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impaired the efficiency of a craftsman by causing the loss of a hand or an eye. Ship-builders and armour-makers were salaried public servants, and were not permitted, it is said, to work for any private person. The woodcutters, carpenters, blacksmiths and miners were subject to special supervision."*

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 footsteps one by one, we come to the time of the great Moghal Emperors in the North. From the Ain-iAkbari or Institutes of the Emperor Akbar, one of the three great rulers in whose mind the conception of a united India had taken shape, and one of the greatest rulers that the world has seen, we are told of the skilled Indian and foreign craftsmen maintained in the palaces of the Moghals.

Akbar had in his service many artists, to the end that they "might vie with each other in fame, and become eminent by their productions." Weekly he inspected the work of every artist, and gave due reward for special excellence. He also personally superintended the making of the weapons forged and decorated in the armoury. He was very fond of shawls, of which many kinds were made * Vincent Smith, " Early History of India,” p. 120.

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in the palace, and classified according to date, value, colour and weight. He had also jewellers and damasceners, inlayers and enamellers, engravers and lapidaries, and craftsmen of all kinds. It is to be observed that all this did not represent in Akbar, any more than it did in Alfred, the mere luxury of an idle or weak monarch, but belonged to a definite conception of the kingly state and duty recognized by one of the greatest rulers the world has seen.

"His majesty taking great delight in, and having patronised this art from the commencement of his reign, has caused it to arrive at high perfection. With that view, this department was established, in order that a number of artists being collected together, might vie with each other for fame, and become eminent by their productions. Every week the daroghas and tepookchies bring to his majesty the performance of every artist, when, in proportion to their merits, they are honoured with premiums, and their salaries are increased."

Through the attention of his majesty, a variety of new manufactures are established in this country; and the cloths fabricated in Persia, Europe and China have become cheap and plenty. The skill of the manufacturers has increased with their number, for his majesty has made himself acquainted with the theory and practice in every stage of the business, so as to be able to discover the merits of the workmen; thus by bringing the

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arts into credit, the natives are encouraged to give application, and they speedily gain a complete knowledge of their profession.”

The Emperor Akbar took a personal delight in painting; he is reported to have said that—

"There are many that hate painting, but such men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had quite peculiar means of recognizing God, for in sketching anything that has life, and devising its limbs one after the other, he must feel that he cannot bestow a soul upon his work, and is forced to think of God, the only giver of life, and will thus increase his knowledge."

No wonder that the crafts flourished under such conditions; and it is very certain that Musalmān puritanism did not, as a matter of fact, injure Indian art in the way that the contact with Western civilization has injured it. Just as in England the churches have suffered more from churchwardens than from puritans, so Indian art has suffered more from philistines-of the Macaulay type-than from iconoclasts.

The thing which perhaps most interests us from the craftsman's point of view is the security and hereditary character of his position. Sir John Chardin tells us of the Persian kings in the seventeenth century that they

"entertain a large number of excellent masterworkmen, who have a salary and daily rations for

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all their lives, and are provided with all the materials for their work. They receive a present and an increase of salary for every fine work they produce." Sir George Birdwood says:

"In the East the princes and great nobles and wealthy gentry, who are the chief patrons of these grand fabrics, collect together in their own houses and palaces all who gain reputation for special skill in their manufacture. These men receive a fixed salary and daily rations, and are so little hurried in their work that they have plenty of time to execute private orders also. Their salaries are continued even when through age or accident they are past work; and on their death they pass to their sons, should they have become skilled in their father's art. Upon the completion of any extraordinary work it is submitted to the patron, and some honour is at once conferred on the artist, and his salary increased. It is under such conditions that the best art work of the East has always been produced."

There is, for example, in the India Museum an engraved jade bowl, on which a family in the employ of the Emperors of Delhi was engaged for three generations. In these days when churches are built by contract and finished to the day or week, it is difficult to realise the leisurely methods of the older craftsmen. Do not mistake leisure for laziness;

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they are totally and entirely different things. The quality of leisure in old work is one of its greatest charms, and is almost essential in a work of art. Haste and haggling have now almost destroyed the possibility of art, and until they are again eliminated from the craftsman's work it will not be possible to have again such work as he once gave to his fellows. In other words, society must either decide to do without art, as it mostly does decide at the present day, or else it must make up its mind to pay for art and endow its craftsmen. You cannot both have art and exploit it.

The royal appreciation of art and craft in the East at various times is further illustrated by the existence 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 found by searching the pages of Indian history.

In the Kusa Jātaka, it is recorded that Prince Kusa, not wishing to marry, conceived the idea of having a beautiful golden image made, and of promising to marry when a woman of equal beauty should be found. He summoned the chief smith, and giving him a quantity of gold, told him to go and make the image of a woman. In the meanwhile he himself took more gold, and fashioned it into the image of a beautiful woman, and this image he had robed in linen and set in the royal chamber. When