a

Caste Marks.-Caste marks constitute mode of personal decoration peculiar to Hindus. especially of the higher castes. The simplest mark is a round spot on the forehead. It represents prosperity or joy, and is omitted in mourning and on fast-days. It may be red, or yellowish as when it is made with ground sandalwood paste. The worshippers of Vishnu draw a vertical line across the spot, and as Lakshmi is the goddess of prosperity, it is said to represent her. A more elaborate mark on the forehead has the shape of U or V, generally with the central line, sometimes without it, and represents Vishnu's foot. The worshippers of Shiva adopt horizontal lines, made with! sandalwood paste or ashes. Some Vaishnavas stamp their temples, near the corners of the eyes, with figures of Vishnu's conch and disc. Other parts of the body are also similarly marked. The material used is a kind of yel lowish clay. To smear the arms and the chest with sandalwood paste is a favourite kind of toilet, especially in the hot season. Beads of Tulsi or sacred Basil, and berries of Rudraksha elæocarpus ganitrus, strung together are worn round their necks by Vaishnavas and Shaivas. respectively. The Lingayats, a Shaiva sect, suspend from their necks a metallic casket containing the Linga or phallus of their god. Bairagis, ascetics, besides wearing Rudraksha rosaries round their necks and matted hair, smear their bodies with ashes. Religious mendicants suspend from their necks figures of the gods in whose name they beg. Strings of cowries may also be seen round their necks. Muslim dervishes sometimes carry peacock's feathers.

Hindu women mark their foreheads with a red spot or horizontal line. High caste widows are forbidden to exhibit this sign of happiness, as also to deck themselves with flowers or ornaments. Flowers are worn in the chignon. Hindu women smear their faces, arms, and feet sometimes with a paste of turmeric, so that they may shine like gold. The choice of the same colour for different purposes cannot always be explained in the same way. The red liquid with which the evil eye is averted may be a substitute for the blood of the animal slaughtered for the purpose in former times. In many other cases this colour has no such associations. The Muslim dervish affects green, the Sikh Akali is fond of blue, the Sanyasi adopts orange for his robe, and no reason can be assigned with any degree of certainty.

Shiva. India is a land of temples, mosques and shrines, and the Hindu finds at every turn some supernatural power to be appeased. Shiva has the largest number of worshippers. He has three eyes, one in his forehead, a moon's crescent in his matted hair, and at the top of the coil a woman's face representing the river Ganges. His abode is the Mount Kailas in the Himalayas, from which the river takes its source. Round his neck and about his ears and limbs are serpents, and he also wears a necklace of skulls. In his hands are several weapons, especially a trident, a bow, and a thunderbolt, and also a drum which he sounds while dancing for he is very fond of this exercise. He sits on a tiger's skin, and his vehicle Is a white bull. His wife Parvati and his son Ganesha sit on his thighs, An esoteric mean

ing is attached to every part of his physical personality. The three eyes denote an insight into the past, present and future: the moon. the serpents, and the skulls denote months, years and cycles, for Shiva is a personification of time, the great destroyer. He is also worshipped as a Linga or phallus which represents creative energy.

Ganpati-Ganesh

con

or Ganpati, the troller of all powers of evil subject to Shiva, is Worshipped by all sects throughout India. Every undertaking is begun with a prayer to him. He has the head of an elephant, a large abdomen, serpents about his waist and wrists, several weapons in his hands, and a piece of his tusk in one hand. He is said to have broken it off when he wanted to attack the moon for ridiculing him. The different parts of his body are also esoterically explained. His vehicle is a rat.

Parvati.-Parvati, the female energy of Shiva, is worshipped under various names and forms. She is at the head of all female supernatural powers, many of whom are her own manifestations. Some are benign and beautiful, others terrible and ugly. Kali, the tutelary deity of Kalighat or Calcutta, is one of her fierce manifestations In this form she is black a tongue smeared with blood projects from her gaping mouth: besides her weapons, she carries corpses in her hands, and round her neck are skulls. Bombay also takes its name from a goddess, Mumbadevi. Gouri, to whom offerings are made in Indian homes at an annual festival, is benign. On the other hand the epidemic diseases like the plague and smallpox are caused by certain goddesses or 16 mothers."

Vishnu, the second member of the Hindu trinity, is the most popular deity next to Shiva. He is worshipped through his several incarnations as well as his original personality. His home is the ocean of milk, where he reclines on the coils of a huge, many-headed serpent. At his feet sits Lakshmi, shampooing his legs. From his navel issues a lotus, on which is seated Brahma, the third member of the trinity. In his hands are the conch, which he blows on the battlefield, and the disc, with which the heads of his enemies are severed. Round his neck are garlands of leaves and flowers, and on his breast are shining jewels. As Shiva represents destruction, Vishnu represents protection, and his son is the god of love. To carry on the work of protection, he incarnates himself from time to time, and more temples are dedicated nowadays to his most popular incarnations, Rama and Krishna, than to his original personality. Rama is a human figure, with a bow in one of his hands. He is always accompanied by his wife Sita, often by his brother Lakshmana, and at his feet, or standing before him with joined bands, is Hanuman, the monkey chieftain, who assisted him in his expedition against Ravana, the abductor of his wife. Krishna is also a human figure, generally represented as playing on a flute, with which he charmed the damsels of his city, esoterically explained to mean his devotees.

Brahma 19 seldom worshipped only a couple of temples dedicated to him have yet been discovered in all India.

High-caste practices.-The high caste Hindu, on the other hand, believes that the more otten the name of a deity is on his lips, the more merit he earns. Therefore he deliberately names his children after his gods and goddesses, so that he may have the opportunity of pronouncing the holy names as frequently as possible. These are also sonorous and picturesque. Shiva is happy: Vishnu is a pervader: Govinda is the cowherd Krishna : Keshava has fine hair: Rama is a delighter: Lakshmana is lucky: Narayana produced the first living being on the primeval__waters : Ganesha is the Lord of Shiva's hosts: Dinakara is the luminary that makes the day: Subrahmanya is a brother of Ganesha. Sita is a furrow Saitri a ray of light: Tara a star: Radha prosperity: Rukmini is she of golden ornaments: Bhama of the glowing heart. Shiva and Vishnu has each got at least a thousand names, and they may be freely drawn upon and paraphrased in naming one's children; and the whole Hindu pantheon is as crowded as it is large. When a mother loses several children, she begins to suspect that some evil spirit has conspired against her and in order to make her off-spring unattractive to the powers of darkness, she gives them ugly names, such as Keru, rubbish, or Ukirda, dunghill, or Martoba, the mortal. Women are named after rivers, as Sarasvati, Ganga, Bhagirathi, Godavari, or Kaveri, just as men are sometimes called after mountains. Manu counsels young men not to choose a wife with such a name, perhaps because a river is an emblem of deviousness and inconstancy, as a hill is an emblem of stability. But the names of rivers have not been discarded. The Burmans have curious custom if a child is born on a Monday, its name must begin with a guttural, on Tuesday with a palatal, on Thursday with a labial, on Saturday wth a dental.

a

Family names.-When a person rises in Importance, he adds to his personal name a family or caste name. It was once the rule that the title Sharma might be added to a Brahman's name, Varma to a Kshatriya's, Gupta to a Vaishyas, and Dasa to a Shudra's. This rule is fairly well observed in the case of the first two titles, but the meaning of the other two has changed. Dasa means a slave or servant, and the proudest Brahman cannot disdain to call himself the servant of some god. Thus, although Kalidas, the famous poet, was a Shudra, Ramadas, the famous guru of Shivaji, was a Brahmin. The Vaishnavas have made this fashion of calling oneself a servant of some god exceedingly popular, and in Western India high caste Hindus of this sect very commonly add Das to their names. The Brahmans of Southern India add Aiyer or Alyangar to their names. Shastri, Acharya, Bhat, Bhattacharya, Upadhyaya, Mukhopadhyaya, changed in Bengal into Mukerji, are among the titles indicative of the Brahmanical profession of studying and teaching the sacred books. Among warlike classes, like the Rajputs and Sikhs, the title Singh (lion) has become more popular than the ancient Varma. The Sindhi Mal, as in Gidumal, means brave and has the same force. Raja changed into Raya, Rao and Rai was a political title, and is not confined to any caste. The Bengali family names, like Bose and Ghose,

Dutt and Mitra, Sen and Guha, enable o to identify the caste of their bearers, becau e the caste of a family or clan cannot be changed. Shet, chief of a guild or a town, becomes Chetty, a Vaishya title, in Southern India. Mudaliyar and Nayudu, meaning leaders, are titles which were assumed by castes of political importance under native rulers. Nayar and Menon are the titles of important castes in Malabar. Ram, Lal, Nand, Chand, are among the additions made to personal names in Northern India. Suffixes like Ji, as in Ramji or Jamshedji, the Kanarese Appa, the Telugu Garu, the feminine Bai or Devi, are honorific. Prefixes like Babu, Baba, Lala, Sodhi, Pandit, Raja, and the Burmese Maung are also honorific.

Professional names.-Family names sometimes denote a profession: in some cases they might have been conferred by the old rulers. Mehta, Kulkarni, Deshpande, Chitnavis, Mahalnavis are the names of offices held in former times. One family name may mean a flour seller, another a cane-seiler, and a third liquor-seller. To insert the father's name between one's personal and the family name is a common practice in Western India. It is rare elsewhere. When a family comes from a certain place, the suffix 'kar' or 'wallah' is added to the name of the place and it makes a family surname in Western India. Thus we may have Chiplunkars and Suratwal'ahs, or without these affixes we may have Bhavnagris, Malabaris and Bilimorias, as among Parsis. Thus Vasudev Pandurang Chiplunkar would be a Hindu, whose personal name is Vasudev's father's name Pandurang, and family name derived from the village of Chiplun, is Chiplunkar. In Southern India the village name precedes the personal name. The evolution of Musalman names follows the same lines as Hindu names. But Muslims have no god or goddesses, and their names are derived from their religious and secular history. These names and titles are often as long and picturesque as Hindu appellations. The agnomens Baksh, Din, Ghulam, Khwaje, Fakir, Kazi, Munshi, Sheikh, Syed, Begum, Bibi and others, as well as honorific additions like Khan have meanings which throw light on Muslim customs and institutions. The Parsis also have no gods and goddesses, and their personal names are generally borrowed from their sacred and secular history. Their surnames frequently indicate a profession or a place, as in the case of Hindus in Western India. Batiiwallah, Readymoney, Contractor, Saklatwallah, Adenwallah and others like them are tell-tale

names.

Conversions.-As a rule, a child is named soon after it is born, and in the case of males the appellation is not changed. The higher Hindu castes have a separate ceremony called the name-giving ceremony performed on the twelfth day after birth. When a girl is married in these castes, the husband's family give her a new personal name. When a boy is invested with the sacred thread and is made a twiceborn, his name is not changed, but when a man joins an order of ascetics, his lay name is dropped, and he assumes a new name. So also when a Burman joins an order of monks or nuas, the lay name is superseded by a Pali name. Christian converts change their origins name when they are baptised.

In India there has never been so marked a separation between what are now known as the Fine Arts, and those applied to industry as was the case in Europe during the nineteenth century. As, however, Industrial art forms the subject of a special article in this book, the term Indian Art will here be confined to Architecture, Sculpture and Painting.

Historical-The degree of proficiency attained in art by Indians prior to B. C. 250, can only be conjectured by their advancement in literature; and by the indirect evidences of indebtedness shown by the works of the historic period, to those which preceded them; or direct records of artistic work of an earlier date than B. C. 250 do not exist. The chief historic schools of architecture are as follows:Locality of the best Examples.

Name.

Buddhist

Jaina ..

Dates.

..B.C.250

A.D.750.

..A.D.1000

1300. Brahminica..A.D. 500 to

Ellora, Ajanta, Kali,
Sanchi.

Ellora, Mount Abu,

Palitana. Ellora, Elephanta, the present Orissa, Bhuvanesday. war, Dharwar. Umber, Somnathpur,

Chalukyan..A.D.1000

Dravidian

Pathan

1200. ..A.D.1350 1750.

..A.D.1200

1550.

Ballur.

Ellora, Tanjore, Madura, Tinnevelly. Delhi, Mandu, Jaun

pore.

Indo-Saracenic A.D.1520- Lahore, Delhi, Agra, Amber, Bijapur.

1760

Buddhist Architecture is mainly exemplified by the rock-cut temples and monasteries found in Western India and in the Topes or sacred mounds. The interior decorations, and external facades of the former, and the rails and gates surrounding the latter point unmistakably to their being derived from wooden structures of an earlier period. The characteristic features of these temples are horse-shoe openings in the facades to admit light, and collo nades of pillars with richly ornamented caps in the interior halls. Jaina Architecture is found in its most highly developed form in the Dilwara temples at Mount Abu. The ground plan consists of a shrine for the god or saint; a porch, and an arcaded courtyard with niches for images. The characteristic of the style is grace and lightness, with decorative carving covering the whole interior, executed with great elaboration and detail. Constructional methods suggest that original types in wood have been copied in marble.

Brahminical, Chalukyan and Dravidian styles differ little in essential plan, all having a shrine for the god, preceded by pillared porches. The outer forms vary. The northern Brahminical temples have a curved pyramidal roof to the shrines, which in the southern or Dravidian style are crowned by a horizontal system of storied towers, and each story, decreasing in size, is ornamental with a central cell and figures in high relief. The Chalukyan style is affected by its northern and southern neighbours, taking features from each without

was

losing its own special characteristics of which the star-shaped plan of the shrine, with the fivefold bands of external ornament, is the principal feature. Pathan Architecture introduced into India by the Mahomedan invasion of the thirteenth century. At old Delhi are fine examples in the Kutub Mosque and Minar. The characteristics of the style are severity of outline, which is sometimes combined with elaborate decoration due, it is stated, to the employment of Hindu craftsmen. The mosques and tombs at Ahmedabad already show Hindu influence; but purer examples are to be found at Jaunpore and Mandu. Indo-Saracenic Architecture reached the climax of its develop. ment during the reigns of the Moghul Emperors. Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan. It eclipsed in richness of material and refinement of taste the building efforts of previous periods, its crowning example being the Taj Mahal at Agra. The buildings erected during the Adil Shahi dynasty at Bijapur at a slightly later date, in the great tomb of Mahmoud. Though less exhibit a certain Turkish influence, especially refined and lacking the attraction of precious materials in their decoration, these splendid edifices are held in higher esteem by some critics than those of the Moghals, on account of their simplicity, grandeur and fine proportions. The era of great civil architecture in India was revived by the Mahomedan powers. Splendid palaces and fortresses were built at Madras, Delhi, Agra, Fattehpore-Sikri and Bijapur, and the example thus set was copied by the Hindu princes at Jaipur, Udaipur and elsewhere in India. The application of great architectural treatment, unequalled in extent elsewhere, is to be seen in the Ghauts or steps enclosing lakes and on the banks of rivers. The most notable constructional contribution of the Mahomedans to Indian architecture was the introduction of the true arch and dome.

Sculpture. The use of sculpture and painting in isolated works of art was practically non-existent in India until modern times. One or two reliefs and certain gigantic figures may be quoted as exceptions, but taken generally it may be stated that these arts were employed as the decorative adjuncts of architecture. No civil statuary, such as is now understood by the term, was executed; for no contempo rary portrait figures, or busts in marble, or bronze, have come down to us from the ruins of ancient India, as they have from those of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Sculpture has been used exclusively as the handmaid of religion, and to this fact may be attributed the stereotyped forms to which it became bound. The lavish use of sculpture on Indian temples often exceeds good taste, and mars the symmetry and dignity of their mass and outline; but for exuberance of imagination, industrious elaboration and vivid expression of movement, Indian sculpture is perhaps without its equal elsewhere in the world. The most impressive pecimens are the earliest, found in the Buddhist and Brahminical cave temples of Ellora, Ajanta and Elephanta. The great Trimurthi in the last named of these temples ranks for mystery

in

and expressive grandeur with the greatest masterpieces of Egyptian art. The outstanding characteristics of Hindu sculpture are the power displayed in suggesting movement; the fine sense of decorative arrangements of line and mass; and an overpowering ingenuity Intricate design. Mahomedan sculpture in India, though not exclusively confined to geometric forms as is that of the more severe Arabian school, is very restrained as compared with that of the Hindus. Floral motifs are often used in the ornaments to tombs and palaces, but rarely in those of mosques. Their geometric ornament shows great ingenuity and invention; and wonderful decorative use is made of Persian, Arabic and Urdu lettering in panels, and their borders. The representation of human animal figures is rarely to be met with. Sculptured and modelled relief is, as a rule, kept very low; and is mainly confined to the decoration of mouldings, architraves, lintels, or the bands of ornament which relieve large exterior wall spaces. Buildings of purely Mahomedan design and workmanship show greater restraint than those upon which Hindu workmen have been employed and are more satisfactory; but at Ahmedabad the two celebrated windows are striking examples of a happy combination of the two styles.

or

Painting-Much of the carved stonework upon ancient Indian buildings was first plastered and then decorated with colour, but the only paintings, in the modern acceptation of the term, now existing, which were executed prior to the Moghul period, are those upon the walls of the cave temples at Ajanta. These remarkable works were produced at intervals during the first 600 years of the Christianera. They exhibit all the finer characteristic of the best Indian sculpture, but with an added freedom of expression due to the more tractable vehicle employed. They remained hidden in the Deccan jungles for nearly twelve hundred years, until accidentally discovered in 1816. They are painted in a species of fresco and when first brought to light were well preserved, but they have greatly deteriorated owing to the well meant, but misguided action of copyists, and the neglect of the authorities. Their origin is as wrapt in mystery as is that of the artists who painted them; for no other paintings of similar power and character are known to exist; and the artists, so far as is known, left no successors, Nine hundred years elapsed between the completion of the Ajanta paintings and the commencement of the second period of Indian painting. This owned its origin to the introduction of Persian artists by the Moghul Emperor Akbar; and the establishment of the indigenous Moghul school was due to the encouragement and fostering care of his successors, Jehangir and Shah Jahar. Unlike the works of the Ajanta painters, which were designed upon a large scale, the pictures of the Moghul school were miniatures. They were executed in a species of opaque watercolour upon paper or vellum, resembling in technique the illuminated missals produced by the monks in Europe during the middle ages. Some of the finest of the earlier specimens in India are of a religious character; this phase of development being closely allied to the art

the caligraphist. As its range extended, a remarkable school of portrait painters arose notable for restrained but extremely accurate drawing, keen insight into character, harmonious colour, fine decorative feeling, and extraordinary delicacy and finish in the painting of detail. The artists of a Hindu off-shoot of this movement, known as the Rajput school, were less fully endowed with the technical and purely aesthetic qualities than were the Moghul painters; but they brought to their work poetry and sentiment which are not to be found in that of the Mahomedans. The pictures of both branches of the Moghul school, although highly ecorative in character, were not intended for exhibition upon the walls of rooms, according to Western practice, and, when not used as illustrations or decorations to manuscript books, were preserved in portfolios. As this school of painting was the last expression of traditional art in India, in the restricted sense here applied to the term, and, as the question has a distinct bearing upon the modern development of painting, a few words may be added regarding the difference between the conventions followed by Eastern and Western painters. Until the middle of the fourteenth century the conventions of both East and West were practically the same, though the use of them differed according to environment and national temperament. These conventions the artists of the East have retained and development has been upon the line of decorative fitness, harmony of colour, and expressive action. Their art has throughout been decorative, and when natural objects have been depicted, their treatment has been that of a flat pattern. European painters, after the period above mentioned on the contrary, sought to attain the appearance of actuality in the objects depicted by the study of the science of light and shade, and perspective: and in achieving this end, and developing it into the realisation of atmosphere and light, they sacrificed a large measure of the decorative quality which characterised work of the earlier school. Eastern artists have ignored or been blind to light and shade; and in works entirely free from European influence one will look in vain for any suggestion of it in their figures or for shadows of objects cast upon the ground. During the last fifty years there has been a strong movement toward a return to decorative conventions, on the part of European artists who have assimilated much that the East has to teach them, without thereby affecting the distinctively Western character of their work. Indian and Japanese artists have been less successful when attempting the reverse of this practice, and appear to lose whatever is best in their traditional practice without acquiring the finer qualities of that of the West.

The

the

Modern Painting-As the reign of Shah Jahan exhibits the high tide of artistic development in India, so the reign of his successor Aurangzeb marks the period of its rapid decline. The causes of this are attributable to the absence of encouragement by this Emperor; to his long periods of absence from the court at Delhi or Agra, entailed by the continuous wars he waged in his efforts to bring the whole of the Peninsula under his rule; and partly to the tendency strongly inherent in the Indian artist