SOCIAL STATUS.

were known to them before the arrival of the Aryans (weaving, pottery, basket-making).

It would be a very great mistake, however, to suppose that the social status of the artist or craftsman was invariably low. This certainly cannot have been the case in the finest period of Indian art, when the national culture found expression at least as completely in art as in literature or music. As we have seen, the kammalar in Southern India claim a social status equal or superior to that of Brahmans; and in Ceylon the position of the superior craftsmen, often the grantees of whole villages, and served by tenants and villeins of their own, was, though technically, and as regards the essential point of intermarriage inferior, in other ways considerably superior to that of the European craftsman at the present day. The skilful and noted craftsman was a person to be approached with gifts, and treated with respect on account of his skill and learning.

Just the same thing is indicated in that interesting episode related in the Katha-kosa, where a prince named Amaradatta is described as falling in love with a beautiful statue, and weeping and complaining to his friend Mitrānanda. "At this moment a native of the place, a merchant, Ratnasagara by name, came into that temple. The merchant asked,

SOCIAL STATUS.

Why are you two distracted by grief?' Mitrănanda told the merchant, though with difficulty, the case of Amaradatta. The merchant said to himself: 'Oh, the might of Cupid triumphs! There is in his mind a passion even for a stone image. Then Mitrānanda said to the merchant: 'My lord, who had this temple made? Who was the workman employed on it? Who had so much artistic skill? Did he make this statue by his own artistic invention only, or did he carve it to represent some person ? The merchant said: 'I had this temple made. It was made by an architect residing in the city of Sopāra, named Suradeva.' Mitrānanda said: 'I will go to that city.' Then Amaradatta said: 'Without you I cannot support my life.' Then Mitrānanda crossed the sea, and went to the city of Sopara. There he put on a splendid garment, and, taking a present in his hand, went to the architect's house. The architect showed him great regard, and asked him the cause of his coming. Mitrānanda said: 'I wish to have a temple built in honour of a god, therefore I have come to you. So show me a model of a temple.' The architect said: 'I made the temple in the garden outside Pataliputra; this is the model of it.' Mitrānanda said: 'Was the marble statue in that temple devised out of your own head, or is it the likeness of any lady?' The architect said: 'The statue is copied from

SOCIAL STATUS.

Ratnamarijarī, the daughter of King Matrasena in Ujjayini, and is not the product of my own artistic invention.' When Mitrānanda heard this, he said: 'I will come to you again in an auspicious moment'; and thereupon he journeyed to Ujjayini."*

The rest of the story, relating the manner in which Mitrānanda won the fair lady for his friend, does not concern us here; suffice it to say, that in the end "Amaradatta made Mitrānanda head of his cabinet, Ratnamanjarī was the jewel of his harem, and the merchant Ratnasāgara was appointed royal merchant."

As regards the organisation of craftsmen in villages, conditions were not, of course, identical in mediæval Ceylon, but they were, and to a large extent still are, similar in many ways. In 1872, out of 117 villages in the district of Nuvara Kalāviya, four were smiths' villages, and five potters' villages, occupied by persons of those castes exclusively ; the extent of these amounted to 80 acres in a total of 790 acres.†

In the Kandyan provinces, there existed a larger number of such villages, and also villages wholly or partly occupied by goldsmiths and other superior

*Katha-kosa, translated by C. H. Tawney, p. 150. + Service Tenures Commission Report, Colombo, 1872, p. 487.

KAMMALAR.

craftsmen. There were also whole villages granted to craftsmen and their descendants for ever, as bada-vedilla, or means of subsistence. The word galladda, a designation of craftsmen of the superior division, actually means one who possesses a village "a point of much significance in a study of the economic status of the Indian craftsman.

In Southern India the skilled craftsmen, exclusive, that is, of potters and weavers, are known as the kammalar. The following account of these craftsmen is partly based on a paper by Dr. Pulney Andy in No. 50, "Journal of Indian Art and Industry."

The kammalar are descendants of Aryans who entered India across the Panjab in early times, when they were known as Visva or Deva Brahmans or Deva Kammālar. They spread gradually towards the south, and thence reached Ceylon, Burma, Siam and Java. The kammalar claim to have been at one time spiritual guides and priests to the whole people, of which position a trace survives in the saying, "The kammālan is guru to the world." They still have their own priests, and do not rely on Brahmans; they also perform priestly rites in connection with the consecration of images. They both claim and possess various special privileges, which they have always upheld with much vigour ; in some cases they claim a rank equal to that of Brahmans. They are, or were, learned in the silpa

KAMMALAR.

sastra, or technical works on art in Sanskrit ; the priests especially studied these books. But most they were only, in later times at least, known in word for word glosses in the vernacular. The kammalar trace their ancestry to the five sons of Visvakarma, of whom the first-born, Manu, worked in iron; the second, Maya, in wood; the third, Tvastram, in brass, copper, and alloys; the fourth, Silpi, in stone; and the fifth, Visvajna, was a gold and silver smith and jeweller. In former times the kammalar had their own guilds which protected their interests; but as these institutions gradually declined, they have been driven to seek the aid of capitalists of other castes, and now they are in a majority of instances reduced to mere paid workmen, earning daily wages. The five occupational sects form one compact community, and are not mutually exclusive; the son of any one may follow any of the five crafts at will. Probably many individuals practised more than one craft, as is still the case in Ceylon,* amongst the navandanno, who correspond in position to the kammalar, and in many instances are the descendants of kammalar immigrants. The group of castes corresponding to the kammalar in Mysore is called Panchvala.

*So also in North Jaipur, carpenters worked not only in wood, but in stone, or metal, including gold, as might be required of them.-Col. Hendley, Indian Jewellery, p. 153.