The industrial arts of India

Front matter

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Preface

Part I, on the Hindu Pantheon, has been compiled chiefly from the well-known works of Belnos, Coleman, Colebrooke, Dowson, Dubois, Fonseca, Garrett, Gladwin, Goldstiicker, Herklots, Sir W. Jones, Muir, Max Muller, Ward, Talboys Wheeler, Monier Williams, H. H. Wilson, and J. Wilson, and revised throughout from the Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology recently published by Professor Dowson, whose spelling of the names of gods and epic heroes of India I have endeavoured to uniformly follow. I have also had to make frequent use of the papers on Ancient Scidpturings on Rocks, on The Snake Symbol in India, on Stone Carvings at Mainpura, and on P rehistoric Remains in Ancient India, published in Ccio. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, by Mr. J. H. Rivett-Carnac, C.I.E., of the Bengal Civil Service, and of the papers on The Village named Martida in Southern Konkana, on Serpent Worship in Western India, on The Shrine of the River Krishna at Mahabalesvara, and on The Shrine of Mahabalesvara, published in the Journal of the Bombay Braftch of the Royal Asiatic Society by the Honorable Rao Sahib Vishvanath Narayan Mandlik, member of the Bombay Legislative Council.

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PREFACE.

Part II, on The Master Handicrafts of India, is a reprint, with added text, of a portion of my Handbook to the Indian Court at the Paris International Exhibition of 1878. It was so well received, both on the Continent and in this country by people interested in the minor arts of India, that I resolved to publish a carefully rewritten edition of it for general sale. I began by adding to it copious notes from the annual Administration Reports of the local governments of India ; and I had examined all these reports, and all the provincial Gazetteers as yet published, when I was asked in the early part of this year -to write a popular handbook on the industrial arts of India, in connexion with the reopening of the India Museum under its new administration by the Science and Art Department at South Kensington. In undertaking this task my intention was to write such a short sketch as I have given of the Hindu Pantheon, without some knowledge of \vhich half the interest of the manual arts of India is lost ; and to add a few general observations on the artistic character of Indian manufactures. But on examining the India Museum collections in detail, and finding how incomplete they were for a systematic representation of the manufacturing resources of India, I saw that what was most wanted was not a handbook to the contents of the Museum, but an index to its deficiencies ; and I therefore resolved to virtually republish a portion of my Handbook, with new information, as the second part of the present work. Although its preparation has been hurried — (the Science and Art Department received charge of the Museum only on the ist of January last) — I hope that it is a fairly trustworthy index of every district and town in British India where manufactures of any special

PREFACE.

Vll artistic quality are produced ; and I believe it will prove of some assistance to the officials of the Science and Art Department in completing the India Museum collections, and to the general public as a guide to the places in India where they may obtain objects of genuine native art.

I have been much exercised with the spelling of the modern Indian geographical names. I have never before spelled them according to the official system, but have been forced under various compulsions to submit more or less completely to it on the present occasion. I have given up Sir Charles Napier’s “ Scinde,” but I have not been able to give up Moore’s “ Cashmere.” Whoever heard of the vale of “ Kashmir ” } It has been very confusing to me to give up the old oo' s and ees for the new Es and ?’s, which latter render it impossible for cornmon English people to understand anything like the true pronunciation of Indian names. It is impossible for English people to pronounce P-u-n-a as Poona, N-i-r-a as Neera, S-h-i-r-p-u-r as Sherepore, or D-a-m-D-a-m as Dum-Dum. Even if the natives of India adopted the Roman alphabet we ought not to spell modern Indian geographical names as they naturally would, if our first object is to preserve the proper pronunciation of them : for let it be clearly understood that by the official system of spelling we are degrading their pronunciation. I saw Kurnool the other day rhymed to skull, simply because the writer of the poem, himself an accomplished Orientalist, had been, in a heedless moment, misled by the official spelling of the word Karmd. English is English, and the spelling of English words should be left to be settled by popular English usage, and no attempt should be made to regulate it by arbitrary resolutions of government. When an

PREFACE.

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Englishman hears a foreign sound he tries to render it as accurately as possible by spelling it out with honest English letters, and for the very reason that he does not adopt a uniform system, but tackles the sound in his own way, he arrives at last at a spelling of it which renders its mispronunciation almost impossible. Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, Umritsur, Jullundhur, and Lucknow, are pronounced by Englishmen very nearly as natives of India pronounce Kalikata, Madraj, Bambai, Lahawar, Amritsir, Jalindhar, and Lakhnau. It is of course convenient to have a uniform system of spelling Indian words for the use of international oriental scholars ; but the service of oriental science is one thing, and correct English spelling quite another ; and what is wanted by Englishmen is not that a dozen or so European “ pandits ” should run no risk of mistaking Indian names, but that the common people of England, who have a practical interest in pronouncing them correctly should not be led into error. It is therefore of paramount importance that they should “ be englished rightly.”

G. B.

Contents

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PART /.—THE HINDU PANTHEON—

The sacred writings of the Hindus