THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA.*
Tnis book, which, to the extent of nearly two-thirds, is a repub- lication, with important additions, of Dr. Birdwood's Handbook to the Indian Court at the International Exhibition of 1878, is a healthy and significant sign of the times. The method of education in South Kensington, which might be described as "growth in the graces," must be taking root in the popular mind, when it is found necessary, in one of its Art handbooks, to give as interesting, comprehensive, and accurate an account of the Hindoo mythology as we have ever come across. Dr. Birdwood is an enthusiast—his enthusiasm occasionally manifesting itself in a florid style, which is suggestive of Mr. Edwin Arnold, and accounts for his sympathy with that author—and that enthu- siasm makes him resolved at all hazards to prove such theories as that "the words uttered three thousand years ago by the Vedic bards, or rishis, gradually became the gods of India, Greece, and Rome," and that "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." To the young, and not infrequently to the adult mind, the history of the Hindoo Pantheon, the story of the Vedas, and the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana, and the like, is a mighty maze, without a chronological or any other plan. By adopting an excellent historical method, by giving us, more- over, after the South Kensington mode, a key to the Pantheon. in the form of plates of the chief deities, Dr. Birdwood makes - the whole clear and attractive. Nor is the work marred by the fact that the author has decided views of his own on certain points. He has no love for the Brahmans ; in a sense, the most tolerant and es-en latitudinarian of priestly castes, they cor- rupted, as he thinks, the better religions of India, the simple aboriginal theogony and the earlier and purer Buddhism. As for the code of Mann, it is, no doubt, the legal foundation of Hindoo life ; but then it stopped its progress, or rather, fossilised
• The Industrial Arts of Indiq. By George C. M. Birdwood, C.S.I., M.D. London : Chapman and Hall. 1881.
it As, however, such doctrines are no longer bizarre, but are the current coin of educated belief, their enforcement only gives piquancy to the work.
The major portion of the volume, or "South Kensington proper" section, consists of a complete account of the arts and master handicrafts of India. Here are all at work in the typical village .—
"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, takiug 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 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."
The handicrafts are then individually, and with abundant help from illustrations, described, under these titles,—Gold and silver plate ; metal work in brass, copper, and tin ; damascened work ; enamels ; arms ; trappings and caparisons ; jewellery ; art furniture and household decoration ; musical instruments ; woven stuffs, lace, fine needlework, carpets, felts, and furs ; pottery ; the knop-and-flower pattern. This portion of Dr. Birdwood's book is a perfect store-house of peculiar and accu- rate knowledge. Prone, too, as he is to enthusiasm, he does not alarm the reader with fantastical theories. The nearest ap- proach to anything of the sort, perhaps, is his inference from the presence of coins of a Greek character in a Buddhist tope near Jellalabad, that the Greeks under Alexander must have actually conquered a portion of the north of India, that, in fact, the story of the conflict with Portia is substantially true. But this view is now substantially accepted by all competent scholars. We must refer the reader to the work itself for the details given of the history, progress, and in too many cases, decline of par- ticular arts in India. Here we must content ourselves with an example of the method by which Dr. Birdwood renders his erudition so thoroughly enjoyable :—
"Its marvellously woven tissues and sumptuously inwrought ap- parel have been the immemorial glories of India. India was pro- bably the first of all countries that perfected weaving, and the art of its gold brocades and filmy mnslins, comely as the curtains of Solo- mon,' is even older than the Code of Mama. Weaving is frequently alluded to in the Vedas. Usbas is the daughter of Heaven, clothed with radiance.' In the hymn in which Trite prays to be released from the well in which he is confined, he says, cares consume me as a rat gnaws a weaver's thread.' In the hymn to Apris occurs the line Day and night spread light and darkness over the extended earth like two famous female weavers weaving a garment.' The Yajar Veda mentions gold cloth, or brocade, for a counterpane. No information is given in the Rig Veda of the materials of which clothes are made; but in the time of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, cotton, silken, and woollen stuffs are constantly mentioned. In the Ramayana the nuptial presents to Site, the bride of Rama, from her father, consisted of woollen stuffs, furs, precious stones, fine silken vestments of divers colours, and princely ornaments, and sumptuous carriages. The Ramayana gives no names of places where particular articles of clothing were made; but in the Mahabbarata, in the enumeration of the presents which the feudatory princes brought to Yndhisthira, as their Lord Paramount, mention is made of furs from the Hinda-Knsh, of woollen shawls of the Abhiras from Gujarat, and of clothes of the wool of sheep and goats, and of thread spun by worms, and of plant fibre [hemp], woven by the tribes of the North- Western Himalayas ; of elephant-housings presented by the princes of Eastern Hindustan ; and of pure linen 'muslin], the gift of the people of Gangam, the Carnatic and Mysore. Weaving and dyeing are continually mentioned in the Code of Manu ; and in other ancient works nick cloth is appropriated to the Indian Saturn, yellow to Venus, and red to Mars. In the ancient sculptures the women are represented both in richly embroidered brocaded robes, and in muslin so fine as to fully expose their form, the lines of its folds, or of its silk and gold edging, traced across their bodies, being the only evidence that they are clothed. On the Ajanta Cave paintings the women's robes are blue, which still is a favourite colour with Indian women. The Hindu poets are very eloquent on the charming effect of a fair (sienna-complexioned) woman dressed in blue, likening it to that of a dark cloud lighted up by the radiant fire of beauty. It is, however, considered indecent for a woman of the twice-born castes to wear a blue dress unless it be of silk, excepting in the case of a Brahmini woman at night, a Kshatriya woman while a bride or at a feast, and a Vaisya woman when performing sraddha. But they all take off any blue cotton dress they may be wearing during meals. One of the most ancient epithets of Vishnu is pitambara, clothed in yellow garments.' The Indian hermits, in the oldest mention of them, are required to wear clothes of yellow ochre-colour, all others being free to wear any colour of vesture they please. When the Greeks with Alexander arrived in India, they noticed that the gar- ments worn by the people were made of tree wool,' or wool pro- duced in nuts ;' and Megasthenes (Strada), xv., L, 53-56 and 69) adds, ' their robes are worked in gold, and ornamented with various stones, and they wear also flowered garments of the finest muslin.' No conventional ornament is probably more ancient than the coloured stripes and patterns we find on Indian cotton cloths, and the cotton carpets called satrangis. In the kin cobs, or silk brocades, the erne, mental designs betray conflicting influences. It is very difficult to say when silk-weaving passed from China into India, and it would appear as if there were no conclusive evidence of its having been known in Western Asia, until Justinian introduced it in the sixth century through Persia from China. But there is no doubt that the brocades of Ahmedabad and Benares and Murshedabad represent the rich staffs of Babylon, wrought, as we know they were, with figures of animals in gold and variegated colours. Such brocades are now a speciality of Benares, where they are known under the name of shikargah, happy hunting-grounds,' which is nearly a translation [Yule, Marco Polo, i., 63] of the name thard-wahsh, or 'beast-hunts,' by which they were known to the Saracens. Fine weaving probably passed from India to Assyria and Egypt, and through the Phcenicians into Southern Europe ; and gold was inwoven with cotton in India, Egypt, Chalchea, Assyria, Babylonia, and Phcenicia, from the earliest times, first in flat strips, and then in wire, or twisted round thread, and the most ancient form of its use is still practised all over India.
In Exodus xxxix., 2 and 3, we read And he [Aholiab] made the ephod of gold, blue and purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen. And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cat it into wires' [` strips ' it should be translated], 'to work it in the blue and in the purple and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunning work.' The inspired Psalmist, in setting forth the majesty and grace of the Kingdom of God [Psalm xliv.], says, Upon thy right hand did stand
the Queen of Ophir The king's daughter is all glorious within, her raiment is of wrought gold.' Almost at the same time Homer describes the golden net of Ilephaastus [0d. viii., 274] :—
Whose texture e'en the search of gods deceives, Fine as the limy webs the spider weaves?
Pliny [Bk. viii., ch. 74] also tells us, Bat to weave cloth with gold was the invention of an Asiatic King, Attains, from whom the name Attalic [' Attalica vestis," Attalica tunica," Attalicus torus'] was derived, and the Babylonians were most noted for their skill in weaving cloths of various colours. Of course, the excellence of the art passed in the long course of ages from one place to another, and Babylon, Tarsus, Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus, Antioch, Tabriz, Constanti- nople, Cyprus, Sicily, Tripoli, successively became celebrated for their gold and silver, wrought tissues, and alike and brocades. The Saracens, through their wide-spreading conquests and all-devouring cosmopolitan appetite for arts and learning—at second-hand—suc- ceeded in confusing all local styles together, so that now it is often difficult to distinguish between European nod Eastern influences in the designs of an Indian brocade ; and yet through every disguise it is not impossible to infer the essential identity of the brocades of modern India with the blue and purple and scarlet worked in gold of ancient Babylon."
The most " popular " portion of this work, however, will probably be found to be the controversial one. Some time ago, Dr. Birdwood, in a letter to the Times, gave an account of a curious propaganda against the machine-made goods of Man- chester and Birmingham, which threaten to ruin the hereditary arts of India. Ballad-singers were described as bemoaning this ruin in bazaars and at festivals, and invoking the aid of Brahma and Siva, and the fourteen Sciences, and even of the Queen, against disastrous innovations and delusive arts, against needles and pins that "prick only your bellies," against lucifer- matches from which no light comes to "illumine your mind." The literature of the propaganda had not a natural, spontaneous look, but seemed pumped-up, and smelt too much of the oil of some secret Protectionist society. Still, there is un- doubtedly something in the agitation ; and that something Dr. Birdwood embodies in his preliminary and very picturesque remarks on the condition of the master handicrafts. The skill of the craftsmen is deteriorating, he maintains, because of the relaxation of the old trade guilds—his history of them, by the way, is eminently worth reading, even from au English point of view—under the comparative laxity of British government, and because the competition of our goods has driven the crafts-
men into other employments. "Of late years," wails our author,—
" 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 pro- spects, nor poisoned any air ; whose skill and individuality the train- ing 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, fcr tempting wages, at manufacturing piece goods, in competition with Manchester, in the production of which they are no more intellectually and morally con- cerned than the grinder of a barrel organ in the tunes turned out from it."
Undoubtedly, the decline, even although for a time, of arts brought to such exquisite perfection as those of India, is to be be regretted. It may be even doubted if anything our rule may bring the Indian handicraftsman will ever compensate him for the loss of that contentment which results from the competence that is neither poverty nor riches, and which Dr. Birdwood extols, in one striking passage, with almost oriental rhetoric. But there is a good side to the invasion and ultimate triumph of British machine-made goods. Even Dr. Birdwood, in his Times' letter, has to admit that "the very fact of this poetical outcry having been raised in Gujerat and the Mahratta country against English manufacturers is a proof of their increased wealth and growing civilisation." Besides, it is permissible to believe that when the inevitable reaction in favour of high art follows in the train of a diffusion of wealth, both here and in India, Bri- tish manufacturers and Hindoo handicraft will find their rela- tive position and adequate value. As it is, Dr. Birdwood does not a whit too strongly contrast the patience and perfection of the Indian with the haste and slip-shoddiness of his conqueror. There is, moreover, not only fire, but the force of unpalatable truth, in these remarks, with which we bid farewell to Dr. Birdwood's volume :— " If it is an unpardonable error to darken by the force and teach- ing of English schools of art, and the competition of Government 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 manufac- turers of Birmingham, and Manchester, and Staffordshire, to set to work to copy or imitate them. Of late years, the shop windows of Regent Street and Oxford Street have been filled with electrotype reproductions of Burmese, Cashmere, Lucknow, Kutch, and Madras silver and gold work, along with Manchester, 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 colours from some Cash- mere shawl. This is simply to deprave and debase English manu- factures 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 nationel decorative style and methods; and the right and fruit- ful 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 achieve- ments in our own indigenous industrial arts. Art at second-hand is already art in its decay ; while nothing serves to maintain its peren- nial spontaneity and purity like the inspiration which comes of the contemplation of the best examples of foreign art. English manu- facturers should visit the India Museum, not 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."
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