Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 75

HINDU ARTS AND MANUFACTURES
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his craft than he is at once carried off by order of the
sovereign, taken to the palace, and there confined for the
rest of his life, forced to toil without remission and with
Under these circumstances, which are
little or no reward.
common to all parts of India under the government of
native princes, it is hardly surprising that every art and
extinguished and all healthy competition
This is the chief and almost the only reason
why progress in the arts has been so slow among the
Hindus, and why in this respect they are now far behind
other nations who did not become civilized for many cen-
turies after themselves.
Their workmen certainly lack neither industry nor skill.
In the European settlements, where they are paid according
to their merit, many native artisans are to be met with
whose work would do credit to the best artisans of the
West. Moreover they feel no necessity to use the many
European tools, whose nomenclature alone requires special
study.
One or two axes, as many saws and planes, all of
them so rudely fashioned that a European workman would
be able to do nothing with them these are almost the
only instruments that are to be seen in the hands of Hindu
carpenters.
The working materials of a journeyman gold-
smith usually comprise a tiny anvil, a crucible, two or
three small hammers, and as many files.
With such
simple tools the patient Hindu, thanks to his industry,
can produce specimens of work which are often not to be
distinguished from those imported at great expense from
foreign countries.
To what a standard of excellence would
these men have attained if they had been from the earliest
times subjected to good masters
In order to form a just idea of what the Hindus would
have done with their arts and manufactures if their natural
industry had been properly encouraged, we have only to
visit the workshop of one of their weavers or of one of
their printers on cloth and carefully examine the instru-
ments with which they produce those superb muslins,
those superfine cloths, those beautiful coloured piece-goods,
which are everywhere admired, and which in Europe occupy
a high place among the principal articles of adornment.
In manufacturing these magnificent stuffs the artisan uses
industry
deadened.
is
—
!