedas are already opposed to Indra, prominently introduced Next follows the propitiation of Lakshmi the wife of Vishnu and of Devi, or Kali, the wife of Siva. The ceremonies of marriage are elaborately developed, as also those of the sraddha or feast of the dead. A supreme importance is attached to the due observance of these funeral rites, one name for the Brahmans being “gods of the obsequies.” The funeral sraddha has to be performed within a fixed period after death, or of hearing of the death of a near kinsman. A monthly sraddha has to be performed for every near paternal ancestor, and the daily sraddha for Pitris, or remote ancestors, as already stated. The fourth chapter is “ On Economics or Domestic Morals,” and treats of the various means of earning a livelihood ; and here it is laid down that service for hire, or “ dog-livelihood,” must by all means be avoided by the twice-born. No livelihood may be pursued that impedes the study of the sacred scriptures, nor may money be made by any art that pleases the senses, such as music and dancing, or by taking gifts indiscriminately. Strict rules are laid down for giving and receiving presents and accepting alms ; and a number of daily and other periodic religious observances are prescribed ; also the manner of bathing. The fifth chapter is “ On Diet, Purification, and Women,” and enters most minutely into every particular on which the twice-born can possibly require guidance. The sixth chapter, “ On Devotion, 44 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. and the Third and Fourth Orders,” is for the regulation of the lives of the vanaprastha or hermit, and safuiyasi or devotee. The seventh chapter, “On Government and Public Law,” lays down the duties of kings, and of the Kshatriyas or governing class. The eighth chapter is “On Judicature, and on Civil and Criminal Law ; ” the ninth “ On the Commercial and Servile Classes j ” the tenth “ On the Mixed Classes, and on Times of Distress ; ” the eleventh ‘ On Penance and Expiation ; ” and the twelfth chapter, “ On Transmigration, and Final Beatitude,” concludes the Code. The seventh chapter supplies a systematic contemporary ac- count of the social and religious institutions of ancient India, as with very slight modifications they still exist. The village system it describes is the permanent endowment of the tra- ditionary arts of India, and has scarcely altered since the days of Manu. Each community is a little republic, and manages its own affairs, so far as it is allowed, having rude municipal institutions perfectly effectual for the purposes of self-government and protec- tion. Its relations with the central Government are conducted by a headman, and its internal administration by a staff of hereditary officers, consisting of an accountant, watchman, money-changer, smith, potter, carpenter, barber, shoemaker, astrologer, and other functionaries, including, in some villages, a dancing girl, and a poet or genealogist. This whole chapter is of the deepest interest. The form of government it enforces is in marked contrast with the feudal type of the original Vedic traditions to be found running through the Brahmanical revisals of the Ramayana and Maha- bharata. All traces of patriotism and of the sentiment of devotion to the common weal, and of loyalty to great national leaders, which are found in every true Aryan race, and certainly characterised the Vedic Aryas of India, and which are essential to the preservation of the liberties and independence of states and empires, have been eliminated from the sacerdotal system of Manu. It THE HINDU PANTHEON. 45 recognises only the narrow interests of the family, the village, and, in a very limited degree, except among Brahmans, the caste. Thus for nearly three thousand years it has suppressed all sense of nationality and public spirit in India, while fostering to the utmost the self-contained life of the petty religious communes, which possess no other bond of union but that of a religion organised expressly to bring the forces of progress inherent in every Aryan race into subjection to the dominant priesthood. The kings and the people are integral parts of a divine law of which only the Brahman is the rightful administrator. But while the system failed utterly to provide for the external defence of the country, it has rendered it proof against internal revolution. It is the true charter of the landed democracy of India, and in giving permanence to the proprietorship of the peasantry in the soil of the country, it has conserved Hindu society intact and unaltered through successive overwhelming invasions and a thousand years of continuous foreign rule. India is in fact the only Aryan country which has maintained the continuity of its marvellous social, religious, and economical life, from the earliest antiquity to the present day. The Tantras. The Tantras represent the lowest abasement reached by the Brahmans in their endeavours to bring the aboriginal races of India under their power. The word tantra signifies “rule” or “ritual,” and the Tantras are a numerous class of works, generally of late date, devoted to the worship of the sakti, prakriti, or female energy of nature, as represented by the wives of Vishnu and Siva. But it is not Lakshmi who is worshipped as Vishnu’s sakti, but Radha, the mistress of the amorous Krishna, the other-self of Vishnu ; and by far the most popular object of Tantric worship is Devi, in one or other of her manifold forms. Each sakti is regarded as having a twofold 46 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. nature, white or gentle, and black or fierce ; Uma and Gauri being the gentle forms of Devi or Parvati, and Durga and Kali, the fierce or black ; and the five essential elements of the worship of either nature are wine, flesh, fish, parched grain, and intercourse of sexes. The worshippers are also divided into two orders, Dak- shinacharis, or right-handed, and Vamacharis, or left-handed; and the rites, or rather orgies, of the latter are licentious beyond description. Tantric worship prevails in its grossest forms among most of the lower races of India, and particularly in parts of Bengal. Its influence on Indian art, however, is almost inappreciable. The Gods of India. I-Iaving said so much on the general subject of Hindu my- thology, I shall, in particularising the individual gods to be now enumerated, restrict myself as much as possible to a bare tech- nical description of their forms, colours, and attributes. They are enumerated simply as a key to the universal symbolism of Indian art. In the accompanying engravings Mr. Reid has been careful to give as clear a definition as is possible on so small a scale of their distinguishing attributes. They naturally fall into the two groups of the Vedic and the Puranic gods. The Vedic Gods. There is no systematic theology in the Vedas. The hymns of the Rig- Veda are the first and freshest expression of the sense of beauty and gladness awakened in the Aryan race by the charms and the bounty of nature ; and the gods of the Vedas are in their apparent origin no more than poetic epithets of space, the heavens, the firmament, sun and earth, day and night, twilight and dawn, wind and rain, storm and sunshine; all ministering THE HINDU PANTHEON. 47 to the divine care of man, in the breathing air and radiant light, the fleeting moon and constant stars, the rising mists and falling dews, and the rivers which flow down from the hills through the fruitful plains, making with the flocks and herds, and woods and fields, one ceaseless voice of praise and adoration. The etymological meaning of most of these epithets is so clear that it at once explains the myths, which, in the course of time, became attached to them. Thus the Vedas shew exactly how the words uttered three thousand years ago by the Vedic bards or rishis, gradually became the gods of India, Greeoe, and Rome. They are the real theogony of the Aryan race.^ These worshipful epithets began to be transformed into more or less questionable personifications of the natural appearances and operations to which they were applied in the Vedic age itself; but even in the case of those Vedic gods which assumed the most undoubted personality, we seldom or never lose sight, in the Vedas, of the real qualities intended to be ex- pressed by their names. They have no fixed hierarchy, or regular genealogy, no settled marriages and relationships ; and they remain to the last transparent reflexions of those physical phenomena and powers of which they are the earliest known appellations. It is only in the Puranas that they become in- vested with a strong personality, and it is in their order among the Puranic gods that the conventional representation of them in the later mythology of the Hindus will be more appropriately described. The Rig- Veda refers to thirty-three gods in the following verse : “ Gods who are eleven in earth, who are eleven dwelling in glory in mid air, and who are eleven in heaven, may ye be pleased with this our sacrifice;” and the Brahmans, by adding, according to their manner of puerile exaggeration, seven ciphers to this number, have multiplied it to 330,000,000. Indeed, in the Rig-Veda itself we see the beginning of this mode of increasing the glory of the gods of ^ Max Muller’s “Comparative Mythology” in Oxford Essays for 1850. 48 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. India, in the verse : “ Let the three thousand, three hundred, and thirty-nine gods glorify Agni.” Agni [ignis], the personification of fire, was one of the most ancient, and is still one of the most sacred objects of Hindu worship. He appears as fire on earth, as lightning in mid air, and as the sun in heaven. He is one of the three great Vedic deities ; Agni [fire], Indra [the firmament], or Vayu [the wind], and Surya [the sun], who respectively preside over earth, the sky or mid-air, and heaven; and in the Vedas more hymns are addressed to him than to any other god. Indra, the firmament, sky, or mid-air, is equal in rank with Agni, but, unlike Agni, is not uncreate, being already represented as having a father and mother. He is described as of a golden or ruddy colour, but of endless forms, and he rides in a bright golden car, drawn by two tawny orange horses, and is armed with the vajra, or thunderbolt, and a net in which he entangles his enemies. He also uses arrows. He is attended by the dog Sarama, identified by some with Ushas, the dawn. He delights in drinking the intoxicating sotna, the amrifa, or water of life, or immortality of the Vedas. He sends the rain, and rules the weather, and more hymns are addressed to him in the Vedas than to any other god excepting Agni ; while in the Puranic pantheon he ranks after the triad [Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva], chief of all the other gods. Strabo describes the Hindus as worshippers of Jupiter Pluvius, meaning Indra. There is another Vedic per- sonification of rain named Pa^jana, and the name is sometimes combined with the word Vata, a A^’edic personification of wind, in the form Paj-jana- Vata. Vayu [air, wind] is the great Vedic personification of wind, and is generally associated and often identified with Indra. His other names are Pavana, “the purifier,” Gandha-vaha, “bearer of perfumes,” and Satafa-ga, “ever moving.” Vata [“wind”] is generally the same as Vayu, but sometimes they are mentioned distinctively. THE HINDU PANTHEON 49 SuRYA is the personification of the sun, and is identified with Savitri, “the nourisher,” Visvaswat, “the brilliant,” and Ravi, and Aditya. The Nighantu, or Glossary of the Vedas, arranges the names it gives of all the gods as synonyms of Agni, Indra or Vayu, and Surya ; and in the Nirukta, or etymological glossary [forming one of the Vedangas] it is twice asserted that there are but three gods, and over and over again that these three are but varying forms of one. In the Rig-Veda, Vishnu, “the pervader,” is named as a manifestation of the Sun, with tri-vikravia, or “of triple- power,” for one of his epithets; referring to his three places on earth, in the sky or mid-air, and heaven, as Agni, Indra or Vayu, and Surya. This Vedic triad is obviously the prototype of the Puranic tri-murti, or “ tripleform,” Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Soma is the Vedic personification of the intoxicating juice of the soma plant, and as it was gathered by moonlight, the name was appropriated in later times to the nvoon, Chandra, and some of the qualities of the juice were transferred to that luminary as Oshadhi-pati, “ lord of herbs.” Varuna [ovjoai/ds], “the universal embracer and encompasser,” is one of the oldest Vedic deities, the personification of the all- investing sky, the maker, and upholder of heaven and earth. Later he becomes the god of the sea. Yama, “ the restrainer,” with his twin sister Yamuni, is the per- sonification of the first human pair, and hence of death, and, in the later mythology, of judgment. He has for his watchdogs the two Sarameyas, born of Sarama, Indra’s dog. Kuvera, in the Vedas, is the chief of the evil spirits living in the shades, and the god of wealth. These are the eight Vedic gods which received the most developed mythological personification, and they all rank as dii selectl, immediately after Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, in the first order of the celestial deities — the dii majorum gentium — of the Puranic pantheon. 5 ° INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. In the Vedas- the firmament is also personified by Djaus, “the heavens/' ox Dyaus-pitri [Zeus-pater, Jupiter], the “heavenly father.” Prithivi, “ the wide world,” is the earth mother, and Dyava-Prithivi, “ heaven and earth,” are represented as the uni- versal parents, not only of mankind, but of all things living. Ushas Aurora], the daughter of Dyaus, is the dawn, one of the most beautiful of the Vedic myths ; and before her go, the day’s harbingers, the ever young and bright Aswins, who are personifi- cations of the twilight which precedes the dawn, and identical with the twin sons of Zeus and Leda. The Apsara [nymph] Urvasi is another name of the dawn, and the story of her loves with Purura- vas is a myth of the absorption of the mists of morning by the rising sun. similar to the Greek fairy story of Kephalos and Procris. Nakta [vi)|, vuKTos], the night, is a goddess. Aditi [“free,” “un- bounded,”] is space, infinity, personified, and she is termed in the 'RligNodidi Deva-mairi, “mother of the gods.” The Adityas are her sons, and are the sun in the twelve months of the year. The Daityas, or Titans, who war against the gods, are the sons of Diti, the antithesis of Aditi. Hiranyagarhha, literally “ golden womb” or egg, Prajapati, “father of creatures,” Skambha, “ful- crum,” Daksha, the personification of creative energy, Dhatri, “ maker,” Mitra [the Persian Mithra], and other names, are all personifications of the sun. This fact is shewn also by their being numbered among the Adityas, but they are appellations of the solar power rather than distinct personalities. The twelve Adityas, namely, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Varuna, Daksha, Ansa, Indra, Savitri, Dhatri, Ravi,Yama, and Surya; the eight Vasus, attendants on Indra, namely Apa [water], Dhruva [the Pole star]. Soma [the moon], Dhara [Terra, the earth], Anala [fire], Anila [wind], Prabhasa [the dawn], and Pratyusha [light] ; and the eleven Rudras, or Ugras, who are sons of Rudra [howler or roarer], the terrible god of storms, and appear to be identical vith the Maruts, form the Tri- dasa, or company of “ three times ten ” gods. The Vis7aadevas [“ all the gods ”] in the Vedas form a band of nine gods. The THE HINDU FANTHEON. 5 ^ Yoni-devas [of “divine birth”] is another general name for the inferior deities. The Bhrigus, “ roasters,” are spoken of as producers of fire, and chariot makers, connected with Agni. The Ribhus are three brothers, Ribhu, Vibhu, and Vaja, celebrated smiths who made Indra’s chariot. Viswakarma, “ the omnificent,” is the architect of the heavens, and identified originally with Surya and Indra. Twashtri in the Rig- Veda is the ideal artist, the framer of the world, who forges the thunder- bolts of Indra, and is associated with the Bhrigus and Ribhus. Like Hephaistos, he is represented as deformed in his legs. The Pitris are the ghosts of the ancestral “fathers.” Sindhu, the Indus, is a god, and all the other rivers of the Sapta-Sindhava [Panjab and Sindh] are goddesses. Bharati, the earth, as possessed by man, and Saraswati, the personification of the seventh river of the Panjab in ancient times, and Ida or Ila, the personification of milk and wheat, are the three Vedic god- desses of song and praise. Aranyani is the goddess of woods and forests, the Aptyas are water goddesses, the Apsaras, or mists, are the nymphs of Indra’s heaven, of whom the loveliest is Urvasi, and the Gandharvas, originally a hill tribe, are the celestial minstrels of whom in the later mythology Narada becomes the leader. The principal demons named in the Vedas are the “ black ” Dasyus, the “ niggard ” Panis, and the Rakshasas, all evi- dently referring to the wild tribes who infested the neighbourhood of the early settlements of the Aryas in the Panjab, and the Asuras, In the oldest part of the Rig- Veda the word Asura is used for the Supreme Spirit, and is the same as the Ahura of the Zoroas- trians ; but in the latter parts of the Rig- Veda it signifies, as in the Puranic mythology, a demon, and this change in its meaning probably grew out of the religious quarrel of Indian Aryas with the Persian, which led the Persians to use the Hindu word devas, or “ gods,” for devils, and the name of Indrafor the devil him- self, Andar. In Persian Ahura-Mazda is Hormazd, the “ multi- scient master,” the sun. In the Vedic and Puranic mythology E 2 52 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. everything seems directly or indirectly to merge in, or radiate from, the sun, Surya. The Ariishas [“red”] of the Rig-Veda and Rohitas [“red”] of the Atharva-Veda are the red horses of the rising sun ; and the Haritas [“ green ”], or green horses, are typical of the radiant beams of the rising and setting sun. The winged horse Tarkshya is a very ancient mythological personification of the sun. The other mythical animals of the Vedas are the serpents AM Vitra, the demons of drought, and Sara?na, the watch- dog of Indra, and mother of the two Sarajneyas, attendants of Yama. The breath of life is personified by Prana, speech as Vach, divine providence by Rushan, faith by Sraddha, the outraged conscience by Saranyu, vice as Agha, and death by Nirriti. One of the most remarkable personifications is that of the hearing of prayer by the god to whom it is addressed. This is personified in the Rig-Veda as Bt-ahmanaspati, or Brihaspati. In one place he is called the father of prayer, and he certainly foreshadows the priestly office of the Brahmans. He too is identified with the sun, for it is Agni who is addressed as Brahmanaspati, “ the lord of prayer,” and in one place he is named Brahma, “ he of prayer,” brahma in the neuter gender meaning “ prayer.” Briha- spati in the Vedas is not the planet with which he is afterwards identified as its regent ; but Sukra, identical with Usanas, the planet Venus, and its regent, is mentioned in the Sama-Veda as intoxicated with the soma juice. Vastoshpati, the “ house pro'tector,” is one of the later gods of the Vedas. The Rishis, or reputed authors of the Vedic hymns, play a great part in the sub- sequent Puranic mythology as progenitors of the gods and heroes, and the following are the principal : Agastya, Angiras, Arch- ananas, Asanga, Atri, Bharadwaga, Bhrigu, Budha, the four Gaupayanas, sons of Gopa, the authors of four remarkable hymns in the Rig-Veda, Gritsamada, Kakshivat, Kanwa, Kasyapa, Kava- sha, Kutsa, Mudgala, Narada, Parasara, Prithi, Syavaswa, and Varna Deva. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 53 The Puranic Gods. Brahm, In the esoteric teaching of the Brahmans, the absolute unity of the Divine Nature is recognised under the name of Brahm, but the doctrine is held only as a philosophical speculation, which has not the slightest influence on the exoteric religion of the Hindus. In fact, the idea of Brahm is a falsification, in its ver)'' origin, of the true conception of the Godhead. The Vedic Aryas were being gradually guided, from the simple worship of the sub- limer manifestations of nature, to the recognition of the One True God and Father of Mankind; but they were led astray from it by the Brahmanical invention of Brahm. Imperceptibly their first simple services of prayer and praise became invested, by the officiating Brahmans of a later time, with a sacrificial and propitiatory cha- racter ; and if prayer \prah-in\ could move the gods, prayer \brah7ti\, it would be easy to argue, was greater than the gods, and Brahm the god over all gods, and his brahmans, or prayer-bearers, men over all men. But this conception of Brahm, so far from being antagonistic to polytheism, was dependent on it, and favorable to it ; for in proportion to the multitude of gods would be the greatness of Brahm and the Brahmans. It is not surprising, there- fore, that the pure monotheistic dogmas which have become attached to the idea of Brahm have had no purifying influence on popular Hinduism. The etymology of the W'ord betrays its real meaning, and convicts Brahm of having no reference to the One True God, and of being essentially a sacerdotal invention, or cabalistic secret, existing only in the ritualistic mysteries administered by the Brahmans : and so we find the Brahmans in practice permitting the most puerile superstitions, and the grossest idolatry, wherever their own authority as mediators between men and their gods is accepted. In the later philosophy of the Brahmans, the “One Eternal Mind, the Self-Existing, Incompre- hensible Spirit,” is identified with Brahm. He alone, it is said, really and absolutely exists, even Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu, being 54 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. but viayas or illusions of Brahm ; and the final beatitude of the Hindu consists in being absorbed into Brahm. Having willed to create the world, he first with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a seed, and that seed became an egg, and in that egg he was born himself as Brahma the Prajapati, or forefather of all beings ; and because the spirit of Brahm moved on the waters, he is hence named Narayana, or “moving on the waters.” He is also called Iswara, “lord,” and Parameswara, “supreme lord.” But all these names are also applied to each of the persons of the Hindu triad by their respective votaries, the Vaishnavas identifying even Narayana [Plate C, Fig. i] with Vishnu, and the Saivas with Siva. One of his names is Kala-Hansa. There are no temples raised to Brahm, and no direct worship is paid to him. It is said that “ of him who is so great there is no image,” but the true reason is because every image, every temple is his, and he is worshipped in every form, every offering and prayer being indeed himself The Greater Gods : Dii Majorum Gentium. Brahma [Plate C, Fig. 3] is the first person of the Hindu tri-murti, “triple-form,” or triad [Plate C, Fig. 2]. He is Brahm manifested as the active creator of the universe. He sprang from the mundane egg; and, dividing himself into male and female, produced the Bramadikas or Praja-patis, the “ fathers of all creatures,” the Manus, and the Rishis. His male half is called Purtisha, the “first man,” and Viraj ; but sometimes these persons are represented as one the son of the other, Viraj oi Ptcrusha, ox Purusha oi Viraj; and again they are represented as sons of Sata-nipa, Brahma’s female half. From Viraj sprang the Manu Svvayarabhuva [i.e. the son of Sway- ambhu, the self-existing, i.£. Brahma], and from him the Prajapatis, namely, Marichi [chief of the Maruts], Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vasishtha, Prachetas or Daksha, Bhrigu, and Narada. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 55 Sometimes Swayambhuva is said to spring directly from Brahma, and again from the Prajapatis. These Frajapatis produced the seven Manus, Swayambhuva, Swarochisha, Auttami, Tamasa, Raivata, Chakshuha, and Vaivaswata or Satya-vrata, the Manu of the present age; to whom seven more are added, Savarna, Daksha-savarna, Brahma-savarna, Dharma-savarna, Rudra-savarna, Ranchya, and Bhautya. These Manus produced the seven Rishis, said by others to have been produced ■ direct by Brahma, namely, Gautama, Bharadwaja, Viswamitra, Jamadagni, Vasishtha, Kasyapa, and Atri. They are represented in the heavens by the seven stars of the Great Bear, and are fabled to be married to the seven Pleiades or Krittikas. The original seven Prajapatis, Manus, and Rishis refer probably to the same persons, men of traditional fame among the early Aryas, whom the Brahmans adopted into their omnivorous pantheon, and made the sons of Brahma. Although the name of Brahma is the most familiar of all the gods of the Hindu mythology to Europeans, his worship in India is almost extinct, if indeed it was ever very popular. There are few, if any, temples dedicated to him. I know of only the one on the lake Pushkar [Pokhar] near Ajmir, in Rajputana ; but his image is placed in the temples of all the other gods. He is represented as a red or gold-colored man, robed in white, and seated on his vahan, or vehicle, the hansa, or swan. He has four heads, each crowned with a sort of tiara, and four arms. Generally in one hand he holds a portion of the Vedas, in another a mala or rosary, in the third a lota [water-vessel] contain- ing Ganges water, and in the fourth a surwa or spoon for lustra- tions. Sometimes he holds a sceptre in one hand, and his bow Pari-vata in another : and sometimes he holds nothing in two of his hands, one of them being held downward, forbidding fear, and inviting the worshipper’s approach, and the other raised in blessing. Often he is represented as a Brahman at puja or worship. His paradise is Brahma-pura, on the summit of Mount Meru, encircled by the sacred Ganges. INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 56 Saraswati [Plate C, Fig. 4], his prakriti., sakti, or consort, is represented as a fair and graceful woman, crowned with the crescent on her brow, and either seated on a swan, or peacock, or paddy bird [for the hansa vahan is represented by each of these three birds in different parts of India], or standing on a lotus. In one hand, as Vach, the goddess of speech, she holds a written scroll, and in the other, as the goddess of music and song, the vma, or viol, formed of two gourds. Sometimes, as the goddess of the river from which she takes her name, she holds a padma, or lotus- flower, in one hand, and a cup of water in the other. When four-armed, she holds all these emblems in her several hands. Vishnu [Plates C, D, F, G, H, J], or Hari, is in himself and his several incarnations, the most popular of all the Hindu deities, not excepting Siva, and receives unbounded adoration all over India. The Vaishnavas are divided into many sects, one adoring Krishna as Vishnu, another Krishna’s sakRKadha., a third Krishna and Radha conjointly; while others adore Rama Chandra and his sakR Sita, either separately or conjointly. Vishnu is the second person in the tri-murti or triple form, and personifies the pre- serving power of nature. His followers identify him with Nara- yana [Plate C, Fig. i], and Parameswara^ and represent him as the progenitor of Siva and Brahma. When the whole earth was covered with w^ater, Vishnu lay asleep, extended on the serpent Ananta [“ the infinite ”], or Sesha, and while he slept, a lotus sprang from his navel, and from its flower Brahma [Plate D, Fig. i]. The type of Siva is the yoni-lmga, and the navel of Vishnu is compared to this yoni-linga emblem, and exalted over it by the Vaishnavas, and thus it often becomes almost impossible to distinguish between Vaishnavas and Saivas. I have seen the forms of Vishnu and Siva combined in one idol. He is repre- sented as a dark blue or black man, with four arms, his two right hands holding the gadha or mace, called Kaumodaki, and a padma or lotus-flower, and his two left the terrible chakra or discus, named Vajranahha, and the sankha or chank-shell, named THE HINDU PANTHEON 57 Panchajanya. Sometimes he holds only the shell and the discus, or thunderbolt, while with his second left hand he forbids fear, and with his second right hand bestows blessing. He has a bow called Sarnga, and a sword called Nandaka. He has on his breast a peculiar curl called Sri-vafsa, and the jewel Kaustubha, and on his wrist the jewel Syamantaka. He is clothed in yellow ; hence one of his names, Pita7iiber; and he has for his vahan of vehicle the mythical bird, half man, half vulture, Gariida. Often he is represented seated with his consorf Lakshmi on the coils of Sesha-Naga, or Ananta. His heaven is Vaikuntha, or Vaibhraja, on Mount Meru. His avataras [“descents”], or incarnations, are ten. First, the Matsya, or fish, said to have reference to the universal deluge from the waters of which he in this form re- covered the Vedas. Second, the Kurma, or tortoise, in which in- carnation he chnrned the ocean for a7n7'ita, the water of life or immortality. He placed himself at the bottom of the sea of milk, and made his back a pivot for Mount Meru, round which the gods and demons twisted the Naga or snake Vasuki, and, pulling it backward and forward, thus churned the ocean, which delivered up in succession the fourteen gems, namely, i. A77irita ; 2. The physician Dha7iwa7itari ; 3. Laksh77ii, Vishnu’s consort ; 4. Sura, the goddess of winej 5. Cha7idra, the moon; 6. Rambha, the Apsara, the type of womanly loveliness and amiability ; 7. Uchchaih-sravas, the eight-headed horse ; 8. Kaustubha, the jewel on Vishnu’s breast; 9. Parijata, the celestial tree; 10. Surabhi, the cow of plenty; ii. Airavata, Indra’s elephant; 12. Sa7ikha, the chank-shell of victory; 13. Dha7ius, a famous bow ; 1 4. Visha, poison. His third avatar is Varaha, the boar, which, when the earth was drowned in the ocean, lifted it up again with its tusks. The fourth, Nara-Smha, the man-lion ; and the fifth, Va77iana, the dwarf. These are all purely mytho- logical avatars. The sixth, Parasura77ia, or “Rama with the axe,” the seventh, Ra77ia Cha7tdra, or “ Rama with the bow,” the eighth, Krishna, and the ninth, Buddha, are legendary and IXDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. o-S historical; and the tenth, Kalki, or Kalkin, is prophetic, being the incarnation in which Vishnu is to appear at the consummation of all things, at the close of the Kali Yug, or “ black age,” seated on a pale “white horse” with a drawn sword hke a blazing comet in his hand, for the final destruction of the wicked, and the renovation of creation in perfected purity. When Krishna is identified with Vishnu, his place is taken in the eighth avatar by his brother Bala-Rama, who is armed either with a hala or plough, or a khetaka, saunanda or club, or a musala or pestle, after which attributes he is named “Rama with the ploughshare,” or “ with the club,” or “ pesde,” as the case may be. Ballaji, IVitthoba, and Xaneshwar are all local manifesta- tions of Vishnu worshipped in Western India, Kandoba, a name also of Vishnu, is generally applied in Western India to Kandeh Rao, an avatar of Siva. The temple of Witthoba may be met with in every village of the Maratha countr}', that at Pandharpur being the most celebrated. The tomb of Dyanobha^ one of his disciples, at Aland! near Poona is also a place of great pilgrimage. L.VK.SHMI [Plates C and D], called also Sri, is Vishnu’s sakti. She is the goddess of good luck and plenty. She is identified with R.vmbha as the ideal woman, the Hindu Venus, and when Vishnu is Krishna or Rama, she is Radha and Rukmeni, the mistresses of Krishna, or Sita the wife of Rama. She is held in high honour by Hindu women, who pay her particular worship on the third day of the light half of the moon called Rambha-tritiya, as an act auspicious to female beauty. She is worshipped by filling the corn-measure with wheat or other grain, and thereon placing flowers. She is represented as a lovely and benign woman, robed in yellow, holding a lotus in her hand, and seated either on a lotus, or beside Vishnu. Sometimes, as is likewise Vishnu, she is painted all yellow, and has four arms, and she holds in one of her right hands a rosary, and the pasa or cord in one of her left. This cord is seen also in the hands of Vanina and Siva, and is emblematical of the sea, which girdles THE HINDU PANTHEON. 59 the earth. Lakshmi is the mother of Kama-Deva, the god of love. As Mombadevi she gives her name to Bombay ; where she is also worshipped as Maha-Lakshmi, Kalbadevi, and Gamdevi, in the different wards of the city called after her by these names. She is indeed “ our Lady of Bombay,” in a special sense, and her temples at Maha-Lakshmi and in the Mombadevi ward are her two most important fanes in Western India. She has also temples of note at Tuljapur, Kolhapur, and Nasik, all in the Maratha country. Siva [Plates D and E], or Mahadeva, is generally ranked as the third person of the tri-murti, but sometimes as the second. He personifies the destructive force of nature, or rather its transforming and reproductive power, and thus with his sakti, Parvati or Devi, appears under both auspicious and terrible aspects. He is confounded both with Brahma and Vishnu ; and indeed in any lengthened description of one Hindu deity it is almost impossible to avoid mixing up its character and attri- butes with those of another. He is represented under various forms. Generally he is figured as a white or silver-colored man with five heads ; and a third eye deforms each head. Each head also is surmounted by the crescent moon, and the Ganges issues from his fifth head. He has four arms, and bears in his two upper hands a mrigu or antelope, and a trisula or trident, or the trisula axiA pas a or cord, or the mrigu and shanka or shell; or the dindimia, damaru, or damru^ a sort of rattling drum, shaped like an hour-glass, and a flaming bowl. With his third hand he forbids fear, and with his fourth bestows blessings. But all four hands may hold weapons or other attributes, an arrow, or a sword, or the bow Ajagava, or the club Khatwanga. He has the cobra twisted into his hair, and round his neck and wrists, and wears a necklace of human skulls called Mund-mala. He wears a tiger’s or a deer’s skin or an elephant’s hide for a cloak, and sits on the lotus, while his vahan or vehicle is the bull Nandi. At the Maha-Pralya, or “grand consummation” of all things. 6o INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. when the world and all its inhabitants, the saints, and gods, and Brahm himself, shall pass away, Siva is represented under his most terrific aspect, in the character of Maha-Kala, “ great time,” the destroyer of all things. But his most popular image, or rather symbol, is the linga, or phallus. This is the symbol, generally coalesced with the yoni, under which he is univer- sally adored. In the Siva Purana he is made to say, “ I am omnipresent, but especially in twelve forms and places,” the best known of which are : (i) as Somanatha, “lord of the moon,” at Somnath Pattan, in Gujarat, the idol that is said to have been destroyed by Mahmud of Gazni ; (2) as Maha-Kala., at Ujjain, whence the idol was carried off, in the reign of Altmash, A.D. 1231, to Delhi, and there destroyed ; (3) as Rameswara, “lord of Rama,” at Rameswaram, and (4) as Visweswara, “lord of all,” the chief object of worship at Benares. His heaven is on Mount Kailasa, north of lake Manasa [Manasa-sarovara], where is also Kuvera’s abode. As Kandeh Rao, a manifestation of Siva worshipped in Western India, he rides on a horse as Vira Bhadi-a, also an especial object of worship in the Maratha country, he is represented armed with sword, spear, shield, and bow and arrow, with the sun, moon, and Nandi, and the Knga-yoni around him, and the goat-headed Daksha by his side. Daksha was engaged in a sacrifice to which were asked all the gods but Siva, who, enraged, struck off Daksha’s head, but subsequently restored him to life, and as Daksha’s head could not be found, it was replaced by that of a goat or ram. As Bhairava, another form under which he is universally worshipped by the Marathas, he is represented riding in triumph either on Nandi or on a horse or dog ; or seated in state on the coils of the Naga or cobra, surrounded by attendants bearing the chamara or chauri, a kind of wisp made of ivory, or sandal-wood shavings, or yak’s tails, and used as a symbol of royalty and divinity all over India. As Panchamukhi-Maruti he is worshipped in Western India, as the Hindu Hercules, his name being invoked every THE HINDU PANTHEON. 6i time a weight is lifted. Hari-Hareshwar is Siva coalesced with Vishnu. The twenty-ninth of every month is kept sacred by all Saivas, and especially by women j but the great annual festival of Siva, Malta- Siva-ratri, the “great night of Siva,” is held on the 14th Magha [January- February], when, at Bombay, a fair is held at Elephanta. The great fair held on the island of Bombay, at the sacred village of Walkeshwar, for three days from the full moon of Kartika [October-November], is also in honour of Siva. He has several notable shrines in the Western Presidency, namely those of Bholeshwar and Walkesh- war in Bombay, of Mahabaleshwar at Go-Karn [“cow’s ear”], of Kankeshwar at Alibagh and Malwan, of Taneshwar also at Malwan, of Hari-Hareshwar at Savarndrug, and of Dhopeshwar at Rajapur. As Katidoba, the family god of the Marathas, his chief temple is at Jejuri, in the Poona collectorate. Parvati [Plates D and E], “ the mountaineer,” known also as Devi, the “bright,” or the “goddess,” Kali, the “ black,” Durga, the “inaccessible,” Vijaya, the “victorious” \i.e. Victoria], Kumari, the “damsel,” Bhavani, and a hundred other names, significant of her twofold aspect of benignity and terror. In the former aspect she coalesces with Lakshmi. Thus as Anna Purna, “full of food,” she is worshipped, like Sri, for her power of giving food ; and as Gauri, “ the brilliant ” [“ yellow ”], Uma, “the light,” Kamashi, “the wanton-eyed,” she coalesces with Lakshmi as Rambha, the Hindu Venus. But it is in her sterner and more destructive aspects that she is most popular, as the austere Parvati, and Kumari, and Vindhyavasini, “ the dweller in the Vindhyas ” ; where, near Mirzapur, the blood before her image is never allowed to cease from flowing. As Kumari she has given her name to Cape Comorin ever since the days of Pliny. As Kali she gives her name to Calcutta [Kali-Ghat]. She has a temple also at Saptashringa near Nasik, of some repute throughout the Maratha country. Her festivals are among the most celebrated in India ; the principal being the one best 62 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. known in Bengal as the Durga Puja, and in Western India as the Dasara, held annually in the month Aswina [Septeinber- October]. She is then worshipped as the slayer of the demon bull [Minotaur] Mahishasura ; the myth being allegorised as the triumph of virtue over vice. The Durga Puja is the saturnalia of the autumnal equinox in Bengal, but among the Marathas of Western India Ihe Dasara is characteristically kept as a great military pageant, in which the chiefs lead forth their horses in full panoply of war, and garlanded with flowers. Another great festival, the Dewali, or “ feast of lanterns,” held in the new moon of Kartika [October-November], originated in her honour, and is kept in her honour in most parts of India ; but in Bombay it seems more peculiarly consecrated to Lakshmi. A festival is observed also on the new moon of Sravana [July- August] for the propitiation of the 8, or 8 X 8 = 64 Yoginis or sorceresses, the female demons attending on Parvati as Kali. As Parvati she is represented as a fair and saintly woman engaged in the worship of the linga, or seated by the side of Siva, to whom she offers amrita from a golden bowl. As Anna Puma she sits on a water-lily, holding a dish of rice in one hand and a spoon in the other, and Siva stands before her as a naked mendicant asking for relief. As the mother of Ganesha she is represented sitting on a water-lily, robed in red, with the infant Ganesha at her breast. Sometimes she sits with Ganesha on Nandi behind Siva, who holds his other son Karttikeya before him. Sometimes she is giving suck to Krishna, to destroy the poison of a bite he had received in an encounter with the hydra Kaliya. She is commonly represented robed in red, seated on her tiger, and holding in her four blood-stained hands the sword Sri-garbha [“ giver of fortune,” literally “womb of fortune”] and shield, and the irisula of Siva, and a pinda, or ball of rice. As the destroyer of Mahishasura she is seated on or attended by a lion, and, with the upraised trisula or trident in her hand, very closely resembles the figure of Britannia on our copper coins. In the images THE HINDU PANTHEON. 63 worshipped as Kali she is generally represented as a black woman with four arras, having in one of her hands a scimitar, and in another the head of a giant which she holds by the hair ; a third is held down inviting approach, and the fourth held up bestowing blessing. In some of her images as Bhavani and Durga she wears two dead bodies for earrings, and a necklace of skulls, and a girdle of skeletons ; her hair falls down to her heels, her wildly protruding eyes are red with blood, her tongue hangs out to her chin, and her breasts down to her waist; her fingers and toes are prolonged like claws ; and under her ravening feet lies the prostrate form of her husband Siva. It is the most extraordinary figure in all the Hindu pantheon, but is extremely popular in Eastern Bengal ; and the oldest of the so-called “bronzes” found in India are generally of Parvati in this form of grotesque horror. As Ardha-Nari, “half-woman,” she is represented as Siva and Parvati coalesced, the right half being Siva and the left Parvati. This figure holds the dindimia, pasa, trisula., and in its fourth hand, a sword and is attended both by Nandi and a tiger, while from its head issues the sacred Ganges. As Durga her weapons are altogether twelve, and they are one and all separately invoked at her worship in the following form : 1. Om to the khadga [sword], the sharp-edged chastiser, the invincible, the giver of fortune \Sri-garbhd\, the defender of the faith, thee I adore, O Lord [Da] ! 2. Om to the trisula [trident], benefactor of earth, mid- air, and heaven, the destroyer of our enemies, thee I adore, O Lord ! 3. Om to the chakra [discus, thunderbolt, or wheel], thou pervadest all nature, thou art Vishnu, thou art also Devi, O beautiful-shaped discus, thee I adore, O Lord ! 4. Om to the tir [arrow], the chief of all weapons, the subduer of the dem.oniac forces from all quarters, thee I adore, O Lord 1 64 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 5. Om to the sakii [javelin], weapon of the gods, and especially of Karttikeya, thee I adore, O Lord ! 6. Om to the khitaka [club], the destroyer of our enemies, held in Devi’s hand, thee I adore, O Lord ! 7. Om to the dha?ius [bow], propeller of the chief of weapons, destroyer of our enemies, defend us and bless us, O Lord ! 8. Om to the pasd [noose], serpentine, venomous, unbearable to thine enemies, defend us and bless us, O Lord ! 9. Om to the ankas [goad], lord of the elephant, for the defence of the world art thou placed in Parvati’s hand, defend us and bless us, O Lord ! 10. Om to the sipar [shield], oppose thy glories to the enemy in battle, and defend us, thy servants, and bless us, O Lord! 11. Om to the ganta [bell], striking terror by thy world-wide sound into our enemies, drive out from us all our iniquities, defend us and bless us, O Lord ! 12. Om to the parasu [axe], the annihilator, victorious over all enemies, defend us and bless us, O Lord 1 Siva, and Parvati in her more terrible forms, and all their demon train, are remains of the fetish religion of the aborigines of India, and are obviously intruders in the Hindu system. The terrible twelve years’ famine which wasted the Dakhan from 1396 to 1408, in the midst of which came Tamerlane and laid Hindustan waste, is personified by the natives as Durga Devi. The Eight Vedic “Dii Selecti.” Indra [Plate A, Fig. 4], In the Puranic mythology, takes, after the tri-murti, the first place before all other gods. He is worshipped at the beginning of every festival as one of the guardian deities of the world, and regent of the east quarter ; and his annual festival, on the 14th of the lunar month Bhadra [August-September], is celebrated with the greatest rejoicing THE HINDU PANTHEON 6S all over Bengal. Every person must keep his feast every year for fourteen years consecutively, and present him on each occasion with fourteen different fruits, fourteen kinds of cake, &c., as the giver of rain, and bestower of harvests, and for the purpose of procuring after death a residence in Indra’s heaven, which is Swarga, on Mount Meru, the abode of the lesser gods and beatified men. His celestial city is called Amaravati, and his garden, Nandana, stretches far out along one of the northward spurs of Mount Meru. The most remarkable celebration of Indra is in the unsectarian festival known in the Madras Presidency as the Pongol \i.e. “boiling”], which corresponds in date with one of the festivals of Surya, known in other parts of India as Makar Sa?ikranti. It is held on the day the sun enters the sign of the Makara [the vaha?i, or vehicle of Varuna, and ensign of Kama], on the first day of the month Magha [January-February], and is the greatest festival of the year in Southern India. It is admirably described by Mr. Charles E. Cover in vol. v. of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of England, new series, 1871. That the festival is primitive is shewn by the fact that the Vedic deities alone are worshipped. Indra is the presiding deity, and Agni the main object of worship. The Brahmans of the Madras Presidency have constantly made efforts to corrupt the ritual, and introduce Puranic deities. Krishna is always declared by the Brahmans to be the Pongol god, but the rustic conservatism of the cultivators [pagans] has been able to resist their influence, and everywhere in Southern India Indra remains the king of the New Year festivities. Mr. Cover describes the Pongol as an annual house-warming, or ingathering of kith and kin, and harvest home combined ; and as the Christmas and Whitsuntide of Europe made into one. Bonfires are every- where lighted on the previous night, and the people gather from far and near around them, spending the time in laughing, talking, singing, and jumping through the flames, while they watch for the rising of the sun : and the raoment’it appears above the horizon the 66 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Rongol begins. The first day is called the Indra Pongol, or Bhogt- Ro?igol, i.e. “rejoicing-boiling.” The second day is the great day, and is called the Surya and Agni Rongol. This is the day for visiting friends, and the first salutation on entering a house is, “ Has the milk boiled [ pongol\ ? ” to which the answer is, “Yes, it has boiled [ pongol] ; a.nd from this the festival takes its name. The third day is the Rongol of cows, and altogether the festival lasts seven days. Indra is worshipped as the rain which caused the rice to spring, and Surj'a and Agni as the sun which ripened the new grain in the ear. Comfits are exchanged between all who meet, and enemies make up past quarrels, and creditors let off their debtors. No Brahman is ever present, and the purohita, or “ man put forward,” i.e. the family priest, is not a Brahman, but the father oi the house, or the eldest son, as in Vedic times. In Bombay, the festival, which seems to be there connected more directly with Surya, the sun, and Varuna, the sea, than with Indra, has been com- pletely Brahmanised, but still remains one of the simplest and most beautiful celebrations in the Hindu calendar. At the moment the sun enters the sign of the Makara, the people go down to the sea, accompanied by the Brahmans, to bathe. They rub their bodies with sesamum seed, the favorite seed of the sun [for the clear light the expressed oil gives], and wash themselves as directed by the Brahmans. Returning to their homes, they present each Brahman with a cup of bell metal filled with sesamum seed and money ; in acknowledgment of which the Brahman gives them his benediction, pouring red-colored rice on their heads. Then all begin rejoicing; visiting each other, and feasting together all day long; and wherever friends meet, they put comfits of sesamum seed into each other’s hands, saying, “ Take, eat of these comfits ot sesamum seed, and think of me kindly throughout the coming year.” Even in Bombay, it is worthy of notice that through- out this day praise and prayer are offered only to the sun. THE HINDU EANTHEON. 67 Surya, and to no other god. Again, on the celebration of the Hindu New Year’s Day, on the ist Chaitra [March- April], the standard of Indra is set up in front of every house in Bombay, It must be set up before every house, for on this day it is raised in his honour by the gods ; and the will of the gods is to be done on earth even as it is in heaven ; and so on this day the standard of Indra waves in every wind of the firmament all over India. Indra is represented as a white man, holding the thunderbolt \yaj 7 'o\ in his right hand, and riding on a white elephant with four trunks, named Airavati [“fine elephant”]. It is the rain-cloud. Indra’s wife, Indrani, is mentioned in the Rig-Veda. Surya [Plate A, Fig. 2], the sun, is identical with Savitri, Ravi, and Aditya, although these personifications are often distinguished from one another. He is the regent or guardian of the south-west quarter. He is generally represented as a ruddy man, seated on a lotus in a chariot drawn by either seven horses or a seven-headed horse, with the legless Aruna [“rosy,” “red”] for his charioteer. He is surrounded by a halo of glorious light. In two hands he holds a water-lily ; with the third he is forbidding fear, and with the fourth bestowing blessings. He is still widely worshipped in India, his sectaries being known as Sauras. He is also worshipped daily by the Brahmans, and especially on Sunday, which is called Aditwar or Raviwar after him ; at the annual festival of the Makar Sankranii ; and on his great day, the Rathasaptami kept in the month of Magha [January-February]. He has a temple dedicated to him at Baroda, in Gujarat, where he is known as Surya Narayana. Agni [Plate A, Fig. i] is worshipped all over India for three days from the full moon of the month of Magha, when danger from fire is considerable ; his image on these days being often addressed before that of Brahma. He is the guardian of the south- east quarter. He is represented as a rudd)'’, handsome young 68 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. man, with golden hair, riding on a blue ram, or blue he-goat. In -his right hand he holds a spear, while his left rests by his side. He wears the Brahmanical zenaar, poita, or sacred cord, and a necklace of the seeds of the Elaocarpus Ganitrus. Sometimes he has three heads, and seven arms, and three legs, said [the legs] to be symbolical of the sun’s creative heat, preserving light, and destroying fire, and [the arms] of the seven days of the week over which the sun rules. He thus in these Puranic representations coalesces with Surya. Mr. Cover observes that none of these images or pictures of Indra, Surya, and Agni are known in the Pongol festival, “ any more than they were at the time when the hymns of the Rig-Veda were composed.” In fact, at the Pongol, Indra, Surya, and Agni are still worshipped only in the form of the elements. There is a very interesting temple of Agni at Bombay, near the English burying-ground, in which all the sacrificial utensils are of wood. Vayu, or Pavana [Plates A, Fig. 5, and B, Fig. 1], the god of the winds and messenger of the gods, the regent also of the north- west quarter, is represented as a white man, clothed in blue, sitting on an antelope [which is associated also with Sotna or Chandra], bearing an arrow in one hand, and a flag in the other. His image is never seen, but pictures of him occur in the illustrations of the Ramayana. He is often painted with his son Hanuman in his arms. Varuna [Plate B, Fig. 5] is, in the Puranic mythology, the god of the waters, and of the west quarter. His image is rarely seen, but he is worshipped daily as one of the guardian deities of the earth, and by those who farm the lakes in Bengal, and in times of drought and famine. In paintings he is represented as a white man seated on the sea-monster Makara [which is also the ensign of Kama], and holding in one hand a pasa, emblematical of the sea which girdles the earth, and in the other an umbrella, impenetrable to water, formed of a cobra’s head. His favorite resort is Pushpagiri. The Makara is obviously a mythical croco- dile. The annual festival of Varuna in Bombay is on the 15th THE HINDU PANTHEON. 69 Sravana [July- August], known to Anglo-Indians as “ Cocoanut Day.” The rainy season is then supposed to be at an end, and the Indian Ocean again open to commerce, and the whole population in its joy gathers on the Esplanade, to cast cocoanuts into the calmed sea in honour of Varuna. Yama [Plate B, Fig. 4] is held in great terror by the Hindus, as the god of death and judgment, and is represented as a green or blue man, clothed in yellow or red, and seated on a blue buffalo. He is guardian of the south quarter j and an annual festival is held in his honour on the 2nd Kartika [October- November]. His sister is Yamuni. Kuvera [Plate B, Figs. 2 and 3] is the chief of the demons of the lower world, but his own abode is in the grove of Chaitra- ratha, on Mandara, one of the spurs of Meru. But some place it on Mount Kailasa, and others identify Mandara with the mountain so named in Bhagaipur, which is held sacred. He is the regent of the north, and of all the treasures of the earth, and of the nine particular treasures or nidhis, the nature of which is not known. As the god of wealth he is worshipped in Bombay with Lakshmi during the Diwali, or Feast of Lanterns. He is represented as a white man deformed in his legs, either seated on the self-moving aerial chariot, called Pushpaka, which was given to him by Brahma, and which was carried off by Ravana, and recovered by Rama ; or riding on a white horse. His wife is Kauveri. Soma [Plate A, Fig. 5], the last of the eight Vedic gods holding the first rank in the Hindu Pantheon, and regent of the north-east quarter, has his proper position after Ganesa and Karttikeya, the sons of Siva, who have next to be described ; but here will be the most convenient place in which to insert the following table, chiefly taken from Dubois’ Description of the People of Pidia, 1817, giving a synoptical view cf the eight Vedic gods who, according to the later mythology, preside over the four cardinal and four intermediate points of the compass. INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 70. Table of the Regents of the Eight Quarters of the World. Names of the Gods. Points which they guard. Their Vahans, or Vehicles. Attributes. Colour of Clothing. I. Indra E. s White Elephant. Vajra. Red. 2. Agiii S.E. 1 Blue Ram or blue he-Goat. . cd 1 Sikhi. Violet. 3. Yama S. Blue Buffalo. Danda. Orange. 4. Surya S.W. Chariot. (U Padma. Bright Yellow. 5. Varuna w. 1 The Makara [Crocodile]. 0 1 Pasa. White. 6. V ayu or Pavana 1 N.W. White Antelope. 0 Dwaja. Blue or Indigo. 7. Kuvera - 1 Aerial Car, or White Horse. 0) 0 1 Khadga. Rose colour. 8. Soma N.E. White Antelope. J Sankra. White. For No. 4 Dubois substitutes Nirritu [Plate B, Fig. 6], one of the Rudras, a personification of death, robed in deep yellow, and borne pick-a-back by a man ; and for No. 8, Siva, as Isana Sometimes Prithivi, the earth personified, fills the latter place. The two Sons of Siva. Ganesa, or Ganapati [Plate I, Fig. 5], that is, lord \isa or pati'\ of the Ganas or troops of inferior deities, especially those attendant on Siva ; called also in Madras Fuliar, or the belly-god ; the Hindu god of wisdom, the remover of difficulties, the Far of the public ways, is the son of Siva and Parvati. His image stands in every house, and is painted on every Hindu schoolboy’s slate, and he is invoked at the outset of every undertaking. His festival is celebrated on the third day of the month Bhadra [August-September], the anniversary of his birth, with unbounded fun in Bombay; but in Bengal no public festival is held in his honour. There is a celebrated temple to him at Bholeshwar, in the town of Bombay, and another at Pula, in the Ratnagiri collectorate. He is represented in the form of a short, fat, double-bellied man, with an elephant’s head, and seated on a water-lily, or oh the rat, which always accompanies THE HIXDU FAXTHEOX. 71 him. He has only one tiisk, ha%-ing lost the other in an encounter with Parasurama. He has four hands, in which he holds any four of the milder attributes of Siva. It appears that his mother, Par% ati, was very proud of her boy Ganesa, and asked Sani [Saturn] to look at him, forgetful of the effect of his glance. Sani looked, and the child’s head was charred to ashes, when his mother took off an elephant’s and put it on him- Another story is that Siva in a fury cut the boy’s head off, and then, in his remorse, stuck on the head of an elephant that was passing. The Gana-Dezatas, or “ troops of deities,” of which he is the chief, are : — (1) The 12 Adityas. (2) The 10 Viswa-devas [“ail the gods”]. (3) The 8 Vasus. (4) The 12 or 30 Tushitas, identical with the Aditj'as, multi- plied apparently to 30 to make up the days of the month. (5) The 49 Anilas, or “ winds.” (6) The 220 or 236 Maharajikas. (7) The 12 or 17 Sadhyas, or personified rites and prayers of the Vedas. (8) The II Rudras. They aU dwell together in Ganaparata, on Mount Kailasa, the Paradise of Siva. K_\rttireya [Plate J, Fig. i]. identical with !NLys'gai.a and Sr’BRAHitAS'YA, the Hindu god of war, and regent of the planet hlars, is the son of Siva or Rudra, without the cooperation of a mother. He takes his name fi-om his nurses, the seven Krittikas, or Pleiades. He is a yeUow man [but, as Mars, he is painted red], and rides on a peacock, holding in his left hand an arrow, and in his right a bow. Kis chief temple in the Bombay Presidency is at Dharwar. These thirteen gods head the roll of the greater celestial gods. 72 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. The “ Patrii Penates ” and “ Lares domestici et FAMILIARES.” Next in order are the Prajapatis, Manus, and Rishis, already named in the introductory paragraph to the present section on the Puranic gods, and the Pitris, or ghosts of ancestral forefathers. “The Hosts of Heaven.” These are followed by the “ hosts of heaven,” the nine regents of the planets and eclipses. Ravi, identical with Surya and Aditya, the regent of the Sun, who gives his name to the first day of the week, Raviwar, or Aditwar, our Sunday, the French Dimanche. Soma, or Chandra [Plate A, Fig. 3], the regent of the Moon, who gives his name to Monday, Somwar, the French Lundi. He is represented as a white man sitting on a water-lily, or in a chariot drawn by an antelope, or by ten horses, of the whiteness of jasmine. Mangala, identical with Karttikeya, the regent of the planet Mars, who gives his name to Tuesday, Mangalwar, the French Mardi. As Mars, he is painted red. Budha, the regent of Mercury, the reputed author of a hymn in the Rig-Veda, who gives his name to Wednesday, Budhwar, the French Mercredi. He is represented robed in yellow, and sitting on a lion. Brihaspati [the personification of the action of prayer in the Vedas], the regent of Jupiter, who gives his name to Thursday, Brihaspatwar, the French Jeudi: called also Gtiru- var, Brihaspati, or Brahmanaspati, being the prototype of the priestly guru, or religious teacher. He is represented as a yellow man, seated on a water-lily. Surra, the regent of the planet Venus, who gives his name THE HINDU PANTHEON. 73 to Friday, Sukrawar, the French Vendredi. He is represented as a white man seated on a water lily. Sani, the regent of Saturn, who gives his name to Saturday, Saniwar or Sanichar, the French Samedi. He is represented as a black man, robed in black, and seated on a vulture. Rahu is the ascending node in an eclipse, and is represented by the head of Ketu., placed on a cushion : or he is represented seated, whole, on a lion. Ketu is the descending node in an eclipse, and is represented by the headless trunk of Rahu riding on a vulture. Graha [“grabbed”] is the eclipse itself. The ninety-seven Nakshatras, or lunar mansions, are personi- fied as the daughters of Daksha, one of the Prajapatis. Dhruva is the Pole-star, and the seven Kritiikas are the Pleiades. The Lesser Gods, “ Dii Minorum Gentium,” and Deified Heroes, “Dii indfgetes.” Krishna [“ black,”], [Plate H, Figs. 4 and 5], is the most cele- brated national hero in the Hindu pantheon, and the mythical scenes and incidents of his life appear everywhere in Indian art. He was born at Mathura, the modern Muttra ; his mother being Devaki, and his reputed father Vasudeva, of the Yadava race, and brother of Kunti, the wife of Pandu : but Vishnu is the mythical father of both Krishna and his brother Balarama. At the time of Krishna’s birth, Kansa, Raja of the Bhojas, ruled in Mathura ; and it having been foretold to Kansa that a son of Devaki, his brother’s daughter, should take his kingdom from him, he kept her carefully guarded in his own palace, and caused all the children she bore to be put to death. In this way were six destroyed \ but the seventh child was miraculously preserved by being transferred before its birth to the womb of Vasudeva’s second wife Rohini, of whom it was in due time born. This child was Balarama. Devaki’s eighth son was born at night, and was very dark, whence he was called Krishna, and had on his breast a curl of hair, the sacred sign of Krishna, 74 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. called Sri-vatsa. The gods at once interposed to save the divinely marked child, and while the guards who watched its mother were overpowered with sleep, Vasudeva carried it off to Nanda, the cowherd, whose wife, Yasoda, had on that very night been delivered of a female child ; and Vasudeva secretly changed the infants, and brought back the daughter of Yasoda to Devaki. Kansa, on discovering the cheat, ordered that every male infant in and about Mathura should be put to death. Nanda, alarmed, hid himself with the young Krishna and his elder brother Balarama in Gokula, a pastoral district on the banks of the Yamuna near Mathura. It was while he lived in Gokula that Krishna played so many of his wild pranks. On one occasion while the gopis, or milkmaids, were bathing, he climbed up into a tree carrying their clothes with him, and would not descend until they came to him naked to beg their return. It was at this time also that he slew the great serpent Kdliya, which infested the banks of the Yamuna at Bandraband. He also persuaded Nanda, the cowherd, to give up the worship of Indra, and to worship the mountain of Govard- hana, which sheltered the shepherds of Gokula and their cattle. Indra, enraged, poured down rain on them, but Krishna lifted up the mountain of Govardhana and held it over them upon his finger as a shelter for seven days. As he grew up a handsome youth, the gopis all became enamoured of him. He spent most of bis time in sporting with them, and married seven or eight of them, but his first and favorite wife was Radha. His chief pastime was the circular dance called rasa-mandala [^mandala, a circuit, as in Coromandel], in which he and Radha formed the centre, while the gopis and gopias [cowherds] danced round them. Kansa, always seeking his life, sent the demon Arishta in the form of a bull, and the demon Kesin in the form of a horse, to destroy him, but in vain. Then he invited Krishna to Mathura to some public games, hoping in this way to bring about his death, but Krishna slew him in a boxing-match. On this Krishna went down to the infernal regions, and brought back his THE HINDU PANTHEON 75 six brothers whom Kansa had killed ; and then he killed the demon Panchajana who lived in the chank shell, which he ever afterward used as a war trumpet. Kansa had married two daughters of Jarasandha, king of Magadha [Bihar], and the latter, on hearing of Kansa’s death, marched against Krishna, but was defeated. Next a new enemy named Kalayavana [literally “black stranger”] attacked Krishna, who, now feeling his position between Kalayavana and Jarasandha precarious, retired to Dwaraka, on the coast of Gujarat. Here he carried off Rukmini, the betrothed of Sisu-pala : and also recovered the famous jewel Syamantaka, which Jambavat, the king of the bears, had taken from a lion, which had killed a brother of Satrajita’s who had charge of the j ewel. How he assisted the Pandavas in the great war of Bharata has already been told. The popularity of this national legend enabled the Brahmans to extend the worship of Krishna all over India, and it is now predominant everywhere, as the supreme cultus, except where the worship of Rama prevails. It seems to have passed over the whole length and breadth of the peninsula in an unbroken wave, which swept ail before it ; and it is illus- trated by almost everything on which one looks in India. The anniversary of Krishna’s birth is kept on the 8th Sravana [July- August], when the image of the infant Krishna is adorned with sacred basil ; and the Hull festival, the great saturnalia of the vernal equinox in India, which begins at the new moon and continues to the full moon of Phalgana [February-March], is also now celebrated in his honour, and is the most popular holiday in Western India. It probably had its origin in the most primitive Aryan times. The ceremonies consist in enacting Krishna’s sports with the gopis, and they often degenerate into great licentiousness. He is represented in many ways. As Gopala, or Govinda, and Bala-Krishna, he is a child, resting on one knee, with his right hand extended, begging for sweetmeats. At a later period of life he is represented either trampling on the head of 76 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. the great serpent Kaliya, or playing on a flute. The representa- tions of him in painting and sculpture, dancing with the gopis, or raising the mountain of Govardhana, or in connexion with the Pandavas, are endless. In the Madras Presidency it would appear to be always Krishna who is represented under the form of Vishnu. His most famous form is as Jagan-natha, “Lord of the World,” under which he is worshipped, in association with his brother Balarama, and his sister Subhadra, at Puri, near Cuttack, in Orissa. This image has no legs and only stumps for arms, and its head is very large. Krishna, it will be remembered, was accidentally killed at Dwaraka : and the story at Puri is that some pious person collected his bones, and put them in a box, in which they remained until King Indradyumna was directed by Vishnu to make an image of Jagan-natha, and put Krishna’s bones into its belly. Viswakarma, the architect of the gods, undertook to do this, on condition that he should be left undisturbed until the completion of the work. But the king after fifteen days, losing all patience, went to see how he was getting on, when Viswa- karma at once went off in a huff, leaving Jagan-natha without hands or feet. Such is the explanation given by the Brahmans of this hideous idol. The true one is General Cunningham’s, who has proved that the image has been concocted of the trisula of a Buddhist tope, which was erected at Puri b.c. 250. Before this monstrous shrine all distinctions of caste are. forgotten, and even a Christian may sit down and eat with a Brahman. In his work on Orissa, Dr. AV. AV. Hunter says that at the “ Sacrament of the Holy Food ” he has seen a Puri priest receive his food from a Christian’s hand. This rite is evidently also a survival of Buddhism. It is remarkable that at the shrine of Vyankoba, an obscure form of Siva, at Pandharpur, in the Southern Maratha country, caste is also in abeyance, all men being deemed equal in its presence. Food is daily sent as a gift from the idol to persons of any imporance in all parts of the surrounding country, and the proudest Brahmans will gladly accept and partake of it from the THE HINDU PANTHEON. 77 hands of the Sudra, or Mahar, who is usually its bearer. There are two great annual festivals in honour of Jagan-natha, namely, the Siian-yatra in the month Jyestha [May-June], and the Rath-yatra in the following month of Asarha [June-July]. They are held everywhere, but at Purl they are attended by pilgrims from every part of India, so many as 200,000 often being present. All the ground is holy within twenty miles of the temple, and the establishment of priests amounts to 3,000. The “ Sacra- ment of the Holy Food” is celebrated three times a day, and during its administration the temple nautch girls \pevadasi\ dance before the image. The Suan-yatra is a bathing festival. At the Rath-yatra, the temple car, containing the images of Krishna, Balarama, and Subhadra, is drawn by the devotees through the town, when many cast themselves beneath its ponderous wheels and are crushed to death. Haridwara or Hurdwar, “ the Gate of Hari,” near where the Ganges breaks through the Himalayas, is a great centre of the worship of Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu, under his name of Hari. Hurihud is also called after him. Harihar would seem to be sacred to both Krishna as Hari and Siva as Hara. At Dwaraka [Dwarka], in Kathiwar, Krishna, in his form of Dvvarkanatha, and his eight wives, have each separate temples, of great fame throughout all India, and most Hindus who visit them are branded with the attributes of Vishnu, the sankha [shell], chakra [wheel], gadha [mace], and ^adina [lotus-flower], in token of their visit to the place. Balarama [Plate G, Fig. 3] is always represented as a white man. Rama-Chandra [Plates G, Fig. i, and I, Fig. 2], the husband of SiTA, the hero of the Ramayana, is always known in the scenes in which he appears by his bow and arrow. His worship is pre- dominant throughout Oude, and there are temples to him all over India. The anniversary of his birth is everywhere celebrated from the ist to 9th Chaitra [March-April], by the public reading of the Ramayana. Several cities are called Rampura after 78 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. him. He gives his name to Rama-giri, the “hill of Rama,” a short distance north of Nagpur ; to Rama-situ, “ Rama’s bridge,” the line of rocks between India and Ceylon 3 and to Rameswaram, where he is said to have set up one of the twelve great lingas to Iswara, the “lord” Siva. The Zemindar of Ramnad still bears the title of Sdu-Pati, or “ keeper of the bridge,” i.e. of Rama’s bridge. The salutation of two Hindus meeting each other is “Ram Ram,” but whether it has any con- nexion with Rama-Chandra, as is sometimes said, is doubtful. He has a temple celebrated throughout Western India at Panchawati \i.e. “five-banyans,” just as we have Seven-Oaks, Nine- Elms], near Nasik, where it was that, on his way to Lanka, he killed the golden deer. It is overshadowed by five magnificent banyan-trees. The “Dii Semones.”^ ViswAKARMA, the omnificent, the architect ot the gods, is little more than a name in the popular mythology of India. Kama, or Kama-deva [Plate I, Fig. 6], the god of love, the son of Lakshnii, is the Indian Cupid. He is represented, like Cupid, as a young boy with wings, and a bow and arrow ; and he rides either on the Maka 7 ’a or a red parrot or lory. When the latter is his vahan, he bears the Makara as his ensign. His wife is Rati, surnamed Subhangi, the “ fair-limbed,” and, like Lakshmi and Rambha, is a sort of the Hindu Venus. Ananda is happiness, and Vasanta is the spring personified. There are a number of other personifications belonging to the order of the lesser gods, which are little more than appellatives, and seldom met with except in poetry or religious writings ; such as Sanjna, conscience, Papa-pit^iiAia, the fat man, “ man of sin,” the personifications of human wickedness 3 A-dharma [“ un- righteousness ”] vice, Yajna, “ sacrifice,” represented as the 1 Semones = semi -homines. Cf. Livy, viii. 20 : “ Minores diis, et majores hominibus.” THE HINDU PANTHEON. 79 husband of Dakshma, the personification of the “ honorarium ” paid to Brahmans for the performance of a sacrifice ; Nidra, sleep; the fifty personifications of the fifty letters of the alphabet ; and others, to enumerate which might give some colour to the Puranic boast of the Hindu gods numbering 330,000,000. A much more important class of the lesser gods are the fabulous animals of which Hanuman, Garuda, and Sesha are the types. Hanuman [Plate I, Fig. 3], the monkey-god, the son of Vayu or Pavana, was the leader of the army which Sugriva, the monkey- king of Kishkindhya, sent to the assistance of Rama against Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka [Ceylon], and the Rakshasas. He jumped from India to Ceylon at a bound. Surasa, a Rakshasi, mother of the Nagds [literally “snakes,” and also “hillmen,” the Scythic worshippers of the cobra], opened her mouth to swallow him bodily, but he swelled himself out wider than ever she could stretch her mouth, till it was a hundred leagues wide from ear to ear. Then Hanuman, suddenly shrinking himself to the size of his thumb, lept into her jaws, and out through her ear. These exploits of his are the delight of the native nurseries of all India. He is always known by his ape’s face and tail. Sarabha w'as another of Rama’s monkey allies. Jamhavat, the king of the bears, was also an ally of Rama’s, and always acted the part of a sage counsellor. Like Hanuman, he is evidently a mythical representative of tribes who assisted the Brahmanical Hindus in the conquest of Southern India and Ceylon. He is the same as the bear with whom Krishna had his twenty-one days’ fight for the recovery of the famous gem Syamantaka, which was given to the sun by Satrajita. He is at once recognised in illustrations of the stories of the Ramayana. Kaniadeiihu, called also Surabhi, is the cow of plenty, which grants all desires, and was produced at the churning of the ocean by Vishnu. Uchchaih-sravas is the eight-headed king of horses, produced at the churning of the ocean. -V oD INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Kalki, or Kalkin, is the great white horse of Vishnu’s coming [loth] incarnation, which will stamp with its right fore leg as the sign of the end of all things. In his first, second, third, and fourth avatars Vishnu also appears respectively as a fish yMatsya\, tortoise \Kur 7 na\, boar \ Va 7 -ahd\, and man-lion \Nara- Sinha\. Tarkshya is the winged horse, personifying the sun. The winged horse of the sculptures of Buddha-Gaya [Plate K, Fig. 6] may possibly be Tarkshya, as the Kinnaras are also represented, but it is probably of foreign origin [Pegasus]. The Kinnaras are mythical beings, with the body of a man and head of a horse, which belong to another order of the Puranic gods. The Centaurs are represented in the sculptures of Buddha Gaya [Plate K, Fig. 5], but are obviously exotic forms. Sarania is the dog of Indra, and the Sarameyas, her offspring, the watch-dogs of Yama. Cerbura [Plate K, Fig. 2] is the three-headed infernal dog of the Krishna legends. The Vahans, or Vehicles of the different Gods. The Bull, Nandi, the vehicle of Siva and Parvati. The Tiger, and Ifion, also vehicles of Parvati, as Kali, and Durga. The Dog, and Horse, the vehicles of Siva as Bhairava ; the Horse also of Kuvera. The Ram, or he-Goat, the vehicle of Agni. The Antelope, the vehicle of Vayu, or Pavana, and Chandra. The Buffalo, the vehicle of Yama. The Elephant Airavata, the vehicle of Indra. Sometimes all the guardians of the eight points of the compass are represented on elephants. Arva, one of the horses of the moon, a mythical being half horse and half bird like Tarkshya, the vehicle of the Daityas or Titans. Garuda [Plate J, Fig. 2], the king of the birds, the mythical THE HINDU PANTHEON. being foreshadowed by Arva and Tarkshya, half man and half eagle or vulture, the vehicle of Vishnu, and represented as a great enemy of the Nagas. He is uncle of the pious old vulture J^atyus, and connected with Sampati, and other fabulous birds, included in the class named Suparnas [“ five-winged ”]. Chakora is a fabulous bird which lives on the beams of the moon. The bird like a Harpy represented on the sculptures of Buddha Gaya [Plate K, Fig. 3] is probably of foreign origin. The Vulture, the vehicle of Sani. The Swan or Goose, Hansa, the vehicle of Saraswati and Brahma. Sometimes Saraswati is represented on a white Pea- cock, and sometimes on a Paddy-bird. The Peacock on which Karttikeya sometimes rides is called Paravani [Pavo]. The Parrot, the usual vehicle of Kama-deva. The Makara or Jalampa, the mythical sea-monster, the vehicle of Varuna and sometimes of Kama-deva. When the latter rides on a Parrot, he bears the Makara 2s his standard. Very learned discussions have been held as to the nature of the Makara, but it is obviously a crocodile, tricked out with the tail of a fish, and the head and paws of anything. The Serpent Sesha-Naga [Plate D, Fig. i], called also Ananta, the Infinite, the king of the Nagas or serpents, and lord of the infernal regions, called Patala, may also be regarded as a vehicle of Vishnu, but more properly belongs to the class of demons. He is sometimes held to be identical with, and sometimes dis- tinct from, Vasuki, the snake with which Krishna churned the ocean. The Nagnis, or female N~agas, are represented with the body of a woman ending in the tail of a snake [Plate J, Fig. 3], like as sin is represented by Milton. Tirnin is the veritable sea- serpent. Timin-gila, the “ swallower of Timin,” is yet larger, and Timin-gila-giia still larger, and soon, just as the “sea-serpent” grows from year to year in the columns of our newspapers. It is also called “Lord of the Sea” [“Zamorin”]. Akupara is the Tortoise on which the earth rests. G 82 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Celestial Attendants on the Gods. The celestial attendants on the gods are classed in ganas or troops. The A_psaras [Plate J, Fig. 5], the personifications of vapour in the Vedas, are, in the Puranas, the ballet girls, and “ sisters of mercy of Swarga, the Paradise of Indra ; beautiful fairy-like beings, whose charms are “ The common treasure of the host of Heaven,” Rambha and Urvasi being the most celebrated of them. Tlie •Gafidharvas, “the heavenly Gardharvas ” of the Vedas, are the celestial choristers of Swarga, whose leader is Narada. They are said to have a great partiality for women, and a mystic power over them. They are always associated with the Apsaras. The Ktnnaras are the minstrels of Kuvera’s paradise on Mount Kailasa, which is also Siva’s heaven. They have the heads of horses. The Yakshas are inoffensive attendants of Kuvera, and the Guhyakas [“hidden beings”], the guardians of his treasures. The Siddhas are a class of spirits of great purity and holiness, who are not, strictly speaking, companions of the god, as they dwell apart, in the sky or mid-air, between earth and heaven. The Infernal Attendants on the Gods. The chief inferior infernal deities are : Nirritu [“death,” Plate B, Fig. 6], one of the Rudras, also described as a Rakshasa, and often named, in the place of Surya, as the guardian of the south-west quarter. He is robed in deep yellow, and his vehicle is a man. He is referred to in the Rig- Veda as worshipped by the “ spider-like Danavas,” the “ black Asuras,” the “black Dasyus,” and other enemies of “'the white- complexioned sons of Indra.” The Rakshasas, goblins or evil spirits, arc a mythical type of THE HINDU PANTHEON S3 the rude races of India subdued by the Aryas. Ravana [Plate I, Fig. 4], the demon king of Lanka, and Viradha are the most celebrated. The Asuras, the Danavas, or giants, and the Daityas, or Titans, who warred against the gods, are also types of the primitive barbarian peoples of India. The Nagas are a mythical type of the Scythic race of snake- worshippers, which in ancient times was spread all over India, and is now represented by the Nagas of Manipur. The worship of snakes still survives everywhere in India, and at Nagpur was, until very recently, a public danger, from the manner in which the city was allowed to be overrun with cobras. Battisa Siralen, a town in the Satara collectorate, is also famous as a place of serpent-worship at the present day; and the whole of the Canarese country is devoted to it. The most celebrated temple dedicated to it is at Bhomaparanden in the Nizam’s Dominion. The Nagas are said to have first invaded India between B.c. 700 and 600. They are probably allied to the Scandinavians, which would account for the traces of snake-worship to be found in Northern Europe. In Miss Gordon Curaming’s Erom the Heb 7 'ides to the Himalayas, 1876, many most interesting facts are recorded of snake-worship in Scotland and India. Sesha Naga, or Ananta, “ eternity,” [Plate D, Fig. i], is the king of the Nagas, often identified with Vamuki, who is also called the King of the Nagas : but the historical King of the Nagas is probably Vamuki, Sesha being an allegorical personi- fication. Kaliya was the great snake slain by Krisha in a deep pool of the Yumuna, near Bindraband [Vrindavana]. All these snakes are worshipped in great state every year at the Nagpanchajjii festival held on the 5th Sravana '[July- August], The Bhutas, or ghosts, are attendants of Siva, The female imps, known as Dakinis, or Asrapas [“blood- suckers”], and Sakinis, and the eight sorceresses called Yoginis, are attendants of Parvati, as Kali or Durga. They are specially worshipped in Bombay on the 30th Sravana [July-August]. G 2 84 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. The Naikasheyas and Pisitasanas are cannibal imps descended from Nikasha, the mother of Ravana. Ravana [Plate I, Fig. 4] was the demon king of Lanka, [Ceylon] from which he expelled his half-brother Kuvera ; and was in turn overthrown by Rama. Bali was the usurping monkey-king of Kiskhindhya, who was slain by Rama. He was the brother of Sugriva, the friend and ally of Rama. He must be distinguished from Bali, the good and virtuous Daitya king, to suppress whom Vishnu became manifest in his dwarf avatara. Vital is a demon king whose worship prevails in the mountain state of Sawantwadi, in the Bombay Presidency, and the legends of him as the familiar and friend of the great Vikramaditya are widely known under the name of Vital-Pachisi, or Baital-Pachisi [“twenty-five tales of Vital ”] ; of eleven of which a capital version, entitled “ Vikram and the. Vampire^' was published by Captain Richard Burton in 1870. Before the worship of any other deity, it is necessary that the worship of the following deities, already described, should be first performed, namely : (1) Indra, Agni, Yama, Nirritu, Varuna, Pavana, Isa [Siva], Ananta, Kuvera, and Brahma ; (2) Surya, Ganesa, Siva, Durga, and Vishnu; (3) Ravi, Soma, Mangala, Budha, Brihaspati, Sukra, Sani, Rahu, and Ketu. Local Deities. Besides the above deities, local deities are also everywhere worshipped all over India. As they are seldom represented in Indian art, nothing more need be said of them here, although these often formless stocks and stones are deeply interesting as THE HINDU PANTHEON. 8S illustrating the genesis of the Turanian gods of the Puranic pantheon. They gradually become assimilated to some one or other of the officinal gods, generally Siva or Vishnu, and their sakiis. Certain stones also are held in the highest worship, the chief of them being the Salagrajna, which is sacred to, and indeed identified with, Vishnu. It is a fossil ammonite found in the river Gandak in Nipal. The Binlang, a reddish stone found in the Narmada [Nerbudda], and the Cha7idra Kaiita or moon-stone, and Surya Kania, literally “ sun-stone ” [opal?], are also revered as respectively representing Ganesa, Chandra, and Surya. But the Saligrama is the only stone deriving its deity from itself, and all other stones worshipped are made sacred by incantation. The following are the principal sacred trees of India. I am indebted for this list, first published in my Catalogue of the Veget- able Pi'oductions of Bombay, 1^62, to the Honorable Rao Sahib, Wishwanath Narayan Mandlik, member of the Legislative Council of Bombay, and my friend the late Dr. Bhau Daji, of Bombay. Miscellaneous Sacred Objects. Sacred Stones. Sacred Trees and Plants. Sacred to the Trimurti. .iPlgle Marmelos, sri-fhala, Crataeva religiosa. bel, vilva. Sacred to Siva. JEglQ Marmelos, sri-phala, 1 86 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Saraca Indica [Jonesia Asoca], asoca. Caesalpinia pulcherrima, an exotic. Zizyphus Jujuba, kiila, lore. Jasminum Sambac, mallika. Tabernaemontana coranaria, tagara. Sesbania grandiflora, agasta. Mimusops Elengi, kesara. Mallotus Philippinensis, punnaga. Gardenia florida, gicndaharaja. Michelia Champaca, chainpaka. Anthocephalus [Nauclea] Cadamba, kadamha Shorea robusta, sala. Ficus religiosa, aswattha, pipal. Ficus Benghalensis, war, vata. Feronia elephantum, kapittha. Elaeocarpus Ganitrus, radraksha. And many others. Sacred to Siva and Vishnu. Jasminum undulaturn. Guettarda speciosa. Mesua ferrea, nagalzeshara. Origanum Marjoram, marwa. Ixora Bhanduca, bha7tduca, ranjun. Artemisia sp., downa. Nerium odorum, kuruvDa. Ghrysanthemum indicum, chandi'a-malika, seimii or seventi. Sacred to Vishnu. Ocymum sanctum, tulsi. Sacred to Lakshmi. Nelumbium speciosum, kamala. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 87 Sacred to Parvati. ^gle Marmelos, sri-phala, bel, vilva. Phyllanthus Emblica, anola, aorda, amali. Sacred to Kama-Dei’a. Mesua ferrea, naga-keshara. Pandanus odoratissimus, keura. Mangifera indica, amha. Michelia Champaca, cha7npaca. Pavonia odorata, hala. Plants sacred to “ the Hosts of HeavenS To Ravi or Surya, Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis, yaa/a ; and Calotropis gigantea, ak. To Soma or Chandra, Butea frondosa, palasa ; and Nymphaea Lotus, kamala. To Mangala, or Karttikeya, Acacia Catechu, khadira. To Budha, Achyranthes aspera, apamorga. To Brihaspati, Ficus religiosa, aswattha, pipal. To Sukra, Ficus glomerata, adambara. To Sani, Prosopis spicigera, shaj/ii. To Rahu, Cynodon Dactylon, durva, dub. To Ketu, Poa cynosuroides, kusa. Plants sacred to the Patricas, or Nine For?ns of Kali. To Rha7iiba, Musa paradisiaca, kaila, kadali. To Kachwi-rupa, Arum esculentum, kachwi. To Haridra, Curcuma longa, haridra. To Jay anti, Sesbania ^gyptiaca, To Vilva-riLpa, ^gle Marmelos, bel, vilva, sriphala. To Dare77ii, Punica Granatum, da7-i77ia. To Asoka, Saraca Indica [Jonesia Asoca], asoka. To Ma7iaka, Alocasia macrorhizon, 77ia7ia. To Dha7iya, Coriandrum sativum, dluviya. 88 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. The following plants receive special worship : Ocymum sanctum, ifujsi [sacred basil], daily. Melia Azadirachta, nimha. Bauhinia racemosa, vana-raja or apata, and apta at the Durga puja, or Dusera. Acacia Catechu, khair, khadii'a. Prosopis spicigera, shanii. Ficus religiosa, aswattha, pipal, on the 30th of each month, when it falls on a Monday. Ficus Benghalensis, zvar [the banyan], on the 1 2th Jyestha [May-June]. Musa paradisiaca, kaila, kadali [plaintain], on the 3rd Sravana [July-August]. Phyllanthus Emblica, aoida or amali, on the 12th Kartika [October-November] Adansonia digitata, gorakhachincha [horse tama- rind], on the nth of the dark half of Chaitra [March-April], The following are the common sacrificial woods of the Hindus in Bombay : Butea frondosa, palasa. Prosopis spicigera, skai/ii. Calotropis gigantea, ak. Achyranthes aspera, apamorga agareh. Ficus glomerata, 2(vibar, adambai-a. Ficus Benghalensis, vata, war. Ficus religiosa, aswattha pipal. Cynodon Dactylon, durva dub. Poa cynosuroides, kusa. The five leaves used for pouring libations in Bombay, and as plattersj, are those of — Mangifera indica, amba. Eugenia Jambolana, /u'wfw/. THE HINDU PANTHEON 89 Ficus Benghalensis, war. Ficus cordifolia, guya-aswattha. Ficus religiosa, aswattha pipal. Roadside Trees. The planting of great trees along the highways, and of groves for halting-places, has from the most ancient times been a popular custom in India, to the great solace of wayfarers ; and the Brah- mans feign that he who plants a tree lives long. The trees principally planted are : Ficus religiosa, aswattha, pipal. Ficus Benghalensis, vata, war. .^gle Marmelos, vilva, hel, sri-phala. Saraca indica [Jonesia Asoca], asoka. Mimusops Elengi, vakula, kesara. Ficus infectoria, plucsha. Ficus glomerata, adatnbara. Dalbergia Sissoo, shingshupa. Melia Azadirachta, niinba. Michelia Champaca, champaka. Mesua ferrea, nagkeshai'a. Borassus flabslliformis, tala. Cocos nucifera, 7 iarikela. The Brahmans promise that he who plants i aswattha or pipal, 2 cha^npakas, 3 iiagkesharas, 7 talas, and 12 iiarikelas, and devotes them with their shade, leaves, flowers, and fruit to public use, shall certainly inherit the kingdom of heaven. Forbidden Plants. Some flowers are forbidden to be offered to the gods. The Tantric or Yantric flowers, used, on account of their fancied symbolism, in sakti worship, such as the Clitoria ternatea, Sesbania 90 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. grandiflora, and Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis, are never offered to Vishnu. But the flowers of Mimusops Elengi, although held to be Yantric, may be offered to Vishnu; and the Yantric flowers of the Nerium odorum, or oleander, and Nelumbium speciosum, or sacred lotus, may be offered to all the gods. The Hibiscus Rosa- Sinensis, Murraya exotica, Nyctanthes Arbor-Tristis, and some other species of jasmine, are never offered to Siva; and the Ocymum sanctum may be offered only to Vishnu. The following plants are frequently mentioned in the Vedas : Sarcostemma viminale, soma, honia. Bombax heptaphyllum, shalmali. Butea frondosa, palasa. Acacia Catechu, kadira. Prosopis spicigera, sha7ni. Ficus religiosa, aswattha, pipal. Cynodon Dactylon, durva. Poa cynosuroides, kusa. The following trees are found represented in the ancient Buddhistic sculptures of India : Musa paradisiaca, kaila, kadali. Bambusa arundinacea, bansh. Triticum variety, wheat. Nelumbium speciosum, katnala. Mangifera indica, amba. Bignonia suaveolens, /ara/. Shorea robusta, sala. Eugenia Jambolana,ya;;/(5z//. Acacia Lebbek, siris. Bauhinia variegata, kovidara. Artocarpus integrifolia, the jack, including the forms which I formerly identified with Anona squamosa, the custard-apple, sita-pJial. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 91 Ficus religiosa, aswattha, pipal. Ficus Benghalensis, vata, war. Ficus glomerata, U77ihar, adainbara, Borassus flabdliformis, tala, tar. Phoenix sylvestris, kajur. Sacred Animals. All the animals, which are the vahans or vehicles of the gods, are sacred, namely the antelope, bull, buffalo, dog, goat, elephant, lion, peacock, rat, serpent, tiger, &c. ; also the jackal in some parts, as an incarnation of Parvati or Durga. And above all the cow. Brahma is said to have created the Brahmans and the cow at the same time ; the Brahmans to offer the sacrifices, and the cow to yield the ghee or clarified butter for kindling them. The eating of ghee destroys all sin ; and the eating of the five pro- ducts of the cow cleanses from all pollution. The dung of the cow is universally used for spreading over floors and walls on “scrubbing days,” and, strange to say, it has the effect of a scrubbing on them, cleansing them perfectly, and giving a room the fragrance of the Tonquin bean. How would Dr. Richardson explain it ? Sacred Men. The Brahmans are objects of worship ; as is also the Rana of Udaipur, the representative of the Solar Race or Surya-VaTisa. In later times, long after the age of Rama Chandra, the kingdom of Ayodhya merged in that of Kanouj. Afterwards a second dynasty was established at "Vallabi, and when, a.d. 524-579, Naushirvan, the famous Sassanian king of Persia, drove the last of the Vallabis out of Gujarat, the Vallabi Prince Goha was married to the daughter of Naushirvan. She was granddaughter of Maurice, Emperor of Constantinople, and from her are 92 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. descended the present Ranas of Udaipur, who thus, according to the genealogists, represent at once the legendary hero of the Ramayana, the Sassanian kings of Persia, and the Caesars of Rome. The Ranas are always represented in their portraits with the aureole round their heads. Ganesa was supposed to be hereditary for seven generations in the family of a gosain, named Muraba, near Poona ; and the last inheritor of his godship died within the recollection of many persons now living in the Maratha country. Krishna is held to be incarnated in every Maharaja or high-priest of the Vaish- nava sect of Vailabharcharya. Their first tenet is that God is only truly served by the absolute prostitution of themselves in body, soul, and property [“ tan., man, dhan ’ ] ^ to their priests ; and the rasa-mandala, or circular dance of Krishna, performed in the dark room, is their most solemn sacrament. Miscellaneous Sacred Things. The Vedas also are deified ; so are the Itihasas and Puranas. I have known Roxburgh’s Coro7nandd Flora and Wallich’s Plania Asiatics Rariores to be worshipped ; and it is difficult indeed to say what the Hindus will not worship. Every kind of imple- ment used in earning a livelihood is sacred, and adored at stated periods, particularly the ploughshare, the weaver’s loom, and the potter’s wheel. Everything which is or resembles an attribute of the gods becomes an object of reverence and worship. In every prominence Siva is seen, in every depression Vishnu, Krishna, and the Matris or “ divine mothers,” the pi-akritis or saktis of the gods. 1 See Sir Bartle Frere’s paper, The Banians, in Macmillan' s Magazine, October, iSy5- THE HINDU PAN 2 HE 0 N. 93 Sacred Places. All rivers are sacred ; and the rivers Ganges [Ganga], Nerbudda [Narmuda], are specially sacred. One of the holiest spots on the Ganges, and indeed in India, is the place where the Jumna [Yamuna], and sacred Ganges, and mystic Saraswati, which is supposed to join them by an underground passage, meet at Allahabad, called by the Hindus Prayaga, or “ the confluence,” and Triveni, or “ the triple braid.” It is personified by a fish bearing on its back three goddesses, [Plate J, Fig. 4.] The place of junc- tion of two rivers is called Sangam, of which there is a familiar illustration in the junction of the Muta and Mula, near Poona. The seven sacred Indian cities, a visit to which confers eternal happiness, are, r, Ayodhya [Oudh], the city of Rama ; 2, Mathura [Mutra], the city of Krishna ; 3, Maya [Buddha Gaya], the City of Illusion ; 4, Kasi [Benares], the city of Siva as Visweswara ; 5, Kanchi [Conjeveram] ; 6, Avanti, or Avantika [Ujjayini] ; and 7, Dwaraka, or Dwaravati \i.e. “ doors of wind”]. Go Kama [“cow’s ear”], near Mangalore, Rameswaram, and Somnath Pattan, all having celebrated temples of Siva, are also sacred cities. Ganga-Sagara is a holy bathing place, sacred to Vishnu, at the mouth of the Ganges. Sacred Mountains. All mountains are sacred, Jwala-Mukhi, “ mouth of fire,” a volcano in the Lower Himalayas nortli of the Panjab, where fire issues from the ground, is a celebrated place of pilgrimage. According to the legend it is the fire which SaE, the wife of Siva, created, and in which she burned herself. Govardhana, near Muttra, is sacred to Krishna ; and hid in the depths of the Himalayas [Himmel] is Mount Meru, the abode of all the gods. 94 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Of Mount Meru and Mount Kailasa, the Hindu Olympus. In the Hindu cosmogony the world is likened to a lotus- flower floating in the centre of a shallow circular vessel, which has for its stalk an elephant, and for its pedestal a tortoise. The seven petals of the lotus flower represent the sapta dwipas, or seven divisions of the world as known to the ancient Hindus, and the tabular torus, which rises from their centre, represents Mount Meru, the ideal Himalayas [Himmel], the Hindu Olympus. It is not only a simple and artistic conception of the geographical distribution of the countries of the old world, but quite rational ; for the old world is all one continent, having its culminating point in the Himalayas, round which the peninsulas of India and Further India, Arabia, Assyria, Asia Minor, Africa, and Europe, lie extended like the petals of a lotus flower round its torus. India is Jambu-dwipa, the peninsula of myrtle blooms ; and it is from the forest of Gandha- madana, which forms a belt of most delightful fragrance round its base, that Mount Meru gradually rises from the earth, through the sky or mid-air, into heaven. It ascends by seven spurs, on which the seven separate cities and palaces of the gods are built amid green woods and murmuring streams, in seven circles placed one above another. On the eastern spur is Swarga, with its stately city of Amaravati, the heaven of Indra. There also is the aerial city of the Gandharvas, Vismapana, “the astounding,” which appears and disappears at intervals, like the sound of music heard in air ; and the tree Parajita, the delight of the lovely Apsaras, which perfumes the whole world with its blossoms, each of i,ooo petals. Northward, on the Mandana spur, amid the glades of the Chaitra-Ratha forest, rises Mount Kailasa [caelus], the heaven of Kuvera, which is also Siva’s heaven, and Ganesa’s. There is Kuvera’s aerial car of jewelled lapis lazuli, and Siva’s throne of fervent gold. West- ward, on Mount Suparswa, in the groves of Vaibhmja, is Vaikuntha, THE HINDU PANTHEON. 95 the paradise of Vishnu ; and over all, on the summit of Meru, is Brahmapura, the entranced city of Brahma, encompassed by the sources of the sacred Ganges, and the orbits in which for ever shine the sun, and silver moon, and seven planetary spheres. Beneath Mount Meru are the seven circles [inhabited by the Nagas, Danavas, Rakshasas, and others] of Patala, the Hindu hell, where in the seventh or lowermost circle is Bhogavati or Put-Kari, the voluptuous subterranean capital of the Nagas, where reigns Vasuki, or Shesha-Naga [Ananta], in great majesty and power. He upholds Mount Meru, and the seven dwipas on his sevenfold head. When he yawns, the world is shaken by earthquakes, and when at the end of each kalpa he uncoils his mighty folds, the whole creation topples down, and passes away like a scroll in the blasts of fire he belches forth from his mouths. Narada, the leader of the Gandharvas, who once paid a visit to these infernal regions, on returning to his native skies, gave a most glowing account of them, declaring them to exceed in glory and delight even the splendours and gracious pleasures of the heaven of Indra. The Hindu Sects and Sectarial Marks. The innumerable sects of the Hindus all merge into one or other of the five following : 1. The Saivas, who worship Siva and Parvati conjointly. 2. The Vaishnavas, who worship Vishnu. 3. The Sauras, who worship Surya, the Sun. 4. The Ganapatias, who worship Ganesa. 5. The Saktas, who worship the sakti or female energy of Siva. The fourth sect, the Ganapatias, and the fifth, the Saktas, are ramifications of the first, the Saivas, who may thus be subdivided into ; 96 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. {a) Saivas proper, who worship the linga-yoni symbol. (b) Lingaits, who worship Siva in his linga, or phallic form. (c) Saktas, adorers of the yoni or female form of Siva. {d) Ganapatias, adorers of Siva’s son Ganesa. The second sect, the Vaishnavas, may be subdivided into : (a) The Gokulas, the worshippers of Vishnu as Krishna, who adore either Krishna exclusively, or Radha exclusively, or Krishna and Radha conjoined. {JI) The Ramanuj, or worshippers of Rama-Chandra ; who likewise are divided into the worshippers of Rama only, of Sita only, and of Rama and Sita conjoined. The Saktas, or exclusive adorers of the female energy, whether of Siva, Krishna, or Rarfia, are divided into the sub-sects of the Dakshinacharis and Vamacharis, the “right-handed,” and “left- handed,” the ritual of the latter always being indecent. But all these sects merge into one another. The resemblance of Vishnu’s navel to tire linga-yoni symbol of Siva was early seen, and the Saivas and Vaishnavas are practically one. In Bombay the Brahmans have a saying : “ The heart of Vishnu is Siva, and the heart of Siva is Vishnu, and those who think they differ err.” The Jainas, the modern Buddhists of India, nray be classed as Vaishnavas. All these sects, except the “left-handed” Saktas, are distin- guished by symbols of the deities they worship marked on their foreheads, arms, and breasts. The Vaishnavas are distinguished by perpendicular lines with or without a dot or circle between them, or by a chakra or discus, or a triangle, shield, cone, heart- shape, or any similar form, having its apex pointed downward, since Vishnu is water, the property of which is to descend. [Plate M, Nos. 6 to 35.] The Saivas are distinguished by two or more horizontal lines, with or without a dot, below or above the lines, THE HINDU PANTHEON. 97 or on the middle line 3 or with or without the oval, or half-oval, typical of his third eye bisecting the lines : also by a triangle, or any other pointed or arched object having its apex or convex end upward, since Siva is fire, the-property of which is to ascend. Also the crescent moon and the trisula or trident indicate a votary of Siva. [Plate M, Nos. 36 to 69.] Images of Ganesa and Karttikeya bear the marks of Siva. The images of Indra, Agni, Chandra, Krishna, Rama, Buddha, and Hanuman bear the marks of Vishnu. The images of Brahma, who is both water and fire, bear the sectarial marks either of Siva or Vishnu, or both combined. [Plate M, Nos. i to 5.] The dot, or pann, is the mark of the Supreme Being, and wdth the lines of Vishnu or Saiva, indicates that the votary so marked claims for Vishnu or Siva, as the case maybe, the preroga- tives of supreme godhead. The swastika [Plate M, No. 70] is the mark distinguishing the Tantric sects. But the left-handed Saktas never avow themselves, and the right-hand seldom bear on the forehead the peculiar mark of their sect for fear of being suspected of belonging to the other branch. These sectarial marks are colored red, yellow, black, and ashen white ; and are made of ashes taken from the sacrificial fire, cowdung, earth of the Ganges, turmeric, sandalwood, chunaiii or lime, red saunders, and turmeric, made adhesive by a size of rice-water. The horizontal lines of the Saivas are white, and the dot or circlet added to them is painted red, with saunders wood. The Ganapatias paint this dot or circlet with minium, and the Saktas with saffron. The Suras, or worshippers of Surya, paint the three horizontal lines, as well as the circlet or dot, all with red saunders Considerable latitude is allowed to individual taste and caprice in painting these lines, dots and circlets : ~ and generally the whole character of a Hindu is betrayed at a glance by the manner in which he is marked on his forehead; whether he is orthodox H g5 ryursTRiAZ oi urniA. ir;— con^ictiorL or zierely i^cni zjAAqtl, or ciprice : or whether or tmbelieTin^ : and in conduct loose, or strict; The Taixa5, aco THuot Twinrrv-Fons. Jrots. EudiV die reli^on of Nipal, Bhutan, Ceylon, Burma, Assauu . China, Jupau, ilongoiia, Tibeu anh of the Kirghis and Kaimnci Tartars, or of nearly 5co,ccc,aco of the human race, survives in India, the holy land of its birth, only "exclud- ing Xipal and Bhutan_^ in the sect of Jainas, who are worshippers of the images of the twenty-four sectarian saints or Tins, mom whose generic designation they take their name. But before de- scrtbiug these images it is necessary to refer to the rise of Buddhism in India, net simply to explain the existence of the Jainas, but because the rise and estahiishment of Buddhism in India is so intimately associated with the origin of Indian architecture. According to ilr. Tergusson, India owes the introduction of the use of stone for architectural purposes to the great Buddhist king Asoka, who reigned from b.c. 272 to 236, or 260 to 224 ; and the Buddhists would seem to have learned to employ stone in tuii.ding from the Greeks and Persians, subsequent to .\Iex- anders invasion of the Panjab, e.c 337. India has no ancient history, in the strict sense of the word, before the Buddhistic mil- lennium, daring nrom the death of Gautama Buddha, b.c. 543, to the seventh and ninth cenrories of our era, when, with the earliest appearances of the .Arabs in Sindh, the modem history of India may be said to begin. TMiile Gautama Buddha was preaching in India, China was at the same rime being stirred by the teaching of Confucius, Greece by that of Pythagoras, and Persia by the religuous reformation of Zoroaster, It was an age when, owing to the throwing open of the Egyptian ports to free trade by Psarnm erichus, B.C. 670, commercial intercourse between the Eastern and Western people of the ancient world had undoubtedly THE HINDU PANTHEON. £9 become more intimate than is generally recognised ; and from this date the history of Europe and Asia becomes one and con- tinuous. From the establishment of Buddhism to the fifth and sixth centuries a.d., when the earlier Puranas were compiled, we are almost wholly dependent for our real knowledge of India on the Buddhist monuments and inscriptions, and the -writings of the Greek officers of Alexander, Seleucus, and the Ptolemies, and of the Chinese pilgrims who visited the country during the Buddhist period. There is no known Hindu temple, Mr. Fergusson says, older than the sixth or fifth century of the Christian era ; and all the earlier stone buildings in India are Buddhist. Apart from the Buddhist m.onuments and inscriptions, it is only in the sacred books of the Hindus that we are able to trace the vague and broken outlines of the history of ancient India. x\U other contemporary native records, if any ever existed, have, so far as is known, perished. Hence, notwithstanding the great antiquity of Hindu civilisation, the chronological history of India is comparatively modern. The people themselves date their chronology, in Hindustan, from Vikramaditya, King of Ujjayini [Ujjain], b.c. 57, and in the Dakhan from his reputed rival Salivahana, king of Prati-shthana [Paithun] on the Godavari, whose era, called also the Saka era, is dated from A. D. 78; and there is no connected native chronicle of events in India until after the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni, a.d. 1001-24. From time immemorial the precious productions of the country had been known to the people of the West ; and in the fifth century B. c. Afghanistan and the Panjab furnished troops to Xerxes in his invasion of Greece, who were left with Mardonius, and fought at Plat^a. Still, all our knowledge of India is purely legendary and conjectural until the time of Alexander. From the Vedas and the traditions of the Ramayana and hlahabharata it is supposed that the Aryas must first have entered Afghanistan and the Panjab about three thousand years before Christ, and the mytho- logical Hindu era kno-wn as the Kali-Yuga also begins from b.c. 3101. The Aryas gradually drove before them the great Dravidian H 2 lOO IJ^WUSmiAL A JITS OF INTI A. races now occupying the Madras Presidency, who had entered India from the west long before the Aryas ; and the Turanian races, who had in equally remote prehistoric times poured in through the eastern passes of the Himalayas and occupied the whole of the valley of the Ganges ; and the rvild aboriginal tribes who found their last refuge in the hills of Central India.- The Ramayana is the record of the invasion of the Dakhan and conquest of Ceylon by Rama, and the date of the events it records is fixed at b.c. 1200. The date of the wars of the kin- dred Pandavas and Kauravas, which are the subject of the Mahabharata, is fixed at b.c. 1400. The Aryas must have been long settled in Hindustan before civil strife could have broken out among them, or Rama have attempted the conquest of the Dakhan and Ceylon. In the Mahabharata mention is made of Magadha, the modern Bihar, and Sahadeva, a prince of the Lunar dynasty, was then king. It was in Magadha, at Gaya [after- wards known as Buddha- Gaya], and at Kasi, or Varanasi [Benares], that Gautama first preached Buddhism in the reign of Ajata- satru, the thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth in succession, according to the Puranic genealogies, from Sahadeva. Gautama, Prince Siddhartha, afterwards called Sakya Muni, “the Sakya-saint,” and “the Lord Buddha,” was born b.c. 623, at Kapilavastu, now Nagar-Khus, about forty miles west of Ayodhya [Oudh], and died b.c. 543 at Kasinagara, now Kasia, about sixty miles east of Kapilavastu. The success of his teaching was immediate. It appealed at once to the instinctive pessimism of the Turanian populations of Eastern Hindustan and their repugnance to the Brahmanical system of their Aryan conquerors, and also to the traditional antagonism of the Kshatriyas themselves toward the Brahman priesthood ; for even before the coming of Gautama Buddha, who utterly rejected caste and priesthood, the Brahmanical system was beginning to give way before the growing secular power of the Kshatriya princes. The sixth king of Magadha, from Ajatasatru, was Nanda, and there were ten Nandas who THE HINDU PANTHEON lor reigned for about loo years from b.c. 400, and it was during their time that Alexander’s invasion took place. It was in B.c. 325 that the Grecian camp on the Hyphasis was visited by a defeated rebel escaping from the hands of the king of Magadha. This fugitive was treated only with contempt by Alexander, but when the Greeks had marched back from the Hyphasis, he gathered round him the tribes of the Panjab, and gradually extended his power, until, about b.c. 315, he was, on the death of the last Nanda, placed on the vacant throne of Magadha, under the name of Chandragupta, the Sandracottus of the Greeks, whom, after defeating Seleucus, he drove out of India. Neither Chandragupta, nor his son Bindusara, were Buddhists, but the third of the race, Piyadasi, better known under the name of Asoka [b.c. 272-236 or 260-224], openly adopted the popular and now triumphant creed, and made it the state religion of India. He is the Constantine of Buddhism. Edicts of his establishing Buddhism have been found sculptured in Phoenician letters on rocks in Cuttack, Gujarat, and elsewhere. The most celebrated of them are (i) at Girnar, near Junaghar; (2) at Kapur-di-giri, near Peshawar; (3) at Dhauli in Orissa; and (4) on /ap, or “ pillars,” at Delhi and Allahabad. He began the great Buddhist tope or burial shrine at Sanchi, 130 miles east of Ujjayini, about b.c. 267 or 255. When Gautama Buddha died under the sal tree (Shorea robusta) at Kasia, his body was burned with great reverence by the local rajas of Malwa, and his charred bones, which they dis- tributed over the whole country, afterwnrds gave rise to the shipas, dagobas, topes, or relic mounds, which have been discovered in so many parts of India, from the valley of Cabul to the banks of the Kistna. Only eight of these mounds were shrines of actual relics of Gautama Buddha himself, and these are distinguished by Mr. Fergusson by the name of dagobas [from dhatu, a relic, literally “tooth,” zxi^garbha, casket, literally “womb”], of which the modern word “pagoda” is a corruption. The Buddhist stupa or tope is 102 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. derived by Mr. Fergusson from the burial mounds of the Turanian races, but, as in India the body is not buried, but burned, the stupa or tope must be described as a relic, or simply monumental mound. At the original distribution of the ashes of Gautama Buddha, his left canine tooth fell to the province of Orissa, and was enshrined at Dantapura, the “tooth-city,” the modern Puri, where the hideous image of Krishna as Jagan-natha has been in- geniously shewn by General Cunningham to be nothing more than the trisula symbol, used as one of the finials of the Buddhist tope which formerly existed there. The possession of the tooth by the Buddhists at Dantapura led to so much opposition by the Brahmans, that after lying there for nearly 800 years, it was about A.D. 31 1 removed, to put it out of danger, to Ceylon, where it [it is not a human tooth] still remains. The tope at Amravati near Gantur on the Kistna was built about a.d. 322-380 in com- memoration of the resting of the tooth at that place on its way to Ceylon. But there are traces of earlier Buddhistic sculptures at Amravati, dating possibly from the Christian era. Another tooth was enshrined in a pagoda on the island of Salsette near Bombay A.D. 234, but this tooth and its pagoda have both long since dis- appeared. Gautama’s celebrated begging-pot was enshrined in the mound erected by Kaniska a.d. 10-50, near Peshawur, the ancient Gandhara, but in after ages it was conveyed to the modern Candahar, where it is said to be religiously preserved by the Mahommedans a,s a most sacred relic. The number of Buddhist topes which have been found in the Cabul valley, about Jellalabad, proves at once how completely the Greek power was at last ex- tinguished by the Scythians in Bactriana, and how remarkable an influence it had on the architecture and allied arts of India. The other well known Buddhist topes are the noble tower erected at Buddha Gaya, immediately in front of the bodhi tree [Ficus religiosa] under which Gautama, Prince Siddhartha, attained to Buddhahood, and which is still growing ; and the tope at Sarnath in the “ Deer Park ” near Benares, where Buddha first publicly THE HINDU PANTHEON. 103 promulgated the doctrines and precepts of the “Way of Life ” and “ Gate of Righteousness.” But the most interesting of all these Buddhistic topes is that at Bharhut, about one hundred miles northward from Jubbulpur, in the Central Provinces. It was dis- covered by General Cunningham in 1873, and is assigned by him to the date b.c. 250, the age of the oldest portions of the topes at Bhilsa and Buddha Gaya. Under the Maurya dynasty founded by Asoka, Magadha rose to great eminence. Trunk roads traversed the whole of Hindustan from Pataliputra [Palibothra of the Greeks], the modem Patna, westward to the Panjab, and southward, past Bharhut and Bhilsa, to Amravati on the Kistna ; and southwest- ward, by Nasik, to Kalyan, the great port of Western India in ancient times, before it was superseded by Tanna in the middle ages [Mahommedan period], and by Bombay after the Portuguese discovery of the sea-way to India round the Cape of Good Hope. The most intimate commercial intercourse was established with Syria and Egypt : alliances were formed with Antiochus the Great, Antigonus, Ptolemy Philadelphus, and Magas of Gyrene, for the establishment of hospitals, and the protection of Buddhists travelling in their territories, and the arts and sciences and literature of India reached their highest perfection. The whole country was covered with magnificent colleges for the education and retreat of pious Buddhists. These buildings were called viharas, a word w'hich gives its name to Bihar, the ancient Magadha, to the great Vihar reservoir near Bombay, and to the city of Bokhara, “Holy Bokhara,” in Central Asia; and thus proves the complete ascendency w'hich Buddhism must at one time have attained in all the countries which naturally fall within the political and commercial influence of India. It spread into Ceylon about the end of the third century B.c., and into Tibet and China a.d. 65 ; and was carried in the fifth century a.d. by Chinese missionaries into Mexico, where it flourished until the thirteenth century, when it was extirpated by the victorious Aztecs. But in India itself the Brahmans never ceased to oppose, and, INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. 104 u when they could, to stir up war and persecution against the new state religion. Their great champion was Vicramaditya, the Charlemagne of the Erahmanical revival. Mr. Fergusson believes that he really lived in the sixth century, and that it was simply to make his glory greater that the Brahmans antedated his era to b.c. 56. Be this as it may, in the seventh century Buddhism had almost disappeared from India, except among the fastnesses of the inner Himalayas, in Nipal and Bhutan. In the city of Benares itself it lingered until the ninth century. Its great opponent in the Dakhan was Sankara Acharya, the Saiva missionary who flourished in the eighth or ninth century. The Jainas first begin to appear conspicuously on the field of Indian history in the seventh and eighth centuries ; and the survival of this sect from the fierce persecutions of Buddhism in the eighth and ninth centuries was owing to its compromise with Brahmanism. The Jainas deny indeed the divine inspiration of the Vedas, but they strictly observe caste, and admit the authority of the Brahmans, and acknowledge the whole Hindu jjantheon ; and provided the rules of caste are observed, the Brahmans will allow of the utmost latitude of religious belief and philosophical opinion. It was resistance to caste and to the sacerdotal claims of the Brahmans which made the impassable gulf between Buddhism and Hinduism. The Buddhist theogony is essentially identical with the Brahmanical. There is the supreme Adi-Btiddha, who sprung from the seven-fold lotus, the Buddhistic analogue of the mundane eggs, and created the five divine Buddhas, each of whom produced from himself a son or Bodhisatwa : and thei'e are the seven human or earth-born Buddhas, of whom only the seventh, Gautama, the Sahya-Muni, is historical. The future Buddha is called Arya Maitri. Again, the Buddhist triad, or mystic syllable AUM, is the identical formula of every Hindu god. The letter A is the vija- viantra of the male Buddha, the generative power ; u, the vija- mantra of the female Dharma [Law], the type of productive THE HINDU PANTHEON. 105 power; and m, the Sanga [Congregation], or union of the essences of both. All the Buddhas have their saktis ; their vahans, or vehicles ; and their attributes, the chah'a [wheel], vajra [thunder-bolt], ^adma [lotus], trisula [trident], ganta [bell], &c. : and as with the Hindu idols, so with the images of the Buddhists, at least the later, and the Jins of the Jainas, the trail of the old Scythic serpent is over them all. With all its pseudo-spiritualism Buddhism was always in practice more grossly materialistic even than Hinduism. Beside the Hindu deities, the Jainas especially worship certain saints, twenty- four in number, called Jins, or Tirthankaras [“those who by ascetic practices have crossed the ocean of human existence ”], as superior to the Puranic gods. Of these, Pa7'swanath is the twenty-third, and Mahavh'a the twenty-fourth ; the date of the latter being not anterior to a.d. iioo. Their images seem to an ordinary observer to be almost identical in appearance, but are easily distinguished on closer inspection by their symbols. When painted, two of them are represented black, two white, two blue, two red, and the rest tawny orange. But in stone they appear as black or white curly-headed upright or seated images, which it is impossible to identify except by their arbitrary characters. It is said that those marked with incised lines round the neck and down the breast are of late origin. They are often marked on their feet or hands with the lotus or with the chakra or wheel, which is the Buddhistic symbol of Dharma. General Cunningham considers that the trisula represents Dhaj-ma, the Law ; more probably it represents Buddha; but these were all in their origin sun, and phallic symbols ; and Dharma means the productive power of nature, the Buddhistic emblem of which is the wheel. Every native of India would at once recognise the trisula as the symbol of the generative power, and the chakra or wheel of the productive. The Tree so conspicuous in all the ancient Buddhistic sculptures of India has with great probability been supposed to represent Sanga, or the Congregation. It is also io6 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. represented, I believe, by a sort of heraldic pun, by the Buddhistic sinha, or lion. See Plate M, Figs. 7r to 74. Mr. Fergusson considers that the key to the mystery of these Buddhistic symbols may be found in the annexed diagram. This emblem is found also in China and Japan, inscribed with Sanskrit letters, which serve further to designate the parts. Thus the square marked a means the earth; the circle va represents water; the triangle ra, fire ; the crescent ka, wind ; and the cone kha, ether. In this way the trisiila would represent the five elements of the material universe.^ I have seen in native primers and broad- sheets the earth represented by a square, water by a circle or half-circle, fire by a triangle, and air by a crescent ; but I have never seen the ether represented by any symbol. On the other hand, an upward pointed triangle, and the crescent, and the cone, are all symbols of Siva, and sectarial ^ Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, ed. 1873, pp. 1 15, 116. Mr. Robert Sewell, of the Madras Civil Service, who has for some years been engaged in invesdgating archteological remains in Southern India, and especially the Buddhist fculptures at Amravati, is, I believe, pursuing an enquiry into the origin of the symbols in use among the earlier Hindu races. He traces them back from India to the home of the Aryan sun-worshippers in Western Asia, and thence to their earlier origin in Assyrian, Chaldean, and Egyptian cults. He tells me that his theories are necessarily imperfect, but that he sees strong reason to connect the iidsulr emblem with the 7 nihir [winged circle] and peroher [symbol of Asshur], and the latter emblems again vviih the 'Egy^tizxi scarabcrus. The chakra is now admitted to have been a developed sun emblem, like the stvas'ika. There would seem to be no inherent mythological objection to Mr. Sewell’s theory, since all the symbols mentioned seem to have been in their origin clearly emblems of the sun, and connected in some way with sun worship. Com- pare also Thomas on “The Indian Swastika,” in the last number of the lournal of the Nuttiismatic Society ; Schliemann’s Troy, pp. 16, 31, loi to 107, 118, 119, and 1575 Cunningham’s Ladak, p. 377. There is an obvdous connexion between the trisula, and the Jlcur-dc-lys and trefo.l as mythological emblems. THE HINDU PANTHEON 107 marks of the Saivas. The crescent, and cone or flame, constantly occur in Mongol [Turkoman] decorative art. The Buddhist tri- ratna, “triple-gem” jewel, symbolical of Buddha, the Law, and the Congregation, combines the form of the trimla and chakra. It is, I believe, only another form of the yoni-linga. I believe the swastika to be the origin of the key-pattern ornament of Greek and Chinese decorative art. The Jainas are chiefly found in Gujarat and Kanara ; and their sacred places are Palitana, a city of Jaina temples, and Mount Abu, the chief peak of the Aravulli mountains, in Rajputana. They formerly abounded in Southern India, but were much persecuted, particularly at Madura, and finally driven out in the eleventh century. The Hindu Temples. The triumph of the Brahmans over the Buddhists was but short- lived. As they emerged from their retreat in the south, and slowly but surely regained their lost position in the north, the Arabs, fol- lowed by the Afghans and Mongols, began to appear in Sindh and the Panjab ; and the thousand years of Buddhist supremacy were followed by the thousand years, from the eighth to the eighteenth century, of the tyranny and devastation of the Mahommedan rulers of India. The Mahommedan invasions began with the first desultory incursions of the Arabs under Muhalib, a.d. 664, and Kasim, a.d. 71 i. The Panjab was occupied by the Turkoman Sabaktegin a.d. 976-996. Hindustan was invaded twelve times between a.d. iooi and 1024 by Mahmud of Gazni, founder of the first Afghan dynasty of India, which reigned at Gazni and Lahore a.d. 996-1186. It was this fierce iconoclast who sacked and destroyed the Hindu shrines of Taneshwur ion ; of Muttra about 1019 ; and of Somnath Pattan 1024. Mahommed of Ghor, the founder of the second Afghan dynasty, overthrew the Tomara and Choan Rajputs at Panipat in 1191, and at Taneshwar in 1194. In 1194 he drove the Rathor Rajputs from Kanouj io8 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. and Benares into Marwar, where their descendants continued to reign; and before his death, in 1206, the Afghan dominion was firmly established in Gujarat and Oudh, and in Bengal and Bahar, then ruled by the Sena rajas. The chief Hindu princes now left in India were the rajas of Malwa ; the Ballabi rajas of Gujarat ; the Chalukya rajas of Kalyan ; the Andhra rajas of Warangal; and the Bellala rajas of Dwara Samudra [“ door of the sea ”] or Halabid in Mysore. The Pandyas, whose kingdom was founded in the fifth century b.c., still continued to reign at Madura, and the ancient Chola dynasty at Tanjore, and the Cheras in Travan- core and Malabar, and at Coimbatore. The conquest of Hindustan was completed by the annexation of Malwa, Marwar, Gwalior, and Ujjayini in 1231, by the third Afghan dynasty, which ruled at Delhi from A.D. 1206 to 1288. In 1212 the alarm reached India of the conquest of Chingiz Khan in Central Asia ; and in the reign of Mahmud II [1244-1266] an embassy was received at Delhi from Halaku Khan, the grandson of Chingiz. The chief event during the fourth Afghan dynasty, a.d. 1288-1321, was the first Mahommedan invasion of the Dakhan in 1294 by Alla-ud-din Khilji, the Sanguinary. Deoghir and Ellichpur were both taken and sacked. In 1297-98 Pattan or Anhalwara, the ancient capital of Gujarat, was utterly destroyed. The subjugation of Rajputana was completed by the conquest of Rintambore in 1300 and of Chitore in 1303 : and Halabid in Mysore was destroyed in 1310. In 1298 occurred the first serious incursion of the Mongols into India, when 200,000 Turkoman horsemen succeeded in reach- ing Delhi, where they were utterly annihilated. The fifth Afghan dynasty of the house of Tughlak reigned at Delhi from 1321 to 1412. Juna Khan, the second emperor, took and destroyed Warangal in 1323 ; but the period is chiefly remarkable for the revolt of the Mahommedan governors of the Dakhan, and of many of the provin- cial governors of Hindustan from the Afghans, and for the terrible Mongol invasion under Tamerlane, a.d. 1398. The four Seiads of the sixth Afghan dynasty, a.d. 1414 to 1450, were nominally the THE HINDU PANTHEON. 109 viceroys of the Mongols. The seventh and last Afghan dynasty of the house of Lodi lasted from 1450 to 1526, when it was overthrown at the great battle of Panipat by the Mongols under Sultan Baber, the founder of the Mogol empire of India, which continued as a political power until 1806, and nominally to the death of the 17th Mogol emperor, Mahommed Bahadar, one of the chief instigators of the mutiny of 1857. It was during the last Afghan dynasty that the Portuguese first landed at Calicut on 22 May, 1498. After the revolt of 1347, the supremacy of Delhi was not again restored in the Dakhan until the time of Akbar, the third Mogol emperor, a.d. 1556-1605. It was during the confusion which followed this rebellion that the fugitives from Warangal founded the powerful Hindu kingdom of Vijanagar, or Bijanagar, which is so c^ten mentioned by the earlier European travellers in India, and now represented by the kingdom of Mysore. The first independent Mahommedan kingdom of the Dakhan was that of the Brahmani kings who reigned at Kulburga, and afterwards at Bidar, from 1347 to 1526. Mahommed II, the fourteenth and last real king of the dynasty, added the Hindu kingdoms of Orissa and the Konkan to his dominions, a.d. 1482-1518. The Brahmani state after its dissolution was divided into the five Mahommedan kingdoms of Bijapur, a.d. 1489-1689 ; Ahmadnagar, a.d. 1490- 1637 ; Golconda, a.d. 1512-1687 ; Berar, a.d. 1484-1574; and of Bidar and Kandesh [including Burhanpur and Asirgarh], which lasted from about a.d. 1489 to 1599. All these kingdoms were one after another subverted by Akbar, a.d. 1556-1605, and Aurungzib, the sixth Mogol empei'or, a.d. 1658-1707. It was during the reign of Aurungzib that the Maratha rebellion began in Western and Central India, which gradually undermined the power of the great Mogols, until at last in 1806 Shah Alam II was forced to place himself under the protection of the British. From the time indeed of the invasion of the Dakhan by Alla-ud-din in 1294 to its final conquest by the British in 1803-5 no INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. it was a continued battle-field ; Mahommedans kept fighting against Hindus, the Afghan and Mogol emperors of Delhi against the Dakhan Mahommedan states, the Marathas against both, and Haidar Ali, during his usurpation of the Hindu kingdom of Mysore, against the Marathas, until the British were forced to stay the ceaseless strife. Then at length was restored to India such unbroken peace as it had not enjoyed since the ancient times immediately before the invasion of Alexander, the period of the composition of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, when the Hindus reached their highest point of prosperity and cultivation. It was only in the south of India that the Brahmans for the first few years of the terrible Mahommedan millennium found any- thing like a sure retreat. Buddhism had never been accepted by the Dravidians, and it was into the Dakhan that the Brahmans had fled during its supremacy in Hindustan ; and there again, among the old Hindu states, they found a natural asylum from their new Mahommedan persecutors. No Hindu temple, Mr. Fergusson says, has been brought to light in Southern India older than the eighth century A.D., but from that time forward the building activity of the Dravidians becomes marked, and culminates in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Architecture thus appears to have arisen in Southern India a thousand years later than in Northern India, where the first stone monuments date from the edict pillars of Ascka. Mr. Fergusson’s classification of the styles of Indian archi- tecture is arranged according to the affinities of their progressive development from the ancient Buddhist, “ a wooden style, painfully struggling into lithic forms,” through all its historical and geographical modifications, to the truly lithic forms of the Jaina, Dravidian, Chalukyan, and Indo-Aryan styles. The architecture of India begins [as unequivocally stated in 1855 by Mr. Fergusson] with a strong admixture of Greek art, the effects of which we are able to trace for centuries in the architecture of the valleys of Cashmere and Cabul. The classical THE HINDU PANTHEON. Ill character of the extensive collection of the Buddhistic sculp- tures from the neighbourhood of Peshawar, which have been exhibited by Dr. Leitner at the India Museum for the last ten years, is unquestionable ; and incontestably proves the direct in- fluence of Greek art on the architecture of India, throughout the whole period of the culmination of Buddhism in India. In the Cashmere temples, which were all built between the fall of Bud- dhism and the rise of Mahommedanism, the Greek influence was still very marked. “Nowhere in Cashmere,” says Mr. Fergusson, ‘‘ do we find any trace of the bracket capital of the Hindus, while the Doric or yz/«i/-Doric column is found ever)^where throughout the valley in temples dating from the eighth to the twelfth century A.D.” Indirectly also Greek art has probably influenced the archi- tectural and other arts of India, through the Sassanian art of Persia. From the Mahommedan conquest of India the further development of Buddhist art is to be traced chiefly beyond India in Tibet, Burma, and China, in which countries Buddhism has prevailed without any interruption for more than 2000 years, among races of mankind closely allied to the Turanian population of the Gangetic valley, who first evolved the religion of Buddha, and spread it, with its characteristic architecture, over South- Eastern and Eastern Asia. It would be interesting to trace the influence of the introduction of Buddhism into America in the fourth or fifth century a.d. on the architecture of Mexico. The earliest illustrations of the Buddhistic architecture of India are the edict pillars \stambhas or lats~\ of Asoka. The best known is that at Delhi. The most complete is that which was found in 1837 at Allahabad, which, in addition to the Asoka inscriptions, contains one by Samudra Gupta, a.d. 380-400, and another by Jehangir, a.d. 1605. Its shaft is thirty-three feet in length, and three feet in diameter at the base, diminishing to two feet two inches at the summit. It has lost its crowning ornament, which was, Mr. Fergusson says, roost probably a Buddhistic emblem, the f/isula, or a wheel, or lion ; but the 1 12 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. necking still remains, and is almost a literal copy of the honey- suckle and palmette [knop and flower] pattern of the Greeks. The ornament again occurs on a pillar at Sankissa, between Muttra and Kanouj, surmounting its Persepolitan capital, which supports the flgure of an elephant. In both figures the palmette is distinctly of the Assyrian form. Another pillar, with a similar capital, at Bettiah in Tirhut, bears a lion. In this instance, how- ever, the honeysuckle and palmette ornament is replaced by a line of geese, going round the top of the capital in single file. The two pillars at Erun, and the iron pillar at Delhi, although similar to those just described, seem to Mr. Fergusson to belong to the age of the Guptas, in the fourth century a.d., and to be dedicated not to Buddhism, but to the Vaishnava faith. The Asoka lats or stambhas stood in front of or in connexion with a stupa, or Buddhistic building of some sort, which has since disappeared. At Karli, in front of the rock cut Buddhist chaitya or assembly hall, dating from B.C. 78, a pillar stands, surmounted by four lions, which once, in Mr. Fergusson’s opinion, bore a chakra or wheel in metal. A corresponding pillar probably once stood on the opposite side bearing some similar emblem, such as the ti'isula. Two pillars are still in these positions in front of the cave at Kenheri, dating from the early years of the fifth century, which is an exact but debased copy of the great Karli cave. There are two built pillars among the stupas of the Cabul valley, known as the sarkh miliar, and the minar chakri. They are ascribed by the traditions of the place to Alexander, but are undoubtedly Buddhistic monu- ments, and are meant to be copies of the pillars of Persepolis. The relic and monumental mounds [stupas or topes'] at Bhilsa [Sanchi], Bharhut, and Amravati, and at Manikyala, in the Panjab, between the Indus and Jhilum, are all of a similar ground plan and elevation. They are hemispherical mounds of masonr)', surrounded by a double railing, the entrance through the inner railing being by four projecting gateways or torans facing the four cardinal points. At the top of the dome was a square platform. THE HINDU PANTHEON 113 in the centre of which stood a four square altar-like structure called by Indian architects a tee, surmounted by an umbrella, and surrounded by a decorative railing, with garlands and streamers hanging from it. A course of sculptured stone also went com- pletely round the base of the dome. The torans or gateways are formed of two upright pillars, held together at the top by three crossbeams of stone, which project far beyond the side pillars, and are all carved elaborately. Each toran is surmounted by pinnacles bearing the usual Buddhist symbols, the trisula, the wheel, and the lion, representing the Buddhist triad of Buddha, the Law, and the Congregation. The ground-plan of these stupas also, with the return railings of the four projecting entrances, forms a gigantic swastika [“auspicious’'], the mystic cross \filfot\ of the Buddhists. This is the usual style of the earlier relic mounds. “ No one can, I fancy,” observes Mr. Fergusson, “ hesitate in believing that the Buddhist dagoba is the direct descendant of the sepulchral tumulus of the Turanian races, whether found in Etruria, Lydia, or among the Scyths of the northern steppes.” The inound erected by Kaniska, a.d. 10-50, near Peshawur, the ancient Gandhara, has since disappeared, but from the descrip- tions of it given by Fa-Hian, a d. 400, and Hiouen-Thsang, a.d. 600, it was evidently similar in character to those of Sanchi and Bharhut. The Jelalabad/^^£j or stupas, the dates of which extend from early in the Christian era, or a little before it, to the seventh century, are all taller in proportion to their breadth than those found in other parts of India, except the tope of the “ Deer Park ” at Sarnath, near Benares, attributed by General Cunning- ham to the sixth century and by Mr. Fergusson to the later years of the tenth. The celebrated shrine at Buddha Gaya is “a straight- lined pyramidal nine-storeyed temple of the sixth century . . unlike anything else we find in India before or afterwards, but probably the parent of many nine-storeyed towers found beyond the Himalayas, both in China and elsewhere ” [Fergusson, History I INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 114 of Indian ajid Eastern Architecture, p. 70]. The J arasanda ka Baithak tower in Bengal probably dates ^.bout a.d. 500, The rock-cut assembly halls, or chaityas of the Buddhists, are found chiefly in Western India, where the geological formation of the country naturally suggested their excavation. Nine-tenths of the chaityas known have been found in Bombay. Only two groups, at Bihar and Cuttack, exist in Bengal, and two or three insignificant groups in Afghanistan and the Panjab, and one in Madras at Mahabalipur, In date they range from the third century B.c. to the eighth a.d. The chaityas excavated in the neighbourhood of Rajagriha, in Bihar, bear inscriptions by Asoka in the twelfth and nineteenth years of his reign. In Bombay, Mr. Fergusson fixes B.c. 129 as the date of the beginning of the Nassik caves ; dating before them those of Bhaja [four miles south of the great Karli cave] and Bedsa [ten or eleven miles south of Karli]. The four chaityas at Ajanta and the Viswakarma hall at Ellora, and the caves at Dhumnar, halfway between Kotah and Ujjain, were excavated probably at different dates between the fourth and sixth centuries a.d. The great Karli cave we have seen dates from b.c. 78, and the cave at Kenheri from the beginning of the fifth century. One of the most striking features of all these caves is the peaked arch over the facades, and door and window fronts, which is identical in character with the ogee- pointed arch of the fagade of the church of St. Mark at Venice, and obviously copied from an original wooden form. The only built chaitya, or Buddhist assembly hall, known in India, is at Sanchi. Buddhist monastery buildings, or viharas \sanga-haranias\ are found in connexion with the chaitya caves at Kenheri, Nassik, Ajanta, Ellora, and Dhumnar, and also at Bagh [150 miles north- ward of Ajanta] and Junir [half-way between Nassik and Poona], in Western India; at Jamalgiri, Takht-i-Bhai, and Shah Dehri, in connexion with the Gandhara tope in the Panjab; and at Udayageri, five miles from Bhuvaneswar, near Cuttack, in Orissa. These THE HINDU PANTHEON. 115 are all rock-cut monasteries, consisting of simple cells, ranged round a more or less rectangular court, and presenting few archi- tectural features beyond the pillars and arches of a portico or arcade where it existed. There was, however, Mr. Fergusson believes, a structural vihara in five or more storeys, the origianl of all the temples in Southern India. The great pyramidal rath, in five storeys, at Mahabalipur [“ city of the great Bali,” generally known as “the seven Pagodas”], thirty-five miles south of Madras, probably correctly represents, in his opinion, such a structure. The Buddhistic style was succeeded by the Jaina. The first com- plete specimen of Jaina architecture we meet with is of the eleventh century at Mount Abu. This is not inconsistent with the fact that General Cunningham has lately found some Jaina statues at Muttra of A.D. 177. No doubt Jainas did exist and build temples during the whole of the interval between the second and the eleventh cen- turies. If we could trace back Jaina architecture continuously from about A.D. 1000, when we at last lose sight of true Buddhist archi- tecture, and if we could trace Buddhist architecture continuously down to A.D. 1000, we should find the former gradually develop- ing from the latter; not that the former has wholly grown out of the latter, but that both had also their origin in an older style, more Turanian than either, the Greek and Sassanian influence on which has been transmitted to the Jaina architecture through the Buddhist. The characteristic feature of the Jaina buildings is the horizontal archway, which completely relieves any wall through which it gives passage from the strain of the outward thrust of a true radiating arch. The bracket form of capital is also largely introduced in Jaina buildings for the first time in Indian architecture. The ground-plan of the Jaina temples is shewn by the temple of Aiwalli \circa a.d. 650], in Dharwar, in Western India, to be derived from the Buddhist chaitya. It is identical with the ground-plan of the structural chaitya at Sanchi, but there is a doorway through the circular apse at the end ; for in the Jaina temple it does not entomb a relic, but covers an image ii6 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. to which the worshippers must have access ; and there is a thick- ening of the apse wall to enable it to carry the tower, marking the position of the image, in place of the light wooden roof of the Buddhist structural assembly hall. If from the temple at Aiwalli we pass to the neighbouring one at Pittadkul, built probably two centuries later \i.e. circa a.d. 850], we find that the circular apse of the Buddhists has entirely disappeared, and the cell has become the base of a square tower, as it remained ever afterwards. The nave of the chaitya has become a well-defined mantapa or porch, in front of but distinct from the cell, and these two features, in an infinite variety of forms, are the essential elements of the plans of Jaina and Hindu temples of all subsequent ages. The sikra, or tower, called also the viinana, is a peculiarity common to both Jaina and Hindu architecture in Northern India. In the ordinary Jaina temples, the image is invariably placed in a square cell, which receives its light from the doorway only. It seems also an invariable rule that the presence and position of the presiding idol should be indicated externally by a tower, and that though square, or nearly so, in plan, it should have a curvilinear outline. The upper part of these towers over- hangs the base, and bends inwards toward the top, which is surmounted by a melon-shaped member called the amalika, from its supposed resemblance to the fruit of the Phyllanthus E??iblica. But it is probably derived from the fruit of the lotus, through the Indian water vessel or iota. The northern Jaina style is seen principally in the beautiful Jaina “ cities of temples ” at Palatina and Giinar, in Gujarat, and at Mount Abu, the chief peak of the Aravali range, where the sacred Nucki Talao [“ pearl lake ”] is one of the loveliest gems of architecture in all India ; and at Parswanath, the highest point of the Bengal range of hills, south of Rajmahal. There are ruins of great Jaina temples at Gwalior, at Khajuraho, 125 miles westward of Allahabad, at Gyraspore, near Bhilsa, in Central India, at Amwah, near Ajanta, and at Chitore, in Rajputana, where the noble nine-storeyed pagoda was erected as a THE HINDU PANTHEON. 117 jaya stambha, or “ tower of victory,” to commemorate the victory of the Rajput raja Khambo over Mahmud of Malwa, a.d. 1439. The Indra cave at Ellora is a Jaina structure, dating from before A.D. 750. There are very extensive modern Jaina temples at Sona- ghur, in Bandelkhand, at Delhi, and at Ahmedabad in Gujarat. In Southern India there are two classes of Jaina temples, called bettus and bastis. The bettus contain, not images of a Tirthankar, but of Gomata Raja, though who he was and why worshipped no one knows. His colossal images are probably the survival of a vague local tradition of Gautama Buddha. Only three are known. The bastis are ordinary Jaina temples dedicated to the Tirthankars, and those at Sravana Belgula are the grandest examples of Jaina architecture in all India. They are all of the Dravidian style, and the vhna?ias, or towers, are surmounted with a small dome, instead of the a 7 ?ialika ornament of the northern sikras. “ It may be a vain speculation,” says Mr. Fer- gusson, “but it seems impossible to look at this group of tem- ples and not be struck by their resemblance to the temples of Babylonia. The same division into storeys with their cells, the backward position of the temple itself, the panelled or pilastered basement, are all points of resemblance it seems difficult to regard as purely accidental.” All these domed and pillared temples of the Jainas, whatever indirect influences they may have received from other sources, Mr. Fergusson traces back directly to the storeyed monasteries of the Buddhists. The temples and priests’ tombs at Mudbidri, in Canara, must owe their literal Tibetan character to some direct connexion, at the period of their construction, between Tibet and Southern India. They resemble the wooden temples of Dungri, said to be 600 years old, figured in Calvert’s Kulu, and seem to suggest a clue to the origin of all the towered Hindu temples in some primitive wooden type indigenous to the Deodar valleys of the inner Himalayas. The Cashmerian temples seem to be a natural dissection of the Hindu temple forms into their primitive Mongolian and Graeco-Roman elements. ii8 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. For Jaina architecture is one of the sources of all Hindu styles, Dravidian, Chalukyan, or Indo-Aryan, the chief difference be- tween them being, that while the Jaina temple is always twelve pillared, the Hindu temple when pure in style is absolutely astylar. The Indo-Aryan style had indeed an independent centre of origin, but it never developed into a thoroughly original Brah- manical style. No temples are mentioned in the Vedas, and so long as the Vedic religion remained there were no temples built. It was only when it was corrupted by the Turanian and Dravidian converts to it that the Hindus began to require temples. But between the fall of Buddhism and the advent of the Mahommedans, the Jainas had stepped in with a ready-made style, and the fol- lowers of Vishnu and Siva having had no time to develop an independent style of their own before it was too late, were forced to adopt that of their religious rivals. Of the three varieties of Brahmanical architecture, the Dravidian style prevails in the Dakhan, south of the Kistna, the Chalukyan between the Kistna and Mahanuddi, and the Indo-Aryan in Hindustan. The Dravidian temple is distinguished by its rectangular ground-plan and storeyed pyramidal tower ; the Chalukyan, by its star-like ground plan and pyramidal tower ; and the Indo-Aryan by its square ground-plan, and curvilinear sikra or tower. In the Dravidian style, the temple almost invariably includes, beside the vimana or towered shrine, the mantapa or porch leading to the shrine ; the choiiltri or pillared hall ; numerous other build- ings ; elegant stambhas or pillars, bearing the images or flags of the gods, or numberless lamps all connected with the temple worship and service ; tanks and gardens, and avenues of palms and sacred trees : and all these various portions are surrounded by the temple enclosure, with its grand gopuras or gateways. The architectural effect therefore of such temples as those of Tan- jore, Tiruvalur, Seringham, Chillambaram, Rameswaram, Madura, Tinnevelly, Conjeveram, Vellore, Perur, and Vijayanagar, is most THE HINDU PANTHEON 119 imposing. There is nothing in Europe that can be compared with their grandeur and solemnity, and for parallels to them we must go back to ancient Egypt and Assyria, and the temple at Jerusalem. The rock-cut Kylas at Ellora was executed by southern Dravidians, either the Cheras or Cholas, who had sway there during the eclipse of the Chalukyas between a . d . 750 and 950. The noblest example of the Chalukyan style is the great temple of Halabid, the old capital of the Rajput Ballalas of Mysore. Unfortunately, it was never finished, having been stopped by the Mahommedan conquest a . d . 1310. It is a double temple. The building is raised on a terrace from five feet to six feet in height. On this stands a frieze of elephants, 2,000 in number, following all the sinuosities of the star-like ground plan. Above it is a frieze of lions, then a band of scrollwork of infinite beauty and variety of design ; over which is a frieze of horsemen, and then comes another scroll, over which is a frieze representing the conquest of Sanka by Rama. Then succeed two friezes, one above the other, of celestial beasts and celestial birds ; and above these a cornice of scrollwork, bearing a rail, divided into panels^ each containing two figures ; over which are windows of pierced slabs of stone, divided at regular intervals, marked by the abutments of the temple by groups five feet six inches in height, of the gods and heavenly Apsaras of the Hindu pantheon; Above all would have risen, if the temple had been finished, the pyramidal towers of the structure. The Chalukyan style is seen also in the temple of Kait Iswara at Halabid, and the temples of Som- nathpur and Baillur, both in Mysore ; and in those of Buchropully, not far from Hydrabad, and of Hammoncondah, or Warangal, also in the Nizam’s dominion. The Indo-Aryan style is found in its greatest purity in Orissa. Among the 500 or 600 original shrines of Bhuvaneswar not a pillar is to be found, and those added to the porches of the temples at Bhuvaneswar and Puri are of the twelfth and fourteenth. centuries. Sometimes there are gateways, but they are very subordinate features, and there 120 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. are no enclosures as in the South, That two peoples inhabiting the same country, and worshipping the same gods, under the same Brahmanical priesthood, should have developed and ad- hered to two such dissimilar styles, shews clearly, as Mr. Fergusson points out, how much race has to do with architecture. There is nothing in Buddhist, or any other architecture, at all like the cunihnear square sikra or tower of the Indo-Ajyan temples in Hindustan. It does not seem to be derived from any form which can as yet be recognised as its source. I have looked longer,” writes Mr. Fergusson, and perhaps thought more on this problem than on any other of its class con- nected with Indian architecture . . . and its real solution will probably be found in the accidental discoveiy of old temples, so old as to betray in their primitive rudeness the secret we are now guessing at in vain.” He indicates that it is in the great table- land of Central India^ from which the Soane, and }^Iahanuddi, and Xerbudda, aU spring, one of the principal seats of the aborginal tribes of India, and to which the highest traditional sanctity is attached, that the temple will be found which will reveal the origin of the Indo- Aryan temple style. Beside the great temple of Bhuvaneswar, the “ black pagoda ” of Kanaruc, and the temple of Jagannatha at Puri, are remarkable Orissan examples of the Indo-Aiyan or Dasyu- Brahmanical style. After them, the oldest and most characteristic example of this style is the temple of Pittadkul, near Badami, in the Dhans'ar district of the Bombay Presidency. There are also three Brahmanical rock- cut temples at Badami, the age of which Mr. Fergusson places between a.d. 500 and 750, or synchronously -nuth the Indo-Ary^an portion of the series of Buddhist, Jaina, and Indo-Aryan and Dravidian caves at Ellora : and another rock-cut temple at Dhum- nar in Raiputana, the Buddhistic excavations of which place have been already noticed. The Brahmanical temple at Dhumnar is the only one e?cample known in which the Das}Ti- Brahmanical architects attempted to rival the DraHdian by introducing a THE HINDU PANTHEON. I2I monolithic exterior. It is not an interior excavation simply like that at Badami, but a temple cut bodily out of the rock. The Brahmanical excavations at Elephanta, near Bombay, also belong to the eighth century. There are many splendid structural temples of the so-called Indo-Aryan style in Central or Northern India, at Gwalior, Khaju- raho, Udaipur, Benares, and Bindraband ; and one of a remarkable aberrant form at Kantonagar near Dinajpur. The peculiar curved arch seen in pavilions connected with temples along the banks of the Ganges, and in the architecture generally of Northern India, is derived from the curvilinear roof which the Bengalis have learned to give their houses, by bending the bamboos used as a support for the thatch, or tiles. At the South Kensington museum the same curved form is seen in the roof of a shrine of Byzantine work. I have borrowed so copiously from what Mr. Fergusson has written on the architectural history of Hindu temples because the domestic and foreign influences which affect the arts of a country are always most satisfactorily traced in its architec- ture. Those also who are familiar with the decorative details of the art manufactures of India will recognise a distinct Dravidian style marked by the use of swa?ni ornament. There are other dis- tinct styles. One marked by the knop and flower pattern is called Saracenic, but I prefer to call it Aryan, because the use of its characteristic ornamentation was simply revived in India by the Persianised Arabs, Afghans, and Mongols. Another presents the archaic forms of ornament found in the jewelry and other art-work of central India, and Orissa, and parts of Bengal. It is a purely indigenous style, and yet quite distinct from the style prevailing among the so-called aboriginal Turanian tribes of the inner Himalayas, the decorative forms of which are often quite Chinese. It does not seem possible as yet to classify any of these styles systematically ; but Mr. Fergusson’s grouping of the temple architecture of India suggests a clue by 122 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. which the student of the minor arts of India may be led to an analogous classification of them. The meaning of such terms as Indian and Aryan must, however, be first decided. The chief Aryan influence on the arts of India has been that of the force of a superior intellect, which gives to all forms, whencesoever derived, the universal expression, which is the distinguishing mark of Indian art. The Aryan influence has reached India through the Greeks, through Persia, and through the immemorial commerce of India with the West, but above all from the Vedic Aryas, through the Brahmanical Hindus : a race formed in the south by admixture with Dravidians, in the north-east with Turanians, in the north- west with Scythians, and in Central India and other inaccessible parts with what seem to be the true aboriginal peoples of the peninsula. The Hindus themselves classify their temples according to the idols worshipped in them. The mandira is dedicated to the linga, and is double-roofed. The deiila is sacred to Jagannatha, and has an iron image of Garuda on the pinnacle. The trisula on the pinnacle distinguishes a temple of Siva, and a wheel one of Vishnu. The pancha-raina [“ five gems ”] temple has four smaller turrets at the corners of the square cell from which the central tower springs, and is dedicated to Vishnu in his various forms of Krishna. The nava-ratna [“ nine gems ”], also a Vaishnava temple, has a double roof like the mandira, with four turrets on one roof, and four at the corners of the central tower, which forms the other. The Vis/mu-mandira and the Chandi-7nandira are small flat-roofed temples, or cells, sacred to Vishnu, and Durga or Kali, respectively. The yora-bangala is made like two thatched houses placed side by side, and is used for different gods. The rasa-mancha is an octagonal temple with eight turrets, sacred to Krishna. The dola-mancha is a similar building. The devalaya consists of a number of temples built in a square. THE HINDU PANTHEON 123 Sacrificial Utensils. The articles \upacharas\ used in the worship \pujd\ of the gods are too numerous to be systematically named, but the principal of them are illustrated in the mythological plates N and O. Numbers i and 2, plate N, are different forms of the nandi-linga, or naga-nandi-linga image. The panchayatan, or family shrine, seen in every Hindu house in Western India, is furnished with the symbols of Siva \lingd\ or Siva and Parvati com- bined \linga and yoni\ and the images of Parvati, Ganesa, and Vishnu, and often also of Karttikeya. The pyramid of five balls, often seen in these panchayatans, is the panchapinda. The four balls forming the base of the pyramid represent Vishnu, Surya, Parvati, and Ganesa, and the fifth ball at the apex Siva. If there is only one ball \sruva 71 a i7iukhi'\ it represents Parvati. Sometimes Vishnu is represented by the saligra77ia, Ganesa by the bmla77g, and Surya by the su7ya-ka7ita \see “Sacred Stones ”]. No. 3 is a svihasaTia, or throne on which the idol is placed. No. 4 is the ga7tfa, or bell, which is rung to call its attention to the worshipper; and No. 5, the sa7ikha, or conch shell, which is blown for the same purpose ; and also at the conclusion of certain ceremonies. No. 6 is one of the innumer- able forms of the aratika, or lamp, which is waved in a circular manner before the idol ; and 7 and 8 are dhupda7is, or in- cense-holders, for censing it. Sometimes an artistically pierced and mounted shell is used as the censer. The darpaTi is the looking-glass in which the reflexion of the idol, when it is of clay, is washed and anointed. Number i, plate O, is the shell, resting on its mystic tripod, used for pouring water on the idol. No. 2, plate O, are two surwas, or spoons, the larger generally of brass, being used for lustrations, and the smaller, generally of copper, for offering water to the idol to drink. These .spoons are often very beautiful in form and decoration, being ornamented 124 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. with the figures of the gods to whose worship they are consecrated. No. 3 is a lota, or ewer, for holding the water of the sacrificial service. The vessels specially made for holding Ganges water are generally flattened from side to side, or from above and below. The ghata is a large earthen vessel used in the worship of many of the gods, particularly of Vanina and Lakshmi. It is filled with Ganges water, and twigs of sacred plants, and invoked as Vanina, or Lakshmi, or any other god or goddess to whom it may be consecrated. Numbers 4 and 5, plate O, are copper vessels used in offering flowers. The larger is called sa?npatnl, and the smaller katori. No. 7 is a tali, or brass tray, for offering fruits and sweetmeats. A larger tray for holding all the offerings made to an idol, is called varanadala. No. 8 is the mystical arghya patra, or cornucopia for holding the offerings made to the idols of til [sesamum] seed, Kusa grass, dub or durva grass, flowers, and sandalwood powder, or of water sprinkled with colored and perfumed powders. The arghya patra, the surwa [spoon], and the lota, called in its religious use the prok- shani-patra, for holding the water of lustration, are the three necessary utensils for the due performance of all worship. The mystic arghya may be established in any object of a similar shape, and the ajghya patra figured in plate O, apart from its religious use, is called a kosa. A spoon of similar shape something like an English tablespoon, with the handle cut short, called kusi, is often used instead of the surwa for lustrations > and a round open bowl, called kunda, for holding water, in place of the ordinary lota. Almost any flower may be offered to the idols, but red flowers are preferred in the worship ot Siva, Parvati, Ganesa, and Hanuman ; and yellow in the worship of Vishnu and Krishna, and their consorts [see “ Sacred Plants”]. A necklace of tulsi seeds or stalks is worn by the worshippers of Vishnu ; of rudraksh seeds by those ©f Siva ; of kamal seeds by those of Ganesa [see “Sacred Plants ”] ; and of ciystal in the worship of Surya. THE HINDU PANTHEON. 125 The asana is a carpet or seat on which the worshipper sits while performing any ceremony. The sri is a representation of Mount Meru in the form of a disc from which rises a cone, crowned with the lotus bud. It is ornamented with flowers and birds in the manner of the hawthorn blossom Dresden china vases, and stamped with the auspicious sign of the triangle. It is a mystic representation of the generative principle of nature. The k/iadga, or sacrificial sword, is said to have been begotten by Brahma. It is a long cleaver, with a deep blade nearly the whole length of the handle, broadened, with a curved outline, to double its depth at the end, where an eye is painted in red and black on each side. Evil Influence of the Puranas on Indian Art. The mythology of the Puranas is not an essential element in Hindu art, which, however, it has profoundly influenced. It lends itself happily enough to decorative art ; but has had a fatal effect in blighting the growth of true pictorial and plastic art in India. The monstrous shapes of the Puranic deities are unsuitable for the higher forms of artistic representation ; and this is possibly why sculpture and painting are unknown, as fine arts, in India. Where the Indian artist is left free from the trammels of the Puranic my- thology he has frequently shewn an instinctive capacity for fine art. The ancient Buddhist sculptures of Sanchi, Bharhut, and Amra- vati display no mean skill, and some of the scenes from Buddha’s life, in which he is represented in purely human shape without any ritualistic disfigurement, are of great beauty. Many also of the more popular scenes of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, such as the marriage and honeymoon of Rama and Sita, and Krishna’s courtship of Radha and Rukmini, are free from the intrusion of the Puranic gods, and the common bazaar paintings of them often approach the ideal expression of true pictorial art. They shew little knowledge of perspective, but tell their story naturally; INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 1 26 while a certain characteristic symmetry of composition, borrowed from decorative art, has its legitimate attraction. Admirably though the unnatural figures of the Puranic gods, derived from the Dravidian and Indo-Chinese races of India, some- times shew indetailed ornamentation, yet their employment for this purpose is in direct defection from the use of the lovelier, nobler forms of trees and flowers. The latter forms were introduced in the decorative arts by the Aryan race wherever it went ; and after being comparatively suppressed for centuries in India, as they still are in the South, were again brought into fashion by the Afghans and Mongols [Turkomans] from Persia ; where this charm- ing style of religious symbolism, springing from the love and worship of nature intuitive in the Aryas, has prevailed from the remotest antiquity, and reached its perfected development in the time of the Sassanian dynasty, circa a.d. 226 — 641. TttE Antiquity of Indian Art. How intimately the Hindus live in their sacred writings, was remarkably illustrated during the Prince of Wales’ visit to India in 1875-6, when the Raja of Jaipur deliberately planned the decorations of his royal city and the ceremonial of the Prince’s reception, from the descriptions of Ayodhya, and the court of the Maharaja Dasaratha, in the Ramayana. In his recent poem. The Light of Asia, Mr. Edwin Arnold, C.S.I., has given a series of pictures of the city, and court, and country life of the Buddhistic state of Kapilavastu 2000 years ago, the fascination of which has been felt by all who know India. The King Suddhodana, on the birth of his son Gautama, Prince Siddhartha, gave order that Kapilavastu should rejoice ; — “ Therefore the ways were swept, Rose odours sprinkled in the streets, the trees Were hung with lamps and flags, while merry crowds Gaped on the sword players and posturers, The jugglers, charmers, swingers, rope walkers, The nautch girls in their spangled skirts and bells. That chime light laughter round their restless feet ; THB HINDU PANTHEON. 127 The masquers wrapped in skins of bear and deer, The tiger tamers, wrestlers, quail fighters. Beaters of drum, and twanglers of the wire, Who make the people happy by command. Moreover from afar came merchantmen. Bringing, on tidings of his birth, rich gifts, In golden trays ; goat shawls, and nard and jade, Turkises ‘ evening sky ’ tint, woven webs. * * Homage from tribute cities.” One day the king takes the young prince out for a drive through the suburbs of the city. “ So they rode Into a land of wells and gardens, where. All up and down the rich red loam, the steers Strained their strong shoulders in the creaking yoke. Dragging the ploughs ; the fat soil rose and rolled In smc ith dark waves back from the plough ; who drove Planted both feet upon the leaping share, To make the furrow deep. * Elsewhere were sowers who went forth to sow ; The kites sailed circles in the golden air. About the painted temples peacocks flew. The blue doves cooed from every well, far off The village drums beat for some marriage feast ; All things spoke peace and plenty, and the Prince Saw and rejoiced.” Later the Prince drives through the town itself. “ Therefore the stones were swept, and up and dowm The water carriers sprinkled all the streets From squirting skins, the housewives scattered fresh Red powder on their thresholds, strung new wreaths,^ And trimmed the tulsi-bush before their doors. ^ These are strings of alternate leaves and flowers, or of pieces of many- colored silk or cloth, richly embroidered, which are hung across the tops of Hindu doors on birthdays, and other festive occasions. 128 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. The paintings on the walls were heightened np With liberal brush, the trees set thick with flags, The idols gilded ; in the four-went ways, Surya-deva and the great gods shone Mid shrines of leaves ; so that the city seemed A capital of some enchanted land. * ■* * * While the Prince Came forth in painted car, which two steers drew, Milkwhite, with swinging dewlaps, and huge humps Wrinkled against the carved and lacquered yoke. * # * * So passed they through the gates, a joyous crowd. Thronging about the wheels, whereof some ran Before the oxen, throwing wreaths, some stroked Their silken flanks, some brought them rice and cakes, All crying ‘ ^ai ! J-ai / ’ for our noble Prince."” In these word- pictures, Mr. Arnold is scrupulously faithful to the text of the Hindu epics, and the almost contemporary Buddhist books known as the Tri-Pitaka, or “ three caskets.” Yet they are as minutely and accurately true of modern India. Those who know Bombay and Poona will think that Mr. Arnold is describing the bazaar of Bombay, or the streets of Poona, and the cultivated country round that fair Maratha city, before the wide plain beyond is reached : while others familiar with Lahore, or Benares, or Tan j ore, will believe that he intends one or other of those cities. The same is true of the descriptions given by Mr. Arnold of marriage and funeral ceremonies, sacri- fices, and village sports and feasts ; the simple explanation being that the life and arts of India, as in a lesser degree of the East generally, are still the life and arts of antiquity. This is their supreme charm. It is said that the continuity of social life, and with it of the arts, in India has been owing to the isolation of the vast peninsula, which is supposed to be separated by the Himalayas and the sea from other countries. But it is not so. India lies in the track of the great commerce which has always subsisted between the East and West, and, excepting the Bhils, Gonds, Kols, Khonds, and other savage aborigines, it is through THE HINDU PANTHEON. 129 the Himalayas and Suliman Mountains that it has received its entire population, Indo-Chinese, Dravidian, Aryan, Scythic, Afghan, and Mongol [Turkoman], Through the Afghan passes lie the nearest routes of the export trade of Central Asia to the sea ; and through these passes it is that the Brahmanical Hindus were successively subjected by the Scythic Nagas, Afghans, and Mongols [Turkomans], and invaded by the Persians under Darius, b.c. 518, by the Greeks under Alexander, b.c. 312, and under Seleucus, b.c. 312, and again by the Persians under Naushirvan, a.d. 521-579, and under Nadir Shah, a.d. 1730. Under Ahmad Shah Abdali, India was again invaded by the Afghans six times between a.d. 1748 and 1757. The Scythians, who would seem to have first entered India seven hundred years b.c., were not finally driven out until their great defeat at Karur by Vicramaditya, which Mr. Fergusson fixes at A.D. 544. The ascendency of Buddhism for a thousand years in India was perhaps connected with their protracted domina- tion. So far from the Himalayas isolating India from the great cradle of the Aryan and other human races in Turkestan, it is an historical fact that whenever Central Asia has had a strong ruler, he has virtually ruled in India also. More perhaps than any other country has India been subjected to foreign rule, and overrun and devastated from end to end by armed invasion; and as a con- sequence its population is wonderfully mixed and receptive of foreign influences. Indian art has borrowed freely from Turanian, Dravidian, Greek, Sassanian, Mongol, and European sources. It might indeed be plausibly argued that there is nothing original in Indian art, nor indeed anything older in its minor arts than the six- teenth century, when the Mogol empire was established by Baber. But the assimilative power of the Hindus is as remarkable as their receptive power, and in the hands of their hereditary craftsmen everything they copy in time assumes the distinctive expression of Indian art. This is really owing to the homogeneous unity given to the immense mixed population [about 250,000,000] of India by the Code of Manu. It is a population of literally “ teeming K 130 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. millions,” nearly all of one way of life and thought, and everj"- thing brought into contact with it is at length subdued to its predominant nature. IMoreover, the Code of !Manu has secured in the village system of India a permanent endowment of the class of hereditary artisans and art workmen, who of themselves constitute a vast population ; and the mere touch of their fingers, trained for 3000 years to the same manipulations, is sufficient to transform what- ever foreign work is placed for imitation in their hands, “into something rich and strange ” and characteristically Indian. VEDIC GODS. [Plate A. i Indra. 5. Vayn or Pa\*ana_ VEDIC GODS. [Plate B. ///////////, V//W\\\\\' /./ -•.//// // y / / A U \ \TTV\ \ U I. Vayu or Pavana. 3. Kuvera. 5. Varuna. 2. Kuvera. 4. Yama. 6. Nirritu. PURANIC GObS, [Plate C I Narayana. 3. Brahma. 5. Vishnu. 2. Trimurti. 4.. Saraswati. 6. Lakshmi. i i [Plate D. PURANIC GODS. I. Vishnu and Lakshmi cn Sesha or Ananta. 2. Siva as Mahadeva and Paivati. 3. Siva and Parvati conjoined as Ardha-Nari. 4. Siva and Parvati. 5. Siva as Panchamukhi. PURANIC GODS. [Plate E. I, Siva as Vira Bhadra, 3. Parvati as Kali or Durga. 5, Parvati as Devi. 2. Siva as Bhairava. 4. Parvati as Bhadra Kali. 6. Parvati as Kali. PURANIC GODS. Avatars of Vishnu. [Plate F. A i i fr ll ul 1 m J A— Cl 1. The First, or Fish Avatar of Vishnu. 3. The Third, or Boar Avatar. 5. The Fifth, or Dwarf Avatar. 2. The Second, or Tortoise Avatar. 4. The Fourth Avatar of Vishnu as Narasinha. 6. The Sixth Avatar of Vishnu as Rama with the Axe. i PURANIC GODS. Avatars ob' YiS}iNV—coniinued. [Plate G. I. The Seventh Avatar of Vishnu as Rama with 2. The Eighth Avatar of Vishnu as Krishna, the Bow. 3. Rama with the ploughshare, who is the Eighth 4. The Ninth Avatar of Vishnu as Buddha. Avatar when Krishna is Vishnu. 5. The Tenth Avatar of Vishnu as Kalki. PURANIC GODS [Plate H I. Vishnu as Ballaji and wife. 2. Vishnu as Witthoba and wife. 3. Vishnu as Naneshwar. 4. Krishna. 5. Knshna. PURANIC GODS. [Plate I. I. Bala-Krishna [the Boy-Krishna]. 3 Hanuman. 5 Ganesa. 2. Rama and Sita. 4. Ravana. 6, Kama-deva. PURANIC GODS. [Plate J. I Kartlikej^a. 3. Nagnis. 5. An Apsara. 2. Garuda, 4. Triveni. 6. Chimasra from Sindh lacquered boxes. i 1 PURANIC GODS. [Plate K. 1. Sphinx made by Surat potters. 3. Harpy [Buddha Gaya]. 5. Centaur [Buddha Gaya]. 2. Cerbura. 4. Mermaid? [Buddha Gaya]. 6. Pegasus? [Buddha Gaya]. BUDDHIST IDOLS AND SYMBOLS, [Plate L. j Buddha. 2. '1 he Trisula. 3. The Wheel. 4. The Lion. 5. The Tree, Umbrellas, and Garlands [Buddha Gaya]. 6. Adi-Buddha. SECTARIAL MARKS. [Plate M. Nos. I to 5 Brahma, and the IrimufLi. Nos. 6 to 35 Sectarlal Marks of the Vaishnavas. Nos. 36 to 69 Sectarial Marks of the Saiva.s. No. 70 Mark of the sects. Nos. 71 to 74 marks of the Buddhists and Jainas. a SACRIFICIAL UTENSILS, [Plate N, I. Naga-Nandi-Linga. 2. Nandi-Linga- 3. Sinhasanasa, or Throne, 4. Ganta, or Bell. 5. Sankha, or Shell. 6 . Aratika, or Lamp. 7 and 8. Larger and smaller Dhupdans, or Censers. 6 SACRIFICIAL UTENSILS, [Plate O. I. Shell for pouring Hbations. 4- Sampatni. 5. Katori. 2, Brass and Copper Sruvas or Spoons. 6. Asmaller Katori. 7. Tali. 3. Lota, or Ewer. 8. Arghya Patra. PART II. THE MASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA, It is impossible in describing the handicrafts of India to follow the classification usually adopted of the arts and in- dustries of Europe, based as it is on the broad distinction that must always be drawn between art and industry when industrial productions are no longer hand wrought but manufactured by machines. Thus the very word manufacture has in Europe come at last to lose well nigh all trace of its true etymological meaning, and is now generally used for the process of the conversion of raw materials into articles suitable for the use of man by machinery. Work thus executed, in which the invention and hand of a cunning workman have had no part, must be classified by itself, and under the most intricate and elaborate divisions. In India everything is hand wrought, and everything, down to the cheapest toy or earthen vessel, is therefore more or less a work of art. It is not of course meant to rank the decorative art of India, which is a crystallised tradition, although perfect in form, with the fine arts of Europe, wherein the inventive genius of the artist, acting on his own spontaneous inspiration, asserts itself in true creation. The spirit of fine art is indeed everywhere latent in India, but it has yet to be quickened again into operation. It has slept ever since the Aryan genius of the people would seem to have exhausted itself in the production of the Rama- yana and Mahabharata. But the Indian workman, from the humblest potter to the most cunning embroiderer in blue and K 2 132 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. purple and scarlet [Ex. xxxviii 23], is not the less a true artist, although he seldom rises above the traditions of his art. Many separate elements have contributed toward the develop- ment of the decorative arts of India. There are the simple archaic forms of the aboriginal negroid tribes who are now found only in the hills, or in the more inaccessible parts of the upland plains of Central India; the wild fantastic forms of the Indo- Chinese tribes of the Eastern Himalayas and Burmese frontier ; the monstrous forms of the Dravidian races of the Dakhan ; and the primitive Aryan beast and flower forms of Hindustan, and revived Aryan knop and flower pattern reintro- duced into India by its Persianised Afghan, and Mongol [Turko- man], conquerors. Indian collections are now also seen to be more and more overcrowded with mongrel forms, the result of the influences on Indian art of European society, European education, and above all of the irresistible energy of the mechanical pro- ductiveness of Birmingham and Manchester. Through all these means foreign forms of ornament are being constantly introduced into the country ; and so rapidly are they spreading, that there is a real fear that they may at last irretrievably vitiate the native tradition of the decorative art of India. The worst mischief is perhaps done by the architecture foisted on the country by the Government of India, which, because it is the architecture of the Government, is naturally thought to be worthy of all imitation. The Nawab of Bahawalpur was installed the other day on the throne of his ancestors, and in anticipation of the auspicious event the Indian Government built him a palace, which is the ghastliest piece of bare classicalism it is possible to imagine, even with so many examples before us in this country of the dissenting chapels and vestry halls of the last century. And now Holkar, in obvious emulation of this preposterous production, is building for himself a vast Italian palace at Indore, which is to cost many lakhs of rupees, and will be like Trentham, or Buckingham Palace, or anything else in the world but a habitation meet for kings. This sort of thing MASTER hANDICRAFTS OF INDIA. 133 has been going on all over India ever since the establishment of the British peace in 1803-6 and 1818-19, and is the fountain head and origin of all the evil we deplore. The natives have, indeed, a great genius for imitation. Thus Nearchus [Strabo, xv. i, 67], producing proofs of their skill in works of art, says that, when they saw sponges in use among the Macedonians, they imitated them by sewing hairs, thin threads, and strings, inextricably through flocks of wool, and, after the wool was well felted together, drawing out the hair and thread and strings, when a perfect sponge remained, which they dyed with bright colours. That is exactly what a native, under a happy inspiration, would do. There quickly also appeared among Alexander’s Indian camp followers manufacturers of brushes for scrubbing the body, and of vessels for oil, like to which they saw the Greeks using. Terry, in his Voyage to the East Indies, 1655, in describing the people of India, writes : — “ The natives there shew very much ingenuity in their curious manufactures, as in their silk stuffs, which they most artificially weave, some of them very neatly mingled either with silver or gold, or both. As also in making excellent quilts of their stained cloth, or of fresh-colored taffata lined with their pintadoes [prints or chintz], or of their sattin lined with taffata, betwixt which they put cotton wool, and work them together with silk .... They make likewise excellent carpets of their cotton wool, in fine mingled colours, some of them three yards broad, and of a great length. Some other richer carpets they make all of silk, so artificially mixed, as that they lively represent those flowers and figures made in them. The ground of some other of their very rich carpets is silver or gold, about which are such silken flowers and figures as before I named, most excellently and orderly disposed throughout the whole work. Their skill is like- wise exquisite in making of cabinets, boxes, trunks, and standishes, curiously wrought, within and without ; inlaid with elephants’ teeth, or mother-of-pearl, ebony, tortoiseshell, or wire; they make excellent cups and other things of agate or cornelian, and 134 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. curious they are in cutting of all manner of stones, diamonds as well as others. They paint staves or bedsteads, chests or boxes, fruit dishes, or large chargers, extremely neat, which, when they be not inlaid, as before, they cover the wood, first being handsomely turned, with a thick gum, then put their paint on, most artificially made of liquid silver, or gold, or other lively colours, which they use, and after make it much more beautiful with a very clear varnish put upon it. They are also excellent at limning, and will copy out any picture they see to the life .... The truth is, that the natives of that monarchy are the best apes for imitation in the world, so full of ingenuity, that they will make any new thing by pattern, how hard soever it seem to be done ; and therefore it is no marvel if the natives there make shoes, boots, cloaths, linen, bands, and cuffs, of our English fashion, which are all of them very much different from their fashions and habits, and yet make them all exceedingly neat.” The Cashmere trade in shawls has been ruined through the quickness with which the caste weavers have adopted the “ im- proved shawl patterns” which the French agents of the Paris import houses have set before them. We therefore incur a great responsibility in attempting to inter- fere in the direct art education of a people who already possess the tradition of a system of decoration founded on perfect principles, which they have learned through centuries of practice to apply with unerring truth. What, however, is chiefly to be dreaded is the general introduction of machinery into India. We are just beginning in Europe to understand what things may be done by machinery, and what must be done by hand work, if art is of the slightest consideration in the matter. But if, owing to the operation of certain economic causes, machinery were to be gradually introduced into India for the manufacture of its great traditional handicrafts, there would ensue an indus- trial revolution which, if not directed by an intelligent and instructed public opinion and the general prevalence of refined taste, would MASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA. 135 inevitably throw the traditional arts of the country into the same con- fusion of principles, and of their practical application to the obj ects of daily necessity, which has for three generations been the de- struction of decorative art and of middle-class taste in England and North-western Europe, and the United States of America. The social and moral evils of the introduction of machinery into India are likely to be still greater. At present the industries of India are carried on all over the country, although hand-weaving is everywhere languishing in the unequal competition with Man- chester and the Presidency Mills. But in every Indian village all the traditional handicrafts are still to be found at work. Outside the entrance of the single village street, on an exposed rise of ground, the hereditary potter sits by his wheel moulding the swift revolving clay by the natural curves of his hands. At the back of the houses, which form the low irregular street, there are two or three looms at work in blue and scarlet and gold, the frames hanging between the acacia trees, the yellow flowers of which drop fast on the webs as they are being woven. In the street the brass and copper smiths are hammering away at their pots and pans ; and further down, in the verandah of the rich man’s house, is the jeweller working rupees and gold mohrs into fair jewelry, gold and silver earrings, and round tires like the moon, bracelets and tablets and nose rings, and tinkling ornaments for the feet, taking his designs from the fruits and flowers around him, or from the traditional forms represented in the paintings and carvings of the great temple, which rises over the grove of mangoes and palms at the end of the street above the lotus-covered village tank. At half-past three or four in the afternoon the whole street is lighted up by the moving robes of the women going down to draw water from the tank, each with two or three water jars on her head : and so, while they are going and returning in single file, the scene glows like Titian’s canvas, and moves like the stately procession of the Panathenaic frieze. Later the men drive in the mild grey kine from the moaning plain, the looms are folded up, the coppersmiths 136 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. are silent, the elders gather in the gate, the lights begin to glimmer in the fast-falling darkness, the feasting and the music are heard on every side, and late into the night the songs are sung from the Ramayana or Mahabharata. The next morning with sunrise, after the simple ablutions and adorations performed in the open air before the houses, the same day begins again. This is the daily life going on all over Western India in the village communities of the Dakhan, among a people happy in their simple manners and frugal way of life, and in the culture derived from the grand epics of a religion in which they live and move and have their daily being, and in which the highest expression of their literature, art, and ^ civilisation has been stereotyped for 3,000 years. But of late years these handicraftsmen, for the sake of whose works the whole world has been ceaselessly pouring its bullion for 3,000 years into India, and who, for all the marvellous tissues and embroidery they have wrought, have polluted no rivers, deformed no pleasing prospects, nor poisoned any air ; whose skill and in- dividuality the training of countless generations has developed to the highest perfection ■, these hereditary handicraftsmen are being everywhere gathered from their democratic village communities in hundreds and thousands into the colossal mills of Bombay, to drudge in gangs, for tempting wages, at manufacturing piece goods, in competition with Manchester, in the production of which they are no more intellectually and morally concerned than the grinder of a barrel organ in the tunes turned out from it. I do not mean to depreciate the proper functions of machines in modern civilisation, but machinery should be the servant and never the master of men. It cannot minister to the beauty and plea- sure of life, it can only be the slave of life’s drudgery ; and it should be kept rigorously in its place, in India as well as England. When in England machinery is, by the force of cultivated taste, and opinion, no longer allowed to intrude into the domain of art manu- factures, which belongs exclusively to the trained mind and hand MASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA. of individual workmen, wealth will become more equally diffused throughout society ; and the working classes, through the elevating influence of their daily work, and the growing respect for their talent and skill and culture, will rise at once in social, civil, and political position, raising the whole country, to the highest classes, with them ; and Europe will learn to taste of some of that content and happiness in life which is to be still found in the pagan East, as it was once found in j)agan Greece and Rome. The village communities have been the stronghold of the tra- ditionary arts of India ; and where these arts have passed out of the villages into the wide world beyond, the caste system of the Code of Manu has still been their best defence against the taint and degradation of foreign fashions. The typical Hindu village consists exclusively of husbandmen ; but as agriculture and manu- factures cannot exist without each other, the village was obliged to receive a number of artisans as members of its hereditary govern- ing body. But they are all “ strangers within the gate,” who re- side in the village solely for the convenience of the husbandmen, on a sort of service contract. It is a perpetual contract, but in the lapse of 3,000 years, the artisans have constantly terminated their connexion with a village, or have had to provide for sons in some other place, and they at once sought their livelihood in the towns which gradually began to spring up everywhere round the centres of government, and of the foreign commerce of the country. It is in this way that the great polytechnical cities of India have been formed. Community of interests would naturally draw together the skilled immigrants of these cities in trades-unions ; the bonds of which in India, as was also the case in ancient Egypt, are rendered practically indissoluble by the force of caste. We learn from the Bible that already in the earliest times among the Hebrews numerous trades had developed into separate callings, such as the goldsmiths, braziers, locksmiths, carpenters, masons, potters, weavers, and fullers ; but it is not until after the Captivity, INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 138 that we find trades-unions flourishing among the Jews who had settled in Egypt, the land of caste. In the Jews’ synagogue at Alexandria, which was so large that the word Amen, at the end of each prayer, had to be signalled by the reader to the vast congre- gation, all the different trades-unions sat apart from each other, and the workers in gold and silver, the coppersmiths and braziers, the nail and needle-smiths, the potters, carpenters, masons, and weavers, had each their appointed seats. The spirit of trades- unionism thus spread from Egypt among the Jews of Palestine, who at last carried it with them into every country in Europe. In Iftdia these trade guilds have also existed from the very beginning of Hindu civilisation. In the nineteenth chapter of the second section of the Ramayana, or Ayodhya-Kanda— “ Scenes in Ayodhya ” — the inhabitants of that city are represented as going out in procession with Bharata to seek Rama in the order of the trade guilds : jewellers, potters, ivory- workers, perfumers, gold- smiths, weavers, carpenters, braziers, painters, musical instrument- makers, armourers, curriers, blacksmiths, coppersmiths, makers of figures, cutters of crystals, glassmakers, inlayers, and others ; with the •“ chief of a guild ” bringing up the rear. It is just such a list as might be prepared from a census return of the inhabitants of Ahmedabad in Western India at the present day. It is almost identical with the list of the trades as given in Surgeon James Taylor’s Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca, pub- lished in 1840 [Calcutta]. The trade guilds of the great poly technical cities of India are not, however, always exactly coincident with the sectarian or ethnical caste of a particular class of artisans. Sometimes the same trade is pursued by men of different castes, and its guild generally includes every member of the trade it represents without strict reference to caste. The government of the guilds or unions is analogous to that of the village com- munities and castes, that is, by hereditary officers. Each separate guild is managed by a court of aldermen or mahajans [literally MASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA. 139 “great gentlemen”]. Nominally it is composed of all the freemen of the caste, but a special position is allowed to the seths, lords, or chiefs of the guild, who are ordinarily two in number, and hold their position by hereditary right. The only other office-bearer is a salaried clerk or gumasta. Membership in the guild is also hereditary, but new-comers may be admitted into it on the payment of an entrance fee, which in Ahmedabad amounts to 2/. for papermakers, and 50/. for tin- smiths. No unqualified person can remain in or enter a guild. It is not the practice to execute indentures of apprenticeship, but every boy born in a working caste of necessity learns his father’s handicraft, and when he has mastered it, at once takes his place as an hereditary freeman of his caste or trade guild ; his father, or, if he be an orphan, the young man himself, giving a dinner to tire guild on the occasion. In large cities the guilds command great influence. The Nagar-Seth, or city lord, of Ahmedabad, is the titular head of all the guilds, and the highest personage in the city, and is treated as its representative by the Government. In ordinary times he does not interfere in the internal affairs of the guilds, their management being left to the chief alderman of each separate guild, called the Chautaiw Seth, or “lord of the market.” Under British rule, which secures the freest exercise of indi- vidual energy and initiative, the authority of the trade guilds in India has necessarily been relaxed, to the marked detriment of those handicrafts the perfection of which depends on hereditary processes and skill. The overwhelming importations of British manufactures also is even more detrimental to their prosperity and influence, for it has in many places brought wholesale ruin on the hereditary native craftsmen, and forced them into agriculture and even domestic service. But the guilds, by the stubborn resistance, further stimulated by caste prejudice, which they oppose to all innovations, still continue, in this forlorn way, to serve a beneficial end, in maintaining, for probably another 140 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. generation, the traditional excellence of the sumptuary arts of India, against the fierce and merciless competition of the English manufacturers. The guilds are condemned by many for fixing the hours of labour and the amount of work to be done in them by strict bylaws, the slightest infringement of which is punished by severe fines, which are the chief source of their income. But the object of these rules is to give the weak and unfortunate the same chance in life as others more favored by nature. These rules naturally follow from the theocratic conceptions which have governed the whole organisation of social life in India : and it is in- controvertible that the unrestricted development of the competitive impulse in European life, particularly in the pursuit of personal gain, is absolutely antagonistic to the growth of the sentiment of humanity, and of real religious convictions among men. The funds of the guilds of Western India, where they prevail chiefly among the Vaishnavas and Jainas of Gujarat, are for the greater part spent on charities, and particularly on charitable hos- pitals for sick and helpless domestic animals : and in part also on the temples of the Maharajas of the Wallabacharya sect of Vaishnavas, and on guild feasts. A favorite device for raising money is for the men of a craft or trade to agree on a certain day to shut all their shops but one. The right to keep open this one is then put up to auction, and the amount bid goes to the guild fund. In purely agricultural districts the trades are not organised in guilds, and the title mahajan is applied simply in social courtesy to every member of the Vania [“Banyan”], Shravak [Jaina, lay priest] and Soni [goldsmith] castes. In dis- tricts where there are a considerable number of craftsmen, but all of one caste, the head of the caste acts also as chief of the guild. It is under this system that the sumptuary arts of India, as dis- tinguished from its village arts, were fostered and sustained, until at length the whole bullion of the Western nations of antiquity and mediaeval times was poured into the East in exchange for them. It is impossible to overestimate the effect of their former importation AIASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA. 141 into the West on the art manufactures of Europe : and by a natural reaction it is in its sumptuary productions that the influence of modem commerce and the British conquest on India is most explicitly and instructively shewn. It has, however, been through the encouragement given by the great native princes and chiefs, and the cultivated taste of the common people, that the sumptuary arts of India have been brought to such artistic perfection. From the Ayin Akbari or Institutes of the Fmperor Akbar [a.d. 1556—1605], written by Abdul Fazd, Akbar’s great minister, we learn that the Mogol emperors of Delhi maintained in their palaces skilled workmen from every part of India. It is said that Akbar took a great delight in paint- ing, and had in his service a large number of artists, in order that they “might vie wuth each other in fame, and become eminent by their productions.” Once a week he inspected the work of every artist, when in proportion to their individual merits they were honored -with premiums, and their regular salaries were increased. In the armoury also the emperor personally superintended the preparation of the various weapons which were forged and decorated there, in every stage of their manufacture. In the workshop of the imperial wardrobe the weavers and embroiderers of every country were to be found, and whatever was made by them was carefully kept, and those articles of which there thus came in time to be a superfluity were given away in presents of honour. Through the attention of the emperor the manu- facture of various new fabrics was established at Delhi. The skill of the imperial manufacturers increased also with their number, so that the cloths of Persia, Europe, and China, became drugs in the market. The emperor was very fond of woollen stuffs, particularly shawls ; and the Ayin Akbari gives a list of all the varieties made in the palace, which were classified according to their date, value, colour, and weight. He had a vast establish- ment of jewellers, inlayers in gold, silver, ciy'stal, and carnelian ; damascene workers, chiefly for ornamenting arms 3 enamellers 3 142 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. plain workers in gold and silver, and pierced workers ; embossers ; “inlayers with little grains of gold,” whose art will be further noticed in connexion with the modem jewelry of Delhi ; makers of gold and silver lace \simbaff\ for sword-belts, &c. ; engravers and workers in a sort of nillo; stone engravers, and lapidaries 3 and other artists. Sir John Chardin, who travelled in the East from 1664 to 1670, in his Journal du Voyage [London 1686; Amstersdam 1711], tells us that the kings and nobles of Persia also then maintained, as they do now, manufacturers of all the arts and trades in their “ ca 7 Xonts” \karkhanas\ or workshops. He compares these factories to the galleries of the Grand Duke of Florence, and of the Louvre. “ They entertain in these places a large number of excellent master-workmen, who have a salary and daily rations for their lives, and are provided with all the inaterials for their work. They receive a present, and an increase of salary, for every fine work they produce.” Their appointments were hereditary. This was formerly, and is now also, the case in India. In the India Museum collection of jade there is a large engraved bowl, on which a family of lapidaries in the employ of the emperors of Delhi was engaged for three generations. It is only in this way that artistic excellence in works of industry can ever be attained, and it is thus that the finest enamels, and damascened work, and shawls, are still produced in India, in the royal factories respectively of Jaipur, Hyderabad, and Srinagar, Every house in India is likewise a nursery of the beautiful. In the meanest village hut the mother of the family will be found with her daughters engaged in spinning or weaving; and in the proudest native houses of the great polytechnical cities, the mistress, with her maid-servants, may be seen at all hours of the day embroidering cloth in colored silks, and silver, and gold thread ; reminding the visitor of similar household scenes in ancient Rome before slaves came, during the pampered period of the Caesars, to be employed in such work. There is thus a universally diffused popular appreciation of technical skill and taste in workmanship. MASTER HANDICRAFTS OF INDIA. 143 which must necessarily have had its effect in promoting the un- rivalled excellence of the historical art handicrafts of India. Besides the village and sumptuary arts there are, as already observed, the savage arts of the wild tribes ; and thus within the limits of India proper, that is of the basins of the Indus and Ganges, and the whole peninsula southward from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, we have in almost every province the arts of the Kulis, Gonds, Konds, Bhils, and other negroid aborigines, of the Dravidian immigrants into Southern, and the Indo-Chinese im- migrants into Eastern India, and of its Persianised Afghan, and Mongol [Turkoman], conquerors throughout Hindustan, and the more accessible provinces of the Dakhan. Yet all, whether savage, Brahmanical, or Mahommedan, are essentially of one generic style, which has been impressed upon them by the pervading intellectual superiority of the Vedic Aryas, and which distinguishes them in every species and variety as characteristically Indian arts. Gold and Silver Plate. The only notice of gold plate in the Rig-Veda is an allusion to golden cups; but the references to jewelry are so numerous, that it is evident the precious metals must have been known and used in India for drinking vessels, and other domestic utensils from the first settlement of the Aryas in the Panjab. Gold is indeed a favorite simile in the Rig-Veda for the rising sun ; and the wheels and yokes of carriages are described as made of gold. The Ramayana and Mahabharata offer abundant evidence that at the period when they were compiled in their present form the Hindus were perfectly familiar with works executed in gold on the grandest scale. Unfortunately no objects in the precious metals that can be claimed as authentic examples of ancient Indian art have survived the wreck of time in India ; unless any may still be hidden within the shrines of some of the more sequestered of the great idol temples. The oldest examples of really ancient gold and silver work found on Indian soil are the gold casket [Plate i] and silver patera [Plate 2] belonging to the India Office library, which have been lent to the Science and Art Department for exhibition in the India Museum at South Kensington. This gold casket is an object of the highest interest in connexion with the history of Indian art. It was found by Mr. Masson about forty years ago in one of the Buddhist topes, built on the sandstone [Plate 1 BUDDHIST RELIC CASKET ANCIENT SILVER PATERA. GOLD AND SILVER PLATE. 145 slopes which stretch away westward from Jellalabad in the Cabul valley toward the Lughman hills. It is fully described and figured in Wilson’s Ariana Antiqud, 1841, and it is figured also in Mrs. Spiers’s Life m Ancient India, 1856. The tope in which it was found is known as No. 2 of Bimaran. Dr. Honigberger first opened this monument, but abandoned it, having been forced to hastily return to Cabul. Mr. Masson continued Honigberger’s pursuit, and in the centre of the tope discovered a small apart- ment, constructed, as usual, of squares of slate, in which were found several most valuable relics. One of these was a good-sized globular vase of steatite, which, with its carved cover or lid, was encircled with inscriptions, scratched with a st3'le, in Bactro-Pali characters. On removing the lid, the vase was found to contain a little fine mould, mixed up with burnt pearls, sapphire beads, &c., and this casket of pure gold, which was also filled with burnt pearls, and beads of sapphire, agate, and crystal, and burnt coral, and thirty small circular ornaments of gold, and a metallic plate, apparently belonging to a seal, engraved with a seated figure. By the side of the vase were found four copper coins, in excellent preservation, having been deposited in the tope freshly minted. They were the most useful portion of the relics, for they enabled Professor H. H. Wilson to assign the monument to one ot the Azes dynasty of Grseco-Barbaric kings who ruled in this part of India about 50 b.c. The upper and lower rims of the casket are studded with Balas rubies, in alternation with a raised device resembling the sri-vatsa, or curl on the breast of figures of Vishnu and Krishna ; and between these jewelled lines the whole circumference of the casket is divided into eight niches, enshrining four figures represented twice over. The niches are formed by a series of flat pilasters supporting finely-turned arches, circular below and peaked above, between which are figures of cranes with outstretched wings. The whole is executed in the finest style of beaten \refousse\ goldsmiths’ work. Like so many of the Buddhistic remains found in the Panjab and L 146 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Afghanistan it is strikingly Byzantine in general character ; and the storks or cranes with outstretched wings in the spaces between the arches in which the apostle-like figures are niched, recall at once the figures of angels carved in the spaces between the arches in Christian churches. Yet in drawing attention to this remarkable relic in a letter in the Pall Mail Gazette of June 3, 1875, written on the subject of Dr. Leitner’s collection of Bud- dhistic sculptures from the Panjab, which were then on exhibition at the Albert Hall, I maintained that it afforded clear evidence of the influence of Alexander’s invasion on the arts of India. The Greeks had conquered all this part of India, and established a monarchy there, and issued a coinage, which was at first purely Greek in its character. In The Indian Travels of Apollo 7 iius of Tyana [Priaulx], about a.d. 5©, he is related to have found Phraotes, who ruled over what of old was the kingdom of Poms, not only speaking Greek, but versed in all the literature and philosophy of Greece. The villagers of a neighbouring kingdom, somewhere in the Panjab, are also said to have still used the Greek language. There may be the grossest exaggeration in all this, but it proves at least that such statements were the common- places of Indian travel in the first century of our era. The conclusion therefore is that the remarkable European character of the Buddhistic sculptures in the Panjab and Afghanistan, is due, not to Byzantine, but to Greek influence ; and it is confirmed by the discovery of this casket. They are unmistakably Buddhistic sculptures, and therefore may date from b.c. 250 to about A.D. 700 ; and any of them which are later than the fourth century, a.d. may have been executed under Byzantine influence. But the date of this golden casket proves that its Byzantine and mediaeval look is due to Greek inspiration ; and the probability is that the Buddhistic remains existing in the neighbourhood of Peshawar in the Panjab were also directly influenced by Greek art ; and may, some of them, therefore, be of an earlier date than is usually admitted. Dr. Leitner was the first to insist on describing GOLD AND SILVER PLATE. 147 them as Grseco-Buddhistic sculptures.^ Their resemblance to the Byzantine ivories, as of this casket to Byzantine goldsmiths’ work, is probably due to their having been executed by Indian workmen from Greek designs or models. It will be interesting to observe that the peaked arches represented on the casket are identical in character with the peaked arches of the upper part of the piazza of St. Mark’s at Venice, which was built I believe in 1592. The bottom of the casket is ornamented vuth a beauti- ful conventional representation of the sacred lotus with eight petals, which are pointed like the arches of the eight niches above them. The silver patera has been fully described and figured by me in vol. xi, New Series, of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. It was also described and figured by Prinsep in vol. vii. of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ; and is mentioned and badly figured in Sir Alexander Burnes’ Cabool, 1843. Colonel Yule gives a woodcut of it in the second edition of his Marco Polo. Sir Alexander Burnes figures along with it a second silver dish of Persian work, representing Yezdigird I [a.d. 632], which is described by General Cunningham in vol. x. of the ’ I have great pleasure in publishing the following extract from a letter written to me by Mr. William Simpson since the publication of the earlier copies of this Handbook ; — “ At p. 146, vol. i. you give to Dr. Leitner the whole credit of being the first to declare the existence of Greek Art in the remains of the Indus region. I have a claim dating long before that of Leitner’s, and mine is not exactly the first. I post with this a copy of a paper I read in January last, to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in which you will see the details so far as my reading has gone. The reference to Elphinstone’s History is vol. i. p. 107. Wilson’s remarks on that you will find in the Ariana Antiqua, p. 31. Cunningham’s small book only refers to Cashmere. I visited the Manikyala Tope in February i860, and my judgment that it contained in its art an influence derived from Greek or classic sources was founded on the sketches I then made. Next year I sketched all the Cashmere remains, and the details on them confirmed the judgment I formed from the Manikyala monument. I have all my drawings here on which I based my opinions. It was ten years after that when Dr. Leitner came home with his interesting collection of ‘ Grmco-Buddhistic ’ sculptures.” L 2 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 148 ournal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. This second dish is said to be still in the possession of the Burnes family, and would be an invaluable addition to the few objects of historical Indian art in the India Museum. The patera belonging to the India Office Library had been an heirloom in the family of the Mirs of Badakshan, who claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great ; and it had been sold by them in their extremity, when they were conquered by Mir Morad Bey of Kunduz, to Atmaram his Dewan Begi. It was from Atmaram that Dr. Lord obtained it, and the Persian dish also ; and he presented the patera to the India Museum, and the Persian dish to Sir Alexander Burnes. The diameter of the patera is 9 inches, its depth i| inches, and its thickness to and 2^ of an inch; and its weight 29 oz. 5 dwt. Troy. It represents in high relief, with all the usual adjuncts of classic mythology, the procession of Dionysos. The god himself sits in a car drawn by two harnessed females, with a drinking cup in his extended right hand, and his left arm resting on the carved elbow of the seat on which he reclines, or it may be the shoulder of Ariadne. In front of the car stands a winged Eros holding a wine-jug in his left hand, and brandishing in his right a fillet, the other end of which is held by a flying Eros. A third Eros is pushing the wheel of the carriage, behind which follows the dancing Heracles, recognised by the club and panther’s skin. Over all is a rude and highly conventionalised representation of a clustering vine; and in the lower exergue a panther is seen press- ing its head into a wine jar, placed between the representations of some tree, possibly the pomegranate, arranged symmetrically on either side of it. The figures, which shew traces of gilding, are all encrusted on the surface of the patera, and the heads of the Dionysos and Heracles are both wanting. It is in the style of the later Roman and Byzantine ivories ; and on the face of it, from the thickness of the silver, especially in the raised figures, its debased drawing, and slovenly workmanship, it belongs to an age when Greek art GOLD AND SILVER PLATE. 149 had under the various degrading influences to which it was exposed during the Roman and Byzantine period gradually become barbarised. I have no doubt that this patera is of Eastern workmanship, possibly of colonists from Rome ; and we may conjecture it to have been taken among the spoil when Antioch fell to the Persians, a.d. 540. It may, however, be ancient Indian work of Bactria of the same age as the Buddhist sculptures of Peshawar, which it closely resembles in its composition and modelling. The Panjab has ever maintained a high reputation for the excellence of its gold and silver work. The best known is the parcel gilt silver work of Cashmere, which is almost confined to the production of the water-vessels or sarais, copied from the clay goblets in use throughout the northern parts of the Panjab. Their elegant shapes and delicate tracery, graven through the gilding to the dead white silver below, which softens the lustre of the gold to a pearly radiance, gives a most charming effect to this refined and graceful work. It is an art said to have been imported by the Mongols, but influenced by the natural superiority of the people of the Cashmere valley over all other Orientals in elaborating decorative details of good design, whether in metal work, ham- mered and cut, or enamelling, or weaving. Cups are also made in this work, and trays of a very pretty four-cornered pattern, the corners being shaped like the Mahommedan arch. Am.ong the Prince of Wales’ Indian presents there is a tray with six cups and saucers in “ ruddy gold,” which is an exquisite example of the goldsmith’s art of Cashmere. There is also in the Prince of Wales’ collection a remarkable candelabrum, in silver gilt, from Srinagar, shaped like a conventional tree, and ornamented all over with the crescent and flame device, and hanging fishes, its design being evidently derived through Persia from a Turkoman original. The candelabra seen in Hindu temples constantly take this tree form, without the addition of the symbols of the sky and ether 3 and trees of solid gold and silver, representing the mango INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 150 or any other tree, and of all sizes, are common decorations in Hindu houses. Often they are made of silk, feathers, and tinsel, and they always recall to mind the terpole, or golden vine made in ancient times by the goldsmiths of Jerusalem. Josephus \Antiquities, xiv 3] informs us that when Pompey came to Damascus, Aristobulus sent him out of Judaea a great present, which was a golden vine or garden, which the Jews called terpole, the “delight.” Plates 3 and 4 are examples of unusual forms of Cashmere work, the latter in parcel gilt silver, and the former in “ ruddy gold.” This “ ruddy gold ” is used in India only in Cashmere, and in Further India in Burma. All over India elsewhere gold is stained deep yellow, except in Sindh, where the goldsmiths and jewellers some- times also give it a singular and highly artistic tinge of olive-brown. The Sindh goldsmiths’ work is very beautiful, and of uncon- taminated indigenous design, but is seldom seen excepting at Exhibitions. The silver sarais made at Lucknow [Plates 5 and 6] are very like those of Cashmere, and are evidently derived from them, those of Cashmere being distinguished by the introduction of the shawl cone pattern in the chasing, Lucknow was once famous for its vessels of mixed gold and silver, but since the abolition of the native court of Oudh, their production, as of all the other sump- tuary arts of this once royal and renowned polytechnical city, has steadily declined. A considerable quantity of gold and silver plate, of good original design and excellent workmanship, is now made at Dacca in Bengal, chiefly for export to Calcutta. At Chittagong also, in the same Presidency, the manufacture of vessels in gold and silver is a growing industry ; but the gold and silversmiths there can only execute plain work to pattern, and do not seem to have any designs of their own. In the Central Provinces Chanda was formerly distinguished for its workers in the precious and baser metals, but much of [Plate 3 CHASED GOLD VESSEL, CASHMERE. i i [Plate 4. CHASED PARCEL GILT JUG, CASHMERE. [Plate 5. CHASED PARCEL GILT SARAT, LUCKNOW. [Plate 6. CHASED PARCEL GILT SARA/, LUCKxVOW. [Plate 7 DOWL AND TRAY OF PIERCED SILVER. PARCEL GILT [WITH DETAIL] AHMEDABAD. GOLD AND SILVER PLATE. 15 ^ their fame has now been lost, owing to the decreased demand for their wares under British rule. The district still, however, possesses good goldsmiths and silversmiths, whose work is marked by the strongest local character. In the Bombay Presidency the plate of Katch and Gujarat has long been noted. Sir Seymour Fitzgerald has lent the India Museum a bowl and tray [Plate 7] of the old pierced parcel gilt work [the opus interrasile of the Romans] of Ahmed- abad. The form of the bowl is European, but derived, as is proved by the ornamentation of the tray, though Persia; while the Hindu influence is clearly shewn in the character which the foot of the bowl has taken in the hands of the Ahmedabad artist. It is a noble example of the grand style of goldsmiths’ work executed in India in past times, for this bowl and tray are not less than 150 or 200 years old. The silver gilt vase, and silver gilt and jewelled coffee pot, illustrated in Plates 8 and 9, are known to be not less than 200 years old, having been nearly all that time in the possession of the family of the native gentleman of Gujarat from whom they were obtained. They are said to have been made by a Jaina goldsmith. The coffee-pot is evidently derived from a Mongol [Turkoman] original, and the vase from a Greek, or possibly Sassanian ; and both illustrate the natural capacity for assimilating foreign forms possessed by the Hindus, when left to deal with them in their own way. It is their patient work- manship apparently which is the source of this happy power. Working in gold and silver is still carried on in every district of Gujarat, in all the big towns and large villages, and especially at Dholka, Viragram, and Ahmedabad. The beautiful silver and gold repouss'e work of Katch is of Dutch origin, but has been perfectly assimilated to the native style of the province, and is much sought after. The goldsmiths of Katch are also very skilful in decorating arms in silver, and parcel gilt, and gold : and colonies of them are established all over Gujarat and Kathiwar. 152 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Lord Northbrook exhibited at Paris some fine Katch repousse work by Umersi Manji, a goldsmith of Katch Buj. In the city of Bombay there are 2,875 jewellers, of the different Indian nationalities of the Presidency, who find constant and lucrative employment. Everywhere in Madras gold and silver, and indeed all the metals, are superbly wrought. Among the Prince of Wales’ presents is a shrine screen [Plate 8 bis^ of old Madras pierced and hammered silver, which is a wonderful example of manipula- tive dexterity. Three other illustrations are given [Plates 9 Ms, 10, and ii] from the Prince’s presents of Mysore gold dishes. Plate 9 Ms is a rare example in Indian work of properly applied ornamentation. The rim and cover of the tray are elaborately enriched with embossed flowers and leaves ; while the bottom is left plain, excepting the well proportioned border, and a centre panel of flowery geometrical design, which is enchased, so as not to interfere with its necessary flatness of surface. Plates 10 ana 11, although purely Hindu in detail, seem to be Saracenic in general style, and in the subordination of the decoration both to form, and to the spacing of the general design. In the character- istic swami work of the Madras Presidency the ornamentation consists of figures of the Puranic gods in high relief, either beaten out from the surface, or affixed to it, whether by soldering, or wedging, or screwing them on. The Greeks called the art of working metal in relief TopevTiKr), and the artists of such work in Rome went by the name of crustarii, from the crustcz, or small ornaments in relief, with which they encrusted their work ; while the larger reliefs which they fastened on in such a way that they could be removed at pleasure, as can be done with the larger of these Madras swa??! figures, were called emMe- mata. The large silver presentation shield in the India Museum, covered in this way with figures of the Puranic gods, is an amazing production of misapplied official energy. The emMemata are [Plate 8 {Ms). PIERCED AND REPOUSSE SILVER SHRINE SCREEN, MADURA, MADRAS. [Plate 8. [Plate 9 PARCEL GILT AND JEWELLED COFFEE POT PARCEL GILT VASE OF MOGOL PERIOD. OF MOGOL PERIOD. u > [Plate 9 GOLD TRAY. MYSORE [Plate 10. GOLD DISH, MYSORE. [Plate 11. SECTION OF GOLD DISH, MYSORE. GOLD AND SILVER PLATE. 153 admirably wrought, but the shield on which they are fastened is evidently of Anglo-Indian design 3 and the effect produced is most discordant and unpleasing. The Indian goldsmith has sometimes to execute his work on a truly colossal scale, reminding one of the gold work done for Solomon’s temple and house. If a Hindu has to undergo puri- fication, one of the necessary rites is to step through the yo 7 ii, the mystic symbol of female power. This is often done by sitting for an instant on the scar of a tree, bearing a similitude to the sacr-ed symbol. Sometimes the scar forms a true matrix, or the cavity may penetrate the whole thickness of the tree, when the Hindu will step in and out of it, or what is holiest, will pass right through it, in sign of his regeneration. But when the two Brahmans whom Raganatha Rao [Ragoba] the Maratha Peishwa sent to England in 1780 returned to India, they were compelled to pass through a yoni made of the finest gold before they could be readmitted into caste. Ragoba himself, on his defeat and expulsion from his capital, had a cow of gold made, and was passed through it, in the hope of bettering his fortune. The King of Travancore about the same time, wishing to atone for all the blood he had spilt in his wars, was persuaded by the Brahmans that it was necessary for him to be born again ; when a cow of gold was made of immense value, through which the King, after lying in it for some time, was passed, regenerated, and freed from all the burden of the crimes of his former life. It is said that to this day the rajas of Travancore, on succeeding to the throne, all go through the same ceremony, and thereby are elevated to the status of Brahmans. Metal Work in Brass, Copper and Tin. AVater vessels or lotas, dishes, bowls, candlesticks, images of the gods, temple bells, sacrificial spoons, censers, and other sacred and domestic utensils in brass and copper are made all over India, and of the same patterns as we find in representations of them on the oldest Buddhist sculptures and cave-paintings. These metal vessels in a native Indian household supply the place of porcelain, glass and sOver plate in a European family. Hindus use brass vessels, and hlahommedans copper, except for drinking-cups, which are generally of silver. The lota is the glo- bular ewer, sometimes melon-shaped, flattened from top to bottom and very rarely from side to side, universally used in ceremonial and other ablutions, and its name is the same word as lotus, the water-lily, and comes from the same root as the Latin lotus, washed, and the English, lotion, a wash. It is found plain, chased, graven, and encrusted. The most interesting of all known lotas is one in the India Museum [Plate 12] dis- covered by Major Ha}’-, in 1857, at Kundlah in Kulu, where a landslip had exposed the ancient Buddhist cell in which this lota had been lying buried for 1,500 years ; for it is attributed by Oriental scholars to the date a.d. 200-300. It is exactly of the shape now made, and is enchased all round with a representation of Gautama Buddha, as Prince Siddhartha, before his conversion, going on some high procession. An officer of state, on an elephant, goes before ; the minstrels, two damsels, one playing on [Plate 12 . BUDDHISTIC COPPER VASE, WITH DETAIL OF GRAVEN DECORATION. ' ! I \ i METAL WORIC IN TRASS, ETC, 155 a vina, and the other on a flute, follow after ; in the midst is the Prince Siddhartha, in his chariot drawn by four prancing horses, and guarded by two horsemen behind it ; all rendered with that gala air of dainty pride, and enjoyment in the fleeting pleasures of the hour, which is characteristic of the Hindus to the present day, as if life were indeed “ musical as is Apollo’s lute. And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.” The copper statue of Buddha at Sultanganj ^ [Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol. XXX, 360] is the largest metal work of ancient times extant in India, and a monument of the early proficiency of the Hindus in melting and casting metal. The iron pillar, which stands in the centre of the courtyard of the Kutub mosque at old Delhi, is a solid shaft of iron, 23 feet 8 inches in total height, and i6‘4 inches in diameter at the base, and 12 '05 inches at the capital, which is 3^ feet high. Mr. Fergusson assigns to it the mean date of a.d. 400, and observes that it opens our eyes to an unsuspected state of affairs to find the Hindus at that age capable of forging a bar of iron larger than any that has been forged in Europe up to a late date, and not frequently even now. After an exposure of fourteen centuries, it is still unrusted, and the capital and inscription are as clear and as sharp as when the pillar was first erected. A cast of it is shewn in the India Museum. The beautiful hammered and perforated brass gates of the tomb of Shah Alum at Ahmed- abad are another notable sample of the great skill of the natives of Gujarat in metal work. Mr. Baden Powell in his Handbook on the Manufactures and Arts of the Punjab (Lahore, 1872), gives a complete list, with their native names and uses, of the commoner brass and copper ' Now in private hands in Birmingham. — See History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 137. 156 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. utensils made at Karnal, Amritsa and Lahore. They form the staple of the work in metals of the Panjab, and in every large town he says great quantities of metal vessels, drinking cups, cooking pots, and lamps, in short all articles of household use, are made for local consumption. Amritsar, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, all export brass vessels into the hills round the Pan- jab, and up the Cabul valley into Afghanistan. The high brass tree-like candelabra, with a number of branches bearing little lamps filled with oil, and having a wick in each, are a marked feature in great houses in Lahore, and are known by the name of char-divas, i.e. lamps with four wicks [literally “ lights,” the word diva meaning both light and God]. In Cashmere tin is soldered on copper which has been pre- viously deeply graven over with a diffused floral design, the sunken ground of which is then filled in with a black composition, some- thing after the manner of niello. This pretty work, from Cash- mere, is very rare in England, but Lord Northbrook exhibited a variety of it in three dishes at the Paris Exhibition of 1878. They are studded all over with little raised flowers, winch shine like frosted silver out of a groundwork of blackened foliated scrolls, which are traced so delicately as to look like the finest Chantilly lace. At Moradabad, in the North West Provinces, tin is soldered on brass, and incised through to the brass in floriated patterns, which sometimes are simply marked by the yellow outlines of the brass [Plate 12 bis^ and at others [Plate 13] by graving out the whole ground between the scrolls, and filling it in with a blackened composition of lac, as is done in Cashmere. Benares, in the North-Western Provinces, is the first city in India for the multitude and excellence of its cast and sculptured mythological images and emblemata, not only in brass and copper, but in gold and silver, and also in wood and stone and clay. These images of the gods are not made by a separate caste, but the carpenters and the masons respectively make the large wooden []’late 12 {/>ts) TINNED BRASS BOWL WITH INCISED ORNAMENT, MORADABAD. [Plate 13, SPICE-BOX CF MORADAEAD WORK, METAL WORK IN BRASS, ETC. 157 and stone idols set up in the temples, the potters the clay idols consumed in dahy worship, and the braziers, coppersmiths, and goldsmiths the little images in brass and copper, mixed metal, and gold and silver wliich are always kept in private houses. Brass is largely used in their manufacture, alloyed with six other metals, gold, silver, iron, tin, lead, and mercury, making with the copper, and the zinc of the brass, a mixture of eight metals, which is deemed a perfect alloy, and very highly prized. Idols of pure gold and silver are also made, and in the Sastras great praise is bestowed on those who worship graven images of these precious metals. The larger idols are always cast in moulds, and after- wards finished with the chisel and file. The gold images of Durga, Lakshmi, Krishna, Radha, and Saraswati kept in private houses and worshipped daily, must not be less than one tola [nearly half an ounce] in weight, and they generally weigh three or four tolas. The images of Shitala [the goddess of small-pox] are always of silver, and weigh ten or twelve tolas. The images of Siva in his lingam form are made of an amalgam of mercury and tin, and are esteemed most sacred. They are always very small, and are kept in all houses and used in the daily w'orship. Copper images of Surya, and of Siva riding on Nandi, and also, in many parts of India, of the serpent Naga, are kept in all houses and are wor- shipped daily. Brazen images of many of the gods are also kept in private houses and daily worshipped : and images of Radha, Durga, Lakshmi and Siva in mixed metal. The images of the gods made of this perfect alloy may also be worshipped either at home or in the temples. The images of all the gods and goddesses are graven in stone, but they are generally worshipped only in the temples ; only a few very small ones being found in private houses, the greater number of those used in domestic worship being of the lingatn form of Siva. The stone images seen in Bengal are gener- ally of black marble, but there are some at Benares which are white. Wooden images are never kept in private houses, but only in the temples. The nimba tree, hlelia Azadirachta, furnishes the 158 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. temple images of Yislmu, Durga, Radha, Lakshmi, Siva, Garuda, and others. The mendicant followers of Vislmu always carry about a wooden image of him two cubits high. All images of clay are thrown into the river after being worshipped, and have therefore to be renewed daily. They are generally two cubits high. The figures made of Karttikeya for his annual festival in Bengal are often twenty-seven feet high. An immense manu- facture of all these idols, and of sacrificial utensils, is carried on in Benares. The industry has sprung up naturally from the services of the numerous temples of this city, and has converted the pre- cinct of every temple into an ecclesiastical bazaar. It was in this way that the seats of those who sold doves for sacrifice, and the tables of the bankers [soztkars in India] who exchanged unholy for holy coins, were gradually intruded into the outer court of the Temple at Jerusalem; and that the “booths of Bethany” rose beneath the green branches on the opposite slopes of the Mount of Olives. ]\Iiss Gordon Gumming, who has given a most graphic account of the temples, and temple ser\dces at Benares, says that it is impossible to walk through the bazaars of this city without recalling the descriptions of the vessels of the Temple of Jerusalem : of “the cauldrons, pots and bowls; the shovels, the snuffers, and the spoons, the censers, the basons, the lamps, the candlesticks, and all manner of things to be made either of gold, or of bright brass, which might be continually scoured. Here in the open sunlight are stalls heaped up with all sorts of brass work for the use of the worshippers. Incense burners and curious spoons, basons and lamps, pots and bowls, and a thousand other things of which we knew neither the name nor the use, but which the owners were continually scouring until they gleamed in the sun.” Amid these busy, noisy shops stands the red sandstone temple of Durga, elaborately caiwed from base to pinnacle, and alive with monkeys : and down the next street, another, dedicated to the same god- dess, is full of brilliant peacocks; w'hile above all else rise the glittering domes of the great golden temple of Siva, which METAL WORK IN BRASS, ETC. 159 is for miles around the cynosure of the pilgrims proceeding toward the sacred city from every part of India. The narrow streets are full of beautiful white cows adorned with garlands of flowers, and having the trisida of Siva stamped on their hind- quarters : and every street leads down to the Ganges and the thousand temples and pavilions clustered along its banks. A large quantity of the exported domestic brass work of Benares has in recent years found its way into this country. It is very rickety in its forms, which are chased all over in shallow, weak patterns ; and it fails altogether to please owing to its excessive ornamentation. In the trays particularly all appearance of utility is destroyed by the unsuitable manner in which decoration is applied over their whole surface. In Oudh, the town of Bandhua enjoys a local reputation for its metal vessels. In Bengal what are known as kansha plates are a specialty of Bardwan and Midnapur ; and several other places in the Bardwan division are noted for their metal pots and pans : and also Nuddea, and Panihatti in the Presidency divi- sion. At Nuddea, however, the industry has latterly declined owing to the bankruptcy of the chief manufacturer. In the Chittagong division the village braziers turn out excellent metal work. All sorts of domestic utensils in brass and bell metal are made throughout the Rajshahye division, particularly at Mur- shedabad and Malda; also at Shahabad in the Patna division; and throughout the Orissa division ; in brass and pewter in the Chota Nagpore division ; and in iron and brass all over the Dacca division, particularly about Mymensing, where, at Kag- mari, brass, and iron, and also white metal work, are produced on a large scale. At Kagmari alone 300 men are employed in the business, and the yearly out-turn is over 150,000 lbs. These wares are always sold by weight, a small fraction over it being allowed for the manufacturer’s profit. In the Central Provinces which are the ancient Gondwana, the i6o INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. brass work of Nagpur, consisting of lotas, katoris, and cooking vessels, is distinguished by its pure traditional forms. Brass wares of the same excellence of form are manufactured also a little higher up the Waingunga at Bundhara and Pauni, but more extensively at the former place. The articles produced are cooking utensils, and water vessels of all kinds used by natives, handlamps, candle- sticks, and candelabra, drinking cups, bells, and fountains. The braziers there also work in bell metal, pewter, and copper. Excellent brass and copper utensils are made at Brahmapuri in the Clianda district. The town of Chanda itself was formerly distinguished for its workers in the precious and baser metals but much of its fame is now lost. Brass and bell-metal vessels are largely manufactured at Sambulpur in the extreme east, and at Chichli in the Narsingpur district in the north of the Central Provinces. In the wild southern district of Bustar new brass pots are manufactured from old ones by the Ghasias. The hatchets and knives always to be seen in the hands of the people of this district are made at Madder, and other places, on the Upper Godaveri, which bounds the Central Provinces toward the south-west. Steel of excellent quality is forged at Tendukhera in the Narsingpur district, and at Katangi, Jabera, Barela, and Panagar in the Jubbulpur district, along the Nerbudda, which bounds the Central Provinces on the north. At Dewalghat in Berar [Hyderabad Assigned Districts], not far westward from Bundara, steel of fine quality is forged. In the Bombay Presidency, Nassik and Poona and Ahmeda- bad have always been famous for their copper and brass work. Besides the ordinary house pots and cups, the braziers of Ahmedabad make very graceful and delicately cut brass screens [possibly derived originally from the beautiful brass gates of Shah Alum’s tomb], and pandatis, for holding betel ^paTi] leaf, small boxes of very graceful form, covered with the most delicate tracery, and known to Europeans as spice boxes. Their wares belong to two chief classes : the first of copper, j [Plate 14, SCULPTURED BRASS LQJA, TANJTRE. [Plate 15 BRASS LOTA, ENCRUSTED WITH COPPER, TANJORE. METAL WORK IN BRASS, ETC. i6i domestic pots, jewelry caskets, and inkstands; and the second of brass, sweetmeat boxes, spice boxes \pa 7 idans\ rings, lamps, idols, and chains. They make their own brass in the pro- portion of four parts of copper to three of zinc. A good deal of iron work is also done at Ahmedabad. There is a large manu- facture of idols in all the metals at Nassik, and Poona. Good brass utensils are also made at Kelshi and at Bagmandli in the Ratnagiri collectorate. Bells for bullocks are a speciality of Sirsangi in the extreme eastern limits of Parasgad in the Belgaum collectorate. The most active industry in the town of Bombay is the manufacture of brass and copper pots and the other utensils in universal use among the natives of India. The Copper Bazaar opposite the Mombadevi Tank [the Mirror of the Goddess of Bombay] is the busiest and noisiest, and one of the most delight- ful streets in all the native town. Mr. Terry states [Maclean’s Guide to Bombay^ that there are 1,069 coppersmiths, and 1,536 blacksmiths in Bombay. In the Madras Presidency brass and copper vessels, and also of iron and steel, are made at Maddagiri, Nagamangala, Karatagiri, Magadi, Belur, Tagari, Sravan, and Channapatna in Mysore. The brass and copper utensils, and brass and copper [and also stone] idols of the Tumkur districts are widely noted. In the Hassan district the Jainas enjoy a monopoly of the manufacture, which employs 1,331 persons, who receive orders from all parts of Southern India, Very good brass work is also made at Nellore ; but that of Madura and Tanjore is superior to all, and the finest in India. In its bold forms, and elaborately inwrought orna- mentation it recalls the descriptions by Homer of the work of the artists of Sidon in bowls of antique frame. Some are simply etched, and others deeply cut in mythological designs [Plate 14] and others [Plate 15] are diapered all over with crusta. of the leaf pattern, seen in Assyrian sculptures, copper on brass, or silver on copper, producing an effect often of quite regal grandeur. Castcllani possesses the finest specimen M i 62 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. known (Plate i6), of silver encrusted on brown waxy copper. In Plate 15 the bold form of the lota is weU brought out by the disposition of the diaper pattern round the body of the vessel. Plate 17 is of a little copper lota elegantly encrusted with silver. Plate 18 is an illustration of Madras hammered work in copper. Nothing could be more effectual than the simple architectural decoration of this little lota, which is one of Colonel Michael’s admirable selections. The ornamentation of the dish represented in Plate 19 is excessive, but is skilfully relieved by the fluted pattern of the cove. All these illus- trations are of Tanjore work. Among the Prince of Wales’ Indian presents is a collection of little brass figures from Vizagapatam, which for skilful modelling, finish, and a certain irresistible grotesqueness of expression, are the finest I have ever seen. I have been permitted to add engravings of seven of them [Plates 20 to 26], which graphically illustrate the whole gamut of military swagger in man and beast. Plate 27 is a representation of a Madura temple lamp. The temple bells of India are celebrated for the depth and purity of their note, and those of Madras are distinguished above all others by their stately architectural forms. The handles are generally crowned with a group of the Puranic gods, sculptured in full relief. The sacrificial vases also are often very beautifully designed and wrought. There is a very fine one in the India Museum [Plate 28] from some temple of Vishnu in Madras. The vase figured in Plate 29 is said to be from Nipal, and is possibly a tea-pot. We have seen that beside ordinary brass, the Hindus use an alloy of copper mixed with gold, like the ancient aes Corln- thiuni. The so-called dark “bronzes” of India, are not of true bronze, that is a mixture of copper and tin, which the Hindus hold to be impure, but of copper without alloy. [Plate 1G, COPPER LOTA, ENCRUSTED WITH SILVER, TANJORE. [Plate 17 COPPER LOTA, ENCRUSTED WITH SILVER, TANJORE, [Plate 1? COPPER LOTA, WITH HAMMERED ORXAMEXT, TAXJORE. [Plate 19. BRASS DISH, ENCRUSTED WITH COPPER, I'ANJORE. [Pr,ATE 20 . BRASS FIGURE, No. i, VIZAGARATAM. ■/A [Plate 21 I5RASS FIGURE, No. 2 . VIZAGAPATAM [Plate BRASS FIGURE, No. 3, VIZAGAPATAM. [PLA.TE 23 BRASS FIGURE, No. 4. VIZAGAPATAM. [Plate 24, BRASS FIGURE. No. 5 , VIZAGAPATAM. I Plate ' 2 b BRASS FIGURE, No. 6, VIZAGAPATAM, ( [Plate 2(1 RRASS FIGURE, No. 7, VIZAGAPATAM, [Plate 27 BRASS CANDLESTICK, MADURA. [Plate 28 , COPPER-GILT SACRIFICIAL VASE, MADURA. , j ii 4 ,~ vr _.-.■" ..V ‘ <'v:^'S.-' -• •.- ' v; "'■-> Il» • * #• ^ •.*_»— • -"^ ? ‘ ' i - s ■ •c ‘- •■;< S?' .-:C^ > -v^' " : •-■ -l'"*!^* ■-■ ■:*' ' *' '■■*'- ' ‘- ■ - - V - *’* '^'■’ - ^-i- , ■ ^ ■- - . :-^--:’iS-'-- :■ - . • f!^.' - ■ . 5 i». ‘ ‘ ■ .# :r‘--.' 4!;^ -Jn-:'*-#^^ ^.'-r 'f- 'C'?- . - '■ .' X/-*v. .< [Plate 29 , TEA-POT ?— XIPAL. Damascened Work. Damascening is the art of encrusting one metal on another, not in criista, which are soldered on or wedged inta the metal surface to which they are applied, but in the form of wire, which by undercutting and hammering is thoroughly incorporated with the metal which it is intended to ornament. , Practically, damas- cening is limited to encrusting gold wire, and sometimes silver wire, on the surface of iron, or steel, or bronze. This system of ornamentation is peculiarly Oriental, and takes its name from Damascus, where it was carried to the highest perfection by the early goldsmiths. It is now practised with the greatest success in Persia and in Spain. In India damascening in gold is carried on chiefly in Cashmere, at Gujrat and Sialkote in the Panjab, and also in the Nizam’s dominions, and is called kiift work. Damascening in silver is called bidri, from Bidar, in the Nizam’s Dominion, where it is principally produced. There is a cheap kuft work done by simply laying gold leaf on the steel plate, on which the ornamentation has been previously etched. The gold is easily made to adhere to the etching, and is then wiped off the rest of the surface. The spice box lent by the Queen, of which Plates 30 and 31 are illustrations, is one of the finest examples of the kuft work of the Panjab in the India Museum. Some beautiful examples of it will also be noted among the Museum collection of arms [Plates 40 and 42]. In bidri metal ground is a compound of M 2 164 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. copper, lead and tin, made black on the surface by dipping it in a solution of sal-ammoniac, saltpetre, salt and blue vitriol. This alloy, after being first melted and cast, is turned in a lathe to complete the form, which is usually that of the ordinary sarai, or water goblet, or hukah stand. Then the required pattern is graven over it, and inlaid with silver ; and finally the ground of the vessel is blackened, and its silver ornamentation scoured to the brightest polish. Bidri is also made at Purniah, in the Bhagalpur division of Bengal, where only zinc is mixed with copper in the alloy : and inferior kinds of the work are produced at other places. It is also imitated in pottery. It is the highest art practised in India after enamelling, and was originally introduced by the Mahom- medans from Persia. In the bidri of Bidar the floral decoration is generally drawn in a more or less naturalistic manner [Plates 32 and 33], while in that of Purniah it is always strictly con- ventional [Plates 34 and 35]. Fig. 34 is an admirable example of a gold decorative effect produced by the skilful use of a few simple lines. Sometimes the decoration of the Purniah bidri is Chinese in character, and has evidently been derived through Sikkim or Bhutan. w. [Plate 30 . DAMASCENED WORK. SPICE-BOX, DAMASCENED IN GOLD [WITH DETAIL OF A PANEL]^ PANJAB. [Plate 31 . TWO PANELS OF DAMASCENED SPICE-BOX FIGURED IN PLATE 30. 'i [Plate 32 SARAI, DAMASCENED IN SILVER. HYDERABAD IN THE DAKHAN. [Plate 33 , PLATE, DAMASCENED IN SILVER, HYDERABAD. IN THE DAKHAN. Li Enamels. Enamelling is the master art craft of the world, and the enamels of Jaipur in Rajputana rank before all others, and are of matchless perfection. There are three forms of enamelling followed. In the first the enamel is sim.ply applied to the metal as paint is applied to canvas ; and in the second, translucent enamels are laid over a design which has been etched on, or hammered \repousse\ out of the metal. Both these are comparatively modern methods. The third form of enamelling by encrustation is very ancient, and is known under two varieties, namely, the cloisonne, in which the pattern is raised on the surface of the metal by means of strips of metal or wire welded on to it ; and the champ- leve, in which the pattern is cut out of the metal itself. In both varieties the pattern is filled in with the enamel. In all forms of true enamelling the coloring glaze has to be fused on to the metal. There is indeed a fourth form of enamelling, practised by the Japanese. They paint in the pattern coarsely, as in the first form, and then outline it with strips of copper or gold, to imitate true cloisonne enamels. The Jaipur enamelling is cha7npJev'e. A round plate among the Prince of Wales’ Indian presents is the largest specimen of it ever produced. It took four years in the making, and is in itself a monument of the Indian enameller’s art. Another notable example of it is the beautiful covered cup and saucer, and spoon, belonging to Lady Mayo. The bowl of the spoon is cut out of a solid emerald, and, as in all Hindu sacrificial spoons, from which it is designed, is in the same plane with the i66 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. handle. It is perfect in design and finish, and is surely the choicest jewelled spoon in existence. Another exquisite example of Jaipur enamelling is the little perfume box, or atarda^i, some- thing like a patch box, with a cone-shaped cover, belonging to Mr. W. Anderson, and formerly exhibited in the South Kensington Museum. All round the box is a representation of Krishna, followed by pretty cows and the fair shepherdesses, wandering through a grove of wide-spreading trees, with birds singing among their branches : and all round the cover of Krishna dancing with the shepherdesses, on a green ground of hills and valleys, dales and fields. It was surmounted with a yellow diamond, in perfect harmony with the colors of the green, white, blue, orange, and scarlet enamels, but the owner has replaced it by a perfectly in- harmonious stone of the purest and most brilliant water. I deeply regret that it has not been possible to obtain illustrations of the Prince of Wales’ plate, Mr. Anderson’s box, and Lady Mayo’s cup and saucer and spoon, in time for the publication of this Hand- book. Of all the Prince of Wales’ enamels the daintiest device is a native writing-case, or kalamdan, shaped like an Indian gondola [Plate 36]. The stern is figured like a peacock, the tail of which sweeps under half the length of the boat, irradiating it with blue and green enamels, brighter even than the natural iridescence of a. peacock’s tail. The canopy which covers the ink bottle is colored with green, blue, ruby, and coral red enamels. It is the mingled brilliance of its greens, blues, and reds, laid on pure gold, which makes the superlative excellence and beauty of the enamel- ling of Jaipur. Even Paris cannot paint gold with the ruby and coral reds, emerald green, and turquoise and sapphire blues of the enamels of Jaipur, Lahore, Benares, and Lucknow. In Lady Mayo’s spoon the deep green enamel is as lustrous and transparent as the emerald which forms the bowl. Among the arms in the India Museum are some fine examples of old Jaipur enamelling. The handles of the yak’s tails, and of the sandal-wood and ivory horse wisps, and of the peacock’s tails, which, like the yak’s tails. ENAMELS. 167 are symbols of royalty and divinity throughout the East, are magnificent examples of the grandest of the art crafts of India, and truly regal treasures. The art is practised everywhere in India, at Lucknow and Benares, at Multan and Lahore, and in Kangraand Cashmere, but nowhere in such perfection as at Jaipur. It is probably a Turanian art. It was introduced into China, according to the Chinese, by the Yeuechi, and was carried as early, if not earlier into India. From Assyria it probably passed into Egypt, and through the Phoenicians to Europe. Sidon was as famed for its glass, as was Tyre renowned for its purple ; and the Sidonians were not only acquainted with glass-blowing, but also with the art of enamelling in glass in imitation of the precious stones. Glass was already known to the Hindus in the time of the Mahabharata, in which we read that at the raja-surya of Yudhis- thira, one of the royal pavilions was paved with “ black crystal,” which Duryodhana on entering mistook for water, and drew up his garments lest he should be wetted. Among the Prince of Wales’ several specimens of the charming Cashmere enamelSj in which presents are the ground, of the usual shawl pattern ornamentation cut in gold, is filled in with turquoise blue. Sometimes a dark green is intermixed with the blue, perfectly harmonised by the gold, and producing a severely artistic effect. Lady Wyatt possesses a remarkably fine goblet in this style of Cashmere enamel [Plate 37]. Among the many splendid loans contributed by the Queen to the India Museum is a Huka stand, the silver bowl [Plate 38], of which is painted with flowers in green and blue enamel. It is one of the finest specimens I know, of the best Mogol period •of transparent enamelling. At Pertabghar in Raj pu tana extremely effective and briUiant trinkets are made, apparently by melting a thick layer of green enamel on a plate of burnished gold, and, while it is still hot, covering it with thin gold cut into mythological, or hunting and other pleasure scenes j in which, amid a delicate network of i68 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. floriated scrolls, elephants, tigers, deer, peacocks, doves, and parrots are the shapes most conspicuously represented. After the enamel has hardened the gold work is etched over with a graver so as to bring out the characteristic details of the ornamentation. In some cases it would seem as if the surface of the enamel was first engraved, and then the gold rubbed into the pattern so produced, in the form of an amalgam, and fixed by fire. Plate 39 gives illustrations of a casket, and its panels, of this Perlabghar work, lent by the Queen. The enamels of Ratam in Central India are identical in general character with those of Pertabghar, but are deep blue in colour, not green. Beautiful glass bangles [c/iuris], and such like ornaments are made at Rampur [whence they are named Rampur}uajiiharan\ near Mirut. These glass ornaments, of the most brilliant colours, are also made at Hushyarpur, Multan, Lahore, Patiala, Karnal, Panipat, and other places in the Panjab : at Banda in the North- Western Provinces ; at Dalman and Lucknow in Oudh, where the art was introduced from Multan; and at Mangrul in the Central Provinces. In the Bombay Presidency glass-making has its headquarters at Kapadvanj in the Kaira district of Gujarat. It is made into bangles, beads, bottles, looking- glasses, and the figures of animals, chiefly peacocks, for export to Bombay and Kathivvar. Glass trinkets are also made in the Kheda district of Kandesh, and at Bagmandli in the Ratnagiri collectorate. In the Madras Presidency glass bangles are ex- tensively made, both at Matod and Tumkur in Mysore : and in several villages between Guti and Bellary in the Bellary collectorate. The glass phials for Ganges water, seen all over India, are made chiefly at Nagina, in the Bijnur district of the North-Western Provinces, and at Sawansa, in the Pertabghar district of Oudh. Most of the Ganges water, which myriads of pilgrims yearly convey from sacred Hardwar to all parts of India, is carried in the phials and flasks produced by the manihars of Nagina and Sawansa. [Plate 36 . 1 I I ENAMELLED l^EN AND INK. STAND, JAIPUR. [Plate 37 ENAMELLED SAXA/, PANJAH. [Platk 38 ENAMELLED HAKA STAND, OF MOGOL PERIOD [Plate 39 casket [Wri H DE I AILSJ OF “ PER'I ABGHAR ENAMEL.” Arms. In the Rig-Veda frequent allusion is made to the use of the bow, the mastery of which was considered so important that a supplementary Veda, the Dhanur Veda, is devoted to it. In the Ramayana, Rama wins Sita for his bride by bending the great bow of Siva; and in the Mahabharata the choice of Draupadi fell on Arjuna for his skill in archery. In the legendary life of Gautama Buddha we are also told that when his father sought out a wife for him among the daughters of the neighbouring rajas, they all refused, because, though hand- some, he had not been taught any martial accomplishments. Nevertheless the young Prince Siddhartha proved his prowess against all comers at the tournament proclaimed by the Raja Suprabuddha, for his daughter’s hand, and so gained the radiant Yasodhara for his wife. The Agni Purana gives a most elaborate classification of arms ; and they are represented in ever)" variety of form on the most ancient monuments of India. Indian steel has been celebrated from the earliest antiquity, and the blades of Damascus, which maintained their pre-eminence even after the blades of Toledo became celebrated, were iil fact of Indian steel. Ctesias mentions two wonderful Indian blades which were presented to him by the King of Persia and his mother. The Ondanique of Marco Polo’s travels refers originally, as Colonel Yule has shewn, to Indian steel, the word being a corruption of the Persian Hundwaniy, i.e., Indian steel. The INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 170 same word found its way into Spanish, in the shapes of Alhinde and Aljinde, first with the meaning of steel, and then of a steel mirror, and finally of the metal foil of a glass mirror. The Onda- nique of Kirman, which Marco Polo mentions, was so called from its comparative excellence, and the swords of Kirman were eagerly sought after, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, by the Turks, who gave great prices for them. We have seen that Arrian mentions Indian steel, atSrjpo’s ’IvSt/co?, as imported into the Abyssinian ports ; and Salmasius mentions that among the sur- viving Greek treatises was one -n-epl ’IvSikov aiSypov, “ on the tempering of Indian steel.” Twenty miles east of Nirmal, and a few miles south of the Shisha hills, occurs the hornblende slate or schist from which the magnetic iron used for ages in the manufacture of Damascus steel, and by the Persians for their sword blades, is still obtained. The Dimdurti mines on the Godavari were also another source of Damascus steel, the mines here being mere holes dug through the thin granitic soil, from which the ore is detached by means of small iron crowbars. The iron ofe is still further separated from its granitic or quartzy matrix by washing ; and the sand thus ob- tained is still manufactured into Damascus steel at Kona Samun- dram, near Dimdurti. The sand is melted with charcoal, without any flux, and is obtained at once in a perfectly tough and malleable state, superior to any English iron, or even the best Swedish. The Persian [Armenian] merchants, who in Voysey’s days still frequented the iron furnaces of Kona Samundram, informed him that they had in vain attempted to imitate, in Persia, the steel formed from it. In the manufacture of the best steel three- fourths of Samundram ore is used, and one-fourth of Indore, which is a peroxide of iron. In the Panjab, superbly ornamented arms, of the costliest de- scription, are made at Lahore, Sialkote, Gujrat, Shahpur, and in Cashmere. Good arms are also made at Monghyr, in the Bhagalpur division of Bengal. In Chittagong the dao or bill, ARMS. 171 manufactured by the Mugs, has a long blade, widening towards the top, which is square, and fitted straight in the handle. The kukri of the Ghurkas of Nipal, which has a short handle and an incurved blade, widening in the middle and drawing to a point at the end, is well known. Swords of good temper are still made at Pehani, in the Hardoi district of Oudh. Excellent steel is fused for gun-barrels and sword-blades along the banks of the Nerbudda, at Panagar, Katangi, Jabera, Barela, and Tenderkhera in the Central Provinces; at Dewulghat in the Berars ; and in Mysore. The knives and hatchets made by the Ghasias along the Upper Godavari have been already mentioned. Nagpur, the capital of the Central Provinces, is noted for the manufacture of steel weapons, such as spears and daggers, with the steel brought from the valleys of the Nerbudda and Tapti. In the Madras Presidency arms and cutlery are produced at Tumkur for sale all over Mysore. There are 120 forges at Tumkur. Good swords, and spears, and daggers are also made at Kudwur and Vizianagram ; the superbly-mounted arms of the latter place being used chiefly in pageantry. In Kurg a handsomely mounted sword, of a peculiar shape, is made, called adya-kathi. Handsomely-painted leather shields are made at Ahmedabad and in other parts of Gujarat in the Bombay Presidency, and also in Raj pu tana ; and the Katch silversmiths are famous all over India for their decoration of arms of all sorts in repousse gold and silver. For variety, extent, and gorgeousness, and ethnological and artistic value, no such collection of Indian arms exists in this country as that belonging to the Prince of Wales. It repre- sents the armourer’s art in every province of India, from the rude spear of the savage Nicobar islanders to the costly damas- cened, sculptured, and jewelled swords and shields, spears, daggers and matchlocks of Cashmere, Katch, and Vizianagram. The most striking object in the collection is a suit of armour made 172 INDUSTRIAL. ARTS OF INDIA. entirely of the horny scales of the Indian armadillo, or pangolin, [^Mams pentadactyld\, encrusted with gold, and turquoises, and garnets. There is another splendid suit of Cashmere chain armour, fine almost as lace work. The style is essentially Persian and Circassian, and is identical with that of the armour worn in Europe in the thirteenth century. The damascened casque is surmounted with a plume of pearls. There are many other suits of armour, with damascened breastplates, gauntlets, and greaves, which carry one back to the crusades and legendary history of modern Persia. Some of the sword blades are marvel- lously watered, several are sculptured in half relief with hunting scenes, and others are strangely shaped, teethed like a saw, and flaming \^flamboyant\ ■ although for mingled cruelty and grotesque- ness of appearance none equal the battle-axes of the Sowrahs and Khonds. There is the kukri of the Ghurkas, the adyakathi of the Moplas, the tiga of the wild tribes of Central India, and the knife used in the Meriah sacrifice. The collection also con- tains the great sword of Mahmud Chand Sultan Shah of the date of 1707, and the sword [No. 1,439] the famous Polygar Kata- bomma Naik, who defeated the English early in the present century; and, most interesting of all, the sword [No. 74] of Sivaji, the founder of the Maratha dominion in India. The rise of the Maratha power was almost contemporary with our own appearance in India. The Mogol Emperors of Delhi were m the habit of taking the Hindu Princes and Chiefs into high employ, and among the Maratha families in their ser- vice were the Bhonslas, whose tutelary deity was the goddess Bhavani of Tuljapur. It was of their family that the renowned Sivaji was born, at Siwnir, near Junir, about twenty miles south- west of Poona, in the very heart of the maiLnds or valleys, which lie on the landward side of the Western Ghats between Poona and Sattara. The hilly land between the Western Ghats and the sea is called the Konkan. This is the cradle of the Maratha race, and it was with the aid of the hardy tua^t'ulis, or people of AJ^AIS. 173 these inland and seaward valleys of the Western Ghats, that Sivaji laid the foundation of the Maratha Confederacy, which at one time extended its sway over the whole Dakhan. The Maratha country indeed in its widest sense almost corresponds with the area of the Chalukyan style of temple architecture in India, as defined by Mr. Fergusson. It is the whole country between the Malabar and Coromandel coasts watered by the Nerbudda, Tapti, Godavari, Bhima, and Kistna. North of the Nerbudda lies Mr. Fergusson’ s area of Indo-Aryan architecture, and south of the Kistna the Dravidian. There is really no authentic ancient history of Southern India, but to the Hindus Sivaji was not so much the destroyer of the hated Mahommedan supremacy in the Dakhan as the restorer of the half mythical Hindu state of Sali- vahana, and hence the great power of his name all over India, which can be understood only by those who have some knowledge of the notions universally received by Hindus of their traditional history. As the British power grew in India, it was at last brought face to face with the Maratha Confederacy, against which, between 1774 and 1818, we had to wage four harassing wars, signalised by the great victories of Assai and Kirki. In the latter battle the dominion of the Marathas was finally overthrown, although it was not until 1819 that their last fortress was taken. Their forts among the spurs of the Western Ghats were their strength, and every one of them has its legend, keeping alive the spirit of nationality and patriotism among these hardy and romantic mawu- lis. Sivaji [nicknamed by Aurungzebe “ a mountain rat ”], at the age of nineteen, seized Tornia, and with the spoils built Raighur, where he was subsequently enthroned, and where he died. After building Raighur, he took Singar and Purandar, and it was from the Konkan hill fort of Pertabghar, opposite Mahabaleshwur, that he issued, after receiving his mother’s blessing and offering his vows to Bhavani, to circumvent, by an act of the most detestable treachery, the assassination of the Bijapur General, Afzul Khan. Fie enticed his generous and too confiding enemy into a secret 174 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. turning in the road leading down the hill side, and there, in pre- ' tending to embrace him, ripped his bowels open with the wagnak [“ tiger claw ”] concealed in his left hand, and stabbed him to the heart with the bichwa [“ scorpion ” dagger] hid up his right sleeve. He is the great national hero of the Maratha Hindus, and his de- scendants are held in the highest reverence throughout the Dakhan. Every relic of his, his sword, daggers, and seal, and the wagnak or “ tiger-claw” with which he foully assassinated Afzul Khan, have all been religiously preserved at Sattara and Kolhapur ever since his death in 1680. Mr. Grant Duff, in his Notes of an Indian Journey, has described the worship of his famous sword, Bhavani, at Sattara. The sword in the Prince’s collection is not this deified weapon, but the one that has always been kept, since Sivaji’s death in 1680, at Kolhapur. The political value of the gift is simply incalculable. It was a family and national heirloom, which nothing but a sentiment of the profoundest loyalty could have moved the descendants of Sivaji to give up, and which has been sacredly guarded for the last 200 years at Kolhapur, as the palladium of their house and race, by the junior branch of the Bhonsla family. Only less significant are the other gifts of the great sword of Sultan Chand, and the sword of Katabomm Naik. All these historical weapons, the symbols of the latent hopes and aspi- rations of nations and once sovereign families, were literally forced on the Prince’s acceptance in a spontaneous transport of loyalty, and their surrender may be fairly interpreted to mean that the people and princes of India are beginning to give up their vain regrets for the past, and, sensible of the present blessings of a civilised rule, desire to centre their hopes of the future in the good faith, and wisdom, and power of the British Government. The barrel of one of the Prince’s matchlocks [Plate 40], damascened in gold, with a sort of poppy pattern, one flower nodding above another along the whole length of the barrel, is the noblest example of damascening in the whole collection. AJ?MS. 175 There is another matchlock [Plate 41], the stock of which is carved in ivory, against a chocolate-stained background, with scenes of wild animal life, in which every group is a perfect cameo. The richer arms are resplendent with gold and enamel- ling, and gems, and are generally of uncontaminated Indian design. There is, indeed, but little room for the obtrusion of European design in Oriental arms. There are, however, several swords and daggers in the Prince’s magnificent collection of arms, which have been mounted in native design by English workmen, and the result is not less mischievous than when European designs are literally imitated by unsophis- ticated native handicraftsmen. The mechanical character of European manufactures requires a consistent general finish which is quite out of place in the bold and freehand compositions of the best . native art work, in which finish is strictly subordinated to practical use and artistic effect ; and, if a taste for mechanical per- fection becomes prevalent with the spread of middle class English ideas among the princes and chiefs of India, Indian wrought arms and jewelry will soon become arts of the past. The splendour of Indian arms and jewelry is due to the lavish use of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other bright and colored stones. But, as their work is really manual, and grows up spontaneously, like a growing flower, under their hands, the native jewellers are able to use the most worthless gems on it, mere chips and scales of diamonds, often so thin that they will float on w^ater, and flawed rubies and emeralds, which have no value as precious stones, but only as barbaric blobs of colour. The European jeweller can use with his machine-made work only the most costly gems, polished to the highest lustre, far too costly to be used except for their own effect and intrinsic value only, and it would be impos- sible to employ them merely to enhance the general decorative effect, as in India. There are examples in the Prince’s collection of elaborate gold w'ork in purely native design, but by English workmen ; and the mechanical precision of their work has forced 176 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. them to use rose diamonds and brilliants in the ornamentation, but necessarily so scantily that all effect of splendour is lost. Where in other examples worthless Indian stones have been set in machine-made English gold work, the effect is flat and mean beyond belief. If, therefore, Indian jewelry should become mechanical, and hard, and glittery in character, it will at once cease to be artistic, and sink to the level of the extravagantly priced vulgar trinketry of Birmingham, Paris, and Vienna. The battle-axes used by the wild tribes are identical in form with those found among the prehistoric remains of man in Europe, perhaps because they have all been instinctively modelled from the teeth of carnivorous animals. It is impossible also to overlook the strong resemblance of the forms of Persian and Arabian arms, and of Indian arms shewing Persian and Arabian influence, to those represented on the sculptures of Assyria and Babylonia, and in the hieroglyphic painting of Egypt, as figured in Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies and Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians. This is especially marked in the typical fiddle-shaped handles of the daggers. The Arabian arms are distinguished by their fine filigrain work and the absence of gems, the Persian by their superb damascening, enamelling, and carving, and the rare employment of gems in their decoration, only tur- quoises and pearls being generally used, except in the incrustation of jade mountings ; while the Indian arms are characterised by the high relief of their elaborately hammered and cut gold work, and the unsparing use of the precious gems with which they are all over embellished. It is the special defect of Indian, particularly of Brahmanical art, to run into this excess and satiety of decorative details. It is the exclusive prerogative of Greek art to produce beauty without the use of ornament. The interest of the India Museum also culminates in its collection of arms, which have been arranged with the most imposing effect, according to the plan adopted by the Hon. Wilbraham Egerton, M.P., in the Handbook of I ndia7i Arms which ARMS. 177 he has prepared for the India Office, and which will be ready for sale at the India Museum on its reopening. It is in fact a classified and descriptive catalogue of the arms exhibited at the old India Museum, and is the only completed catalogue of any section of the Museum that has yet been made ; and it will always remain a work of permanent reference on Indian armoury. Mr. Egerton first gives a sketch of the military history of India from the earliest times, adding figures of the arms of ancient India repre- sented on the Buddhist sculptures of Sanchi [b.c. 250], and Udya- giri, and references to those portrayed in the Buddhist paintings at Ajanta [about a.d. 400] ; and on the later Hindu temple of Bhurvaneswar [a.d, 650J ; in the Jaina sculptures at Saitron in Rajputana [a.d. i ioo] ; on the sun temple at Kanarak [a.d, 1237] ; and in the sculptures of the fifteenth century in the neighbour^ hood of Mandore, the former capital of Marwar. After this follows a most interesting and valuable chapter on the decoration, and processes of manufacture of Indian arms, which really exhausts the subject. Mr. Egerton considers that Aryan art predomi- nates over Turanian in Indian arms, and he divides the former into Hindi or Indian, and Iranic or Persian, and the latter into Dravidian, Tibetan, and Indo-Chinese. There is an ..obvious difference in the forms and details of decoration prevailing in the Panjab, Rajputana, and Hindustan generally, and of those which prevail in the Dakhan, and again along the Eastern Himalayas \ but the distinguishing expression of an ethnic or national art is given to it not by its forms but by its animating spirit ; and what- ever may be the local shapes it takes there prevails all through India proper a distinctive art, which we recognise to be in its essence unvarying and indivisible, and which we may call Indian. A Mahommedan mosque in India, although its form may be Sara- cenic, is generally as essentially Hindu in expression as a temple of Siva or Vishnu. On the other hand, there is a deep and impassable gulf fixed between Indian art and the as strongly specialised art of Further India. N 178 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. In classifying the India Museum arms Mr. Egerton has divided them in a thoroughly practical manner into twelve groups, which are partly ethnical, partly geographical, and partly economical. Group i is of the arms of the aboriginal and non-Aryan tribes of Central India, and the Andaman Islands. Groups 2 and 3, of the aboriginal and Dravidian races of Southern India. Group 4, of the hill tribes of Assam and the North East frontier. Group 5, of British and native Burma and Assam. Group 6, of the Malayan Peninsula, and Indian Archipelago, Group 7, of Nipal. Group 8, of the Rajputs. Group 9, of the Marathas; and of the Mahommedans of Mysore and the Dakhan. Group to, of Sindh and the Panjab. Group it, of the Afghans and Persians; and also of the Abyssinians, &c. Group 12, of arms used for athletic and sacrificial purposes. It is in this order that the arms have been arranged in the India Museum, and nothing could be simpler or more effective for the purpose of instruction, or more suitable for their artistic display. In his preface Mr. Egerton expresses a regret, in which every one will concur, that the collection of Indian arms at the Tower has not been united to the India Museum collection : and that the Government of Madras should have recently allowed the old historical weapons from the armouries of Tanjore and Madras to be broken up and sold for old metal. This act of vandalism is all the more to be deplored, as neither the Tower nor the India Museum collections are, as Mr. Egerton points out, rich in Southern Indian arms. I have illustrated a spear-head [Plate 43] of Vizianagram work, as an example of decoration derived from the temple architecture of the Madras Presidency. [Plate 40. GUN-BARREL, DAMASCENED IN GOLD, WI I H DETAILS. [Plate 41 . GUN STOCK. CARVED IN IVORY, WITH DETAILS.. [Platp: 42. [Plate SPEAR HEAD, MADRAS. ^ ^ 'ri- - '~Wm t ^-:< . ... '-^ ^ X ‘:<^- * : ' w.- Trappings and Caparisons. All Indian collections are overloaded with gaudy trappings, state caparisons and housings, horse-cloths, elephant-cloths, howdahs, high umbrellas, standards, peacock tails, yak tails, and other ensigns of royalty. But they look very brave in procession through the narrow, picturesque streets, thronged with the gay crowd of an Indian town, advancing tumultuously be- tween the high, overhanging houses, which are painted storey above storey in red and green and yellow, like macaws j or when the Maratha princes and their whole court go forth in unprepared pomp, with trumpets, shawms, high shrilling pipes, and belaboured tom-toms, into the jungle to do homage at the dasera festival to the palas tree \Butea frondosa\ ; returning every one with his hands full of its yellow flowers to offer as gold before the idols in the wayside village temples. They are also very interesting for the designs to be found on the metal work ; and for the manner in which cut cloth work, opus consutum, or applique as it is termed by the French, is used in their ornamenta- tion, particularly of the horse-cloths, saddles, and girths. Chatries or umbrellas, and chauries or horse-whisks of sandalwood, ivory, and particularly yak tails, and murchals or fly-flappers of peacock feathers, are regarded as the most solemn symbols of state throughout the East. In the Ayin Akbari, or Institutes of the Emperor Akhar, written by Abdul Fazl, Akbar’s great minister [see Gladwin's Trans- lation, London, 1800], the following enumeration is given N 2 i8o INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. of the ensigns of state “ which wise monarchs consider as marks of divine favour.” The mcrung or throne, the chutiur or umbrella, the sayiban or sun fan ; and the kowkebah or stars in gold and other metals which are hung up in front of palaces : and these four ensigns are used only by kings. The alum, the chuttertowk, and the tementowk, all varieties of standards of the highest dignity, appropriated solely to the king and his military officers of the highest rank. Then follow the kowrekh or demameh, the iiekareh, and the dehl, three kinds of drums 3 the kerna of gold, silver, brass, or other metal, the serna, the nefeer, the sing, or horn of brass, made in the form of a cow’s horn, all different kinds of trumpets and the sing, or conch shell. Formerly, adds Abdul Fazl, they used to blow the conch shell four hours before night, and the same time from daybreak ; but now the first blast is at midnight and the other at sunrise : — “And one hour before sunrise the lively blast of the serna awakens, those who slumber ; and the kowrekh is beat a little. These are presently joined by the kerna, the nefeer, and all the other musical instruments excepting the nekareh. Then after a short pause, the serna and the nefeer play the musical modes, after which the nekareh is beat, and the people with one voice pray blessings on his majesty.” Thus was the reveille sounded in every camp and garrison of Hindustan and the Dakhan during the plenitude of the Mogol power in. India, in the reign of the Emperor Akbar, 1556 — 1605; at the very moment when Queen Elizabeth was signing [31 December 1600] the charter of the East India Company, which was to prove its death warrant. In Herklot’s Qua 7 ioon-i- Islam, \Ca71071s oj Isla 7 /i\, London, 1832, the alums used in the Moharram procession in India are described in detail. They are analogous to the standards used by the Greeks and Romans, and those figured on the TRAPPINGS AND CAPARISONS. i8i gates of the Sanchi tope ; consisting not only of flags, but of all sorts of devices in metal, raised on the top of long staves. They are generally kept wrapped up in bags of scarlet cloth, and displayed only on days of festivity and parade ; and, of old time, before the British peace was established, in battle. The umbrella is the highest of all these insignia of regality. Chatrapati, “lord of the umbrella,” is even now a prouder title in India than raja or maharaja. The king of Burma’s title translated is “Lord of the Twenty-four Umbrellas;” and the Emperor of China always has that number of umbrellas borne before him, even in the hunting-field. A vermilion umbrella everywhere in the east signifies imperial authority. The Maha- bharata makes frequent mention of umbrellas as a mark of royalty, and speaks of the gift of a white umbrella, having a hundred ribs, as calculated to insure the giver a place in Indra’s heaven. Rajendralala Mitra, in his Antiquities of Orissa, Cal- cutta, 1875, says that the most detailed rules are given in the Yukti kalapatarii. for the making and proportion of the parts of both royal and common umbrellas. An umbrella with the stick of choice wood, and ribs of selected bamboo, and a cover of scarlet cloth, is a gift worthy of presentation to a king. It is called a prasada. An umbrella with blue cloth and a gold fringe is meet for a prince. It is called a pratapa. An umbrella, the frame and stem of which are of sandal-wood, mounted in gold, with a golden kalasa or knop on the top, and covered with pure white, fringed with gold, is the right umbrella for a noble. It is called a kanaka-danda. But the most im- portant umbrella of all is the nava-danda, which is used only on occasions of high state, such as coronations, the marriages of kings and princes, and other regal celebrations. The stem, the sliding frame and the ribs are all of pure gold. The handle is a pure ruby, and the knop at the end a diamond, and the cover of silk, of the choicest colours, and fringed with thirty-two looped strings of pearls, with thirty-two pearls on each string. Umbrellas i 82 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. are also appropriately decorated with the feathers of the peacock, heron, parrot and goose. The chamara or chauri is next in dignity to the umbrella, and may be made either of strips of sandal-wood, or of ivory ; but the most esteemed are those made of the tail of the Himalayan yak. The Prince has a pair of yak- tail chauris, and also of murchals, mounted on elaborately jewelled and enamelled handles. To put gems and enamel on peacock feathers would seem like adding another hue to the rainbow, but there is no “wasteful and ridiculous excess” in the masterly way in which the Jaipur artist has used the feathers and gems, and his secret enamels, to mutually enhance each other’s effect. Nothing can be richer than his materials, nothing more harmonious and effective than the manner in which he has combined them. The popes always have peacock feathers borne before them at their enthronement, and no doubt the custom was derived at some distant date from the East. There is a sayiban in the arms room of the India Museum made of a talipot palm leaf, with a conventional tree pattern worked on it, which in form and detail is exactly like the fan-like ensign represented in the Nineveh marbles as borne before the kings of ancient Assyria. The royal howdahs and the painted open palanquin in the arms room are most picturesque- looking objects, and are valuable examples of strong and massive goldsmith’s work, and Indian ivory and wood carving and turnings I J EWELRY. Even a greater variety of style is Seen in Indian jewelry than in Indian arms. Mr. W. G. S. V. FitzGerald sent to the Annual International Exhibition of 1872, a collection of the grass ornaments worn by the wild Thakurs and Katharis of Matheran, and the Western Ghats of Bombay, which had been made by Dr. T. Y. Smith, the accomjjlished Superintendent of that Hill Station ; and by the side of these grass collars, neck- laces, bracelets, anklets, and girdles, were exhibited also examples of the gold jewelry of thick gold wire, twisted into the girdles, bracelets, anklets, necklaces, and collars, worn all over India, and which are fashioned in gold exactly as the Matheran orna- ments are fashioned in grass. These gold collars are identical with the “ torque ” [from Latin torquis, a twisted neck-chain], worn by the Gauls, which gave its name to the patrician Roman family of Torquatus, from Manlius having, about B.c. 361, earned immortal glory by slaying a gigantic Gaul, whose dead body he stripped of the torque, which he placed round his own neck. The Gaul, in the Roman statue of “the Dying Gladi- ator,” is represented with a torque round his neck. Necklaces of gold are also worn in Western India which are identical in character with the Matheran necklaces of chipped and knotted grass, which indicate the origin also of the peculiar Burmese neck- laces, formed of tubular beads of ruddy gold strung together, and pendent from a chain which goes round the neck, from which 184 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. the strings of tubular beads of gold hang down in front, like a golden veil. The details in these Burmese necklaces are often variously modified, the gold being wrought into flowers, or replaced by strings of pearl and gems, until all trace of their suggested origin is lost. By the side of Mr. FitzGerald’s collec- tion, I exhibited the “fig-leaf” worn by the women in the wilder parts of India, and which in many places is their only clothing. First was shewn the actual “fig-leaf,” the leaf of the sacred fig, or pipal. Ficus religiosa ; next a literal transcript of it in silver, and then the more or less conventionalised forms of it, but all keeping the heart-shape of the leaf; the surface ornamentation in these conventionalised silver leaves being generally a representation of the pipal tree itself, or some other tree, or tree-like form, suggesting the “ Tree of Life ” of the Hindu Paradise on Mount Meru. These silver leaves are sus- pended from the waist, sometimes, like the actual leaf, by a simple thread, but generally by a girdle of twisted silver with a serpent’s head where it fastens in front; and this ornament is possibly the origin of the “heart and serpent” bracelets of European jewelry. In Algeria, a leaf-shaped silver, ornament is worn by girls till they come to an age when more volumi- nous apparel is required; and it is the emblem of virginity throughout the Barbary [Berber] coast. The forms of the champaca \Michelia Cha?npacd\ bud, and of the flowers of the babul \Acacia arabicci\ and seventi \Chrysanthemum species], the name of which is familiar in England through the story of “Brave Seventi Bhai,” “the Daisy Lady,” in Miss Frere’s Old Decca?t Days, are commonly used by Indian jewellers for necklaces and hairpins, as well as of the fruit of the anola or aonla \Phyllanthus emblicd], and aftibgul \Elceag71us Kolugd\, and mango, or a?nb \Mangifera indtca\. The bell-shaped earring, with smaller bells hanging within it, is derived from the flower of the sacred lotus; and the cone-shaped earrings of Cash- mere, in ruddy gold, represent the lotus flower-bed. The use JEV/ELRY. 185 of these flowers in Indian jewelry is possibly not prehistoric, but has come down from an immemorial tradition. The lotus, which often passes into the seventi, is seen everywhere in Indian and Chinese and Japanese decoration, and on Assyrian and Babylonian sculptures. As primitive probably as the twisted gold wire forms of Indian jewelry, is the chopped gold form of jewelry worn also throughout India, the art of which is carried to the highest per- fection at Ahmedabad and Surat in Western India. It is indeed worn chiefly by the people of Gujarat. It is made of chopped pieces, like jujubes, of the purest gold, flat, or in cubes, and, by removal of the angles, octahedrons, strung on red silk. It is the finest archaic jewelry in India. The nail-head earrings are identical with those represented on Assyrian sculptures. It is generally in solid gold, for people in India hoard their money in the shape of jewelry; but it is also made hollow to perfection at Surat, the flat pieces, and cubes, and octahedrons being filled with lac or da 7 ?imar. The beaten silver jewelry of the Gonds, and other wild tribes of the plains of India, and valleys of the inner Himalayas, is also very primitive in character. The singular brooch worn by the women of Ladak \v. Miss Gordon Cumming’s From the Hebrides to the Himalayas, 1876, p. 219], is identical with one found among Celtic remains in Ireland and elsewhere. It is formed of a flat and hammered silver band, hooped in the centre, with the ends curled inward on the hoop ; and this is too artificial a shape to have arisen independently in India and Europe, and must have travelled westward with the Celtic emigration from the East. Its form is evidently derived from the symbols of serpent and phallic worship. The waist-belt of gold or silver, or precious stones, which is worn in India to gird up the dhoti, or cloth worn about the legs, recalls the Roman cingulum ; and, as in Rome, when the ceremony of changing the toga prcetexta for the toga virilis was i86 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. performed, the aiirea bulla was taken from the boy’s neck, and consecrated to the domestic Lar ; so, in India, at the ceremony of investiture with the sacrificial thread, an identical ornament, a hollow hemisphere of gold, hung from a yellow cotton thread or chain of gold, is taken from the boy’s neck, and the sacred cord, the symbol of his manhood, is put on him. The nava-ratna or 7iao-ratan, an amulet or talisman composed of “ nine gems,” generally the — Coral, Topaz, Sapphire, Ruby, flat Diamond, cut Diamond, Emerald, Hyacinth, and Carbuncle, is certainly suggestive also of some connexion with the Uri7Ji and Thu77i77ii77i, or sacred oracle of the Jews, taken by Chosroes II from Jerusalem, ad. 615, and probably still existing among the ruins of one of the old Sassanian palaces of Persia. This ancient ornament gave its name as a collective epithet to the “ nine-gems ” or sages of the Court of Vikramaditya, b.c. 56. In books the nine gems of the amulet are said to be pearl, ruby, topaz, diamond, emerald, lapis-lazuli, coral-sapphire, and a stone, not identified, called g077ieda. The tri-ral7ta, is the “triple-gemmed” “Alpha and Omega” jewel of the Buddhists, symbolical of Buddha, the Law, and the Church. The jeweller’s and goldsmith’s art in India is indeed of the highest antiquity, and the forms of Indian jewelry as well as of gold and silver plate, and the chasings and embossments decorating them, have come down in an unbroken tradition from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The first light of Aryan civilisation dawned in the Ganges valley, and spread thence into the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The civilisation of Egypt was more ancient, but was undoubtedly largely influenced by Assyria and India, influencing them in turn ; and from the earliest ages, as throughout all ages, through the Arabs, JE WELRY. 187 Phoenicians, and Armenians, the civilisations of India, Egypt, Assyria, and of Greece and Rome, have acted and reacted on each other. But the earliest records, the national epics, and ancient sculptures and paintings, represent the Hindu forms of Indian jewelry, and gold and silver plate, and common pottery and musical instruments, and describe them, exactly as we have them now. Jewelry is constantly mentioned in the Rig-Veda. The Maruts decorate their persons with “various ornaments,” “they are richly decorated with ornaments,” and “ shining necklaces are pendent on their breasts.” The Aswins are adorned with “golden ornaments,” and the Asuras likewise have “plenty of gold and jewels.” The sage Kakshivat, the reputed author of several of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, prays for a son “ decorated with golden earrings, and a jewelled necklace,” and largesses of “gold and jewels,” to the priests and Brahmans are constantly mentioned. In the Nirukta, or Etymological Glossary, forming one of the Vedangas, and in the grammar of Panini, who is supposed to have lived in the fourth century B.c. the names of various kinds of jewels are given, which are identical with those still in parlance throughout India. Manu minutely defines the nature and duties of the jeweller, and the fines he is to pay for piercing precious gems, such as rubies and diamonds, and for boring inferior gems improperly, and the punishment due to him for debasing gold. The references to jewelry in the Ramayana and Mahabharata are too numerous for quotation. Sita is represented as arrayed for her marriage with Rama in a light sari-like garment of a rosy red colour embroidered wth gold, and with jewelled butterflies and other bright ornaments in her raven black hair. Her ears are resplendent with gems, she has bracelets and armlets on her arms and wrists, a golden zone binds her slender waist, and golden anklets her ankles. She has jewelled rings on her fingers, and golden bells on her toes, that tinkle as she walks with naked feet over the i88 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. carpeted floor. In the Mahabharata, at the gambling match at Hastinapura, Yudhisthira is described as losing first “ a very beautiful pearl ; next a bag containing a thousand pieces of gold ; next a piece of gold so pure that it was soft as wax ; next a chariot set with jewels, and hung all round with golden bells j next i,ooo war elephants with golden howdahs set with diamonds ; next 1 00,000 slaves all dressed in good garments ; next 100,000 beautiful slave girls, adorned from head to foot with golden ornaments ; next all the remainder of his goods; next all his cattle; and then his whole kingdom, excepting only the lands he had granted to the Brahmans.” Sudraka, the royal author of the Hindu drama of “The Toy Cart,” and who lived in the first century e.c. or a.d., describes the jeweller’s atelier attached to the house of a courtesan ; — “ Where skilful artists were examining pearls, topazes, emeralds, sapphires, lapis-lazuli, coral and other jewels. Some set rubies in gold, some string gold beads in colored thread” [exactly as is done now], “some string pearls, some grind lapis lazuli, some cut shells, and some turn and pierce coral.” The old vocabulary of Amara Sinha, one of the “nine gems” of the Court of Vicramaditya, b.c. 56 — a.d., quoted by Rajendralala Mitra, gives a long list of names for crowms, crests, and tiaras for the head ; of rings, flowers, and bosses for the ears ; of necklaces of from one to one hundred rows of gems ; of all shapes and patterns of armlets and bracelets ; of zones and girdles for the waists of men and women ; of anklets, and other ornaments for the legs; and of rings for the fingers, and bells for the toes ; and all the names it gives are still the current names of Hindu jewelry in India. The sculptures of Sanchi and Bharhut, and Amravati, and the Ajanta cave paintings, and the sculptures of Orissa [Bhuvaneswar] prove that in its forms also Hindu jewelry has remained unaltered during at least the last two thousand years. The ornaments of Sanchi and Bharhut are of the same archaic character as those still made in Central India and the I 'JEWELRY. 189 Central Provinces, and by the aboriginal tribes of the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies j while those of Amravati shew more of the elaboration and finish of the Dravidian [“ swa 7 ni^'~\ jewelry of the Madras Presidency. After the archaic jewelry of Ahmedabad, the best Indian jewelry, of the purest Hindu style, is the beaten gold of Sawunt- wadi, Mysore, Vizianagram, and Vizagapatam, which well illus- trates the admirable way in which the native workers in gold and silver elaborate an extensive surface of ornament out of apparently a wholly inadequate quantity of metal, beating it almost to the thinness of tissue paper, without at all weakening its effect of solidity. By their consummate skill and thorough knowledge and appreciation of the conventional decoration of surface, they contrive to give to the least possible weight of metal, and to gems, commercially absolutely valueless, the highest possible artistic value, never, even in their excessive elaboration of detail, violating the fundamental principles of ornamental design, nor failing to please, even though it be by an effect of barbaric richness and superfluity. This character of Indian jewelry is in remarkable contrast with modern European jewelry, in which the object of the jeweller seems to be to bestow the least amount of work on the greatest amount of metal. Weight is in fact the predominant character of European “ high class ” jewelry, and gold and silversmith’s work. Even in reproducing the best Adams’ designs, they spoil their work by making it too thick and heavy ; and so demoralising is the rage for weight that English purchasers, attracted by the eye to Indian jewelry, directly they find how light it is in the hand, reject it as rubbish ; the cost of Indian jewelry being from one-twentieth to one-fourth in excess of its net weight. The jury on jewelry at the Great Exhibition of 1851 actually wrote of Indian jewelry: “It is sufficient to cast a glance on the exhibitions of India, Turkey, Egypt, Tunis, to be convinced that these nations have remained stationary 190 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. from a very early period of manufacture < Some of them indeed develop ideas full of grace and originality, but their productions are always immature and imperfect, and the skill of the workman is called in to make amends for the inadequateness of the manu- facturing process.” Surely it is better to remain stationary than to fall, as we have in England, from the thin beaten silver of Queen Anne’s reign, and the designs of Adams, to the present unseemly dead-weight silver and gold manufactures of Birming- ham and London, for which customers have to pay four times more than the value of their weight. Its false appearance of richness and solidity, and flaunting gorgeousness, is in fact one of the charms of Indian jewelry, especially in an admiring but poor purchaser’s eyes. You see a necklace, or whatever ornament it may be, made up apparently of solid, rough cut cubes of gold, but it is as light as pith. Yet, though hollow, it is not false. It is of the purest gold, “ soft as wax,” and it is this which gives to the flimsiest and cheapest Indian jewelry its wonderful look of reality. Again, you see a necklace or girdle of gems which you would say was priceless, but it is all mere glamour of pearls and diamonds, emeralds and enamel, which “deceitful shine” but have no intrinsic value. As was noticed under the head of “ Arms,” the Indian jeweller thinks only of producing the sumptuous, imposing effect of a dazzling variety of rich and brilliant colours, and nothing of the purity of his gems. He must have quantity, and cares nothing for commercial quality, and the flawed “ tallow drop ” emeralds, and foul spinel rubies, large as walnuts, and mere splinters and scales of diamonds, which he so lavishly uses, are often valueless, except as points, and sparkles, and splashes of effulgent coloring : but nothing can exceed the skill, artistic feeling, and effectiveness with which gems are used in India both in jewelry proper, and in the jewelled de- coration of arms, and plate. In nothing indeed do the people of India display their naturally gorgeous and costly taste so JEWELRY. 191 much as in their jewelry and jewelled arms, which are not only fabricated of the richest and rarest materials, but wrought likewise with all the elaborateness, delicacy, and splendour of design within the reach of art. Megasthenes was struck by the contrast of their love of sumptuous ornament, to the general simplicity of their Hves. The finest gemmed and enamelled jewelry in India is that of Cashmere and the Panjab, the Aryan type of which extends across Rajputana to Delhi and Central India, and in a debased meretricious form throughout Bengal. It consists of tires, aigrettes, and other ornaments for the head, and for hanging over the fore- head ; earrings and ear-chains, and studs of the seventi fLowex ; nose- rings and nose-studs ; necklaces, made up, some [Plate 44] of chains of pearls and gems, falling on the breast almost like a stomacher of gems, and others [Plate 45] of tablets of gold set with precious stones, strung together by short strings of mixed pearls and tur- quoises, with a large pendant hanging from the middle, gemmed in front, and exquisitely enamelled, like all the rest of this necklace, or rather collar, at the back ; and armlets, bracelets, rings, and anklets ; all in never ending variations of form, and of the richest and loveliest effects in pearl, turquoise, enamel, ruby, diamond, sapphire, topaz, and emerald. The bracelets often end in the head of some wild beast, like the bracelets of the Assyrian sculptures ; and the plaques are sometimes enamelled at the back with birds or beasts affront^ on either side of the taper “cypress” tree, or else some wide-spreading tree, identical, probably, with the Asherah or the symbol of Ass/mr, connected with the worship of Astoreth or Astarte, and trans- lated in the Bible by the word “grove,” or “groves.” The long dangling necklaces worn by the women are called lalanti, i.e. “ danglers,” or “ dalliers,” and moha 7 imala, i.e. “ garlands or spells of enchantment.” The jewelry of Cashmere is identical with that of the rest of the Panjab in form, but what I have seen of it has been in 192 INJ;)VSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. gold,: and the choicest specimens in “ ruddy gold,” combining a good deal of gold filigrain work. The enumeration in Isaiah iii 17-24, of the articles of the mundus muliebris of the daughters of Zion, reads like an inventory of this exceedingly classical looking jewelry of Cashmere. Homer’s lines, II. xxii 468-70 [describing the grief of Andromache], are, in Pope’s translation : — “ Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound \Zi(TiJ.a‘Ta (riya\6evrd], The net [K(Kpv A H\ iL GEMAiED JEW ELKA I'ji i RICH iXUPoLV. MADRAS [Plate 5-J. NATIVE gold jewelry OF TRICHINOPOLV, MADRAS. ■ - JE WEEK Y. 197 mounted on the arms, although most of them are mere chips and scales. The examples of rose diamonds and brilliants are pro- bably of European cutting. The rose is a hemisphere covered with facets, and the brilliant, the ancient clou, cut above with thirty-two facets, and below with twenty-four. There are some fine Hindu necklets of pearls and enamel, and “ tallow drop ” emer- alds; and chains, bracelets, and pendants starred with gems ; but the loveliest jevrel of all is a hair comb made at Jaipur [Plate 55]. The setting is of emerald and ruby Jaipur enamels painted on gold, surmounted by a curved row, all on a level, of large pearls, each tipped with a green glass bead. Below these lovely pearls is a row of small brilliants, set among the elegantly designed green and red enamelled gold leaves which support the pearls ; then a row of small pearls with a brilliant-set enamelled scroll running between it and a third row of pearls, belov/ which is a continuous row of minute brilliants, forming the lower edge of the comb, just above the gold prongs. It is superb in design, and one of the most finished pieces of Indian jewelry that has been m.ade in modern times. The pearls are of very great price, and the whole effect is most brilliant, rich, and refined. Scindia’s great chain of pearls has been an heirloom in his family for generations. Three of the end pearls in a large pen- dant of flat diamonds and pearls are worthy of the “triple-gemmed earrings ” [ep/rara TpiyXrjva /Aopoevra] of Juno as described by Homer [//. xiv 183] : “Fair beaming pendants tremble in her ear, Each seems illumined with a triple star,’"' And \Od. xviii 298] “ Earrings bright, With triple stars that cast a trembling light.” Gem engraving is an immemorial Eastern art, as the cylinders of Nineveh and Babylon and Bersepolis testify, and Delhi has INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. always been famous for its practice ; as was Lucknow also before the abolition of the native court of Oudh. Among the prince’s arms is a large emerald magnificently cut as a con- ventional rose. The old Delhi work in cut and gem-encrusted jade is priceless. The Chinese had cut jade for ages, but never ornamented it except by sculpture ; but when it was introduced into India, the native jewellers, vath their quick eye for colour, at once saw what a perfect ground it afforded for mounting precious stones, and they were the first to encrust them on jade. The Indian Museum possesses the choicest and grandest specimens of this work known, of the best Mogol period [Plates 56 and 57]. They were exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. [Plate 55 - •"SF ^ -5^ V . ■ X ^2s;s•' - * -•^. ■ • ‘A- 9. *’ r ^ i- [Plate 56 JEWELLED JADE OF MOGUL PERIOD. [Plate 57 . E>^' ^■■fS]r , ^ ■ • '^.^ .^ ** ,-i< 't^'5 -* . '‘K^>‘r‘4-Jf.w ;■ #* > «|^ '■ , '• F *,-1 ■' ^ ■ ,# --^ .V -rr- ■ - ■ '/■ . ''t ■-■ -M m ost"[ ; the planks and legs being ornamented with carving and painting, or lacquered decoration, as in the bedsteads of Sindh and the Panjab. Although chairs are not ordinarily used by the natives of India, they have always been familiar to them as the tlirones of kings. Thrones of gold are mentioned in the Rig-Veda, the Ramayana, and Mahabharata. When Bharata returned from his visit to Rama, his mother is represented as springing toward him “ from her golden throne.” On the old sculptures thrones are seen of the same shape as the hour-glass shaped cane i/iorahs, or stools, still made in many parts of India, the forms of which are obviously derived from the lotus thrones of the gods. The general Hindu name for thrones is rajapatra and rajasana. They are also called sinha-sana, or the “ lion-seat,” a name derived from the figures of lions which were generally carved on their supports. A throne sculptured with the lotus for its supports is called padma-sinhasana, or “ lotus-seat ; ” if with an elephant, gaya-sinhasana ; with a conch- shell, sanka-sinhasana ; with a goose, hansa-sinhasana ; if with an antelope, mriga-sinhasa7ia ; or if with a horse, haya-sinhasana. If it be supported by Vishnu’s bird Garuda, it is called Garudasa?ia ; if by Siva’s bull, Nandi, Brishsana ; and if by a peacock it is called Karttikeya- satia. In making thrones, gold, silver, and copper are most used. Iron is condemned, except for seats of incantation. Of stones, gritty sandstone is forbidden ; and the colour of any stone used should be that of the planet presiding over the destiny of the person for whom the throne is made. A man born under Saturn should use a blue-colored stone for his throne, or seat ; if born under Venus, a yellow stone. Crystal is always an auspicious stone to use. Travelling thrones, like sedans, raised on four poles, to be borne on men’s shoulders, and state palan- quins, are made as light as possible, generally with an ivory frame- w'ork, and plain cr brocaded silk hangings. A silver throne was AJ^T FURNITURE, ETC. 205 presented to the Prince of Wales, by a “ penny subscription ” among the priests of Madura. It is a striking object, and its orna- mentation is reproduced directly from the architectural details of the celebrated temples of that city. The whole art of the Madras Presidency has been in this way influenced by its ecclesiastical architecture, in the same way as the arts of Cashmere have been influenced by the characteristic temple architecture of the valley. A state palanqueen was also presented to the Prince by the Princess Bobili, of Vizagapatam work in ebony and ivory. Although the details of the decoration are European, consisting of scrolls of con- volvuluses and fuchsias, etched in black on the ivory, the general effect is most pleasing; and it is very richly and prettily furnished inside. Mr. Wentworth Beaumont, M.P., possesses a deep-seated white marble throne, which is a superb example of the stone-carved work of Jaipur. The golden throne of Ranjit Sing [“the lion of the Panjab,” 1798-1839] in the India Museum, is an object of great artistic as well as historical interest. It is of pure Hindu form, like that of the hour-glass shaped cane niorahs, already noticed, and the lotus thrones on which the gods are represented in Indian paintings and sculptures. The famous “ peacock ” throne of Delhi has long since disap- peared. It was made for the fourth Mogol Emperor, Shah Jahan, A.D. 1627 — 1658, at a cost of over ;^6, 000, 000, and took its name from the peacock with spread tail, represented in all the glory of nature’s coloring, by sapphires, emeralds, rubies, topazes, and enamel, which formed its chief decoration. The body of the throne also was a mass of diamonds and precious stones. It was carried off by Nadir Shah when he sacked Delhi, a.d. 1738-9. Bojnbay Inlaid Work, and Ahmedabad Mother of Pearl Work. A good deal of ornamental furniture is also made in “ Bombay inlaid work,” so familiar now in the ubiquitous glove-boxes, blot- ting-cases, book-stands, work-boxes, desks, and card cases, which 2o6 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. go by the name of “Bombay boxes.” They are made in the variety of inlaid wood work, or marquetry or tarsia, called pique, and are not only pretty and pleasing, but interesting, on account of its having been found possible to trace [see my paper in the Journal of Bombay Asiatic Society, vol. vii, 1861—63] the introduction of the work into India from Persia, step by step, from Shiraz into Sindh, and to Bombay and Surat. In Bombay the inlay is made up of tin wire, sandal-wood, ebony, sappan [brazil] wood, ivory, white, and stained green, and stag horn. Strips of these ma- terials are bound together in rods, usually three-sided, sometimes round, and frequently obliquely four-sided, or rhombic. They again are so arranged in compound rods, as, when cut across, to present a definite pattern ; and in the mass have the appearance of rods of varying diameter and shape, or of very thin boards, the latter being intended for borderings. The patterns commonly found in Bombay, finally prepared for use, are chakar-gul, or “round bloom;” katki-gul, “hexagonal bloom;” tinkonia-gul, “three-cornered bloom;” adhi-dhar-gul, “rhombus bloom;” chorus-gul, “square [matting-like] bloom;” tiki, z. small round pattern ; and gandirio, “ plump,” compounded of all the mate- rials used ; also ek dana, “ one grain,” having the appearance of a row of silver beads set in ebony ; and pori Uhur,jafra 7 i niarapech, jeri, baelmuta?ia, sankru haiisio, and poro Jiansio, these eight last being bordering patterns. The work was introduced into Sindh from Shiraz, about 100 years ago, by three Multanis, Pershotuni Hiralal, and the brothers Devidas and Valiram. A number of people acquired the art under them, and about seventy years ago it was introduced into Bombay by Manoredas, Nandlal, Lalchand, Thawardas, Rattanji, Pranvalab, and Narrondas, who educated a number of Parsis and Surat men, by whom it was carried to Surat, Baroda, Ahmedabad, and elsewhere. Fifty masters, all of whose names I h.ave recorded, and about seventy- five apprentices under them, were engaged in the work in Bombay in 1863, of whom Atmaram Vulirain, and Parshostam AJ?T FURNITURE, ETC. 207 Chilaram had been established in the Kalbadavi ward ever since its introduction sixty years before. One of the most intelligent craftsmen at present in the trade is Framji Hirjibhai. In Surat there are thirteen families of inlayers, of whom eight are Parsis and five Hindus. Tin wire is used in the work in Western India instead of brass, as in Persia, where also it is always varnished. The same inlaid work is made in Egypt and Algiers, and it is similar to the tarsia or marquetry of Italy and Portugal, and the Roman work known as opus cerostrotuvi. It is also, I believe, identical with the inlaid work of Girgenti and Salerno, although in this the patterns are floral, and not geometrical, for I found by a comparison of the two varieties in Paris, that there was not a single geometrical pattern in the Bombay work which cannot be traced back to a flower in the work of Girgenti and Salerno. The Egyptians also obviously worked in tarsia. The art is said to have died out of Europe, and to have been again reintroduced at Venice from the East. More probably it remained an un- broken tradition in the Mediterranean, and was revived by the Saracens. At Goa, rare old caskets, coffers, and other examples of it, of the same style as the Portuguese sixteenth and seven- teenth century tarsia, and evidently the chefs-Iceuvre of patient Hindu hands, are sometimes to be found by the insidious virtuoso, but otherwise there is not a trace of such articles, so far as I am aware, in India, except w’hat has come during the last no or 120 years from Persia. Thus I wrote in the Handbook to the Indian Court, at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, but it is certain that inlaying in mother of pearl was at one time practised in great perfection at Ahmedabad, although the process is now almost extinct. I never saw any sample of it, but it was apparently identical with tarsia work. It is to be found on the wooden canopies over the shrines of Shah Alam at Sarkhej, and on stone in the marble tomb of one of the Sultan Ahmad’s queens. “The simpler designs,” writes Mr. E. S. P. Lely, in vol. iv. of the Bombay Gazetteer, 1879, INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. £c8 p. 139 — “were formed by filing pieces of mother of pearl to the required size, and letting them into the pattern cut in the block of wood. The more elaborate designs were, with frag- ments of different colored mother of pearl, wmrked into cement, and laid on the surface to be ornamented. Of the coarser and commoner kinds of inlaying a little is still used for the frames of tamburas, riibabs, and other guitars and violins. No one now practises the former kinds of inla)dng, and only one man supports himself by inlaying musical instruments.” I was not aware of the existence of any remains of this beau- tiful art in India until I read hlr. Lely’s report ; and I trust that a successful effort may now be made, through the patronage of the South Kensington Museum Department, to revive it. Mr. J. L. -Kipling also, in th.Q Lahore Guide, 1876, says that “ at Hushiarpur” [in the Panjab] “is practised a variety of the ancient Persian craft of inlaying dark wood with ivory. The certosifia work of Italy is similar.” Vizagapatain Work. Vizagapatam work, in ivory, bison and stag horn, and por- cupine quills, is applied to the same class of articles as Bombay inlaying, namely, wmrk-boxes, tea-caddies, desks, chess-boards, and a variety of fancy articles. It is of a very recent origin, and the etching in black, sgraffito, on the ivorj^ is exclusively of European flower forms, represented naturally, in light and shade. The effect is seldom pleasing. Mynpuri Work. In Mynpuri work, which is analogous to buhl-work, we find boxes and platters of a rich browm wmod inlaid with brass wire in various geometrical and scroll patterns. Sir John Strachey, who has given great encouragement to this local industry, ex- hibited several examples of it at Paris. It is curiously like the wood inlaid ^^'ith wire seen in hlorocco, and it w'ould be interesting INLAID WORK OF AGRA. AJiT FURNITURE, ETC. 209 to inquire after the history of its introduction at Mynpuri. where it goes by the name of tarkashi, or “ wire work ” \ a word which suggests the possible etymology of the w’ord tarsia. Inlaid Work of Ag?\i. The mosaic work of Agra [Plate 58], an inlay of crystal, topaz, pearls, turquoise, carnelian, jade, coral, amethyst, blood-stone, car- buncle, sapphire, jasper, lapis-lazuli, garnets, agates, and chalcedony on white marble, is also chiefly applied to ornamental furniture and household objets dart. It originated in the exquisite decorations of the Taj at Agra [a.d. 1627-1658] by Austin de Bordeaux, and, after almost dying out as a local industry, on the dissolution of the Mogol Empire in 1803, was revived about thirty years ago through the exertions of Dr. J. Murray, late Inspector-General of Hospitals, Bengal. Nearly all the specimens of this work in England, at Windsor and elsewhere, were produced under his fostering care. While Florentine in origin and style, the designs have a thoroughly local character of their own, and, unless influ- enced by injudicious European direction, adhere strictly to the principles and methods of Indian ornamentation. The mosaic being laid on the brilliant white marble of Jaipur, is liable, however, to look vulgar, unless the stones used for it are very judiciously selected. In the local Guide hlr. Kipling refers to the inlaid work of Lahore, of the time of the Mogol Emperors, which would appear to be similar to that of Agra. “There is,” he writes, “a small though costly marble pavilion, inlaid with flowers wrought in precious stones, and known by the significant name of Naitlakha, or the building wfliich cost nine lakhs [90,000/.]. This delicate and beautiful work belongs to the time of Aurangzib ; [the sixth Mogol Emperor, a.d. 1658-1707]. . . . The inlay, much of which has unfortunately been destroyed, is remarkable for p 210 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. excessive minuteness and finish of execution. In this, as in the later work of most styles of art, mechanical virtuosity (to employ an expressive Germanism) was beginning to usurp the place of originality and purity of design.” The substructures of the palace of Akbar [a.d. 1556-1605] at Agra are of red sandstone, but nearly the whole of its corri- dors, chambers, and pavilions, are of polished white marble, wrought with mosaics and carvings of exquisite ornament. The pavilions which overhang the river are inlaid within and without in rich patterns of jasper, agate, carnelian, bloodstone, and lapis lazuli, and topped with golden domes. “ But the most curious part of the palace,” adds Captain H. H. Cole, R.E., in his Cata- logue of the Objects of Indian Art exhibited in the South Ke 7 isington Museum, 1874, “is the Shish Mahal, or ' Palace of Glass,’ the chambers and passages of which are adorned with a mosaic of mirrors, arranged in geometrical patterns.” Captain Cole is unable to determine whether this building was the work of Akbar or of Shah Jahan [a.d. 1627-1658], but believes that it was built by the latter. Mr. Kipling minutely describes the examples of this strange mirror mosaic, or shish-'noxV, to be seen in the Shish Mahal at Lahore. “ The building,” he says, “ is the work of both Shah Jahan and Aurangzib ; and the more gaudy portions are due to the later times of the Sikhs. The effect of the shish, or mirror mosaic, though brilliant, narrowly escapes the charge of vulgarity. The principle on which the work is constructed, particularly in its application to ceilings, is identical with that of many examples at Cairo, and in other places all over the East. Small pieces of wood of suitable geometrical forms, frequently hexa- gonal, are cut out and inlaid with bits of looking-glass, more or less gaudily painted and gilded, separately ; and when all are ready, they are joined together on the ceiling, and the process is by no means so slow and costly as the finished result would lead one to suppose.” AJ?T FURNITURE, ETC. 211 Mosaic obviously originated in pavement, and the introduc- tion of ornamental pavement was probably suggested by Oriental tapestry. A pavement, pavhnentum, is strictly a flooring [Sd-TreSov, whence SaTrts, and raTnys, a carpet or rug, — laid on the fioor\ or stratum, composed of flags, slabs, or pebbles, bricks, tiles, or shells, set in a cement, and beaten down \_pavio\ with a rammer or pavicula ; and the classical writers [Pliny, Bk. xxxvi] distin- guish pavements by different names, according to their situation, structure, and decoration. The paved floors of rooms and passages were designated pavimenta subtegulanea, and pavements in the open air, particu- larly those laid on the flat roofs of \yo\xs&5, pavinienta subdialia. The pavimentum sectile was composed of different-colored marbles cut \secta'\ into regular forms, such as favus, like the cells [hexagons] of a honeycomb ; trigonuni, triangular; scutula, rhomb-shaped ; and tessera, with its diminutive tessella, a cube. All these forms might be not only of cut marble or other stone, but of glass or other composition. The abaculus [d/Sa/aVKos] was a small tile or die \tesserd\ of glass, or other compo- sition, stained of various colors in imitation of precious stones. The pavimentum tessellaium, or tesseris structum, was a sectile pavement, composed of large tesserce. The pavimentum vermiculatum was composed of smaller tesserce, arranged, not in diapers and geometrical figures, but so as to represent natural objects, as in pictures, by lines of em- bedded tesserce, which necessarily turned and twisted about like the tracks of worms. This vermicular mosaic was divided into opus majus, composed of larger tesserce, opus medium, of smaller, and opus minus vermicidatum, composed of very minute and delicate tesselice, almost spictdce. In the pavimentum scalpturatum the marble was cut out in the shape of the figures intended to be represented in the mosaic, P 2 212 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. and was further engraved after the manner of the Triqueti marbles in the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor. The pavimentum testaceum was composed of broken tiles or potsherds. The pavimejitum lithostrotum, literally stone stratum or street, was the ordinary pavement of Roman roads, laid with polygonal blocks or flags of sihcious lava. The pavimeiitum optostrohwi, literally baked [otttos, coctus\ stratum or street, was a pavement of bricks. Often the oblong bricks were laid in imitation of the setting of the seed grains in an ear or spike of corn \spica testacea\ or, as we say in England, herring-bone ways, as may be seen in the walls of Pevensey Castle and other old Roman masonry. Gradually the word lithostrota came to signify mosaics in the modern sense exclusively. Thus Pliny [Bk. xxxvi, ch. 25] says : “ Pavimenta originem apud Graecos habent elaborata arte, picturae ratione, donee lithostrota expulere earn.” Again, the Greek word for mosaic, from i/r^os, a pebble, also indicates the origin of the art in pavement. The word mosaic is said by Hendrie to be derived from the Arabic mosque, but it came into use long before the rise of the Saracens. It is first used by ^lius Spartianus, one of the “ Scriptores Historiae Augustae/’ in the biography of Pescennius Niger, a.d. 293 ; and later by Trebellius Pollio, a.d. 320 ; and Aurelius Augustus, A.D. 430 ; and the word is clearly from the Greek /xova-eiov, a temple of the hlusesq Latin, Musium, Musivtim opus ; Italian [through the Greek, and not Latin], mosaico ; Spanish, mosaico ; French, mosdiqt(e, and so English, mosaic. The Alexa 7 idrijium opus of the third and fourth centuries a.d. was a mosaic pavement laid in elaborate geometrical figures, and the direct forerunner of the characteristic arabesque work of the Saracens. By mosaic proper, Musivum opus, has always been understood a picturesque or other ornamental design formed of small pieces of marbles or other stones, or of glass or other ART FURNITURE, ETC. 213 composition, used chiefly for the decoration of walls and ceilings, and personal ornament. This is indicated by the specific Greek name for true mosaic, x/ovVeoi, evidently referring to the use of gilded glass tessera in the mosaics of the Byzantine period, the manu- facture of which [tesserse] is so lucidly described by Theophilus the Monk [ioth-i2th cent, a.d.], Bk. ii, ch. xv, De vitro Graeco quod Musivum opus decorat.” “ Vitreas etiam tabulas faciunt opere fenestrario ex albo vitro lucido, spissas ad mensuram unius digiti, findentes eas calido ferro per quadras particulas minutas, et cooperientes eas in uno latere auri petula, superliniunt vitrum lucidissimum tritum ad supra. Hiijusmodi vitrum interpositum Musivum opus omnino decorat.” The earliest notice of mosaic is in the Bible in the story of Esther \circa B.c. 450], where, in the account [ch. i] of the six months’ feasting held by Ahasuerus [Xerxes] to arrange the third invasion of Greece, we are told [v. 6] in the description of the palace of Shushan, “ the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pave- ment of red [porphyry], and blue [lapis-lazuli], and white [ala- baster], and black marble.” Mosaic pavements have not been found in the remains of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian temples and palaces, but true mosaics have been found as a deco- ration of mummy cases. The Greeks carried the art to marvellous perfection, and Pliny naturally enough ascribes its origin to them. Pie particularly mentions the pavhnentum asaro- t2mi of the Greek artist Sosus of Pergamus, representing the remains of a banquet, shewn on an apparently unswept [do-djowTos] floor. The doves of Pliny,” represented with one drinking, and the others sunning and pluming themselves round the rim of a water-bowl, are universally known through the copies which have been reproduced of them in all ages and countries. The most interesting and valuable of all the ancient pictorial mosaics which have been preserved to our time is the one which was found at Pompeii, in “the house of Pansa,” representing the battle to 514 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Issus. The mosaics of the classical period are severe in design and chaste in coloring, but, as the influence of Indian art gradually spread over the Mediterranean countries, rich colors and even gold were gradually more and more introduced into the mosaics of the Lower Empire, and give them their distinctive character. After the fall of the Western Empire the art seems to have perished out of Italy, until it was revived in the 13th and r6th centuries, and the revival was through the Byzantine Greeks, as is indicated by the Greek form of the Italian word mosaico. The Saracens had from the first used glazed tiles for covering walls and roofs and pavements, and of course with a view to decorative effect. The use of these tiles had come down to them in an unbroken tradition from the times of the Chaldean monarchy, the Birs-i-Nimrud, or Temple of the Seven Spheres at Borsippa, near Babylon, of the Pyramid of Sakhara in Egypt, and of the early trade between China and Egypt, and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. Glazed tiles had, however, fallen into comparative disuse in the East before the rise of the Saracens, and it was the conquest of Chingiz Khan, a.d. izofi-rzzy, which would appear to have brought about their general use throughout the countries of Islam. That the Saracens indeed derived the art of true mosaic direct from the Greeks is proved by their calling it sephisa, from the Greek When the Caliph Walid in- vaded Palestine, one of the conditions of peace he made with the Cjesar at Constantinople was that he should furnish a certain quantity of sephisa, which he had seen in the church at Bethlehem built by the Empress [St.] Helena, for the decoration of the mosque he was building at Damascus. The use of inlaid stone in true mosaic work by the Mogols in India was principally due to the revival of the ancient art in Italy. The Italians of the Renaissance developed two distinct forms of inlaying in stone, the Roman mosaic of modern jewellers, which may be compared to the opus minus vermiculatum, and AJ?T FURNITURE, ETC. 215 the Florentine, composed of thin slices of different-colored stones, chiefly quartzose, cut to the shape of the form they are intended to represent, the petal of a flower, the wing of a bird, or whatever it may be, and set in white or black marble with cement, of which in good work not a trace should appear between the encrusted stones and the marble, not even when seen through a magnifying glass. It was this Florentine form of mosaic in pietra dtcra which was used by Austin de Bordeaux in the decoration of the glorious Taj-Mahal, and which has become naturalised as a local art at Agra. Austin’s earlier work at Delhi appears to have been purely imitative, as may be seen from several specimens of it now in the India Museum. The mosaic representing Orpheus is in- teresting from its being supposed to be a portrait of Austin him- self. It was looted at the recapture of Delhi from the mutineers in 1857, and was purchased for the India Museum from Sir John Jones. At present the chief inlayers at Agra are two Hindus named Nathu and Parusram. The pavimentum Grcecanicum of Pliny was a concrete composition of charcoal, sand, lime, and ashes, rammed down and polished to represent black marble. Omitting the charcoal, this is pretty much the composition of the “ chicnam ” walls and floors, in imitation of white marble, which are seen all over India in superior houses, and in the Madras Presidency in particular are remarkable for their high polish and real look of white marble. The commoner chunam stucco, made of kankar and pounded sand, is indeed the Roman arenatuin, and the finer sort, in which pounded marble or calc-spar is substituted for sand, is the Roman marmoratum. When this stucco is decorated in various designs, as a sort of false mosaic, it may be compared to the painting in colored plasters which has long been recognised in Europe as a special art. In al fresco painting the colours are soaked into the plaster, while it is still damp, and thus the design is indelibly fixed to the hardening surface. In a tempera painting the colours, mixed with size to make them adhere, are put on the plaster after it has hardened. Often the background of a IXnUSTJlIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 2 i6 composition is painted in alfresco, and the figures of the foreground in a temfcra. When the plaster is etched, in a manner resembling the fai'iiucufum scalfturatum, the work is called sgraffito. The term encaustic painting, now used onl}" for the painting of glazed tiles, was first applied to a tempera painting, in which the vehicle of the colours used was wax, spread over the surface of the stucco with a heated iron, or “ actual cautery.” Saiidakvood and other JFood Carring. Sandalwood carving is chiefly carried on in the Bombay Pre- sidency, at Surat, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Canara j and in the iiladras Presidenc)', in IMysore and Travancore. It is applied to tire same articles as the Bombay inlaid work. Indeed the generic term “ Bombay boxes ” includes the sandalwood carv'ing of Ahme- dabad, Surat, and Bomba}', as well as inlaid wood ; but wood caivdng is a far superior art to inlaying, and in India is as ancient as the temple architecture and the car\'ed idols in which it pro- bably originated. The Surat and Bombay work is in low relief, and the designs consist almost entirely of foliated ornament ; the Canara and ^Mysore work [Plate 59] is in high relief, the subjects being chiefly mythological ; and the Ahmedabad work [Plate 60], while in flat relief, is deeply cut, and the subjects are ntixed floral and mythological; for instance, Krishna and the Copies, repre- sented not architecturally as in Canara carving, but natu-mlly, disporting tlremselves in a luxuriant wood, in which each tree, while treated conventionally, and running into the general floral decoration, can be distinctly recognised. A line is drawn below the wood, and through the compartment thus formed a river is represented flowing, as on Greek coins, by an undulating band, on which tortoises, fishes, and water-fowl are carved in half relief. The best Canara carving comes from Compta, and the best SAXDALWOOD CARVING OF CANARA. [Pl.A'I'K (iO. SANIMLWOOI) CARVING OR AIIMIiOAliAlJ. SANDALWOOD CARVING OF TRAVANCORE. ART FURNITURE, ETC. 217 Mysore, which is identical in every respect with that of Canara, from the town of Sorab in the Shimroga district. The most beautiful example of Mysore sandalwood carving ever seen in this country was a little cabinet exhibited by Major Puckle in the Annual International Exhibition of 1871. It was surmounted by a triangular headboard on which were carved Brahma and Saraswati in the centre, and Siva on Nandi on one side, and Siva and Vishnu coalesced in Krishna on the other; the out- line of this headpiece being waved in a manner to represent the mystic triliteral monosyllable AUM. On either side of it was an elephant waving a chauri in its trunk ; and below it a narrow border on which were carved Lakshmi, Parvati, Garuda, Hanuman, and other of the gods, all in a row. On the right door of the cabinet Vishnu on Garuda, with Lakshmi by his side, was represented in the centre, surrounded by the forms of his ten avatars ; and on the left door, Siva on Nandi, with Parvati by his side, was represented in the centre, surrounded by the guardians of the eight quarters of the earth, Indra, Agni, Yama, Nirritu (who in Madras always takes the place of Surya), Varuna, Vayu, Kubera, and Isana (who in Madras always takes the place of Soma). The sandalwood carving of Travancore is perfectly naturalistic in style, and Plate 61 represents a characteristic and unique example of it. A little sandalwood is carved at Morahabad in the North- Western Provinces. Ebony is excellently carved at Bijnur, another town of the Rohilkhand division of the North-Western Provinces, and in a similar conventional style at Monghyr in Bengal. The designs on these boxes are generally geometrical ; and latterly I have seen them inlaid with ivory in the manner of the old Sicilian tarsia work. The blackwood carving of Bombay, Ahmedabad, and Dholera, has already been mentioned. Teak for the beams and pillars, brackets, and door-posts, and the doors of native houses, is carved in the Rajapur and V>o.ogsx\ytalukas of the Ratnagiri Gollectorate. 2I3 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Saharanpur, in the North-Western Provinces, has also obtained a name for its wood carving, and the town of Harpanhalli, in the Bellary district of the Madras Presidency. Indeed, wood carving for architectural use is practised with more or less success in almost every village in India. The gods are everywhere carved in wood. Wooden hair combs are also universally carved ; and the manu- facture of combs in blackwood is a speciality of the villages of Jeswada and Gangdi in the Dohad district of the Panch Mahals in Gujarat. Wooden bracelets are also universally turned, as will be more properly noticed under Lac -work. Carved Ivory, Horn, and Tortoiseshell. Ivory is carved all over India, but chiefly at Amritsar, Patiala, and Delhi, in the Panjab j at Benares, Behrampore, and Murshed- abad, in Bengal ; at Surat, Ahmedabad, Damam, Balsar, and throughout Southern Gujarat, and at Sattara, in the southern hlaratha country, in the Bombay Presidency ; and at Travancore, Vizagapatam, and Vizianagram, in Madras. The subjects are generally richly caparisoned elephants, state gondolas in gala trim, tigers, cows, and peacocks, all carved as statuettes ; and hunting, festive, and ceremonial scenes, and mythological subjects carved in relief. The carved ivory combs [Plate 62] found in every Indian bazaar are also most artistic in form and detail. Sylhet, in the Dacca division of Bengal, is noted for its ivory fans ; and Ratlam, in Western India, for its costly ivory bracelets. Recently a colony of ivory turners has settled at Kurigram in the Rajshahye division of Bengal. Bison horn is carved into figures and other- wise wrought at Ratnagiri, Sawuntwadi, and elsewhere. Tortoise shell is worked into armlets and bracelets and other ornaments in Gujarat, and in the city of Bombay. I / ' 4 AJ^r FURNITURE, ETC. 219 Carved Stone. The agate vases of Baroach and Cambay have been famous under the name of Murrhine vases from the time of Pliny. The best camelians and agates are found at Ratanpur near Baroach, and are taken to Cambay to be worked into cups, saucers, knife- handles, paperweights, beads, bangles, and other ornaments. Animals are carved in black chlorite at Gaya in the Patna division of Bengal ; and in white marble and reddish sandstone [Plate 63] at Ajmir and other places in Rajputana; and we find the same truth of representation in these stone car\ungs as in the best ivory carvings of Amritsar, Benares, and Travancore. In Rajpu- tana also idols are largely canned in white marble, and brilliantly colored in red, green, yellow, and blue paint and gold. Jade is still carved in Cashmere. At Fattehpur Sikri models in soap- stone are made of the celebrated .\Iahommedan ruins of that city ; and it is also carved into ornamental dishes, inkstands, and other objects. Soapstone ornaments are also made at Gohari in the North-Western Provinces. In Singbhum and lilan- bhum, in the Chota-Xagpur division of Bengal, there are large masses of soapstone, which the people have for ages worked into platters and cups. On the Nilgiri estate close to Balasore in Orissa, a black chlorite is obtained which is also worked into cups and dishes. Soapstone and potstone ware are manufactured at Tambulghata, and at Kanheri and Pendri, in the Central Provinces. At Nagpur, where in former times the art of stone and wood canfing reached a high degree of perfection, there are stiU many excellent stone can-ers among the masons. The art has to a certain extent fallen into disuse, but efforts are being made to revive it. The Chanda masons also are verj' skilful in carving stone. The stone caivers of Katch and Kathiwar are celebrated aU over Western India. ART FURNITURE, ETC. 221 The best examples of decorative sculptures are : — 1. The Buddhist, of the Sarnath, Sanchi, and Amravati topes, and the caves of Ellora, Kanheri, and Ajanta. 2. The Jaina, of the temples of Mount Abu, at Khajuraho, the ancient capital of Bandelkhand, at Sonari, and in the fort at Gwalior. 3. The Brahmanical at Avantipur in Cashmere, of the temples at Benares, and at Bindraband, at the Kutub at Delhi, of TirumuUa Nayak’s [Trimul Naik’s] Choultri at Madura, and the Kylas at Ellora. 4. The Mahommedan, namely -. — {a) The Pathan, decorative carving of Kutub-ud-din’s gate- way at Delhi, a . d . 1193 ; the Kutub Minar, at Delhi, a . d . 1200 ; and the palace at Ahmedabad. (p) The Mogol, of the palaces at Fattehpur Sikri, and the Taj Mahal at Agra. According to Captain Cole, the elaborate Hindu carvings which covered the massive stone masonry of the temple of Avantipur in Cashmere, and which were of the ninth century of our era, supply the examples to which northern Hindu sculp ture of the present day owes much of its origin. The quaint horizontal decorative treatment of Hindu sculpture in the tenth century pillars of ancient Delhi enters into the modem designs of that city ; and the twelfth century surface ornamented bas- reliefs of the Pathans at the Kutub are still commonly the types of Delhi art. In the Bombay Presidency the Jaina carvings of Vimala Sah’s temple at Mount Abu, erected circa a.d. 1032, indicates the origin of much that characterises modem Bombay carvings ; w’hile the Mahommedan Ahmedabad buildings of the fifteenth century point clearly to the art which gave birth to the ornament which is so prolific at that place. At Madras the carvings on the pillars of Trimul Naik’s Choultri, executed in the early part of the seventeenth century, are good illustrations of the source of the modern art of Madras. 222 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Clay Figures. Figures in clay, painted and dressed up in muslins, silks, and spangles, are admirably modelled at Kishnaghur, Calcutta, Luck- now, and Poona. Fruit is also modelled at Gokak, and other villages in the Belgaum Collectorate of the Bombay Presidency, and at Agra and Lucknow. The Lucknow models of fruit are so true to nature as to defy detection until handled. The clay figures of Lucknow are also most faithful and characteristic representations of the different races and tribes of Oudh ; and highly creditable to the technical knowledge and taste of the artists. They are sold on the spot at the rate of four shillings the dozen. Wall brackets, vases, clock-cases, and other articles are also manufactured out of the tenacious clay at the bottom of the tanks in Lucknow ; but they are in a very debased style, being modelled after the Italian work which is to be found all over Lucknow, the old Oudh Nawabs having largely employed Italian sculptors in the building and decoration of their gardens and palaces. It is very surprising that a people who possess, as their ivory and stone carvings and clay figures incontestably prove, so great a facility in the appreciation and delineation of natural forms should have failed to develop the art of figure sculpture. No- where does their figure sculpture shew the inspiration of true art. They seem to have no feeling for it. They only attempt a literal transcript of the human form, and of the forms of animals, for the purpose of making toys and curiosities, almost exclusively for sale to English people. Otherwise they use these sculptured forms only in architecture, and their tendency is to subordinate them strictly to the architecture. The treatment of them rapidly becomes decorative and conventional. Their very gods are distinguished only by their attributes and symbolical monstrosities ART FURNITURE, ETC. 223 of body, and never by any expression of individual and personal character. So foreign to the Hindus is the idea of figure sculpture in the Eesthetic sense, that in the noblest temples the idol is often found to be some obscene or monstrous symbol. It is owing, I believe, to the very fact of their being condemned to a strictly ritualistic representation of their gods, that the feeling for the higher forms of sculpture has been destroyed in them. How completely their figure sculpture fails in true art is seen at once when they attempt to produce it on a natural or heroic scale ; and it is only because their ivory and clay and stone figures of men and animals are on so minute a scale that they excite admiration. Their larger figure sculpture is indeed never pleasing, except when treated conventionally. It is a strange failing. Lac Work. Lac work is a great and widely-extended industry in India. The shell lac itself is manufactured on a large scale in many parts of Bengal. There is a lac manufacture at Elambazaar in Beerbhum in the Bardwan division ; and there are several factories in the Lohardugga district of Chota-Nagpur and along the banks of the Parulia, between Jhalda and Ranchi in the Manbhum district of the same division. Large quantities of stick lac are also drawn from Chota-Nagpur, and from Raipur and Sambalpur in the Central Provinces. The higher class of lac work, applied to furniture and house decorations, is centred in the great towns ; but the making of variegated lac marbles, and lacquered walking sticks, lac mats, and bangles and lacquered toys is carried on almost everywhere, even by the wandering jungle tribes. The variegated balls and sticks are made by twisting variously colored melted sealing-wax round and round the stick or ball from top to bottom in alternate bands. Then the stick or ball 224 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. is held before the fire, and with a needle or pin short lines are every here and there drawn perpendicularly through the bands of sealing-wax, drawing the different colors into each other, when the stick or ball is rapidly rolled on a cool, smooth surface, and that intricately variegated effect is produced which is so puzzling until explained. The netted mats are made by allowing the thread of sealing wax twisted round a stick to cool, and then drawing off the w'hole coil, and breaking it into sections of three or four turns each, which are linked together into “ mats ” of all sorts of variegated colours, but chiefly scarlet and black, and black and golden yellow. I describe the process from actual observation. !Mr. Baden Powell has given a full description of the manu- facture of lac bracelets and ornamental beads at Delhi and other places in the Panjab. To “silver” the lac bracelets tinfoil is mixed with half its weight of dry glue, and these are pounded together until, in about six hours’ time, they amalgamate. The mass is then thro^vn into hot water, when it crumbles into little pieces. They then stir this up and pour off the water, repeating the operation until any dirt or impurity in the water entirely disappears. When the solution is quite pure, it is boiled, and then let to stand for the night. The next morning a silvery glue is found deposited, and this is spread vtith a brush on the lac, and burnished when dry by rubbing with a string of glass beads. The golden varnish is made by boiling myrrh, copal, and sweet-oil together and applying with a brush. The lac bracelets are often further ornamented, by having little glass beads and bits of tin or copper foil stuck along the edge. Mr. H. A. Acworth has also minutely described the interesting manufacture of lac bracelets in the district of the Panch Mahals in Gujarat. He says it is the only industry of special interest at Dohad. The lac is collected by the Bhils in the neighbouring forests of Ali Rajpur, Udaipur, and Devgad Bariya and sold by ART FURNITURE, ETC. 225 them to the Vania [Banyan] grain dealers, who again sell it to the town manufacturers of this work. As the bangles are separately formed they are slipped over the oily conical head of a rice pounder, which is about the size of a woman’s forearm. When it is about half-covered with rings, they are all carefully heated, so that without melting they may stick to each other ; this done the set of rings [25 go to the set], now forming a single bracelet, is rubbed with brick powder, and polished widi copal varnish colored vermilion or blue or yellow. The next step is to print a pattern on the cylinder of bracelets. For this purpose two ounces of thin tin and a small lump of glue are pounded to- gether all day until they form a dull grey metallic paste. Next day it is boiled in a copper vessel over a slow fire, and the solution strained through a coarse clotl -'■when it is ready for use. Meanwhile cottonwool is tightly wound round a small piece of bamboo, and so wetted and pressed that it becomes hard enough to have a pattern impressed on it with a large iron needle. This cotton stamp is now taken, dipped in the tin water, and being pressed on the cylinder of bracelets prints its pattern on them. Then once a day for three days a varnish is applied which turns all the white dots of the tin pattern into a beautiful golden colour. Lastly the pattern is completed by studding the bracelet with drops of tin water made red with vermilion, or white with chalk. These bracelets are sold for less than a half-penny each. They are formed in imitation of the ivory bracelets of Ratlam, and are worn by the Vania women throughout ISIalwa, and by the Dohad ladies of the Rajput caste. Beside bracelets, yellow and fed striped arm- lets, called golias, worn between the elbow and shoulder, are made. The industry gives employment to nine families at Dohad, and six at Jhalod. Half of them are Mahommedans, and half Hindus. Lacquered wooden bracelets and wooden toys, and other lacquered turner)' are made also at Ahmedabad and Surat in the Bombay Presidency, and in the J>Iadras Q I.VDrsrJ!IAZ AUTS OF IXFTA. 226 Presidencr ar Channapania in Mysore, and Haipanhalli in the Bellary disuicc. Beautiful lac cmamenrs for \roaien axe made at Eilicbpur in Berar : and by the wandering tribes about Lalatpur in the Xorth-Westem Pro\Tnces. The lacquered wooden and /qrxhr md^.h' Indian boxes and trays, now being largely imrorted into England, axe of several distinct kincs. The SS'Aa boxes are made by laying variously colored lac in succession on the boxes while turning on the lathe, and then cutting the design through the dinerent colours [Plate 64.]. Other boxes are simply etched and painted with hunting scenes, or natural or conventional dowers, and varnished [Plate 65]. Plate 66 illustrates the snde of lacquering usually applied in Sindh to the legs of ‘bedsteads [u^ur-ra; ]. ■ The /hr.y'lir boxes are distinguished by the purple-colored lac used on them. They are made chiedy at P.ak-Patan. and in the Derajat- The Paniab ru/xlrr mdi-hi arricles are made at Mazarihrsrhar. The Fa/i-itijna boxes have generally a drab ground, decorated with conventional, almost geometric, dower forms, of two colours, or two ibrms arranged in the alternate rhythmical maimer which is seen throughout all Indian decoradon. The lacquered /urirr wriu-ir work of Cashmtr/ is the choicest in India, and im'erior only to the very best Persian. It is chiedy nsed for native pen cases and boxes, which are painted ail over either with the shawl [conel panem in many colours, a most unpleasing swle of decoration for large object, such as tables and chairs, or with the common dower forms of the Cashmere valley, the rose, narcissus, pink, and ;asmine. painted in their narural forms and colours, but without light and shade. In the Xorth-Westem ProYinces BarFFy is celebrated for its black lacquered and gilt fumirure. for which there is a considerable K^etUuno tn C^d^ The lacquer work of KjrnuL applied to large trays and boxes. [Plate 64 lacquered UOXES, SINDH. [Plate 65. lacquered boxes, SINDH. s. •a I \ i \ I i- ■ -I f;' ■ ' ■ ■ i'V f i i [Plate 6G LACQUERED LEG OF BEDSTEAD, SINDH. 1 i as, the Sanscrit kar- pasa, and Hindu kapas, that is, cotton [in the pod], an aboriginal Indian production. The passage should be translated — “Where were white and blue [striped] cotton hangings ; ” which were pro- bably imitations from, if not actually, Bengal xatrangis. The Ramayana frequently mentions colored garments, and the way in which robes are represented colored on the Egyptian monuments in zig-zag stripes of different colours, green, yellow, blue, pink, is one of the most characteristic ways of dyeing cotton cloths in V/OVEN STUFFS, LACF, ETC. 243 India. Herodotus, Book i, ch. 203, tells of a certain tribe of the Caspian “ In these forests certain trees are said to grow, from the leaves of which, pounded and mixed with water, the inhabi- tants make a dye, wherewith they paint upon their clothes the figures of animals, and the figures sa impressed never wash out, but last as though they had been inwoven in the cloth from the first, and wear as long as the garment.” Pliny, Book xxx\', ch. 42 (ii), ■nnites : “In Egypt they employ a very remarkable process for the coloring of tissues. After pressing the material, which is white at first, they saturate it, not with colours, but with mordants that are calculated to absorb colour. This done, the tissues, still unchanged in appearance, are plunged into a cauldron of boiling dye, and are removed the next morning fully colored. It is a singular fact, too, that, although the dye in the pan is of a uniform color, the material when taken out of it is of various colours, according to the nature of the mordants that have been respectively applied to it ; these colours, too, will never wash out.” From Arrian we have seen that cnvSove?, muslins ; and oOovlo, cottons 776 / 3 t^aj/Aara, sashes, ^a>vat cKtcorat, sashes striped with different colours TroptfivpaL, purple cloth j and crtvSdves p.o\6)(t.vat, muslins of the colour of mallows, were exported in his time from India to all the ports on the Arabian and East African coasts. The Portuguese gave the name of pmtadoes to the chintzes of India when they first saw them at Calicut. Indeed the cotton tissues and stuffs of India have always been even more sought after for the beauty and brilliance of their natural dyes, than for the fineness and softness with which they are woven ; and one of the greatest improvements in English textile manufactures would be the substitution of the rich deep-toned Indian dyes for the harsh flaring chemicals, especially of the magenta series at present in use. ITr. M'ardle, of Leek, has paid great attention to this matter, especially in connexion with the application of dyes to the tasar silk of India. R 2 244 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. The jMaharaja of Cashmere has, it is said, adopted an effect- ual plan for the suppression of the magenta dyes within his kingdom. First, a duty of 45 per cent, is levied on them at the frontier ; and at a certain distance within the frontier, they are confiscated and at once destroyed. The great export trade in Indian cotton manufactures has long fallen before the competition of Manchester. Still, however, an immense cotton manufacture, for domestic purposes, continues to exist in India, equal probably to the whole export trade of Manchester ; and now that cotton mills are being established in Bombay and other cities, we may even expect to see the tide of competition at last turned against Manchester. In consequence of the improvement of national taste in this country, and the spread of higher education and culture among the natives of India, we may hope for a rapid increase in the demand for Indian hand- loom made and artistically dyed and printed piece goods. The true coideur divoire is found naturally only in Indian cotton stuffs. Nothing could be more distinguished for the ball-room, nothing simpler for a cottage, than these cloths of unbleached cotton, with their exquisitely ornamented narrow borders in red, blue, or green silk. Indian native gentlemen and ladies should make it a point of culture never to wear any clothing or ornaments but of native manufacture and strictly native design, constantly purified by comparisoii with the best examples, and the models furnished by the sculptures of Amravati, Sanchi, and Bharhut. The Principal Places of Cotton Manufacture in India. The Panjab. — Mr. Baden Powell says that it is impossible to exclude any city or town from the list of cotton manufacturing localities in the Pan jab. Weavers are found in every place pro- ducing at least the coarser cloths required by all classes. In the large cities, such as Lahore, Amritsar, Multan, Ludhiana, and others, almost every kind of fabric is woven. Ludhiana has a special name for drills, checks and other cloths resembling WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 245 European denominations ; as well as for lungis [head and waist- cloths], and other native fabrics. Multan is noted for cotton pile carpets, and printed and hand-painted calicoes or chintzes, and native dhotis [waist-cloths] with a red printed border. But the most important seat of all the finer cotton weaving is the Jalandhar Doab, comprising the districts of Hushiarpur, Jal- andhar, and Kangra, between the Satlaj and the Bias. Here, as everywhere throughout India, the competition of Manchester has caused fatal injury to the local manufacture, but still the fine gatls [diapers] of Rahun, and the muslin turbans of Baj- wara are celebrated even in Hindustan. A coarse cloth called khada [which literally means “ woven ”] is also largely exported from the Doab to the hills beyond Kulu and Spiti. In other parts of the Panjab there is an equal demand, for this cloth for the markets of Cabul and Turkestan, and other towns through which the Paracha merchants pass between Bengal and Central Asia. In this way the districts of Jhang, in the Retchna Doab, between the Ravi and Chenab, and of Shah pur, especially the town of Kushab, in the Jetch Doab, between the Chenab and Jhilam, have a considerable trade in khada; and chintzes and printed fabrics are also much in demand and are largely exported. Multan, which is a great rendezvous of the Povinda merchants of the new frontier district of the Pan jab, has a considerable trade in them, as indeed in all the articles that are exported from India into Central Asia. The district of Gugaira, and especially the towns of Syadwalla and Pak-Patlan, in the Derajat, between the Indus and Suleiman hills, are noted for the weaving of lunghis, and khesis [wrappers or robes]. Kushab in Shapur is also noted for its lungis both silk and cotton. The lungis of Peshawar arc famous, and the dark blue scarf with its crimson edge, woven in the valley of Kohat, south of Peshawar, is, observes Mr. Baden Powell, very characteristic. A similar scarf, both plain and ornamented with a gold border, is woven, in the Hazara hills north of Rawul Pindi. It is estimated that from 5,000 to 246 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF LYDIA. 6,000 of the plain kind, valued at from four to thirty shillings each are made yearly; and from 1,500 to 2,000 of the bordered kind, valued at from i/. to 7/. each. The Panjab districts bordering on the North-Western Provinces and Rajputana are principally remarkable for muslin turbands, which are largely woven at Delhi. In the Sirsa district the principal fabrics are two coarse sorts of muslin called £^as/s [“ rough ”], painsis [“ broad,” 500 threads to the weft], and dabba khesis, that is “ T\Tappers ” of t^vo colours. Other Panjab denominations, — ^^vhich are common to aU India, — of native cotton fabrics, are malmals or mushns, of which dorias are striped of a thicker texture at regular intervals, and dhotars are a coarser variety ; dotahis, sheets folded twice, and chautahis, sheets folded four times ; and susis, fine-colored cloths, made chiefly at Battala and Sialkote, striped in the direction of the warp with silk, or cotton lines of a different colour, the cloth being called dokanni if the stripe has two lines, if three tinkanni, and so on. Darts or t\sills, and the plain cloths called dosuti, ti/isuti, chatisuti, used principally for tent cloths and dusters, and dabbis or “ gambroons ” have been made only since the English occupa- tion of the countty". The thick dart carpets also, for w'hich Ambala was always famous, are now produced all over the countT)'. Printed cloths, if the pattern is continuous, are called chail, if composed of separate designs chit [chintz], and if dyed in spots, like the old bandana pocket-handkerchief, bhandu. Sindh — In Sindh coarse cotton cloths called dangaris are manufactured in every village and town. Both colored silk and cotton cloths are made at Alahyar-jo-Tando ; and susis at Hala. Tatta was once renowned for its silk and cotton fabrics, and a considerable manufacture of susis, lungis, and of mixed silk and cotton also, is still carried on there. Dr. Winchester [quoted by Mr. Hughes in the Gazetteer of the Province of Sind, London, 1876], in 1839, speaks of these articles being then made of exquisite beauty and workmanship ; and they were greatly prized by the old Amirs, who included them in all the presents they WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 247 made to foreign powers. At that time the Tatta chintzes were considered to be far superior both in texture and pattern to those made in most other parts of India, and almost rivalled those of Surat. Cotton lungis, susis, and saris [robes] are also made in large numbers at Karachi. Rajputana. — In Rajputana cotton is woven everywhere, and the printed muslins and cotton cloths [chintzes] of Jaipur and Jodpur are prized all over Hindustan for the purity and brilliance of their dyes. The large cotton daris of Rajputana, striped in red, green, yellow, blue, and black are marvellous examples of the skill of Indian weavers in harmonising the most prismatic colours. North-Western Provinces. — In the North-Western Provinces a coarse cotton cloth, kharua, is generally made, and of especial ex- cellence at Jhansi. In the Jalaun district a sort of muslin \tnalmal\ called jagi is made. The old town of Chandari in the Lalatpur district was famous for its fine muslins, but the trade has greatly declined. Captain Tyler tried to revive it, but in an outbreak of cholera in 1865 the weavers all died, or ran away, and his plans failed. In Saharanpur, a coarse cloth called is made. Turbands are a speciality of Sikandrabad. Dyeing and printing of country cloths is carried on in many places. The muslins of Benares are figured with gold on a ground of white, black, brown, or purple. The city of Bijnur has a special reputation for the manufacture of the sacred cord or sacrificial thread \zenaar, janeo\ of the Brahmans. Oudh. — In Oudh, before its annexation, a large number of the lower classes were employed in weaving cotton, and their looms paid a fixed annual duty to the King, but the industry received a deadly blow directly it was exposed to the unrestricted competition of Manchester. Yet every village has still its little colony of caste weavers. Take for example the Nawabganj tahsil, in the district of Bara-Banki, of which the statistics of the local manufacture are given in the official Gazetteer [Lucknow, 1877]. It supports 1,910 weavers, who weave ten denominations of cotton fabrics, mmQ\y,garas, gazis, dhotis, mamudis, and kasas of country 248 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. twist, and tapatis, charkanas^, adotars, susis, and bilras of Lan- cashire twist. In the Hardoi district the muslin called mamudz is still in considerable demand, and weaving also thrives at Tanda, Nawabganj, Baiswara, and cotton printing at Kheri, all in the same district. In the Kheri district [quite distinct from the town before named] the largest in Oudh, cotton weaving is pursued by 3,155 and cotton printing by 990 artificers. At Biswari, in the Sitapur district, there are 100 families of weavers, and no emigration of distressed weavers has yet taken place from this district. At Jais, in the Sultanpur district, various kinds of textile cloths, both plain and brocaded, are manufactured, of which a peculiar kind of muslin called tanzib is the most famous. The weavers have a curious art of in-weaving with it, at the time of its manufacture, any design that may be suggested to them. Verses and sentences are most common, and these are varied to suit every taste and creed. Some are passages from the Koran, others from the Vedas, and others from Watts’s moral sengs and hymns. In the Lucknow district the weavers were at one time highly prosperous, but have now but small work for their looms. The number of looms is said to be 1,474, the number of pieces turned out 89,159, of the total yearly value of ;^i5,347, or about ^10 on each loom. Cotton printing, however, still continues to be a successful calling in the city of Lucknow, although Manchester chintzes sell for a shilling the yard, while those printed on the spot cost twenty pence the yard. But the Lucknow chintzes are far superior in colour, the Kukrail and Baita rivers being famous for the purity of the tints their waters give to the deep-toned dyes of India. Formerly the weavers of Tanda in the Fyzabad district used to produce the most delicate muslins, but now they are seldom made. Bengal. — 'Cotton fabrics are manufactured all over Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, and Assam. Superior cotton cloth is made in the Satkirah subdivision of the twenty-four Pergunnas, and at several places in Bardwan. The fine cotton manufacture of WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 249 Santipur arose from its having been the centre of the large factories established in the Nuddea division, in the old days of the East India Company. At Charpata, also in Noakhali, in Chittagong, there was formerly a cotton factory of the old East India Company, and the baftas [“woven” — cotton stuffs] or “Bastas,” for which it was famous, had, in their time, an ex- tensive reputation and were largely manufactured. Coarse cloth only is now made there, and the importation of Manchester goods bids fair to destroy even this limited industry. In Chittagong the Mugs of Cox’s Bazaar make both silk and cotton cloth. At Sarail, in Tipperah, a tanzib, or tanjib muslin is made as fine almost as the muslins of Dacca. Cotton weaving employs one- tenth of the population of Tipperah, but the industry is rapidly declining in the competition with Manchester, the native weavers taking to agriculture. At Jahanabad in the Patna division, the weaving of fine cotton stuffs, a relic of the East India Company’s factory at Patna, is still carried on ; and the weavers continue to form an important body of the community. Towels and bath cloths are a speciality of Bihar, and strong coarse cloth of Sarun. Good cotton cloth is also made at Palamow in Chota Nagpur. At Kassimbazaar, in the Rajshahye division, there has been a great decline in its once famous manufactures since the abolition of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1833. The once celebrated Dacca muslins are now almost a thing of the past. James Taylor, in his Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca, published in 1 840, deplores the ruin which had overtaiken its muslin trade : but he records that thirty-six different denominations of cotton cloth were still made at Dacca. Since Dr. Taylor wrote, the manufacture has still more greatly fallen off. In the time of Jehangir, Dacca muslin could be manufactured fifteen yards long and one broad, weighing only 900 grains, the price of which was 40/. Now the finest of the above size weighs 1,600 grains and is worth only 10/., and even such pieces are made only to order. The three pieces presented to the 250 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Prince of Wales, and which were expressly prepared for him, were twenty yards long and one broad, and w'eighed i,68o grains [three and a half ounces] each. Tavernier states that the ambassador of Shah Safy [a.d. 1628-1641], on his return from India, pre- sented his master with a cocoa-nut, set with jewels, containing a muslin turband thirty yards in length, so exquisitely fine that it could scarcely be felt by the touch. A rare muslin was formerly produced in Dacca, which when laid wet on the grass became invisible ; and because it thus became undistinguishable from the evening dew it was named subhnam, i.e. “the dew of evening.” Another kind was called ab-rawan., or running water, because it became invisible in water. The demand for the old cotton flowered and sprigged muslins of Dacca in Europe has almost entirely fallen off, but there is a brisk and increasing demand for tussur embroidered muslins, denominated kasidas, throughout India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey. Central Provinces. — In the Central Provinces cotton looms are found everywhere, and the gold-wrought cotton tissues, wliich seem like woven sunshine, and brocaded silks of Barhanpur, and the richly-embroidered apparel of Nagpur and Bhandara, are famous, and still hold their own against all competition, throughout Central India. Barhanpur is, however, Mr. Grant informs us in the Gazetteer for Central Provinces., Nagpur, r87o, a declining cit3^ The re- moval from it of the seat of the native government is one cause of this, and another is the return of peaceful times under our administration, which has induced many of the cultivators of the neighbouring lands who resided within the walls for protection, to move nearer to their fields. A third is the advent of the railway, which has destroyed the business of Barhanpur as the depot for the trade between Malvva and the Dakhan. Another, and the one usually adduced as the sole cause, is the falling-off of the demand for the richer fabrics of inwoven gold, for the production of which the city has always been famous, owing to the breaking WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 251 up of so many native Indian courts. It now contains 8,000 stone houses, and a population of 34,137, most of whom are dependent in one way or another on the wire-drawing and cloth-weaving industries of the place. At the census of 1866 the number of gold thread makers were : — Wire-drawers 601 Wire-flatteners 41 1 “ Kalabatun ” [gold thread] spinners .... 412 Total 1,434 The number of weavers engaged in weaving was — Silk-spinners . 45 Cloth-dyers 457 “ Kalabatun ” [gold thread] weavers . . . . 381 Other weavers 4>437 Total 5,320 In the Bhandara district native cloth is made at Bhandara, Pauni, Sihora, Adar, and several other towns. The finest and best is manufactured at Pauni. This cloth is much prized by the higher class of natives, who sometimes pay 20/. for a turband, or dopatta [a twofold scarf]. The manufacturers of these cloths are said to have come originally from Burhanpur, and from Paithan on the Godavari, the old capital of Salivahana, a.d. 78. Red saris, with different coloured borders of silk and cotton, are made at Mohari and Andhalgaon. Bagri is noted for its stout and durable kadt cloth, and the town of Bhandara for its turbands. The commerce of this district has received a great impetus through the improve- ment of the road to Jubbulpur, and the opening of the Railway. In Nagpur, cotton and silk cloths of all sorts of descriptions are produced in great abundance, from dhotis, valued at 50/. the pair, to the scanty langutis worn by the common coolies. The pagris, or turbands, are generally made of finely woven cotton cloth, with a broad fringe of gold. The saris and dhotis are generally of plain cotton, with a handsome silk border. The very best of 252 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF LYDIA. these are made at Nagpur and Umrer, but those made in the neighbouring towns of Khapa, Maunda, and Bhiwapur, are also of superior quality. At Hoshungabad, the weaving trade flourished until the enor- mous demand for cotton wool in 1863-64 raised the price of the raw material beyond the weavers’ means. All the cotton wool in the district w^as exported, and Manchester piece goods were at once imported, and they have held the market ever since. Many native looms have in consequence stopped and the local manufacture has partially succumbed. At Chanda, coarse and fine cloths are made which are still exported to all parts of Western India, and formerly found their way to Arabia. Tire Telinga weavers turn out clotlis of colored patterns in very good taste, and cotton thread of wonderful fineness is spun for export to other parts of India. At Bustar, the outcast Mahars and Pariahs weave the narrow coarse cloths used as languiis by the Murias and other wild tribes. Bcrar . — In Berar the stout cotton cloths called kalis and dhotars are made everywhere. Fair turband cloths are woven at Bolapur, in the Akola district ; and at Ellichpur, turbands and other fine cloths for male and female apparel. Excellent cotton carpets are also made at Ellichpur and .\kot, and Bolapur in the Akola district. Bombay . — In the Presidency of Bombay, Surat suffered as much as any town in India from tlie extinction of the East India Company's trading monopoly in 1833. “ new era was opened to English commerce,” writes the historian, heedless of the two centuries of manufacturing activity and prosperity, under the Company’s fostering rule, which had preceded it in India. But within the last four or five years the cotton manufac- tures of Surat have shewn strong signs of revival, and the Hindu weavers have begun to make cloth of a new pattern, chiefly for bodices, which is largely exported to the Dakhan. Baroach, also, under the East India Company, was a great WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, E2X. 253 centre of cotton manufactures, from the stoutest canvas to the finest muslins ; but the industry was ruined by the unrestrained Manchester imports, and of the thirty odd varieties of cloths enumerated in the factory diary for 1777, only six are made now. The weaving of cotton cloth is still an important industry in the Ahmedabad collectorate. At Ranpur fine cloth is woven from English yarn, and finds a ready sale in the neighbourhood. At Dholka, from the same materials sadis [z.e., sans, women’s robes], are made, of much local repute for their strength and steadfast- ness of colour ; and in the city of Ahmedabad the richer weavers make superior dhotis, saris, dopattas, and chalotas [small waist cloths], which are sold in all parts of Gujerat, and exported to Kandesh and Bombay. Khadi cloth, chopals, and dhotis are woven in every village, Mr. Lely says, that although a large section of these village craftsmen are seen to suffer from the competition of the machine looms, which are now springing up everywhere in centres of the cotton manufacturing districts of Western India, Ahmedabad has not allowed its old cloth industry to die out. It has now four steam factories, employing 2,013 hands, and paying in wages a yearly sum of about 20,000/. ; but the class which has benefited most from these mills is not the caste of local weavers, but the Vaghris, who formerly supported themselves by begging. Now whole families of these outcasts take employment at the mills, and become well off. Calico printing is also a craft of some consequence in Ahmedabad. In the Kaira collectorate, before the opening of these monster factories at Ahmedabad, cotton weaving was the most important industry of the district. Almost all the men and women, both in the towns and the villages, writes Mr. G. P'. Sheppherd, in the Bombay Gazetteer, 1879, were formerly to some extent engaged in cotton spinning and weaving ; and the cloth woven by them was largely exported to Ratlam and other parts of India, both for clothes and sacking. But of late years Bengal jute has to a large extent taken the place of the local manufacture 254 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. for packing, while the wearing apparel, which, from its greater strength and cheapness, had dittle to fear from the fraudulent competition of Manchester heavily-sized goods, has now to a great extent been undersold by the mechanical productiveness of the mills of Bombay and Ahmedabad, the profits of which are for the most part carried away out of the country by the English and other European merchants of Western India. In this way the native caste weavers suffer a direct loss, without compensation of any kind. But at Kaira the river water is very pure, and most excellent for dyeing, and therefore its painted cloths at least keep up their good name ; and besides a widespread home demand for them, they are exported to other places, even so far as Siam. Some of these printers are men of capital. May their tranquil river ever keep its natural pureness for them. Printing in gold leaf and silver leaf on cotton cloth and silk is very common in Gujarat. The cloth is first stamped with a deeply- cut hand-block dipped in gum ; and then a layer of gold or silver foil is laid on, and sharply rubbed into it. The rubbing takes away the foil from the surface of the cloth, except where it has been fastened by the gummed pattern. Then the foil is so thoroughly beaten into the cloth that it may be roughly used without giving way. This industry also continues in a thriving condition. Another mode of decorating silk or cotton is by knotting \ba?idh?ia\, which gave its name to the old bandana pocket-hand- kerchiefs. To knot the silk or cotton, the undyed cloth is sent to a draughtsman, or chifarna?', who divides the whole surface into one-inch squares. Then it goes to the knotter, or bandnari, generally a young girl, who picks up a little cloth at each corner of the squares, and ties it into a knot Avith packthread, the number and position of the knots being fixed by the pattern it is desired the cloth should take. After being thus knotted all over, the cloth is sent to the dyer, who dips it into the colour required for the ground of the pattern ; after which the knots WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 255 are all untied, and shew in little squares [not in circles] of white, the centres of which are generally hand-painted in yellow. This is the simplest of the handhana patterns In the fhal-wadi, or “ flower-garden,” many colours are used. First the parts that are to remain white are knotted and the cloth dipped in yellow : then some of the yellow is knotted, and the cloth is dyed scarlet. For the border some scarlet parts are tied, and the rest dyed purple. In the north of Gujarat the favorite color is red, and in Kathiwar, red, combined with deep brown, and yellow. Blue and green in combination with red and yellow are more prevalent in the south of Gujarat, and in the Maratha country. The great distinction — as Mr. George Terry has pointed out in his very interesting chapter on “ The Manufactures of Western India ” in the 'Bombay Administration Report for 1872-73 — between the Gujarat and Maratha races, is in the decoration of their cotton goods, the purely Maratha people seldom wearing printed cotton goods, while the inhabitants of Gujarat prefer them to all others. The only printed stuffs worn by the Marathas are ornamented with metal leaf. Their usual saris and cholis [bodices] are dyed in the thread, and are either made of cotton only or silk and cotton mixed. The decorations consist of borders handsomely wrought in silk, or silk and gold. Blue is the favorite color ; but dark green and purple, and deep _ crimson, are common enough. Calico-printing is also done at Baroach. In the collectorate of Nasik, the town of Yeola is famous for its native silk and cotton manufactures, and the finer kinds of cotton stuff’s are made also in the town of Nasik ; and at Ahmednagar, Sholapur, and Kandesh. Gulutgud, in the Kaladgi district of the Maratha country, is known for its saris and cholis. Cotton- spinning and weaving are the commonest occupations in the Belgaum collectorate, particularly in the talickas of Parasgad and Sampgaum, Gokak, Chikodi, and Bidi. The total number of weavers Mr. Terry estimates at about 70,000. In the village of INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. 256 Bil-Hongal in the Sampgaum taluka, saris are woven of great perfection. The towns of Margodi, ManoU, and Assundi, in Paras- gad, also have a large population of dyers and cloth printers. But for the manufacture of cloths the palm must be given to Deshnur, in the northern part of Sampgaum. The town of Nandi-gad, in Bidi, is the great mart for cotton fabrics of all kinds which are imported from the eastern districts, and thence find their way to the coast country below the Ghats. Madras . — In the Godavari district in the Madras Presidency, most excellent cloths are made at Urpada, near Coconada, and in the villages about XJtapalli and Nursapur ; and the fine turbands made at Uppada are stiU in great requisition. Tent cloth of superior quality is also manufactured in the villages near Rajamandri, and in the Central Jail. The weavers are, however, in a very impoverished condition, as their industry has languished and gradually dechned ever since the abolition of the exclusive trade of the East India Company. Formerly there was a large manufacture of blue salampores at Nellore, which was quite broken up by the West Indian Eman- cipation Act, for the freed negroes refused, very naturally, to wear the garb of their slavery; and the hea\-y expenses of land car- riage, the absence of railways and canals, and the risks of sending goods down to ISIadras by sea in native craft uninsured, w'hile no insurance office will accept the risks of the road, all operate against the revival of the old trade, and the development of the immense natural resources of Nellore as a manufacturing centre. At Vizagapatam a strong cloth is made called punjam, that is, “ 120 threads” [literally 60], and the cloth is denominated 10, 12, 14, up to 40 punjam., according to the number of times 120 is contained in the total number of threads in the warp. Dyed blue at Madras, it is exported to Brazil, the ^Mediterranean, and to London for the West Indies. Imitation Scotch checks and plaids are also made for the large population of poor native Christians in the Madras Presidency. WOVEN STUFFS, LACF, ETC. 257 Tlie chintzes of !Masulipatam have enjoyed a world-wide celebrity ever since the days of Arrian, and probably of the J^Iaha- bharata. They are prized for the freshness and permanency of their dyes, the colours being brighter after washing than before. There is still a great demand for them in Burma, the Straits, and Persian Gulf, but Manchester goods threaten to destroy also this immemorial industry of India, Nearly all the INIasulipatam chintzes seen in England are copied from Persian designs of sprigs of flowers, and of the knop and flower, and tree of life patterns. Wherever the Mahommedan influence is carried in India the decorative symbols of the Aryan race are introduced. But at Masuhpatam the Persian designs have been introduced through the trade with Persia, and probably by Persian colonists. In Nellore fine shirtings are made at Ko\tir, and pocket- handkerchiefs, and, when ordered, muslins suitable for ladies’ dresses. Exceedingly fine muslins are made at Yapallagunta, in the Udyagiri taluka ; and strong tent-cloths at Kandukur. Fine cloths are made in the talukas of Gundur, Rapur, Nellore, and Kavali. Handkerchiefs are specially woven at Valaparla in the Ongole taluk, and curtain-cloths at Gundavaram, Turimula, and Nidimusali, in tlie Nellore taluka. Dyeing is done at several places in the Kundukur, Ongole, and NeUore talukas. In the Bellary collectorate cotton is generally woven, and also cloths of cotton and silk. Cotton carpets of large size for houses and tents, and of a smaller size for the native troops, are made at Adoni, whence they are exported in large quantities to all parts of Southern India. In IMysore cotton manufactures are established in every dis- trict. Very superior cloths are made at Molakalnuru, which are much prized in Mysore and at Bangalore. Striped cotton carpets, daris or satra?igis, are made in the Kolar districts ; also at Shik- arpur, in the Shimoga district : and chintzes at Shimoga itself and Aimur. In the Tumkur district there are 3,763 cotton looms, and 34,801 cotton spinning-wheels. Black and white checks are s 258 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. made at Chiknayakanhalli. White sheets are made at Chittledrag, and cotton goods of all sorts at Harihar. The weavers and dyers of Bangalore, who formerly worked for the court of Seringapatam, still manufacture the printed cotton cloths which were always their specialty. At Madura large quantities of the stained cloths for which it is celebrated are manufactured. They are very coarse, and printed in only two colors, red and black, with mythological subjects taken from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. They are made chiefly for the service of the temples, and are very rare to get, except by favor of the priests. Sometimes they are touched up in yellow by hand painting. The whole district is also noted for handsome turbans bordered with gold lace, made at Dindigal, and Madura itself. Coarse cloth is woven all over Kurg. In the village of Sirangala are made the shawls and kamarbands [waist-cloths] worn in Kurg. A fine description of cloth is woven at Kodlipet. Dr. Forbes Watson’s Classification ofi the Textile Fabrics ofi India. Dr. Forbes Watson, in his exhaustive work on The Textile Matiufactures and the Costumes of the People of India, which embodies the results of the experience and research of a life- time, classes together the manufacturers in cotton, silk, and wool which are made up cn the loom as garments, such as turban cloths, and the dhoti, a flowing cloth bound generally round the waist and legs. It is generally bordered with purple or red, blue or green, like the toga prcetexta [limbo purpureo circumdata], and in Mysore the dhoti is called togataru. The sari, used by the women, is also loom-made, and is the undoubted Kakv/j-fx-a of Homer. Thus Thetis [//. xxiv. 93, 94] — “Veiled her head in sable shade. Which flowing long her graceful person clad.” Kerchiefs, and waistbands [hamarbands], and sashes [dopattas], WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 259 are also loom-made. The principal garments made up by cutting and serving are the bodice \cholf\ for women, who sometimes also wear a petticoat ; and drawers \pija>na, literally “ leg-cloth ” from Sanscrit pada, Hindi pai, foot, so books say ; but possibly from the Sanscrit word identical with the Greek wvy?;, e.g., in Venus Kallipygos], worn both by men and women ; and the undress coat, angarka ; and full-dress coat, javia, worn only by men ; and caps which go by all sorts of names, such as topi, taj, and others. Among piece goods the first place is given to Dacca muslin, abrawan, or “ running water ” ; bafthowa, “woven air”j stibha- na7)i, “ evening dew,” aU plain white webs, the poetic names of which convey to the reader a truer idea of their exquisite fine- ness and delicacy, and of the estimation in which they are held, than whole pages of literal description. These fine musHns are all classed under the generic term of 7 nulmul khas or “king’s muslins.” Plain muslins are made not only at Dacca and Patna and other places in Bengal, but also’ at Hyderabad in the Da- khan, and at Cuddapah and Ami in Madras. Striped musfins, or dorias, are made at Dacca, Gwalior, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Ami, and other places. Checkered muslins, or charkuTia, are chiefly made at Dacca, Nagpur, Ami, and NeUore 3 and figured mus- lins, at Dacca. Dr. Forbes Watson describes them as the chef-di(Euvre of the Indian weaver. At Calcutta embroidered muslin is called chtkaTi [“ needle ” work]. ISIuslins woven with colored thread, and striped, checked, and figured, are made at Benares, Arni, NeUore, and Chicacole in IMadras ; printed mus- lins at Trichinopoly, and gold and silver printed musUns at Jaipur, and Hyderabad in the Dakhan. “The process,” Dr. Forbes Watson writes, “by which this mode of decoration is accompUshed is by stamping the desired pattern on cloth with glue ; the gold or silver leaf, as the case may be, is then laid on, and adheres to the glue. When dry, what has not rested on the glue is rubbed off.” In Persia, in the rare Ispahan chintzes, I am s 2 26 o INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. informed, the gold is sprinkled in the form of dust on the pattern previously prepared with size. The calicoes Dr. Forbes Watson classifies as (a) plain cali- coes, bleached and unbleached, made all over India ; (d) cali- coes woven with colored thread, comprising, first, sus/s and kests, striped cloths of brilliant hue, made largely in the Panjab and Sindh, and also at Surat, Palamcottah, Cuddalore, and other places in Madras, and used chiefly for trouserings ; second, also striped, manufactured in Nipal and Pegu, and used for skirts ; and third, checks and tartans, used also for skirts and petticoats, and manufactured at Ludianah, Baroach, Tanjore, Cuddalore, Masulipatam, and other places in Madras; and (c) printed caU- coes [chintzes, pintadoes\, first on a white ground, manufactured at Fattehgarh, Masulipatam, and Arcot, &c. ; second, printed on a colored ground, manufactured at Shikarpur, Agra, Fattehgarh, Bijapur, Bellary, Arcot, and Ponneri, in Madras ; and third, the celebrated palampores, or “ bed-covers,” of Masulipatam, Fateh- garh, Shikarpur, Hazara, and other places, which in point of art decoration are simply incomparable. As art works they are to be classed with the finest Indian pottery, and the grandest carpets. Lastly, Dr. Forbes Watson classes together the miscellaneous cotton fabrics, chiefly made for Anglo-Indian use, such as the pocket-handkerchiefs of Nellore; the damask and diaper table- cloths, napkins, and towels of Madras, Salem, Masulipatam, Cud- dalore, and Baroach ; and the counterpanes and quilts of Karnul, Hyderabad in the Dakhan, and Ludianah. Lace. Lace-work has only recently been introduced into India, but the natives show a singular aptitude for it, and the excellent samples of it in cotton, silk, and gold and silver thread among the Prince of Wales’ presents from Tinnevelly and Nagarcoil in Madras leave nothing to be desired either in design or manipulation. WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 261 A white lace called gota, and a colored variety, called pattia, are made in the Punjab. Silks. As silk is woven with the striped cotton susis of the Punjab and Sindh, so we find cotton mixed with silk in the silken piece goods known in India under such names as inashru and sufi, meaning “ permitted ” and “ lawful.” It is not lawful for hlahom- medans to wear pure silk \liolosericunt\, but silk mixed with cotton they are permitted to wear; and hence the well-known Indian fabrics with a cotton warp or back, and woof of soft silk in a striped pattern, having the lustre of satin, or atlas, are called viashru. Sufi is the name given to the striped \pulbadan\ “ law- ful” \suji\ sUks, called also shuja-khanis, of Bhawalpur, which differ from mashrus in that they have no satiny lustre, and look like a glazed calico. They can scarcely be distinguished from susis, and are glazed with a mucilaginous emulsion of quinceseed. These mixed stuffs are also found plain and checked and figured, and are largely made in the Panjab and Sindh, at Agra, Hyderabad in the Dakhan, Tanjore and Trichinopoly. Pure silk fabrics, striped, checked, and figured, are chiefly made at I.ahore, Agra, Benares, Hyderabad in the Dakhan, and Tan- jore. The printed silks worn by the Parsi and Bhatia and Bunia women of Bombay are a specialty of Surat. Wild silk \tasar, eria, and mungd\ is woven chiefly in Cachar, and at Darjiling, Bhagalpur, and IV^arangal. Gold and silver are worked into the decoration of aU the more costly loom-made garments and Indian piece goods, either on the borders only, or in stripes throughout, or in diapered figures. The gold-bordered loom embroideries are made chiefly at Sattara, and the gold or silver striped at Tanjore ; the gold figured mashrus at Tanjore, Trichinopol)^, and Hydera- bad in the Dakhan ; and the highly ornamented gold figured silks, and gold and silver tissues principally at Ahmedabad, Benares, Murshedabad, and Trichinopoly. Dr. Forbes Watson restricts 262 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OB INDIA. the term Tissues to cloths of gold and silver, ruperi and soneri^ made of flattened strips of gold. The native word kincob is also generally restricted to the highly ornamented gold, or silver wrought silk brocades of Murshedabad, Benares, Ahmedabad, and other places; but, as these Mncobs are in their style and essential character, older than the use of silk in India, Babylonia, Phoenicia, and Egypt, the name is confusing when used in con- nexion with the history of decorative art, unless understood in a sense coextensive with brocade. The description which Homer gives of the robe of Ulysses in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey accurately describes a Benares shikargah, or happy “ hunting ground ” kincob. “ In ample mode A robe of military purple flow’d O’er all bis frame ; illustrious on bis breast Tbe double-clasping gold tbe King confest. In tbe ricb woof a bound, mosaic drawm, Bore on full stretch, and seized a dappled fawn ; Deep in bis neck bis fangs indent tbeir bold ; They pant and struggle in tbe moving gold. Fine as a filmy web beneath it shone A vest, that dazzled bke a cloudless sun. The female train who round him throng’d to gaze. In silent wonder, sigh’d unwiUing praise. A sabre when tbe warrior pressed to part, I gave enamelled with Vulcanian art ; A mantle purple tinged, and radiant vest. Dimension’d equal to his size, express’d Affection grateful to my honor’d guest.” And when this passage is read with others in Homer, proof is added to proof of the traditional descent of the kincobs of Benares, through the looms of Babylon and Tyre and Alexandria, from designs and technical methods which probably, in prehistoric times, originated in India itself, and were known by the Hindus already in the times of the Code of Manu, and before the date of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 263 Thus in Iliad, iii ; “Meantime to beauteous Helen from the skies, The various goddess of the rainbow flies. Here in the palace at her loom she found The golden web her own sad story crown’d ; The Trojan wars she weav’d, herself the prize, And the dire triumph of her fatal eyes.” And Iliad, v : “ Pallas disrobes ; her radiant veil unty’d. With flowers adorn’d, with art diversify’d.” And Iliad, vi : “ The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold. More prized for art, than labour’d o’er with gold.” *■«•*** “ The Phrygian Queen to her rich wardrobe went. Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent. There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, Sidonian maids embroidered every part. Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore, With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. Here as the Queen revolv’d with careful eyes The various textures and the various dyes, She chose a veil that shone superior far, And glow’d refulgent as the morning star.” And in Od. xv : “ Meantime the King, his son, and Helen, went Where the rich wardrobe breathed a costly scent. The King selected from the glittering rows, A bowl ; the Prince a silver beaker chose. The beauteous Queen revolved with careful eyes Her various textures of unnumber’d dyes. And chose the largest ; with no vulgar art. Her own fair hands embroider’d every part. Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright. Like radiant Hesper o’er the gems of night.” The two last passages are photographic vignettes from any wealthy Indian Sethia’s house, and in copying them one seems to 264 mDUSTRlAL ARTS OF INDIA. breathe again the verj' odours of the costus and costly spikenard which native gentlemen wrap up with their rich apparel, and fine muslins and embroidered work. There are many rich brocades \Mncois\ in the India Museum, of shining dyes, and stifi" with gold, from the looms of Murshe- dabad, Benares, and Ahmedabad A kincob belonging to the Prince of Wales is one of the most sumptuous ever seen in Europe It is of Ahmedabad work, rich with gold and gay with colours, and was presented to the Prince by the young Guicowar of Baroda The stuff called soneri, or “ golden,” is richer stiU, but is not ornamented with a colored border ; it is simply cloth of gold Rtcperi is made in the same way with silver, and it was doubtless in the borrowed glory of this fabric that Herod was arrayed, when enthroned before the people, in the fiiU blaze of the sun, they haded him as a god [Josephus, Antiquities, xix, viii 2]. There is an Indian brocade called chand-tara, “moon and stars,” because figured aU over with representations of the heavenly bodies; Athenseus, a.d. 230, quotes from Duris [b.c 285-247], the description of a cloak worn by Demetrius [b.c. 330], into which a representation of the heavens, with the stars and 1 2 signs of the Zodiac, was woven in gold; and Josephus [.4.D. 37-100] states [JFars of the Jews, Bk. v, ch. v 4] that the veil pre- sented to the Temple by Herod, “ was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered with blue and fine linen, and scarlet and purple, and of a contexture that was truly man'ellous. Xor was the mixture of colours without its mj-stical interpretation, but a kind of image of the universe. . . . This curtain had also em- broidered upon it all that was mj-stical in the heavens, excepting that of the 12 signs of the Zodiac, in the likeness of h\-ing creatures,” In 2 Chronicles iii 14, we read : “And he [Solomon] made the veil of blue and purple and crimson and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon.” The veil of the Holy of Holies, made by Moses, Josephus [^Antiquities, Bk. iii, ch. vi 4] states. WOVEN STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 265 “ was very ornamental, and embroidered with all sorts of flowers which the earth produces, and there were interwoven into it all sorts of variety that might be an ornament, excepting the forms of “animals.” The passages in which various classical TOters describe curtains, and carpets, and broidered work, figured with animals and men, “ Persians,” “ portraits of Kings,” and “ Par- thian letters,” are too numerous for quotatiorL It is an interesting fact that at Rai Bareli and other places in Oudh a peculiar brocade is made inwoven in gold and colored silks with passages firom the Vedas, the Koran, and Watts"' Hymns. Beside cliand-tara, among other poetical names for Indian patterns of silks and kincobs, may be mentioned mazchar, “ripples of silver ” ; dup-chan, “ sunshine and shade ” ; halimtarakshi, “pigeon’s eyes”; bulbukJiasm, “nightingale's eyes”; zndmurgala, “peacock’s necks.” The manufacture of colored s ilks was, of course, originally introduced into India firom China, but at what period it is almost impossible to say. They are mentioned, as we have seen, in the Eamayana, but whether of Chinese manufacture or Indian cannot now be determined. In the Mahabharata it is said that the Chinas, Hunas, Kaskas, and Cauchas, who lived in the mountains, “ brought as tribute to Yudhisthira, silk and silkworms.” If the “ Chinas ” here mentioned were really the Chinese, the question woiild be settled, but firom their association with the Hunas, &c, they were probably some tribe of the Korth-Westem Himalayas ; and so everything is left in obscurit)' as to the first introduction of Chinese sflk into India It is not even known whether the Arabs, in their first arrival in India, found the silk manufacture already going on there, or introduced it them- selves. In the Bible the first undoubted notice of silk is in the Revelation xviii 12. The Hebrew terms which are supposed to refer to sflk are imshi and (FmesJuk. The former, in Ezek. xvi 10, 13, is translated by “ silk,” and the latter, in Amos iii 12, by Damascus : — “ Thus saith the Lord, As the shepherd taketh out of 266 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the comer of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.” It has been thought that in this verse de 7 neshek should be translated by silk. The shesh [probably the same word as de 7 nesJiek\ of Genesis xli 42, of many chapters in Exodus, and of Ezekiel xxvii 7, is in all these places uniformly translated in the authorized Enghsh version of the Bible by “ fine linen ” and “ linen,” that is, of Egj'pt. But in Genesis xli 42, the margin gives “silk,” and s/ies/i is translated by “silk” in Proverbs xxxi 22. Elsewhere the Hebrew words which have been translated by “ linen ” and “ fine linen ” are l>ad, in Exodus xxviii 42, xxxix 28, Leviticus vi 10, and xvi 4, 23, 32, 1 Samuel ii 18, and xxii 18, 2 Samuel vi 14, i Chronicles XV 27, Ezekiel ix 2, 3, ii, and x 2, 6, 7, and Daniel x 5, and xii 7; hdz [ySrcro-os], i Chron. iv 21, xv 27, 2 Chron. ii 14, iii 14, and V 12, Esther i 6, and viii 15, and Ezekiel xxvii 15 ; sadm, Judges xiv 12, 13; efun, Proverbs vii 16, a word which, if it is identical with the Greek odoinj and oOoviov, would mean not Unen but cotton ; and pishtah., Leviticus xiii 47, 48, 52, 59, Deuteronomy xxii ii, and Jeremiah xiii i, translated “flax” in Exodus ix 31, Judges xv 14, Proverbs xxxi 13, Isaiah xix 9, and xhi 3, and Hosea ii 5; and “tow” in Isaiah xliii 17, pistah in fact denoting in Hebrew not only linen stuffs, but flax, and the flax plant. Pichstofen beUeves the sherikoth of Isaiah xix 9, to be silk. It is difficult to beheve that the Egyptians did not weave raw silk, as we know that they possessed the art of reducing Chinese silks to a sort of muslin-hke web, “A wondrous work, of thin transparent lawn,” as Lucan describes it [Bk. x] in the account he gives of Cleopatra’s feast to Caesar ; and it is quite possible that “ the fine Unen of Egypt,” and “ the fine linen of Colchis,” which was sent to Sardis to be dyed [Herodotus ii 105], may have included silk. JFOVEJV STUFFS, LACE, ETC. 267 It was not, however, until the time of Julius Caesar [b.c. 47] that Chinese sUks began to be largely introduced into Southern Europe, and Virgil is the first classical writer who is supposed to aUude unequivocally to it, in the second Georgic : “ Black ebon only -vrill in India grow. And odorous finnkincense on the Sabjean bough. Balm slowly trickles through the bleeding veins Of happy shrubs in Idumsean plains. The green Egyptian thorn, for medicine good, With Ethiop’s hoar}’ trees, and woolly wood, Let others tell : and how the Strcs spin Their fleecy forests in a slender twine.” Aristotle certainly knew the silkworm, ySd/xySuf, and its cocoons, (Sofi^vKUL, An. V 19 (17), II (6)]. He describes it as “ A certain great worm, which has as it were horns, and difiers from others, at its first metamorphosis produces a caterpillar [xd/iTr/;], afterwards a bombylius [^o/tySvArds] and lastly a necy- dalus [veKi'SoAosJ It passes through aU these forms in six months. From this animal some women unroll and separate the cocoons, and afterwards weave them. It is said that this was first woven in the island of Cos by Pamphile, daughter of Plates, TTpwTT] Se \eyerai vtftrjvai iv Kw Tlafi(fHXrj IL\aTe> All are burnt together in the kanch furnace as before described. The yellow glaze used as the basis of the greens is made of sikka zard, white oxide i ser, and sang safed, a white quartzose rock, or millstone, or burnt and powdered flint, 4 chittaks, to which, when fused, i chittak of borax is added. The green colors produced are : — 1. Zamrudi, deep green i ser of glaze, and 3 chittaks of chhil tamba, or calcined copper. 2. Sahz, full green i ser of glaze, and i chittak of copper. 3. Pistaki, or Pistachio (bright) green i ser of glaze, and i J chittak of copper. 4. DJiani, or Paddy (young shoots of rice), green I ser of glaze, and chittak of copper. Another green is produced by burning one ser of copper filings with niniak shor, or sulphate of soda. The colors, after being reduced to powder, are painted on with gum, or gluten. The vessel to receive them is first carefully smoothed over and cleaned, and, as the pottery clay is red when burnt, it is next painted all over with a soapy, whitish engobe — prepared with white clay and borax and Acacia and Conocarpus gums — called kharya mutti. The powdered colors are ground up with a mixture or nishasta, or gluten and water, called viawa until the proper consistence is obtained, when they are 310 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. painted on with a brush. The vessels are then carefully dried and baked in a furnace heated with ber, or Zizyphus, or, in some cases, Capparis wood. The ornamental designs are either painted on off-hand, or a pattern is pricked out on paper, which is laid on the vessel and dusted with the powdered color along the prickings, thus giving a dotted outline of the design, which enables the potter to paint it in with all the greater freedom and dash. It is the vigorous drawing, and free, impulsive painting of this pottery which are among its attractions. The rapidity and accuracy of the whole operation is a constant temp- tation to the inexperienced bystander to try a hand at it himself. You feel the same teinptation in looking on at any native artificer at his work. His artifice appears to be so easy, and his tools are so simple, that you think you could do all he is doing quite as well yourself You sit down and try. You fail, but will not be beaten, and practise at it for days with all your English energy, and then at last comprehend that the patient Hindu handi- craftsman’s dexterity is a second nature, developed from father to son, working for generations at the same processes and manipu- lations. The great skill of the Indian village potter may be judged also from the size of the vessels he sometimes throws from his wheel, and afterwards succeeds in baking. At Ahme- dabad and Baroda, and throughout the fertile pulse and cereal- growing plains of Gujarat, earthen jars, for storing grain, are baked, often five feet high ; and on the banks of the Dol Samu- dra, in the Dacca division of the Bengal Presidency, immense earthen jars are made of nearly a ton in cubic capacity. The clay figures of Karttikeya, the Indian Mars, made for his annual festival by the potters of Bengal, are often twenty-seven feet in height. The Indian potter’s wheel is of the simplest and rudest kind. It is a horizontal fly-wheel; two or three feet in diameter, loaded heavily with clay around the rim, and put in motion by the hand ; and once set spinning, it revolves for five or seven minutes with a perfectly steady and true motion. The clay to be moulded is POTTERY. 3 ” heaped on the centre of the wheel, and the potter squats down on the ground before it. A few vigorous turns and away spins the wheel, round and round, and still and silent as a “ sleeping ” top, while at once the shapeless heap of clay begins to grow under the potter’s hand into all sorts of faultless forms of archaic fictile art, which are carried off to be dried and baked as fast as they are thrown from the wheel. Any polishing is done by rubbing the baked jars and pots with a pebble. There is an immense demand for these water-jars, cooking-pots, and earthen frying-pans and dishes. The Hindus have a religious prejudice against using an earthen vessel twice, and generally it is broken after the first pollution, and hence the demand for common earthenware in all Hindu families. There is an immense demand also for painted clay idols, which also are thrown away every day after being worshipped ; and thus the potter, in virtue of his calling, is an hereditary officer in every Indian village. In the Dakhan, the potter’s field is just outside the village. Near the wheel is a heap of clay, and before it rise two or three stacks of pots and pans, while the verandah of his hut is filled with the smaller wares and painted images of the gods and epic heroes of the Rayamana and Mahabharata. He has to supply the entire village community with pitchers and cooking pans, and jars for storing grain and spices and salt, and to furnish travellers with any of these vessels they may require. Also, when the new corn begins to sprout, he has to take a water-jar to each field for the use of those engaged in watching the crop. But he is allowed to make bs-icks and tiles also, and for these he is paid, exclusively of his fees, which amount to between 4/. and 5/. a year. Altogether be earns between xol. and 12/. a year, and is passing rich with it. He enjoys, beside, the dignity of certain ceremonial and honorific offices. He bangs the big drum, and chants the hymns in honour of Jami^ an incar- nation of the great goddess Bhavani, at marriages ; and at the dowra, or village harvest home festivals, he prepares the barbat 312 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. or mutton stew. He is, in truth, one of the most useful and respected members of the community, and in the happy reli- gious organisation of Hindu village life there is no man happier than the hereditary potter, or ktwibar. We cannot overlook this serenity and dignity of his life if we would rightly understand the Indian handicraftsman’s work. He knows nothing of the desperate struggle for existence which oppresses the life and crushes the very soul out of the Enghsh working man. He has his assured place, inherited from father to son for a hundred generations, in the national church and state organisation ; while nature provides him with everything to his hand, but the little food and less clothing he needs, and the simple tools of the trade. The English working man must provide for house rent, coals, furniture, warm clothing, animal food, and spirits, and for the education of his children before he can give a mind free from family anxieties to his work. But the sun is the Indian workman’s co-operative landlord, coal merchant, upholsterer, tailor, publican, and butcher; the head partner, from whom he gets almost everything he wants, and free of all cost but his labor contribution towards the trades union village corporation of which he is an indispensable and essential member. This at once relieves him from an incalculable dead weight of cares, and enables him to give to his work, which is also a religious function, that contentment of mind and leisure, and pride and pleasure in it for its own sake, which are essential to all artistic excellence. The cause of all his* comfort, of his hereditary skill, and of the religious constitution under which his marvellous craftsman- ship has been perfected is the system of landed tenure which has prevailed in India, and stereotyped the social condition and civilisation of the country from the time of the Code of Manu. The Indian ryotwari tenure, or system of peasant proprietorship, is first and most simply described in the Bible, in chapter xlvii of Genesis. In the seven years of plenty in Egypt, Joseph POTTERY. 313 gathered the fifth part of all the grain grown in those plenteous years, and laid it up in the cities ; and when the famine came, in the first year he gathered into Pharaoh’s treasury all the money in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the corn which he sold to the starving people, and when their money failed, all their cattle ; and in the second year, when their money was spent, and their herds gone, he took from them all their lands, and even bought themselves into slavery, and fed them with bread for their land and the service of their bodies for that year. Thus the whole land of Egypt became the property of king Pharaoh, and all the gold and silver of the people beside, and when only their bodies were left before him, they were sold in bondage to the king. And having swept away the ancient freehold proprietors of Egypt, Joseph made a new distribution of the land among the husbandmen, requiring them to pay in return one-fifth part of their crops as rent or tax into the king’s treasury. This is the regular ryotwari tenure, with a very moderate assessment; for whereas in most Asiatic countries the assessment generally amounts to one-half the crop, Joseph exacted only one-fifth ; and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that the children of Israel, who dwelt in the land of Goshen, and had in possession the best of the land therein, prospered and multiplied exceedingly. The temple en- dowments, the lands of the priests, Joseph did not touch. This is a pecuharly interesting chapter for Anglo-Indians. In the end, only the legends of human pathos survive in history, and Joseph is popularly known chiefly in connexion with the story of his evil treatment by his brethren, and his touching requital of tenfold goodness into their bosoms. He w^as really the astute and far- sighted author of one of the greatest and most successful agrarian revolutions on record, beside w'hich the revenue reforms of Todar Mai, under Akbar, and the “ Cornwallis [Permanent] Settlement ” of 1793, and the revenue survey of the North-Western Provinces, by Robert Bird, in 1824, shrink into insignificance. The system of peasant proprietorship may possibly contribute indirectly to INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 314 retard the advancement of a country, even where it does not conduce directly to the petrifaction of its cmhsation, as in India. Under it the Hindu ryot has become so strongly attached, by the most sacred and deeply rooted ties, to the soil that, rather than relinquish his hold on it, he will burden himself and his heirs with debt for generations ; and gradually, under the Hindu practice of inheritance, the holdings become so minutely sub- divided, and overburdened by mortgages, that extended cultivation and high farming are made almost impossible. Notwithstanding the superior education of the Scotch peasantry, and the livelong example of the benefits of high farming all aroimd them, it is only in the last few years that the “ portioners ” of the Lothians and the hlerse have learned to combine together to work their “ common lands ” by the steam plougL At this rate the village communities of the Dakhan may be expected to postpone the scientific cultivation of the limitless arable soil of India to the Greek Kalends. It is a notable fact that while machinery should have been so readily applied in India to the production of textile and other manufac- tures, in which its use is injurious, its introduction in agricultural operations, in which it would so incalculably benefit the people, has been found impossible. It is quite impossible under the land system of the country at present I remember a steam plough being introduced with great ec/af into the Bombay Presidency. It was led in procession into the field, wreathed in roses and all of us who went to see it were ^\Teathed with roses, and sprinkled with attar. But it was found impossible, utterly, to make any use of it It was introduced into a fixed crystallised sacro-economic system in which it had no place, unless as a new divinity, and a new divinity and an idol it was made. It was put away into the village temple, and there, after a time, its great steel share was bedaubed red, and worshipped as a god. As a m.ere question of accounts, there can be no doubt of the solvency of India ; but, o\nng to the restricted and imperfect cultivation of its soil, it is incapable of supporting the great cost of good government in POTTERY. 315 modern times with the elasticity and buoyancy which would at once result from the proper development of its really inexhaustible agricultural resources. The country grows rich too slowly, and the demands of a scientific government increase on it too rapidly, and the reason of it undoubtedly consists in the Indian form of peasant proprietorship. Then again, under this system, as it has been elaborated in India, there is a great loss of personal and national energy. The whole community is provided for ; every man in it has his ordered place and provision. There is no stimulus to individual exertion, and the mass of the people are only too well contented to go on for ever in the same old- fashioned conser\'ative ways as their fathers from time immemorial before them. In England the law of primogeniture, while so hard on younger sons, by throwing them on their own resoirrces, to provide for themselves in the free professions, and in commerce and the colonies, has had the most beneficial influence on the energy of the race, and the growth of the wealth and political liberties and power of the country during the last two hundred years. Primogeniture, also, has given England a highly cultivated and powerful governing class : and every parish in the country has its “ King in Israel.” All this may be conceded, and even the desirableness, in the last far-off result, of a change in the old order of village life in India, to something newer and more modern. It is only to be hoped that the inevitable revolution will be left alone to the tranquil operation of time, and of the economic causes by which the country is being gradually affected through its connexion with England.^ Perhaps the first forward ' Virgil’s maxim in the Georgies [ii 412] has become famous : “ Laudato ingentia rura, Exiguum colito.” riiny, who alludes to these hnes with approval, ascribes, indeed, the ruin of Italy to large estates. While proprietors were restricted by law to small holdings, and themselves cultivated their own farms, there was an abundance of provisions without the importation of grain, and the Republic could always command the services of a bold peasantry, their country’s pride. But in after 3i6 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. step in the new departure will be taken by the much abused village soukar, or banker. The ryot, the pet lamb fatted up for the revenue commissioner's knife, is protected by the paternal Govern- ment against aU others having a claim on his fleece.’^ The Govem- ages, when the property in the soil became engrossed by a few, and their over- grown estates were worked by slaves, Rome was forced to depend on other countries, both for food and to recruit her armies. — “Modum agri in primis servandum antiqui putavere. Quippe ita censebant, satius esse minus serere, et melius arare. Qua in sententia et Virgilium fuisse video. Verumque con- fitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam ; jam vero et provincias. Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps.” — Lib. xviii cap. vL The whole of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of this book are of remarkable interest to readers of Indian experience. Compare also ThirlwaU’s Greece, ii 34 ; Diodorus, i 79 ; and Plutarch’s Solon and Ctesar. Greece and Italy wonderfully explain India, while a knowledge of India enables us to quicken the pages of Greek and Roman history with vivid life. At every turn in the Maratha country, in the hilly nuruntls, the wayfarer comes on the bed of some mountain stream tufted all along its banks, and all over the little green eyots lying amid its waste of pebbles, with mixed tamarisk and sweet-scented oleander, which carry the beholder back at once to the Ilissus and wooded slopes of Mount Hymettus. The lovely blushing oleanders are always found to shade some pure clear pool left by the river in its summer flood, at which the gentle maidens and comely matrons of the neigh’4X)uring vdlage are filling their water jars, for ming “ . . . a group that’s quite antique. Draped lightly, loving, natural, and Greek ” ; as in the painting, on the Rogers Vase, of the women of Athens filling their pitchers at the fair flowing fountains of Callirrhoe. ^ The outcry against the village usurer is as ancient as the settlement of the land in the East. The fifth chapter of Nehemiah might be read as an extract from the Report of the Deccan Ryots Commission ; and Nehemiah, in his paternal interposition between the Jewish cultivators and the Jewish usurers, is seen to have been actuated by exactly the same spirit as an Indian Civilian. Turning to the usurers, he addressed them : “ It is not good that ye do, ... I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants [the Revenue Commissioner and Collectors and their Assistants], might exact of them [the ryots] money and com ; I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and their houses,also the hundredth part of the money, and of the com, the wine, and the oU, that ye exact of them. Then said they. We will restore them, and wrill require nothing of them j so will we do as thou sayest. Then I called the priest-s, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. Also I shook my lap. POTTERY. 317 ment has only mercilessly to leave him alone with his secular enemy, the soukar, and the village fields would probably soon pass from the poor peasant proprietor to the rich banker, and, held in fee simple, might at last be cultivated with the fullest advantage to the landlord and the State. Of course, under such a system of unrestricted competition for the soil the communal villages would disappear. The ryotwari tenure is very like free- hold, but as it, in benevolence to the ryot, allows him to retain his lands as long as he pays the assessment on them, although he may never cultivate them, it so far restricts the transfer and proper cultivation of the land. Also, among an ignorant peasant popula- tion, the periodical revision of the assessment, paternally devised in the ryot’s own interest, only serves to make him uncertain of the fixity of his tenure, and thus to restrict the improvement of his property. Even the annual settlement, which is not made to reassess the land, but to determine the amount of remission to be made for bad crops, and fields not cultivated, leads to the same result, and to unsettlement of mind and ill-will toward the Government. The ryot schemes through all the year, even against his own best interest, to swell the remissions as much as possible, and is never quite satisfied with the amount actually allowed him. The whole of this indictment against the ryotwari tenure, prevailing over the greater part of India, may be con- ceded, but we owe to it the conservation through every political change of the primitive arts of India, and when it becomes dis- organised and perishes, they too will sink and pass away for ever. Popular art cannot exist in the face of the stark competition ever fomented by the development of external commerce in all things. and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said Amen, and praised the Lord.” — Nehemiah V. 9-13. Nehemiah acted, indeed, on the ruling idea of the Indian Civilians that there should be no one between the Government and the ryots who cultivated the land, and paid the assessment thereon. 31 8 AVDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. including the possession of the soil, to which competition some theorists would sacrifice even national existence. We have already- seen this in England. In the fifteenth century that agrarian revo- lution began in this country which, in the end, accumulated the national lands in the hands of comparatively few proprietors. It was then that the old rural townships began to fail in the com- petition with the foreign importations dra-wn to I.ondon ; and more and more extended pasture farming became necessary to supply the wool, woollen fabrics, skin, hides, leather, and cheese for exportation to the Continent Under the growing pressure of competition for the land, Henry VIII was tempted to the suppression of the monasteries, and the secularisation of their property led gradually to the general extinction of the old rural communities, in whose existence was now involved the whole tradition of democratic culture and the continuity of popular progress in England. Still one-third of the country was held in copyhold at the beginning of the seventeenth century. But just then began our great commerce roimd the Cape of Good Hope with India, and the investment of the fortunes made in it in land ; and thus at length the self-dependent peasant proprietors were evetywhere swept away, and with them the last refuge of the popular arts in England. There can in fact be no popular arts ■Ruthout popular traditions, and traditionary arts can arise only among a people whose social and municipal institutions are based in perpetuity on a democratic organisation of their inherent right and property in the national soil, such as is secured to the people of India by the ryotivari tenure. This it is which has created for them the conditions of society, so picturesque in its outR’ard aspects, so unaffected and fascinating in its inner life, in which the arts of India originated, and on the permanence of which their preservation depends. For leagues and leagues round the old Maratha cities of Poona and Sattara stretch fields of com and pulse and oil grains and deep dyeing flowers, the livelier verdure of the rice fields following the courses of the POTTER Y 319 irriguous nullahs like a green thread wrought in gold ; and rich orchards, and high groves of mango mark the sites of the villages hidden in their shade. Glad with the dawn the men come forth to their work, and glad in their work they stand all through the noontide, singing at the well or shouting as they reap and plough ; and when the stillness and the dew of evening fall upon the land like the blessing and the peace of God, the merry-hearted men gather with their cattle, in long winding lines, to their villages again. Slowly, over all the wide champaign, the black lines shrink and disappear into the lengthening shadows of the mango-trees, and the day is closed in night. Thus day follows day, and the year is crowned with gladness. It is in the contempla- tion of such scenes as these that the Englishman in India drinks deep of the bliss of knowing others blest. Do they not truly realise that life of contentment in moderation which is the favorite theme of Horace ? Here is no “ Indigent starveling among mighty heaps.” ^ The accumulation of immoderate wealth is impossible, “Yet far aloof is irksome poverty,” And are not these the conditions under which popular art and song have everywhere sprung, and which are everywhere found essential to the preservation of their pristine purity? To the Indian land and village system we altogether owe the hereditary cunning of the Hindu handicraftsman. It has created for him simple plenty, and a scheme of democratic life, in which all are coordinate parts of one undivided and indivisible whole, the provision and respect due to every man in it being enforced under the highest religious sanctions, and every calling per- petuated from father to son by those cardinal obligations on ^ I quote Horace in Mr. Thornton’s translation, the attraction of which, for those who have ceased to be at home in classical Latin, lies in the felicity with which, while literal, it preserves the grace and harmony of the original. 320 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. which the whole hierarchy of Hinduism hinges. India has undergone more religious and political revolutions than any other country in the world ; but the village communities remain in full municipal vigor all over the Peninsula. Scythian, Greek, Saracen, Afghan, Mongol, and Maratha have come down from its mountains, and Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and Dane up out of its seas, and set up their successive dominations in the land ; but the religious trades union villages have remained as little affected by their coming and going as a rock by the rising and falling of the tide ; and there, at his daily work, has sat the hereditary village potter amid all these shocks and changes, steadfast and unchangeable for 3,000 years, Macedonian, Mongol, Maratha, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and Dane of no more account to him than the broken potsherds lying round his wheel. I have gone thus fully into the Indian village potter’s surroundings and antecedents because it is only by a chronological and historical reduction and a right knowledge of its economical conditions that we can get at all profitably at the origin of an art. It need not be said how much an intelligent study of the influences under which the arts of India have been produced and are sustained will help to a fuller understanding of the origin and development of Indo-European art generally. The languages and mythologies of the Indo-European nations were never recognised to be one, until the key to their unity was found in the sacred language and religion of the Hindus, and the scientific investiga- tion of Indian art will not fail to lead to profitable, and perhaps even surprising, results. The enamelled pottery of Sindh and the Panjab is a sumptuary and not a village art, and is probably not older than the time of Cenghiz Khan. In all the imperial Mogol cities of India where it is practised, especially in Lahore and Delhi, the tradition is that it was introduced from China, through Persia, by the Afghan Mongols, through the influence of Tamerlane’s Chinese POTTERY. 321 wife ; and it is stated by independent European authorities that the beginning of ornamenting the walls of mosques with colored tiles in India was contemporary with the Mongol conquest of Persia. But in Persia the ancient art of glazing earthenware had come down in an almost unbroken tradition from the period of the greatness of Chaldasa and Assyria, and the name kasi, by which the art is known in Persia and India, is probably the same Semitic word, kas., glass, by which it is known in Arabic and Hebrew, and carries us back direct to the manufacture of glass and enamels, for which “ great Zidon ” was already famous 1,500 years before Christ. The pillar of emerald in the temple of Melcarth, at Tyre, which Herodotus describes as shining brightly in the night, “ can,” observes Kenrick, “ hardly have been anything else than a hollow cylinder of green glass, in which, as at Gades, a lamp burnt perpetually.” The designs used for the decoration of this glazed pottery in Sindh and the Panjab also go to prove how much it has been influenced by Persian examples, and the Persian tradition of the ancient art of Nineveh and Babylon. The “ knop and flower ” pattern, which we all know in Greek art as the “ honeysuckle and palmette ” pattern, appears in infinite variations on everything. The old glazed tiles to be seen in India are always from IMahommedan buildings, and they vary in style with the period to which the buildings on which they are found belong ; from the plain turquoise blue tiles of the earlier Pathan period, a.d. 1193- 1254, to the elaborately-designed and many-colored tiles of the latter part of the great Mogol period, a.d. 1556-1750. Where- ever also the Mahommedans extended their dominion they would appear to have developed a local variety in these tiles. The India Museum has some remarkable examples of glazed tiles from the ruins of Gaur, the old Mahommedan capital of Bengal, which was erected into a separate kingdom almost simultaneously with Delhi itself. Mahomed Bakhtiar, the conqueror of Bihar, under Katub-ud-din, became, a.d. 1203, first king of the dynasty, 322 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. which ruled there until the state was absorbed into Akbar’s vast empire, a.d. 1573. But the city of Gaur was a famous capital of the Hindus long before it was taken possession of by the Mahommedans. The Sena and Bellala dynasties seem to have re- sided there, and no doubt, says Mr. Fergusson [Histojy of Indian Architecture^ pp. 546, et se^.] adorned it Avith temples and edifices worthy of their fame. Be this as it may, some of the oldest of the India Museum Gaur tiles are not of any style of Mahommedan glazed tiles known elsewhere in India, and have a marked Hindu character, quite distinct from the blue, and diapered, and banded tiles which are distinctive of Mahommedan manufacture elsewhere in India, before the florid designs of the Mogol period came into vogue. It is quite possible therefore that enamelled pottery was made in India long anterior to the age of Cenghiz Khan. It would be well to examine any ruins about the Sena capital of Nuddea for old tiles to compare with those of Gaur. It is not at all improbable that in a country of brick architecture like Bengal glazed bricks were used by the Buddhists and Hindus for ages before the IMahommedan conquest. The Bombay School of Art Pottery we owe chiefly to the exertions of Mr. George Terry, the enthusiastic superintendent of the school, who has a quick sympathy with native art. He has introduced some of the best potters from Sindh, and the work Mr. Terry’s pupils turn out in the yellow glaze in Bombay is now with difficulty distinguishable from the indigenous pottery of Sindh. It is only to be identified by its greater finish, which is a fault. The School of Art green and blue pottery always betrays its origin by some inherent defect in the glaze or clay used. Mr. Terry has also developed two original varieties of glazed pottery at Bombay, the designs in one being adapted with great know- ledge and taste from the Ajanta cave paintings, and the popular mythological paintings of the Bombay bazaars ; while in the other they are of his, or his pupils’ own inspiration, and derived from leaf and flower forms. Examples of all these varieties of the POTTERY. 323 Bombay School of Art Pottery, of the imitation Sindh and the Terry ware, have been put together in a separate case in the India Museum. The glazed pottery which comes from Bombay of Sindhian designs on Chinese and Japanese jam and pickle pots are a violation of everything like artistic and historical consistency in art, and if they are not ignorant productions of the pupils of the School of Art they are a most cruel slander on them. It is such eccentricities as these which have led people to doubt the utility of establishing English schools of art in India. But if it is an unpardonable error to darken by the force and teaching of English schools of art, and the competition of Govern- ment jails, and other state institutions and departments in India, the light of tradition by which the native artists in gold and silver, brass and copper, and jewelry, and in textiles and pottery, work, it is an equal abuse of the lessons to be taught by such an exhibition of the master handicrafts of India as the India Museum presents for the manufacturers of Birmingham, and Manchester, and Staffordshire, to set to work to copy or imdtate them. Of late years the shop windows of Regent Street and Oxford Street have been filled with electrotype reproductions of Burmese, Cash- mere, Lucknow, Kutch, and Madras silver and gold work, along with hlanchester, Coventry, and Paisley imitations of Indian chintzes, kincobs, and shawls. Porcelain vases and tea services may also be seen covered all over with the Cashmere cone pattern copied literally in the gaudiest colors from some Cashmere shawl. This is simply to deprave and debase English manufactures and English taste. No people have by nature a truer feeling for art than Englishmen and women of all classes, or purer elements of a national decorative style and methods ; and the right and fruitful use of looking at superb examples of Indian jewelry, tapestries, and pottery, is not to make literal counterfeits of them, but to kindle the sense of wonder and imagination in ourselves to nobler achievements in our own indigenous industrial arts. Art at second hand is already art in its decay ; while nothing Y 2 324 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. serves to maintain its perennial spontaneity and purity like the inspiration which comes of the contemplation of the best examples of foreign art. English manufacturers should visit the India Museum, rsot to slavishly plagiarise, but to receive into their breasts a stimulating and elevating influence from the light and life of a traditional art still fresh and pure, as at its first dawning two or three thousand years ago on the banks of the ancient Indus, the mystic Saraswati, and sacred Ganges, The Knop and Flower Pattern. In the Introduction to the Handbook to the British hidian Section at the Baris Universal Exhibition oj 1878, I have briefly traced the development of civilisation in the course of the Aryan migration southward into Persia and India, and westward through Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, &c, and France to the British Isles ; and in the Semetic and other lands which the to-and-fro trade between the Arabian and Mediter- ranean seas had to cross in consequence of the interposed obstruction of the Isthmus of Suez, about half way down the southern coastline of the Euro-Asian continent, or litus Arianmn. It is shewn how this line of coast and overland intercommuni- cation between the East and West Aryas was subject to be constantly interrupted by the incursions of Scyths, Mongols, and other Turkish hordes, but how the trade by it still went on even after the Ottoman Turks had established their dominion between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, and the Danube, and was only discarded on the discovery of the ocean way round Africa to the East. This was but 400 years ago, and for 3,000 years before, the road between India and the Mediterranean countries had been through the Tigris and Euphrates valley, and the valley of the Nile. From the time of Alexander, and through all the time of the Ptolemies and Seleucidae, and under the Roman Empire, until Egypt, Syria, and Persia were conquered by the Saracens, the intercourse between India INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. 326' and Greece through Persia, Assyria, Syria, and Egypt was unbroken and intimate. Although interrupted at first, it again revived under the Saracens, and, under the Ottoman Turks, was finally suspended only after the Portuguese had obtained possession of Ormuz. Even then the Armenians continued, as they have to the present day, the local intercourse between India and Assyria and Western Asia ; going to India and purchasing goods on the spot, and returning with them to Bandar Abbas, Ispahan, Baghdad, Mosul, and Tabriz. This is quite sufficient to account for the remarkable affinity between Assyrian and Indian decorative art, and the frequent identity of their ornamental details ; which, in turn, prove the continuity and intimacy of the commercial intercourse between India and Assyria. Of course the general affinity between Indian and Assyrian art may be in part due to the common Turanian substratum, and common Aryan inspiration of Indian and Assyrian civilisation. When the Aryas made their way through Afghanis- tan and Cashmere into the Panjab, they found the plains of the Upper Indus already occupied by a Turanian race, which they indeed easily conquered, but which, as the caste regulations of the Code of Manu prove, was far superior to themselves in industrial civilisation. These aborigines already worked in metal and stone, and wove woollen, cotton, and linen stuffs, knew how to dye them, and to embellish their buildings with paintings : the descriptions of Megasthenes prove that, even at its highest development, Hindu civilisation was more Turanian than Aryan : and the pre-Aryan Turanian civilisation of India must have been similar to the pre-Semitic Turanian civilisation of Babylonia, Chaldsea, and Assyria, and probably preceded it. All that is monstrous in the decorative forms of Indian and Assyrian art, all that is obscene in Indian symbolism, is probably derived from common Turanian sources, anterior to direct commercial inter- course between India and Assyria. But, when we find highly artificial and complicated Indian decorative designs identical in THE KNOT AND FLOIVEE PATTERN. 327 form and detail with Assyrian, we feel sure that the one must have been copied from the other, and indeed there can be no doubt that the Indian ornamental designs, applied to and derived directly from sculpture, which are identical with Assyrian, w'ere copied from the monuments of Assyria ; Egyptian, of course, from Egypt. We cannot trust alone to the allusions, references, or even descriptions of the Bible, Homer, and the Ramaya- na and Mahabarata to identify the art manufactures of India with those of Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt ; by themselves they indicate generic likeness only ; and their specific identity can be demonstrated only by a comparison of the actual remains of ancient art, and of its carved and painted representations on contemporary monuments. But when this identity has been proved from the monuments and other remains, the Bible, Homer, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and Pliny are invaluable, in that they enable us to complete our information on the sure and certain foundation so laid ; and to the picture thus composed of the early civilisation of the world we are justified in giving color and motion from the strictly traditional, still living, civilisation of India. The Bible, and Homer, and the Greek poets generally, are full of idyllic scenes from the life of ancient Greece, Syria, and Egypt, which are still the commonplaces of the daily life of the natives of India, who have lived apart from the corruptions of European civilisation. There are many passages also directly illustrating the handicrafts of the ancients. In Proverbs xxx, attributed to Solomon about b.c. 1015-975, we read the praise of a good wife : — “ She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant’s ships, she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth up while it is yet night, and giveth meat [bread] to her household. * * * She considered! a field and buyeth it ; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vine- yard. * * * She perceiveth that her merchandise is good : her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hand to the 328 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. * * * She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry : her cloth- ing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen and selleth it j and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. * * * Her children rise up and call her blessed ; her husband also, and he praiseth her. * * * Favour is deceitful and beauty vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own work praise her in the gates. ” And in Exodus xxxvi 30-35, about b.c. 1500, we read of Bezaleel and Aholiab, the master craftsmen of the first Temple: — “And Moses said unto the children of Israel, See, the Lord hath called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and He hath filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship ; and to devise curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of wood to make any manner of cunning work And He hath put in his heart that he may teach, both he and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. Them hath He filled with wisdom of heart to work all manner of work of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue and in purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.” These passages [and there are numbers of the same description in Homer and Aristo- phanes] are sufficient to prove the close affinity of the primitive Hindu civilisation of India, in the simplicity and beauty of its life, the profound religiousness of its animating spirit, and also in the identity of many of its industrial arts, with the civilisations of Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt, and with that of THE KNOT AND FLOWER PATTERN 329 Greece in the heroic age at least ; while even in the midst of the growing corruptions of imperial Rome we find that Augustus Csesar brought up the females of his family and household on the antique model, and wore no clothing but such as had been made by their hands. The researches of Mr. Fergusson have shewn that stone architecture in India does not begin before the end of the third century B.c. He has also draNvn attention to the similarity in ground plan, and in some instances in elevation, of Indian temples to Assyrian and Egyptian. He observes that if the description given by Josephus of the temple at Jerusalem, as rebuilt by Herod, be read with a plan such as that of Tinnevelly, it is impossible to escape the conviction that their coincidences are not wholly accidental.^ In their grandeur and splendour of detail and in the labour bestowed on them for labour’s sake, the resemblance between the temples of Egypt and Madras is most remarkable. Not less startling are the traces of Assyrian art in these temples, and Mr. Fergusson expresses the opinion that, if we are to trust to tradition or to mythology or to ethno- logical coincidences, it is rather to the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates than to the banks of the Nile that we should look for the incunabula of what are found in Southern India. The minor arts of Madras are palpably derived from the temple architecture and ornamentation of that Presidency. A Madras silver incense-stickholder belonging to Mr. W. G. S. V. FitzGerald, formed of an antelope hunted by a ^ The resemblance which the sanctuaries of some of these Southern Indian temples bear to the Holy of Holies of the Temple of Jerusalem is obvious. In the great temple of Chillimbarum the object of worship is vacuum \stcnya- layd\. There are numerous images of the Puranic gods to be found in the subsidiary shrines, but the shrine of the temple is only empty space. It is enclosed by a superb structure of sandal-wood, profusely decorated with gold and silver plates. A thick curtain, gloriously embroidered, screens the in- terior from all human sight save that of the high priest only, who is permitted to enter it but once in every year. 33 ° INDUSTRIAL ARTS OR INDIA. dog along a conventional flower stalk, and taken from the sculptures common on all Madras temples, is identical with some of the representations of hunting scenes on the Assyrian monuments given in Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, In this it is clear that India is the copyist. The knop and flower, or cone and flower, pattern is represented, with local varia- tions, on early Indian monuments in the same form and general style as on the marbles of Assyria and in the Bharhut sculptures, at least, the lotus is repeatedly represented in the identical half conventional form in which we find it in the hieroglyphic paintings of Egypt. Here again it is obviously India which has copied from Assyria. It is quite possible, however, that some of the very forms in India which can be proved to be copied from Assyrian temples and palaces may have originally been carried into Egypt and Assyria on Indian cotton or woollen fabrics and jewelry. The knop and flower pattern commonly found on Sindh pottery [i] is identical with the knop and flovver pattern [2] on the Koyunjik palace doorway, figured in Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies, vol. i, p. 417. In the same volume, at page 493, is a circular breast ornament [3], on a royal robe, from a sculpture at Nimrud. Here the cone does not alternate with a lotus flower, but with the fan-like head of the Horn. Nor is the cone a lotus bud, but a larger representation of the fruit of the Horn. In a common form of Persian plate [4], which may [chiefly because of the circular shape of the two objects] be compared with THE KNOT AND FLOWER FATTERH. 331 this breast ornament, the cone is developed into a form conical in shape, but Hom-\i\^Q in detail, and the flower is metamor- phosed into a strange Chinese style of scroll. That it is the knop and flower pattern is proved beyond dispute by the curved line which unites the base of the knop with the base of the flower, and which is found surviving in ornaments derived from this pattern when almost every other trace of it has disappeared. A modification, in point, of this pattern is repeated on the inner 4 border of the plate. A very beautiful variation of the pattern is one of the commonest seen on Sindh tiles [5], in which the knop has become the regular Saracenic cone, and the flower is not the head of the Horn, or lotus, but a full-blown iris. On Delhi and Cashmere shawl borders [6] the AT^7;;/-head-like flower often looks very like the “ Shell ” on Renaissance mouldings. On these shawl borders the knop and flower are often also combined [7], 332 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. the knop becoming the cone or cypress-like trunk of a tree, the branches of which fan out like the fronds of the Horn. In some Indian and Persian carpets the knop or cone throws out graceful Hojn fronds, one on either side, from the ends of which hangs a large flower, presenting the alternation of a branch- ing cone and flower. Every other branching cone is also, as it were, upside down, so that we get a winding floriated line running in and out between each cone and flower. When the cone is large it is filled in with floral detail, as in Cashmere shawls, the characteristic decoration of which is the last bright consummate inflorescence of the original Egyptian and Assyrian knop and flower pattern. A few engravings [8 to 19] are 10 II THE KNOT AND FLOWER PATTERN. 333 added from Owen Jones’ Graimnar of Ornament, to sliew the modification of this pattern in Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Italian, 334 INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA. Renaissance and Indian art. The Greek “ honey-suckle and palmette” scroll [13] is simply the knop and flower, as are the Renaissance “shell” [14], and the “tongue and dart,” and “ egg and tongue ” patterns of classical mouldings. Long ago Ivir. Fergusson pointed out [in his Illustrated Handbook of Architecture vol. i, p. 7] that on the “/d., Quarterly, 3^., Half-yearly, 6r., Yearly, lor. Yearly Tickets are also issued to any school at which will admit all the pupils of such schools on all Students’ days. Tickets may be obtained at the Catalogue Sale Stall of the Museum. 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