Indian Craftsman Coomaraswamy

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THE INDIAN CRAFTS-MAN : BYANANDAK.COOMARASWAMY,D.SC.

Author of " Mediaeval Sinhalese Art."With a Foreword by C. R. ASHBEE, M.A.

PROBSTHAIN & CO.,41, GREAT RUSSELL ST., LONDON, w.C.

1909


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CONTENTSChap. PageFOREWORD v. xv.

I. THE VILLAGE CRAFTSMAN .. iThe Village Community " Five Trades " Basisof Society Payment of Craftsmen.

II. THE CRAFT GUILDS OF THE GREAT CITIES . . 7Trade Guilds Guilds in Ahmadabad Guilds inthe Epics Guild Responsibility Guilds inBuddhist India.

III. THE FEUDAL CRAFTSMAN IN INDIA AND CEYLON . . 20Kings' Craftsmen King Craftsmen A CityRebuilt Feudal Craftsmen in Ceylon RoyalBuilders in Ceylon Temple Craftsmen in CeylonIn Southern India Manorial CraftsmenVillages of Craftsmen Social Status TheKammalar.

IV. STANDARD AND REGULATION 57A Smith's Jurisdiction The Maintenance ofStandard The Degradation of Standard FreeTrade and Protection.

V. RELIGIOUS IDEAS IN CRAFTSMANSHIP . . . . 66Noblesse oblige Sva-dharma Karma Good andEvil Craftsmen Visvakarma Rhythmic Archi-tecture A Craft Ritual in Ceylon ReligiousEndowments Then and Now Civilization.

VI. EDUCATION .. .. .. .. .. .. 83The Hereditary Craftsman The ApprenticeSimplicity of Tools Leisure Art and CommerceThe Essentials.


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APPENDICES.

I. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD on the Indian Village Potter.II. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD on Machinery and Handicraft in

India.

III. WILLIAM MORRIS on Commercial War.IV. E. B. HAVELL on Craftsmen and Culture.V. E. B. HAVELL on the Official Suppression of Indian

Craftsmanship at the Present Day.VI. LAFCADIO HEARN on Craft Gods in Japan.

VII. LAFCADIO HEARN on Craft Guilds in Japan.VIII. SER MARCO POLO on Craft Guilds in China.IX. BHIKKU P. C. JINAVARAVAMSA on Craftsmen in Siam.X. Municipal Institutions in Ancient India.

XI. Books recommended to the Reader.


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FOREWORD.P\R. COOMARASWAMY'S study of the Indian

craftsman raises questions of the widestand deepest interest, questions that will not onlygive consciousness to modern Eastern thought, buthelp us with some of the most advanced of ourWestern problems. He tells us of a condition oflife among the eastern Aryans that still exists, andhe tells it in such a way as to make us feel thatthere is no reason why it should not go on existing.Why, we ask, has this custom of the centuries,which seems so reasonable in the East, and throughwhich the western Aryan once passed, changed inone part of the world and not in the other, andwhat are the merits of the change ?

If we examine our own Western economic history,more particularly the history of England, we findthat the break up of the conditions of Englishcraftsmanship and the English village order, cannotbe traced back beyond the industrial revolutionof the 18th century, and the enclosure of the commonlands that accompanied it. Fundamentally, withus the great change came with the introduction ofindustrial machinery, and the question which forces


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FOREWORD.itself upon us, when we look at the picture Dr.Coomaraswamy draws, is : What are the benefitsto our culture of the industrial machinery that hasacted in this manner ?

Trained as we are to measure everything by amechanical standard, it is difficult for us to seethings clearly, to get a correct focus. We are aptto forget that our view is biassed, that we attacha disproportionate value to the productions ofmachinery, and that a vast number, perhaps 60per cent., of these productions are not, as isgenerally supposed, labour-saving, health-givingand serviceable to our general life and culture, butthe reverse. " It is questionable," said John StuartMill half a century ago, " whether all the labour-saving machinery has yet lightened the day's labourof a single human being " ; and the years that havefollowed his death seem not only to have furtherborne out his statement, but the people themselveswho are being exploited by mechanical conditionsare beginning to find it out.For machinery is only a measure of human

force, not an increase of it ; and it is questionablewhether, owing to the abuse of machinery, thedestruction and waste it brings may not equal thegain it yields. Wonderful are the great ships, andthe winged words from one side of the globe to theother, wonderful is the consciousness that comes

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FOREWORD.to us from those things, and from rapid movement,and from our power of destruction, but we maypay even too high a price for the boon of progress.It behoves us to ask, at least, what the price is,and if it be a fair one. Perchance, in our thought-lessness we have, like the boy in the fairy tale,bartered away the cow for a handful of beans ;well, there may be much virtue in the beans, butwas not the cow good too ? A more reasonableview of life and the progress of Western civilizationis making us see that the pitiful slums of our greatcities are not a necessary corollary to the greatships ; that a nicer, saner regulation of industrywill mean that the rapid displacement of humanlabour, and the misery it brings, may be graduatedand softened ; that it is not necessary for 30 percent, of the population to die in pauperism, as isthe case in England at present ; that it is short-sighted and unwise to paralyze invention and skilland individuality by unregulated machine develop-ment, and that our present gauge of the excellencein all these things their saleability cannot possiblycontinue to be a permanent gauge.

It is when Western civilization is brought faceto face with the results of other cultures, Easterncultures, when the stages of its progress are resumedfrom the points of view of other religions, whenJapan, for instance, rejects or chooses what she

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FOREWORD.needs to make her a fighting force, when Indiaseeks to form, out of an imposed educationalsystem, a political consciousness of her own ; whenPersia and Turkey are in the act of creating con-stitutions on the Western model, that we in theWest come to realize that the stages of progress,as we understand them, are not obligatory. Someof them may be skipped.So it is with industry, and the conditions of lifeinduced by industrial machinery, much of it maybe skipped. And it is the continuous existence ofan order like the Indian village community, which,when brought into relation with Western progress,seems to prove this. We in the West have passedthrough the condition of the Aryan village com-munity. The conditions Dr. Coomaraswamydescribes in India and Ceylon are very similar tothe conditions that prevailed in mediaeval England,Germany and France ; they did not seem nearlyso strange to Knox, writing in Stuart times, as theydo to us. The 500 years that have passed betweenour middle ages and the growth of the great citiesof machine industry may have proved that thedestruction of the Western village community wasinevitable, but it has not proved that where thevillage community still exists it need necessarilybe destroyed. Indeed, we are finding out in theWest that if the village tradition were still living

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FOREWORD.it could still be utilized ; we are even seeking toset up something like it in its place. For the greatcity of mechanical industry has come to a pointwhen its disintegration is inevitable. There aresigns that the devolution has already begun, bothin England and America. The cry of " back to theland," the plea for a " more reasonable life," therevival of the handicrafts, the education of handand eye, the agricultural revival, the German" ackerbau," the English small holding, our technicalschools, all these things are indications of a needfor finding something, if not to take the place ofthe village community, at least to bring onceagain into life those direct, simple, humanand out-of-door things of which mechanicalindustry has deprived our working population.These things are necessary to our life as apeople, and we shall have to find them some-how. Dr. Coomaraswamy does well to show howthey still exist in great measure in the East, andit may be that the East, in her wisdom, and with herprofound conservative instinct, will not allow themto be destroyed. She has, as Sir Geo. Birdwood putsit, let the races and the peoples for 3,000 yearscome and pass by ; she may have taken this fromone and that from another, but the fundamentaldemocratic order of her society has remained, andit appears improbable, on the face of it, that we

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FOREWOOD.English shall materially change it when so manyothers before us have left it undisturbed.

Indeed, there seems to be no reason, on the faceof it, why we should aspire to do so. Some changewe are certainly bringing, and bringing uncon-sciously, but it is a curious and suggestive thoughtthat the spiritual reawakening in England, whichgoes now by the name of the higher culture, now bythe name of Socialism, which has been voiced inour time by Ruskin and Morris, which has expresseditself in movements like the arts and crafts, or isrevealed in the inspired paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, demands just such a condition as inIndia our commercialisation is destroying. Thespiritual reawakening in the West is appealing fora social condition in which each man shall havenot only an economic but a spiritual status in thesociety in which he lives, or as some of us wouldprefer to put it, he shall have a stable economicstatus in order that he may have a spiritual statusas well.

It is such a condition that still exists in India,where society is organized, as Dr. Coomaraswamyshows, upon a basis of " personal responsibility andco-operation," instead of, as with us, upon a basisof contract and competition. Even if we admitthat the change in the Aryan of the West from theone basis to the other has been necessary in order

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FOREWORD.to produce the conditions of modern progress, thescientific results of our civilization, in short, thegreat ships, it may yet be that the spiritual re-awakening that is beginning to stir the dry bonesof our Western materialism may yet leave theancient East fundamentally unchanged, and bringus once again into some kindred condition throughour contact with her.

In the profoundly interesting address of theEnglish artists in 1878, which bore the names ofMorris, Burne-Jones, Millais, Edwin Arnold, WalterCrane and others, there is an appeal to the Govern-ment on behalf of Indian Arts and Crafts againstthe effects of English commercialism upon theproduction of Indian craftsmanship." At a time," say the signatories, " when theseproductions are getting to be daily more and morevalued in Europe, these sources are being driedup in Asia, and goods which ought to be commonin the market are now becoming rare treasures formuseums and the cabinets of rich men. This resultseems to us the reverse of what commerce oughtto aim at."But has commerce any aim ? Is it as yet more

than a blind force ? The experience of 30 yearshas shown that this appeal of the English artistsmight have been as eloquently made on behalf ofEnglish as of Indian craftsmanship. For, indeed,

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FOREWORD.the appeal is less against English Governmentalaction than against the conditions imposed uponthe world by the development of industrialmachinery, directed by commercialism. Industrialmachinery which is blindly displacing the purposeof hand and destroying the individuality of humanproduction ; and commercialism, which is settingup one standard only, the quantitative standard,the standard of saleability.To compass the destruction of commercialismand regulate and delimit the province of industrialmachinery for the benefit of mankind, is now thework of the Western reformer. The spiritual re-awakening with us is taking that shape.It is probable that in this effort of the Westernartists, workmen, and reformers for the recon-struction of society on a saner and more spiritualbasis, the East can help us even more than we shallhelp the East. What would we not give in Englandfor a little of that " workshop service " which Dr.Coomaraswamy describes, in place of our half-bakedevening classes in County Council Schools ? What,in our effort at the revival of handicrafts in thedecaying country-side, for some of those " religioustrade union villages " of which Sir George Birdwoodspeaks ?There has come over Western civilization, in the

last 25 years, a green sickness, a disbelief, an unrest ;xii.


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FOREWORD.it is not despondency, for in the finer minds it takesthe form of an intense spiritual hopefulness ; butit takes the form also of a profound disbelief inthe value of the material conditions of modernprogress, a longing to sort the wheat from thechaff, the serviceable from the useless, a desire toturn from mechanical industry and its wastefulness,and to look once more to the human hand, to beonce again with Mother Earth.

" It behoves us," said Heraclitus, in the time ofthe beginnings of Hellenic civilization, " itbehoves us to follow the common reason ofthe world ; yet, though there is a commonreason in the world, the majority live asthough they possessed a wisdom peculiar eachunto himself alone." This is so profoundly modernthat it might almost be a comment upon Englishor American industrialism, did we not know thatit applied equally to the peculiar intellectualindividualism of Hellas, which disintegrated anddestroyed her culture. But the " common reasonof the world," if the words of Heraclitus are to betaken at their face value, includes the reason ofthe East, and with it the social order that hasstood there unshaken for 3,000 years, and hencestood there long before the days of Heraclitushimself.

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FOREWORD.For our immediate purpose, too, the purpose of

this book, the " common reason of the world "includes and defines the Indian craftsman and theIndian village community ; it gives them a definiteand necessary place not only in the Indian orderof things, not only in the culture of the East, butin the world. It shows them to be reasonable andright, and it shows them, what is still moreimportant, to be the counterpart one of the other.Here once more we are learning from the East.The English craftsman and the English village are

passing, or have passed away ; and it is only inquite recent times that we have discovered that they,too, are the counterpart one of the other. Industrialmachinery, blindly misdirected, has destroyed themboth, and recent English land legislation has beentrying, with allotment and small-holdings acts, tore-establish the broken village life. Those of us,however, that have studied the Arts and Crafts intheir town and country conditions, are convincedthat the Small Holding Problem is possible ofsolution only by some system of co-operation, andif some forms of craftsmanship are simultaneouslyrevived and added to it. " Speak to the earth andit shall teach thee " ; that is an old lesson, and itis true not only of England, but of all Westerncountries that have been touched by the green-sickness of industrial machinery. With us in the

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FOREWORD.West it is the newest of new ideas that the arts andcrafts and the revival of agriculture are the corollaryof one another. In India they always appear tohave thought this, and to have held by the truth-

I never heard of the god Visvakarma, the godof the Arts and Crafts, before I learned of himfrom Dr. Coomaraswamy. But he seems strangelylike a personification of that Platonic idea ofabstract beauty which for so many centurieshas haunted the Western mind. Whether it bePlato or Plotinus, Pico della Mirandola or Rossetti,ever and again in the great periods of our Westerndevelopment the idea recurs. Who knows, perhapsVisvakarma is the god for whom we in the West,in our spiritual reawakening, are in search ; possiblyhe can help us ! C. R. ASHBEE.

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" The hand of a craftsman engaged inhis craft is always pure." Manu.

" Those that are craftsmen of the people arewelcome over all the wide earth." Odyssey.

" All these trust to their hands :And everyone is wise in his work.Without these cannot a city be inhabited." Ecclesiasticus.


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CHAPTER I.THE VILLAGE CRAFTSMAN.

T NDIAN society presents to us no more fascinatingpicture than that of the craftsman as an organicelement in the national life. Broadly speaking,

he is associated with that life in one of three ways :as a member of a village community ; as a memberof a guild of merchant craftsmen in a great city ;or as the feudal servant of the king, or chieftain ofa temple. First let us enquire into the position ofthe lesser craftsmen, within the agricultural villagecommunity.The craftsmen thus working within the village

community, are there in virtue of a perpetualcontract whereby their services are given to thehusbandmen, from whom they receive in returncertain privileges and payments in kind. Each hashis own duties to perform.The woodwork of ploughs and other implements

is made and repaired by the carpenter, the cultivatormerely supplying the wood ; the blacksmith suppliesall the iron parts of the implements, and repairsthem when necessary, the cultivator supplying theiron and charcoal, and working the bellows ; and


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THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.the potter* supplies each cultivator with theearthenware he needs. The list of artisans is notalways the same, only those most indispensableto the community being found in all cases, such asthe carpenter and blacksmith, potter and washer-man. Others may be the barber-surgeon, messengerand scavenger, astrologer, or dancing girl. It willbe seen that not all of these are technically crafts-men, but all occupy their position in virtue of theprofessional service which they render to theagricultural community. This is well illustrated bya verse of a fifteenth century Sinhalese poemfdealing with the origin of caste as a method ofdivision of labour. The verse in question emphasizesthe indispensable character of the services of thecarpenter, tailor, washerman, barber and leather-worker." Both for the weddings and funerals of Rajas,Brahmans, cultivators, merchants, S'udras and allmen the carpenter giving chairs, bedsteads,pavilions and the like the tailor sewing and givingjackets and hats the washer spreading awningsand bringing clean clothes the barber cutting thehair and beard, trimmmg the face and adorning it

* See Appendix i.f Janavamsaya, trans, by H. Nevill, Taprobanian,

Vol. L, 1886, pp. 74-93 and 103-114.


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THE FIVE TRADES.the leather-worker stitching leather for the feet ;

thus these five are needed (alike) for the weddingand the funeral."They are, indeed, in Ceylon, often spoken of as" the five servants."It is mentioned in the Mahavamsa that the heads

of the five trades were chosen as messengers tocarry a welcome from Kitti Sirimegha to his sonParakrama, afterwards Parakrama Ba.hu the Great.We thus catch a glimpse of the social status andimportance of the " five trades," but it is not quiteclear whether these are the five just referred to,or the five sections of the artificers properprobably the former.

In Maratha villages, the craftsmen and menialservants formed a guild or institution, regulatingthe customary duties and remuneration of thecraftsmen and servants, and called bara balute in asmuch as the full number of persons composingthis body was reckoned at twelve. They includedthe craftsmen ; the inferior servants, of low caste,as barbers and scavengers ; and the Bhat, or villagepriest. They were all headed by the carpenter, whois called the Patel of the artizans, and decided alltheir disputes.**"The system has, indeed, been a good deal brokenup in British districts, where work by contract and

competition has superseded customary service. But


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BASIS OF SOCIETY.The presence of the craftsmen in the midst of a

simple agricultural society made possible the self-contained life of the community, so striking a featureof the Indian village.

Living in a society organised on the basis ofpersonal relations and duties,* which descended ineach family from generation to generation, insteadof belonging to a society founded on contract andcompetition, their payment was provided for invarious ways, of which money payment was theleast important and most unusual. The amount ofmoney in circulation in the villages was, indeed,almost negligible, barter and personal service takingin the native States, where the innovating forces areless strong, the institution still flourishes, to the greatsatisfaction of all concerned." " The Indian Raiyatas a Member of the Village Community" by Sir W.Wedderburn, London, 1883.* Interesting light on village self-government isobtainable from the series of Chola inscriptions(ca. 900-940 A.D.) from the village of Ukkal, nearConjeevaram. The village was governed by anassembly (sabha or mahasabha), sub-divided intoseveral committees. These were " the great menelected for the year" " the great men in charge ofthe tank" and " those in charge of gardens" Thetransactions of the assembly were put in writing byan officer who had the title of arbitrator (madhyastha),and who is also in one case called " accountant "(karanattan}. Hultzsch, South Indian Inscriptions,Vol. XXIX, pp. 3, 28, etc.


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PAYMENT OF CRAFTSMEN.the place of money payments. Wealth was hoardedif at all, rather in the form of jewellery than ofmoney. Prosperity consisted in having severalyears' provisions of grain in one's granary. Anythingof the nature of a shop or store was unknown.The payment of craftsmen was either a payment

in kind, or a grant of land, besides perquisites onspecial occasions. For their customary services, thecraftsmen were repaid at harvest-time, receiving afixed proportion of sheaves of grain from the cropcollected on the threshing floor, or they might begiven a share of the communal land. In the lastcase, it followed that every man was a cultivatorand directly dependent on the land for his subsistencewhether he were a husbandman, a goldsmith, or awasherman by caste. To take, at random, a fewexamples of these payments : In the Gujrah districtof the Punjab, the village servants are paid bygrain fees, so many bundles of the crop of wheator barley, each bundle of such a size as may be tiedby a string of three straws in length. In the villagesof another province (N. W. P.) the following personsreceived each a share of grain for each " plough "of cultivated land in the village : the barber,washerman, carpenter, blacksmith and cowherd'besides a further allowance as an extra " when thebusiness of the threshing-floor was over."* Thus, in

* Baden-Powell, '* Indian Village Community "p. 17.


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PAYMENT OF CRAFTSMEN.Munda villages, " the lohar, or blacksmith, getsone kat of paddy and three karais for every ploughin the village, and is also paid two or three annasfor every new phar or plough-share ; in a very fewvillages he holds half a pawa of land rent free."*Almost always, too, there are set apart shares

for religious and charitable purposes, before theremainder of the crop is divided between tenantand landlord, or removed by the tenant proprietorhimself. f In Ceylon if a man wanted a new clothhe gave cotton from his clearing, and a present ofgrain to the weaver. Sometimes the craftsman waspaid in this kind of way whenever his services wererequired, sometimes he received a perquisite onlyon special occasions ; very much as in Englandthe postman, employed by the community, receivesan annual " Christmas box " from each individualat whose house he delivers letters. At New Year,for example, it was customary, in some parts ofCeylon, to tie up a coin in each garment sent to thewash ; and the washerman had other perquisitesbeside ; and so with the other servants and crafts-men of the village.

* H. H. Risley, Census of India, Ethn. App.,P. 158.

t Baden-Powell, loc. cit., p. 17.


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CHAPTER II.THE CRAFT GUILDS OF THE GREAT CITIES.

^THE typical Hindu village consists exclusively ofhusbandmen ; but as husbandry and manu-facture cannot exist without each other, the villagehad to receive a number of artisans as members ofits governing body. But they are all ' strangerswithin the gate,' who reside in a village solely forthe convenience of the husbandmen on a sort ofservice contract. It is a perpetual contract, but inthe lapse of 3,000 years, the artisans have constantlyterminated their connection with a village, or havehad to provide for sons in some other place, andthey at once sought their livelihood in the townswhich began to spring up everywhere round thecentres of government, and of the foreign commerceof the country. It is in this way that the greatpc lytechnical cities of India have been formed."

Let us pass on to a picture of the craftsman as amember of a great guild of merchant craftsmen,controllers of the wealth of mighty cities and onceof the markets of the world.

*' Community of interests would naturally drawtogether the skilled immigrants of these cities intrades unions ; the bonds of which in India, as was


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TRADE GUILDS.also the case in ancient Egypt, are renderedpractically indissoluble by the force of caste. . . .The trade guilds of the great polytechnical citiesof India are not, however, always exactly coincidentwith the sectarian or ethnical caste of a particularcaste of artisans. Sometimes the same trade ispursued by men of different castes, and its guildgenerally includes every member of the trade itrepresents without strict reference to caste. Thegovernment of the guilds or unions is analogous tothat of the village communities and castes, that is,by hereditary officers. Each separate guild ismanaged by a court of aldermen or mahajans,literally

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great gentlemen.5

Nominally it is com-posed of all the freemen of the caste, but a specialposition is allowed to the seths, lords, or chiefs ofthe guild, who are ordinarily two in number, andhold their position by hereditary right. The onlyother office-bearer is a salaried clerk or gumasta.

11 Membership in the guild is also hereditary, butnew-comers may be admitted into it on the paymentof an entrance fee, which in Ahmedabad amountsto 2 for paper-makers, and 50 for tinsmiths. Nounqualified person can remain in or enter a guild.It is not the practice to execute indentures ofapprenticeship, but every boy born in a workingcaste of necessity learns his father's handicraft, andwhen he has mastered it, at once takes his place as

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TRADE GUILDS.an hereditary freeman of his caste or trade-guild ;his father, or if he be an orphan, the young manhimself, giving a dinner to the guild on the occasion.In large cities the guilds command great influence.The Nagar-Seth, or City Lord of Ahmedabad, isthe titular head of all the guilds, and the highestpersonage in the city, and is treated as its repre-sentative by the Government. In ordinary timeshe does not interfere in the internal affairs of theguilds, their management being left to the chiefalderman of each separate guild, called the Chautano-Seth, or 'lord of the market.' . . .The funds ofthe guilds of Western India, where they prevailchiefly among the Vaishnavas and Jainas of Gujarat,are for the greater part spent on charities, andparticularly charitable hospitals for sick and help-less domestic animals : and in part also on thetemples of the Maharajas of the Wallabhacharyasect of Vaishnavas, and on guild feasts. A favouritedevice for raising money is for the men of a craftor trade to agree on a certain day to shut all theirshops but one. The right to keep open this one isthen put up to auction, and the amount bid goesto the guild fund."*The guilds likewise regulated the hours of labour,

and the amount of work to be done in their* Sir George Birdwood, " Industrial Arts of India"

1880, pp. 137-140-


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GUILDS IN AHMADABAD.from the theocratic conceptions which have governedthe whole organisation of social life in India, andit is incontrovertible that the unrestricted develop-ment of the competitive impulse in modern life,particularly in the pursuit of personal gain, isabsolutely antagonistic to the growth of the senti-ment of humanity and of real religious convictionsamong men."*The principles upon which they acted were (indeed, altogether socialistic, and realised as anaccomplished fact many of the ideals for which theEuropean worker is still fighting. Thus the guildboth prevented undue competition amongst itsmembers, and negotiated with other guilds in caseof dispute amongst the craftsmen." In 1873, for example, a number of the brick-layers in Ahmedabad could not find work. Men ofthis class sometimes added to their daily wages byrising very early in the morning, and working over-time. But when several families complained thatthey could not get employment, the bricklayers'guild met, and decided that as there was not enoughwork for all, no member should be allowed to workin extra hours. f . . . The trade-guild or caste

* Sir George Birdwood, loc. cit., p. 139.f No incident could better illustrate the close

relation of the industrial problems here treated of,and those in the modern West. For at the " Right toII


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GUILDS IN AHMADABAD.allows none of its members to starve. It thus actsas a mutual assurance society and takes the placeof a poor law in India. The severest social penaltywhich can be inflicted upon a Hindu is to be put outof his caste."*The following abbreviated details of the organisa-

tion of the Guilds in Ahmadabad are taken fromthe Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. V., p. 101 :" In consequence of the importance of its manu-factures of silk and cotton, the system of caste ortrade unions is more fully developed in Ahmedabadthan in any other part of Gujarat. Each of thedifferent castes of traders, manufacturers andartisans forms its own trade guild, to which allheads of households belong. Every member has aright to vote, and decisions are passed by amajority. In cases where one industry has manydistinct branches, there are several guilds. Thusamong potters, the workers of bricks, of tiles, andof earthen jars, are for trade purposes distinct ;and in the great weaving trade, those who preparethe different articles of silk and cotton, form distinctWork " Conference at the Guildhall, of December,1908, one of the resolutions passed and afterwardslaid before the Prime Minister, included a condemna-tion of overtime, based on the very sound principlelaid down above.

* Sir W. W. Hunter, " Brief History of the IndianPeoples," 1903, ed. p. 98.

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GUILDS IN AHMADABAD.associations. The objects of the guilds are toregulate competition among the members, e.g., byprescribing days or hours during which work shallnot be done. The decisions of the guilds are enforcedby fines. If the offender refuses to pay, and allmembers of the guild belong to one caste, theoffender is put out of caste. If the guild containsmen of different castes, the guild uses its influencewith other guilds to prevent the recusant memberfrom getting work. Besides the amount receivedfrom fines, the different guilds draw an income bylevying fees on any person beginning to practisehis craft. This custom prevails in the cloth andother industries, but no fee is paid by potters,carpenters and other inferior artisans. An exceptionis also made in the case of a son succeeding hisfather, when nothing has to be paid. In othercases the amount varies, in proportion to theimportance of the trade, from Rs. 50 to Rs. 500.The revenue derived from these fees, and from fines,is expended in parts to the members of the guild,and in charity. Charitable institutions, or sadavart,where beggars are fed daily, are maintained inAhmedabad at the expense of the trade guilds."How long ago the craftsmen were organized intothese great municipal guilds, is suggested by awell-known passage in the Ramayana, describingthe procession of citizens who went out into the

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GUILDS IN THE EPICS.forest with Bharata in search of Rama. The gem-cutters, potters, weavers, armourers, ivory-workers," well-known goldsmiths," together with manyothers, the foremost merchants as well as the citizensof all classes went out to search for Rama ; such aprocession as even in the nineteenth century*perhaps even to-day, might be drawn together inone of the great merchant cities of Western India.Again, we read in the Harivamsa,* of thepreparations made for the royal family and citizensof Mathura to witness the contest between Krishnaand Balarama and the king's champions." The amphitheatre was filled by the citizens,anxious to behold the games. The place of assemblywas supported by octagonal painted pillars, fittedup with terraces, and doors, and bolts, with windows,circular or crescent-shaped, and accommodated withseats with cushions,"and so on ; and then we are told that

" The pavilions of the different companies andcorporations, vast as mountains, were decoratedwith banners, bearing upon them the implementsand emblems of the several crafts."

It is interesting to note also how much all thissplendour depended upon these very crafts whose

* Quoted by Wilson, Vishnu Purana, Vol. V., p.27.

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GUILDS IN THE EPICS.position was thus recognized and honoured ; for thetale goes on to say that

" The chambers of the inhabitants of the innerapartments shone near at hand, bright with gold,and painting, and net-work of gems ; they wererichly decorated with precious stones, were enclosedbelow with costly hangings, and ornamented abovewith spires and banners."

Compare with this, also, such a description asthe following account of the preparations for themarriage of a princess (in the seventh century, A.D.) :" From every county were summoned companiesof skilled artists . . . Carpenters, presented withwhite flowers, unguents, and clothes, planned outthe marriage altar. Workmen mounted on ladders,with brushes upheld in their hands and pails ofplaster on their shoulders, whitened the top of thestreet wall of the palace. . . . The outer terracesresounded with the din of gold-workefs engagedin hammering gold. Plasterers were beplasteredwith showers of sand which fell over them fromfreshly erected walls. A group of skilled painterspainted auspicious scenes. Multitudes of modellersmoulded clay figures of fishes, tortoises, crocodiles,cocoanuts, plantains and betel trees. Even kingsgirt up their loins and busied themselves in carrying

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GUILD RESPONSIBILITY.out decorative work set as tasks by theirsovereign."

*

Another interesting mention of craftsmen inprocession is found in the Mahavamsa, where weare told that following the officials in the annualPerahera at Kandy, were " people of strangecountries, and men skilled in divers tongues, andnumerous artificers and handicraftsmen." Theperiod spoken of is the latter part of the eighteenthcentury.

I have not been able to hear of any accounts ofguilds in Persia, where they must have existedfrom the earliest times. It is reported, however,that when in the recent troubles 14,000 people inTeheran took refuge in the foreign legations, eachguild organised with perfect ease and order thepoliceing and feeding of its own people. This makesone realise how powerful an element in socialstability is represented by the guilds even at thepresent day.The nature of guild responsibility^ is well indicated

in some of the Tanjore inscriptions. A commonform of pious offering consisted in the dedicationof a lamp, i.e., providing for a lamp to be keptcontinually burning before a certain image. This

* Sana's ' Harsha Carita,' Trans, by E. B. Cowelland F. W. Thomas, p. 124.| See also Appendix VII

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GUILD RESPONSIBILITY.was generally arranged by the payment of a sumof money, or more often by the gift of a certainnumber of sheep or cattle to the guild of shepherds,who undertook to provide the necessary oil inperpetuo. The payment for thus maintaining onesacred lamp was 96 ewes, or 48 cows, or 16 she-buffaloes. " The shepherds who received thecattle, themselves and their people, viz., theirrelations, and the relations of the latter, had tosupply ghi to the treasury of the Lord, as long asthe sun and moon endure, at the daily rate of oneurakku of ghi . . for each sacred lamp."*The manner in which the shepherds as a guildbound themselves jointly as security for an in.dividual contractor is as characteristic of true guildmethods as their solidarity in the defence of theirown interests would have been. In an inscriptionof Rajendra Soladeva at Tanjore, we have adetailed account of this acceptance of responsibilityby the guild of shepherds : " We," runs theinscription, " all the following shepherds of thisvillage .... agreed to become security for EranSattan, a shepherd of this village, (who) had re-ceived 90 ewes of this temple in order to supplyghi for burning one perpetual lamp. We shallcause the shepherd E.S. to supply daily to oneperpetual lamp one ulakku of ghi ... If he dies,

* Hultzsch, South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. II.,part III., p. 251.


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GUILDS IN BUDDHIST INDIA.absconds, or gets into prison, fetters (or) chains,we all these aforesaid persons, are bound to supplyghi for burning the holy lamp as long as the sunand moon endure." This inscription ends with thename of a local merchant, who may have been thedonor of the lamp.The origin of the guild has not yet been workedout in any detail. With regard to the existenceof actual guilds in early Buddhist times, the Jatakasgive us but little information. The craftsmenassociated in villages no doubt had their own lawsand customs, tantamount to guild regulations, butof guilds in the great cities we hear little. In theNigrodha Jataka, however, it is stated that to theking's treasurer was given also the judgeship of" all th guilds " (sabbaseninam). " Before that,"says the Jataka, " no such office existed, but therewas this office ever after." In the Uraga Jataka,a guild quarrel (senibhandana) is mentioned, betweentwo men in the king's service, who were heads ofguilds (seni-pamukha).* Such evidence belongs,however, to the period of redaction of the Jatakasrather than to the times described in them. Therecan be no doubt, however, that at least the germ ofthe guild system existed at a very early time inthe form of co-operative associations within the

* But in Rouse's translation of this Jataka, thequarrel is between two soldiers, not guild masters.

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EARLY REFERENCES.merchant community.* The merchant (setthi)himself was at a very early time a man of muchwealth and social importance. He was the principalrepresentative of the householder (grahapati) class,the typical burgher in the great town. The wordsetthi in some cases seems to imply a private trader,in others, a representative of commerce, holdingan official position at court.f Many such merchantswere evidently exceedingly wealthy ; of one weare told that goods were brought to him in a caravanof no less than 500 wagons. But any detailedenquiry into the position of the trader, as amiddleman, and not himself a craftsman, wouldbe exceeding the limits of the subject of the presentvolume.

In slightly later literature the existence of guildsis more clearly indicated. In the Dharma sutrasit is stated that the farmers, merchants, cowherdsand money-lenders had bye-laws of their own.applicable to their communities, and having duelegal validity. In later law books, guilds (sreni)are often mentioned, e.g., Manu, viii. 41, where itis stated that the king must examine and establishthe laws of the guilds. Likewise in the epics, theguilds are recognised as an important factor inindustrial and political life.f

* Pick, " Indien zu Buddha's Zeitt" pp. 172-177.f Fick t loc. cit., p. 172.


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CHAPTER III.THE FEUDAL CRAFTSMAN IN INDIA AND CEYLON.

I ET us turn to look at the Indian craftsman asthe feudal servant of the king, a baron, or

of a religious foundation. In the so-called darkages of the East and of the West, the patronage ofart and craft by kings was a matter of course, andno court was complete, lacking the state craftsmen.He would have seemed a strange king who knewnought of art and craft, and cared less. Even Alfredthe Great, amidst all the cares of protecting histroubled land, found time to care for craftsmanshipand craftsmen, especially goldsmiths, and we areall familiar with the Alfred jewel that bears thelegend, " Alfred had me made " ; and this interest injewellery reminds us of the Eastern proverb, thatasks " who but the Raja and the goldsmith shouldknow the value of the jewel ? " Still earlier evidenceof the traditional royal interest in craft in the Westmay be gathered from such books as the " Mabin-ogion." When Kilhwch rode to Arthur's hall andsought admittance, " I will not open," said theporter. " Wherefore not ? " asked Kilhwch. " Theknife is in the meat, and the drink is in the horn,"said the porter, " and there is revelry in Arthur's

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KINGS' CRAFTSMEN.hall, and none may enter therein but the son of aking of a privileged country, or a craftsman bringinghis craft."

So, too, in ancient Ireland we find it said to asimilar applicant at the king's door, " no one withoutan art comes into Tara."*

Still later on, in the dark ages, we find, as one maylearn from Professor Lethaby's " WestminsterAbbey and the King's Craftsmen," that the royalmasons, carpenters, smiths and painters wereattached to the palace as much as a matter of courseas the chief butler and cook, and that under thechief master-mason or carpenter a body of skilledjourneymen was permanently engaged. We arewiser now, of course, and know that only the chiefbutler and cook are essential to the royal dignity ;the craftsmen have gone, and only the butler, thecook and the clerk remain. Perhaps it is onlyworldly wisdom after all.The royal craftsman in the East, however, is ourimmediate interest, and to him we must return.We find him well established at a very early

date. In the reign of Asoka (275-231 B.C.)," Artisans were regarded as being in a specialmanner devoted to the royal service, and capitalpunishment was inflicted on any person who

* In " Lugh of the Long Hand" version in LadyGregory's " Gods and Fighting Men," 1904, p. 17.

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KINGS' CRAFTSMEN.impaired the efficiency of a craftsman by causingthe loss of a hand or an eye. . . . Ship-buildersand armour-makers were salaried public servants,and were not permitted, it is said, to work for anyprivate person. The woodcutters, carpenters,blacksmiths and miners were subject to specialsupervision."*Upon this subject of the regulation of the crafts

I shall have more to say later.Passing over a millenium and a half without

endeavouring to trace the royal craftsman's foot-steps one by one, we come to the time of the greatMoghal Emperors in the North. From the Ain-i-Akbari or Institutes of the Emperor Akbar, one ofthe three great rulers in whose mind the conceptionof a united India had taken shape, and one of thegreatest rulers that the world has seen, we are toldof the skilled Indian and foreign craftsmen main-tained in the palaces of the Moghals.Akbar had in his service many artists, to

the end that they " might vie with each other infame, and become eminent by their productions."Weekly he inspected the work of every artist, andgave due reward for special excellence. He alsopersonally superintended the making of the weaponsforged and decorated in the armoury. He was veryfond of shawls, of which many kinds were made

* Vincent Smith, " Early History of India" p. 120.22


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KINGS' CRAFTSMEN.in the palace, and classified according to date, value,colour and weight. He had also jewellers anddamasceners, inlayers and enamellers, engravers andlapidaries, and craftsmen of all kinds. It is to beobserved that all this did not represent in Akbar,any more than it did in Alfred, the mere luxury ofan idle or weak monarch, but belonged to a definiteconception of the kingly state and duty recognizedby one of the greatest rulers the world has seen." His majesty taking great delight in, and havingpatronised this art from the commencement of hisreign, has caused it to arrive at high perfection.With that view, this department was established,in order that a number of artists being collectedtogether, might vie with each other for fame, andbecome eminent by their productions. Every weekthe daroghas and tepookchies bring to his majestythe performance of every artist, when, in proportionto their merits, they are honoured with premiums,and their salaries are increased."" Through the attention of his majesty, a varietyof new manufactures are established in this country ;and the cloths fabricated in Persia, Europe andChina have become cheap and plenty. The skillof the manufacturers has increased with theirnumber, for his majesty has made himselfacquainted with the theory and practice in everystage of the business, so as to be able to discoverthe merits of the workmen ; thus by bringing the

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KINGS' CRAFTSMEN.arts into credit, the natives are encouraged to giveapplication, and they speedily gain a completeknowledge of their profession."The Emperor Akbar took a personal delight inpainting ; he is reported to have said that" There are many that hate painting, but suchmen I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter hadquite peculiar means of recognizing God, for insketching anything that has life, and devising itslimbs one after the other, he must feel that hecannot bestow a soul upon his work, and is forcedto think of God, the only giver of life, and will thusincrease his knowledge."No wonder that the crafts flourished undersuch conditions ; and it is very certain that Musal-man puritanism did not, as a matter of fact, injure^ndian art in the way that the contact with Westerncivilization has injured it. Just as in England thechurches have suffered more from churchwardensthan from puritans, so Indian art has suffered morefrom philistines of the Macaulay type than fromiconoclasts.The thing which perhaps most interests us from

the craftsman's point of view is the security andhereditary character of his position. Sir JohnChardin tells us of the Persian kings in theseventeenth century that they" entertain a large number of excellent master-workmen, who have a salary and daily rations for

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KINGS' CRAFTSMEN.all their lives, and are provided with all the materialsfor their work. They receive a present and anincrease of salary for every fine work they produce."

Sir George Birdwood says :" In the East the princes and great nobles andwealthy gentry, who are the chief patrons of thesegrand fabrics, collect together in their own housesand palaces all who gain reputation for special skillin their manufacture. These men receive a fixedsalary and daily rations, and are so little hurriedin their work that they have plenty of time toexecute private orders also. Their salaries are con-tinued even when through age or accident they arepast work ; and on their death they pass to theirsons, should they have become skilled in theirfather's art. Upon the completion of any extra-ordinary work it is submitted to the patron, andsome honour is at once conferred on the artist, andhis salary increased. It is under such conditionsthat the best art work of the East has always beenproduced."

There is, for example, in the India Museum anengraved jade bowl, on which a family in the employof the Emperors of Delhi was engaged for threegenerations. In these days when churches are builtby contract and finished to the day or week, it isdifficult to realise the leisurely methods of the oldercraftsmen. Do not mistake leisure for laziness ;

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KING CRAFTSMEN.they are totally and entirely different things. Thequality of leisure in old work is one of its greatestcharms, and is almost essential in a work of art.Haste and haggling have now almost destroyed thepossibility of art, and until they are again eliminatedfrom the craftsman's work it will not be possibleto have again such work as he once gave to hisfellows. In other words, society must either decideto do without art, as it mostly does decide at thepresent day, or else it must make up its mind to payfor art and endow its craftsmen. You cannot bothhave art and exploit it.The royal appreciation of art and craft in theEast at various times is further illustrated by theexistence of kings who themselves practised a craft.I have collected two or three of these instances,but have no doubt that many more could be foundby searching the pages of Indian history.

In the Kusa Jataka, it is recorded that PrinceKusa, not wishing to marry, conceived the idea ofhaving a beautiful golden image made, and ofpromising to marry when a woman of equal beautyshould be found. He summoned the chief smith,and giving him a quantity of gold, told him to goand make the image of a woman. In the meanwhilehe himself took more gold, and fashioned it into theimage of a beautiful woman, and this image he hadrobed in linen and set in the royal chamber. When

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KING CRAFTSMEN.the goldsmith brought his image, the prince foundfault with it, and sent him to fetch the image placedin the royal chamber. At first mistaking this imagefor a daughter of the gods, he feared to touch it ;but being sent to fetch it a second time, he broughtit ; it was placed in a car and sent to the QueenMother with the message, " When I find a womanlike this, I will take her to wife."

This story is no doubt legendary, but shows atleast that at the time of its composition the practiseof a craft was not considered derogatory to thehonour of a prince. A more historical mention of aroyal craftsman is the reference to King Jetthatissaof Ceylon, in the Mahavamsa. " He was," saysthis chronicle, " a skilful carver. This monarch,having carried out several arduous undertakingsin painting and carving, himself taught the art tomany of his subjects. He sculptured a beautifulimage of the Bodhisatta so perfect that it seemedas if it had been wrought by supernatural power ;and also a throne, a parasol and a state room withbeautiful work in ivory made for it."For other instances of royal craftsmanship, we

may turn to the Arabian literature. Sir RichardBurton, speaking of

the conversation between thefisherman and the Caliph in the tale of Nur-al-dinAli and the Damsel al-Jalis, says :" Most characteristic is this familiarity between

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KING CRAFTSMEN.the greatest man then in the world and his paupersubject. The fisherman alludes to a practice ofAl-Islam, instituted by Caliph Omar, that all rulersshould work at some handicraft in order to sparethe public treasure. Hence Sultan Mu'Ayyad ofCairo was a calligrapher who sold his handwriting,and his example was followed by the TurkishSultans Mahmud, Abd-al-Majid and Abd-al-Aziz."*Another royal craftsman is spoken of in " The

Three Princes of China "f ; the Shaykh's indepen-dent point of view is especially noteworthy. Thetale is not, of course, historical, but reflects an ideawhich evidently appeared quite reasonable to theaudience.A certain Sultan fell in love with a Badaw girlwho was standing with the Shaykh her father

considering his retinue. After returning to hispalace, the Sultan sent for her father, and askedthe girl in marriage. The Shaykh, however,answered : " O, our Lord the Sultan, I will not giveup my daughter save to one who hath a handicraftof his own, for verily trade is a defence againstpoverty, and folk say : Handicraft an it enrich notstill it veileth (poverty)." The Sultan remonstrated :' O, man, I am Sovran and Sultan, and with me* " Arabian Nights," Vol. II.t Burton, Supplemental Nights, V. 222.

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A CITY REBUILT.is abundant good " ; but the Shaykh replied, " O,king of the age,

in king-craft there is no trust."Whereat the Sultan " presently summoned theShaykh of the mat-makers and learnt from himthe craft of plaiting, and he wove these articles ofvarious colours, both plain and striped."

So much for princely craftsmen in the East.One extract from the Sinhalese chronicles will

show how real could be the royal appreciation ofthe arts and crafts ; it is a message from VijayaBahu to his father, Parakrama Bahu II. , who reignedin the thirteenth century. It relates to the re-building of a city that had been laid waste byforeign enemies, and subsequently abandonedaltogether. " There are now," runs the message," in the city of Pulatthi, palaces, image-houses,viharas, parivenas, cetiyas, relic-houses, ramparts,towers, bird-shaped houses, mansions, open halls,preaching halls, temples of the gods, and the likebuildings, whereof some are yet standing, althoughthe trees of the forest have grown over and coveredthem. Others thereof are fast falling, because thatthe pillars thereof are rotten and cannot supportthem. Others, alas ! are bent down with the weightof huge walls split from top to bottom, and aretumbling down because that there is nothing tobear them up. Sad, indeed, is it also to see others,

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A CITY REBUILT.unable to stand by reason of decay and weakness,bending down to their fall day by day, like untoold men. Some there are with broken ridge polesand damaged beam ends, and some with roofsfallen down and the tiles thereof broken. In somethe tiles have slipped through the breaches of thedecayed roof, and in others only the walls andpillars remain. Some there are with fallen doors,and doorposts that have been displaced, and otherswith loose staircases and ruined galleries. Of somebuildings there only remain the signs of theirfoundations, and in others even the sites cannot bedistinguished. What need is there of furtherdescription ? This city, which is now so ugly anddispleasing to the eye, we purpose to make beautifuland pleasant. Let the king grant us leave thereto,and let the feast of coronation be held in the greatcity afterwards." And so, as the chronicle tells us,he did indeed ; for " he gathered together smelters,turners, basket makers, blacksmiths, potters, gold-smiths, painters, porters, labourers, slaves, out-castes, skilful bricklayers, masons, carpenters, anddivers workers in stone. And, further heassembled all sorts of blacksmiths' tools, suchas bellows, sledge-hammers, pincers, and anvils ;and also numerous sharp saws, adzes, axes,wood-cleavers, stone-cutters' chisels, knives,hammers, spades, mats, baskets, and the like ;

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FEUDAL CRAFTSMEN IN CEYLON.all these ... did he send unto his royalson."*

Let us examine in slightly greater detail theorganisation of the king's craftsmen, that is theState craftsmen, in Ceylon, as it existed up to theday on which the British Governor replaced theKandyan king. It must be first understood that theorganisation of society was altogether feudal. Thepossession of land was the foundation of the king'sright to the services and contributions of the people,and vice versa. For all land held, service was duefrom the tenant to the king, that is to the State.The lands and services were inseparably associated,and as a rule descended from father to son in thesame family, and this remained the same even whenthe services were bestowed by the king on individualsor given to religious foundations. There was thusno free trade in land ; and every man had his placein the society, and his work. Landholders wereclassed in accordance with the services due fromthem. The vast majority were cultivators, whoseduty it was to keep the State granaries well supplied ;others were the soldiers, the musicians, the washer-men, the servants, the potters, and weavers, andthe craftsmen proper, viz. : the carpenters, gold-

* Mahavamsa, Ch. LXXXVIIL


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FEUDAL CRAFTSMENsmiths, masons, ivory carvers, armourers, foundersand painters, altogether perhaps a tenth of thepopulation. All of these owned service to the kingin respect of the lands they held. The landsdescended in the family from generation to genera-tion, and were cultivated by the owners. Everyonewas thus directly dependent on the land for hisliving. The craftsmen, however, were not serfs, noradscriptus gleba, as a tenant had always the rightto refuse service and surrender his land. This,however, only happened in rare instances, as duringthe last king's reign, when too arduous services weresometimes required. Of temple tenants, Knox re-marked that their duties in this life were so easy, thatthey might expect to suffer for it in the next ! Buthereditary social status and landholding went verymuch together, and to surrender the family serviceland would have been the last thing desired by aKandyan craftsman. If, by chance, the successionfailed, this would be remedied by adoption of apupil and heir of the same caste.The State Craftsmen fell into two groups, those

of the " Four Workshops " (Pattal Hatara), whoworked always at the palace, and those of theseparate districts, who had to do certain shares ofwork at the palace, but were more often at home,where they had to work for the local officials ; andthose of the artificers' department (Kottal-badde).

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IN CEYLON.The best of the higher craftsmen, those of the " FourWorkshops," formed a close, largely hereditarycorporation, and the position was highly valued.From their number were chosen the foremen of theDistrict Craftsmen (Kottal-badde). The four shopswere known as the " Regalia," the " Crown," the" Golden Sword," and the " Lion Throne " work-shops respectively ; but the craftsmen seem to havepassed from one to another according to the workrequired of them. These families were of considerablestanding, often possessing very valuable landedproperty settled upon them by the king on theoccasion of their first arrival from India, if, as wasoften the case, they were of Indian origin, or grantedas a reward for subsequent services. The very namegalladda (gam-ladda), by which the superior crafts-men are often designated, means one who possessesor holds a village. There are some families ofcraftsmen whose history can be traced from at leastthe fourteenth century by means of the original andsubsequent grants which they received from theSinhalese kings. I give an example of one of thesegrants, dated 1665 A.D. :

" During the reign of His Majesty the mightyEmperor Raja Simha, ... as Marukona RatnaAbharana Vedakaraya reported himself at thepalace, orders were given to make certain pieces ofjewellery required for the royal dress ; and when

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FEUDAL CRAFTSMENhe had made and submitted these pieces of jewelleryto the

great king,he stated that he needed the

Mottuvela Nila-panguve Badavedilla in PallesiyaPattuva of Asgiri Korale, in the Disavanaya ofMatale for his maintenance . . . and His Majesty. . . did ... in the year of Saka, 1587,absolutely grant the high and low lands in MottuvelaBadavedilla ... to Marukona Ratna AbharanaVedakaraya, to be possessed without any disturbanceor hindrance during the existence of the Sun, theMoon, Kandy and the Mahaveli river."As another instance of a special grant may be

cited the following charter held by a Kandyancraftsman :" When the king of kings, Sri Sanghabo Sena-sammata Vikrama Bahu,was reigning in Senkadagala

(Kandy), he ordered on a full moon day of thetwentieth year of his reign, two sheets of cloth,twenty cubits by nine cubits, to be woven, andcaused Acharilla Dityaya and his son SivantaDityaya to paint thereon the likeness of Buddhaseatjd on a Vajrasana and surrounded by Sakra,Brahma, and other Devas. On the completion ofpainting the two sheets, he ordered the ceremonyof placing pots full of water, and of other rites ;and on the completion of the Netra Pinkama, hishands having been washed [ceremonial purification

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IN CEYLON.after painting the eyes of the image, performed bythe king himself, as here, or by a craftsman in royalcostume], he was graciously pleased to bestow onthe two artists, with the object of satisfying themand to enable them to make offerings to Buddha,fields to the extent of four amunu, together with thehigh land and trees thereon, as well as the housesand all other things pertaining thereto . . .to be held absolutely from generation togeneration." Now know all ye that are concerned, that thesaid properties having been bestowed under royalassent to be enjoyed by these artists, their sons,grandsons, and their subsequent generations : ifany king, sub-king, courtier, minister, or whatsoeverperson were to dispute the right to this badavedilla[land given to a craftsman for his subsidence], suchperson or persons shall be born in the eight hillssuccessively. . . .But, on the other hand, if anyperson shall confirm and uphold the said gift, heshall after death be born successively in the sixheavens . . . and after the termination of theenjoyments of the bliss of these heavens, shall beborn in the kingdom of Ketumati, where he shallsee Maitri Buddha, by whom the law shall bepreached to him, whose holy priesthood he shallenter into, arahatship, and subsequently Nirvana." In this tenor the royal decree was issued, and

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FEUDAL CRAFTSMENby command this copperplate Sannas was inscribedby me, Sanhassivanta Nainarumbha. By the meritacquired inscribing this, may I be born in the ageof Maitri Buddha."

Besides such grants of land, the king used toreward individual craftsmen with gifts of cloth,money, etc., and by the bestowal of honours andtitles.The District Craftsmen (Kottal-badde\it. Artifi-

cers' Department one of the Fourteen Departmentsof Public Works under the Kandyan kings) differedfron those of the Four Workshops in not beingliable to permanent service at the court. Some ofthem served in relays for periods of two months ata time, others worked only for the governors ofdistricts, and not directly for the court. In certainof the districts the Governor (Disava) himself heldthe office of Kottal-badde Nilame, or Overseer ofCraftsmen, and in this case he usually appointedfrom their number a Kottal-badde Vidane, or officeracting as his lieutenant. In other districts,two Overseers of Craftsmen were appointedby the king. It is interesting that on one occasion,in the seventeenth century, a Dutchman wasappointed Overseer of Craftsmen. He entered theking's service for the love of a Sinhalesewoman, and was made " Courtalbad," " which is

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IN CEYLON.chief over all the smiths and carpenters inCande Uda."*The Kottal-badde craftsmen in one district con-

sisted of the following :I. Seven vaduvo who did carpenters' work for

the king or governor ; they were usually employedat the royal timber yard.

Five liyana vaduvo, or turners.Five sittaru, or painters.Fourteen i-vaduvo, or arrow-makers, who made

bows, arrows, spears, staves, etc., and gauded themwith lac ; of these men, two worked in the royalarmoury.

Fourteen atapattu karayo, who furnished orexecuted fine work, and were principally employedin ornamenting and inlaying locks, guns, knives,etc., with gold, silver, or brass ; two of them workedin the royal armoury.Four badallu, or silversmiths, workers in gold,

silver, brass, or copper ; two of them worked in theroyal armoury.One gal-vaduva, or mason.* Robert Knox, "An Historical Relation of the

Island Ceilon," 1682, p. 181.37


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FEUDAL CRAFTSMENTwenty mul-acari, or blacksmiths, a certain

number of whom, varying according to the exigencyof the service, attended constantly in Kandy, anderecting workshops near the Disava's house,executed all kinds of common ironwork, for whichthe metal was furnished them.

Eight blacksmiths without regular service landssuch as the foregoing held. These blacksmiths hadto appear before the Disava at New Year with aknife and scissors each, and were liable to be calledon for work in any time of emergency.Ten Disava acari, who worked for the Disavaonly.Twenty-two potters, in two divisions, under theorders of officers of the same caste appointed by

the Disava. The two divisions undertook turns ofduty of one month each in rotation with the pottersof other districts, the turns recurring once in tenmonths. When at home in their own district, theyhad only to furnish earthenware for the Disava,for the rest-houses, and for the king or ambassadorsif they came to the district.The following may serve as actual examples ofindividual craftsmen's tenure :A

goldsmith holdinghalf an acre and owing

service to the Gadaladeniya Devale (temple) inCeylon, had to supply a silver ring for the " festivaltree," and repair the golden insignia for use at the

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ROYAL BUILDERSmilk, two pots ; one yoke load of pottery on theI5th of the month of Bat ; 63 Karti lamps on theI5th of the month of II ; four pots and four disheson the I5th of Durutta for the New Rice (HarvestHome) festival ; 50 dishes once a year for themonastery ; two vases and two jugs to each of thetwo viharas ; and to tile the two viharas (whennecessary).For the most part, of course, there was no wage

payment of the state craftsmen, for they wereotherwise provided for under the admirable landsystem I have referred to ; but in the case of themany religious buildings undertaken by theSinhalese kings, it was otherwise, as the king inthese cases always desired to remunerate thecraftsmen himself directly, in order that the meri-torious work might be his very own, and notanybody else's. Thus also we read of the builderKing Duttha Gamani, in the second century B. c.,that when setting about the building of a greatmonastery called the Brazen Palace, that

" The generous Raja, at the very beginning ofthe undertaking, laid down eight hundred thousandpieces of money at each of the four gates, andannounced that on this occasion it was unfitting toexact unpaid labour ; setting, therefore, a value onthe work performed, he paid in money."

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IN CEYLON.Nearly all the later kings were builders, too, and

it was in the building of Buddhist temples thatthe State craftsmen were chiefly occupied when therequirements of the court and the armoury hadbeen met. And on all these occasions the craftsmenwere liberally and specially rewarded. I wish I couldgive some adequate idea of the passion for religiousbuilding which possessed the Sinhalese kings, andof the way in which this stimulated the productionof works of art and craft. Perhaps I shall best dothis by quoting from a typical temple charter. AtDegaldoruva, in the eighteenth century, the king'syounger brother had a cave temple enlarged, and he" caused stone walls to be put up and doors andwindows to be set with keys and bars, and an imageof Buddha of twelve cubits in length to be madein a reclining posture, and six other images in asitting posture to be placed at the head and feetof the image, and also caused twenty-four Buddha'simages to be depicted on the ceiling and on thewalls within and without, and other workmanshipand paintings to be made thereon and upon thestone pillars, the roof of the front court to be putup with beams and rafters, and covered with tiles,and on the cross walls thereof a representation ofhell and heaven. . . . and having furnished thetemple with curtains, ceiling cloths, umbrellas,flags, drums, oboes, etc. . . . His Majesty . . .


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ROYAL BUILDERS.ordered the ceremony of painting the eyes to beperformed, and His Majesty also furnished all thenecessaries thereto, and having granted much richesin clothes, money and other things to the artificers,the painters and the stone-cutters, His Majestyreceived merit and was filled with ecstacy."One other extract is quoted from a sannasa orcharter [Gangarama Vihara, Kandy] :" Kirti Sri Raja Simha . . . caused a viharato be made containing stone walls of thirteen cubitsin length, seven in breadth, and eleven in height,surroanded by stone pillars, and above a roof withrafters covered with tiles. Within the walls a stoneimage of nine cubits in height was made, itsrobes beautified with painting of vermilion, itsdifferent members covered with leaves of gold,painted about with the five colours, and completedafter the enshrinement of bodily relics. . . . Inthe year of Saka, 1674 (A.D. 1752), of the monthPoson, and on Monday, the eighth day of theincrease of the moon, under the constellation Hata,eyes were affixed to the image, accompanied withgreat solemnity, rejoicings and excessive offerings,and the craftsmen were satisfied by appropriategifts."*

* A. C. Lawrie, "Gazetteer of the Central-Province^ p. 817 (with verbal alterations).

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TEMPLE CRAFTSMEN.The king, the nobles and the people, especially

the craftsmen, were brought into intimate and evenaffectionate association on these occasions.But not all of the craftsmen in Ceylon were

servants of the king or the state directly. Everyreligious foundation of importance had its own lands,occupied by husbandmen and craftsmen, who owedservice to the temple, just as the tenants of a royalmanor owed service to the king. Let us examinea few instances of such tenancies. One of thegoldsmith-tenants of the Dalada Maligava, the greatBuddhist temple in Kandy, for example, held threeacres of land. For this his services, light enough,were to go to the temple and polish the gold andsilver vessels and implements of the temple duringsix days in the year, and to give a nut-slicer and twosilver rings to the lay-chief of the temple every NewYear. When on duty at the temple, the tenantreceived his meal three times a day. The blacksmithtenant of another temple held half an acre, andowed somewhat harder service ; he was to give ironutensils for the kitchen, work as a blacksmith, cleanthe palanquins and lamps, nail laths, give a pair ofscissors and a nut-slicer, clean the court-yard andput up booths for the annual festival, and give ameasure of lamp oil for another annual celebration,and at each festival to present to the lay officials ofthe temple a nut-slicer each. So much, indeed, were

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TEMPLE CRAFTSMENthe crafts bound up with the temples, so muchoccupied were the craftsmen, whether royal crafts-men or temple tenants, in either building, restoringor supplying the requirements of temples, that theart was really as distinctively religious as the Gothicart of the middle ages, and in the same way too,it was an art for, and understood by, the wholepeople.Similar conditions probably prevailed from theearliest times. An interesting record of templecraftsmen is given in the tenth century inscription ofMahinda IV., at Mihintale, in Ceylon. The inscrip-tion describes the administration and organisationof a well-endowed* Buddhist monastery. Thesection treating of craftsmen runs as follows :" (There shall be granted) to the chief master-artisan all that belongs to the guild of artisans atBond-vehera ; to two master-artisans, to eightcarvers, and to two bricklayers to (all of) these,the village Vadu-devagama. To each of the twoworkers in wood (shall be assigned) one kiriya (ofland) ; to each of the two master-lapidaries [or

* Mahavamsa, Ch. L. : " And he [Sena I., 1389-1409 A.D.] built, as it were by a miracle, a greatvihara at Arittha-pabbala, and endowed it with greatpossessions, and dedicated it to the Pansakulikabrethren. And he gave to it also royal privileges andhonours, and a great number of keepers for the garden,and servants and artificers."

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IN CEYLON.goldsmiths ?], three kiriya (of land) ; to each of thetwo blacksmiths, one kiriya (of land) ; to the lime-burners, the village Sunubol-devagama ; to the sixcartmen, the village Dunumugama." Also, " to apainter, two kiriya (of land) " ; "to each of the fivepotters who supply daily five earthen pots, onekiriya (of land)."*

Again, in the Jetavanarama Sanskrit inscription(first half of ninth century), relative to theadministration of another Buddhist monastery, weread : " [There shall be] clever stone-cutters andskilful carpenters in the village devoted to the workof [temple] renewal. They all ... shall be expertsin their [respective] work. To each of them shallbe given of one and a half kiri [in sowing extent]for their maintenance ... an enclosed piece ofground. And one hena [or a plot of dry land] shallbe granted to each of them for the purpose of sowingfine grain. Means of subsistence of the [same]extent [as is] given to one of these shall be grantedto the officer who superintends work. Moreover,when thus conferring maintenance on the latterperson, his work and so forth shall [just] be ascer-tained, and the name of him [thus] settled [witha livelihood], as well as his respective duties, shallbe recorded in the register. Those of the five castes

* Wickremasinghe, " Epigraphia Zeylanica" Vol./., p.p III, 112.

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TEMPLE CRAFTSMENwho work within the precincts of the monasteryshall receive [their] work after it has beenapportioned, and they alone shall be answerablefor its excellence [lit. purity]. The limit [of time]for the completion of [a piece of] work [thusapportioned] is two months and five days. Blame[shall be attributed] to the superintendents, thevarikas, and the labourers who do not perform itaccording to arrangement. Those who do not avoidblame . . . shall be deprived of their share [ofland]."The craftsmen were provided with all materials,

and probably fed while at work at the monastery,but received no wages in money ; their means ofsubsistence being the portion of land allotted toeach, and cultivated by other members of thefamily, and, probably, as at the present day,by themselves also in times of ploughing, sowingand harvest. The same conditions prevailed inmediaeval England in this respect.* This relationbetween craft and agriculture is very importantin view of the character of the modern socialproblems of the Western craftsman, alluded to inMr. Ashbee's foreword.

* See Thorold Roger's " Six Centuries of Workand Wages" pp. 46, 179, 1 80. To draw any detailedcomparison with the social conditions in mediaevalEurope would, however interesting, have been beyondthe scope of the present volume.

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IN SOUTH INDIA.Some inscriptions of Raja Raja (A.D. 985-1018)

at the great Tanjore (Tafijavur) temple in SouthernIndia, give interesting details of craftsmen attachedto the temple, recalling the records of the establish-ment at Mihintale above referred to. One inscriptionrefers to the produce of land assigned to templeservants before the 2gth year of the king's reign.Besides the lands assigned to a large number ofdevadasis (400), there were :" For one man belonging to the potters (kusavar)of the sacred kitchen, one share (of land), and forten (other) men half a share each ; altogether, tothe potters of the high street of Surasikhamani, sixshares."" To the jewel-stitcher . . . one and a halfshare."" For one brazier (kannari), one share."" For one master carpenter (taccacarya), one anda half share, and for two (other) men, one and ahalf share ; altogether . . . three shares."" For a person who performs the duty ofsuperintending goldsmiths (kankani tattan), byselecting one man and letting him do the work, to. . . the superintending goldsmith of the minortreasures of the > Lord Sri-Raj a(rajad)eva, oneshare."*

* Hultzsch, " South Indian Inscriptions" Vol. II.,part ///., p. 259.

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MANORIAL CRAFTSMEN.(Also for two other carpenters, three-quarters of

a share each ; and for four tailors, one and a halfshare each, and for two other tailors, one shareeach).But besides the royal and religious manors, and

their tenants, craftsmen included, there were alsomanors in the possession of chieftains and officials,held by them either for life or office, or for ever ;granted in the first instance for public service in peaceor war. So it came about that just as there werecraftsmen working always for the king at court, orbringing in to court the work done for the king athome, so at the local chieftain's manor-house wereto be seen craftsmen working for him patiently andcontentedly, receiving only their meals, while theirfamilies cultivated the lands for which service wasdue to the chief ; and amongst the tenants of thechief's demesne, these craftsmen were by no meansthe least important or the least honoured.

I give one instance of such a tenant's holding andservices. At Paldeniya, in Ceylon, a tenant heldland of something over an acre in extent ; for thishe "had to pay eightpence annually as a fee ; toappear twice a year and give a piece of silversmith'swork worth 35. 4d. ; to work at the manor-housethirty days a year, being supplied with food andcharcoal ; to accompany the Lord of the Manor onimportant occasions twice a year.

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VILLAGES OF CRAFTSMEN.The craftsmen in Ceylon were to a great extent

associated in villages ; that is to say, a whole villageor manor would be sometimes entirely a village ofcraftsmen. In this we trace a survival of old con-ditions. In the Suci Jataka, for example, we get apicture of just such a village of craftsmen :" The Bodhisatta was born in the kingdom ofKasi, in a smith's family, and when he grew upbecame skilled in the craft. His parents were poor.Not far from their village was another smith'svillage of a thousand houses. The principal smithof the thousand was a favourite of the king, rich,and of great substance. . . . People came fromthe villages round to have razors, axes, ploughsharesand goads made."*

In another Jataka, the Alinacitta Jataka, we readthat there was" once upon a time a village of carpenters notfar from the city, in which five hundred carpenterslived. They would go up the river in a vessel, andenter the forest, where they would shape beams andplanks for house-building, and put together theframe-work of one-storey and two-storey houses,numbering all the pieces from the mainpost onwards ;these then they brought down to the river bank,and put them all aboard ; then rowing down stream

* " The Jataka:' Ed. E. B. Cowell, 1895-1908,No. 387.49


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VILLAGES OF CRAFTSMEN.again, they would build houses to order as it wasrequired of them ; after which, when they receivedtheir wage, they went back again for more materialsfor the building, and in this way they made theirlivelihood."!The Pali Jatakas supply us with a considerable

amount of information regarding the position ofcraftsmen in early Buddhist times. The moststriking features of the social organisation of thecraftsmen at this time are : the association ofcraftsmen in villages, the hereditary character ofthe craft, and the importance of the Elder, ormaster-craftsman. These conditions, like so manyother early Buddhist social features, have persistedin mediaeval and even until modern times in Ceylon,where we find, for example, smiths' villages andpotters' villages, where all or nearly all the in-habitants belong to one occupational caste. At thesame time, it is important to distinguish the socialsignificance of the craftsmen thus associated invillages, and that of the " village craftsman "proper, who is the sole representative of his calling,and is the endowed servant of an agriculturalcommunity. In the one case, the purchaser has toseek the maker of wares in his own home ; in theother, the craftsman is himself permanently estab-

f Loc. cit., No. 156. For potters, see the Kumbh-akara Jataka.50


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SOCIAL STATUS.lished amongst his patrons. In late mediaevalCeylon the two conditions existed side by side.Besides the craftsmen thus organised in extra-urban communities of their own, we have, on theone hand, craftsmen and merchants (principally thelatter) living in the city, in their own streets andquarters ; and, on the other, craftsmen of noparticular caste, or considered as belonging todespised castes. Thus, wheelwrights and carriagebuilders belonged to the inferior or lesser casteswith which they are classified in the Suttavibhanga,together with the Candala, Nesada, and Pukkusacastes (lesser castes, hinajati), while the basketmakers, potters, weavers, leather-workers andbarbers are said to be of the lesser trades (hinasippa). The distinction in thought between casteand trade became much less clear in later times ;in early Buddhist times caste was less defined andcrystalised

than it afterwards became, and therewas no division of Sudras so-called.

All workers in wood were comparatively low insocial rank, the joiner, however, naturally muchless so than the workers in cane, as is the case alsoat the present day in Ceylon. It should be observedthat it was not handicraft itself that gave a lowsocial rank to certain groups of craftsmen, butrather the fact that these groups consisted essentiallyof aboriginal non-Aryan races practising crafts that

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SOCIAL STATUS.were known to them before the arrival of theAryans (weaving, pottery, basket-making).It would be a very great mistake, however, tosuppose that the social status of the artist orcraftsman was invariably low. This certainly cannothave been the case in the finest period of Indian art,when the national culture found expression at leastas completely in art as in literature or music. Aswe have seen, the kammalar in Southern Indiaclaim a social status equal or superior to that ofBrahmans ; and in Ceylon the position of thesuperior craftsmen, often the grantees of wholevillages,

and served by tenants and villeins of theirown, was, though technically, and as regards theessential point of intermarriage inferior, in otherways considerably superior to that of the Europeancraftsman at the present day. The skilful and notedcraftsman was a person to be approached with gifts,and treated with respect on account of his skill andlearning.

Just the same thing is indicated in that interestingepisode related in the Katha-kosa, where a princenamed Amaradatta is described as falling in lovewith a beautiful statue, and weeping and complain-ing to his friend Mitrananda. "At this moment anative of the place, a merchant, Ratnasagara byname, came into that temple. The merchant asked,

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SOCIAL STATUS.' Why are you two distracted by grief ? ' MitrS-nanda told the merchant, though with difficulty,the case of Amaradatta. The merchant said tohimself : ' Oh, the might of Cupid triumphs ! Thereis in his mind a passion even for a stone image.Then Mitrananda said to the merchant : * My lord,who had this temple made ? Who was the workmanemployed on it ? Who had so much artistic skill ?Did he make this statue by his own artistic inventiononly, or did he carve it to represent some person ?The merchant said : * I had this temple made. Itwas made by an architect residing in the city ofSopara, named Suradeva.' Mitrananda said : ' Iwill go to that city.' Then Amaradatta said :' Without you I cannot support my life.' ThenMitrananda crossed the sea, and went to the cityof Sopara. There he put on a splendid garment, and,taking a present in his hand, went to the architect'shouse. The architect showed him great regard,and asked him the cause of his coming. Mitranandasaid : ' I wish to have a temple built in honour ofa god, therefore I have come to you. So show mea model of a temple.' The architect said : ' I madethe temple in the garden outside Pataliputra ; thisis the model of it.' Mitrananda said : * Was themarble statue in that temple devised out of yourown head, or is it the likeness of any lady ? ' Thearchitect said : ' The statue is copied from

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SOCIAL STATUS.Ratnamarijari, the daughter of King Matrasena inUjjayini, and is not the product of my own artisticinvention.' When Mitrananda heard this, he said :' I will come to you again in an auspicious moment ' ;and thereupon he journej^ed to Ujjayini."*The rest of the story, relating the manner in

which Mitrananda won the fair lady for his friend,does not concern us here ; suffice it to say, that inthe end " Amaradatta made Mitrananda head ofhis cabinet, Ratnamanjari was the jewel of hisharem, and the merchant Ratnasagara wasappointed royal merchant."As regards the organisation of craftsmen in

villages, conditions were not, of course, identical inmediaeval Ceylon, but they were, and to a largeextent still are, similar in many ways. In 1872, outof 117 villages in the district of Nuvara Kalaviya,four were smiths' villages, and five potters' villages'occupied by persons of those castes exclusively ;the extent of these amounted to 8o acres in a totalof 790 acres,f

In the Kandyan provinces, there existed a largernumber of such villages, and also villages wholly orpart

Indian Craftsman Coomaraswamy

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