In Madhya Pradesh the soft marble rocks of Bhedaghat on the banks of the Narmada provide craftsmen with excellent raw material to make carved panels, figurines and boxes.

The sculptors of Karnataka carve images, panels of gods and goddesses, ornaments, bowls, vases, and book-ends from a variety of stones available in this State.

Uttar Pradesh is one of the leading producers and exporters of stoneware in India. Soft marble and soft streaked Gorahari stone of many shades are inlaid with semi-precious stones. Inlaid table tops, plates and decorative items are produced in Agra.

In Orissa the stone cutters of Puri work mainly in soapstone. Harder stone is used for temple building. Traditional stone carvers in Mangalpur make stone utensils from semi-hard grey stone and add to it a beautiful polish. Grey stone from Khichling are made into items for the urban market, like boxes and containers, bowls and vases.

Tamil Nadu: Famous stone sculpture centres have been established in many places such as Mahabalipuram, where a training school has trained a number of young artists in traditional stone-carving techniques and in making statues.

Patrons of Crafts

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in his book entitled The Indian Craftsman describes the craftsmen of India and Sri Lanka that he had studied in the early twentieth century. He divided crafts communities into the following categories.

♦ Those who lived and worked in the village

♦ Those who travelled from village to village and towns

♦ Those who lived and worked in towns

♦ Craftsmen who were employed by the ruler in royal workshops.

The Village: The potter, carpenter, stone sculptor, mason and goldsmith lived and worked often in their own homes in designated parts of the village. Everyone in the village knew their local craftsmen and therefore he had no need to autograph his works. The jajmani system ensured that hereditary artisans were bound to the dominant agricultural groups through traditional ties. This was a hierarchical and symbiotic relationship, in which the artists worked under the protection and hospitality of the landowning class. When there was a festival, the landowner or the jajman would request the potter to make ceremonial pots and diyas and in return pay him in kind with food for the rest of the year. When his household needed a grinding stone, the stone cutter would make one to the specified requirement and size.

Itinerant Craftsmen: Some artisans like the blacksmith even today are itinerant craftsmen who move from village to village servicing the community and spending as much time as is required in each place. These crafts communities were often paid in kind with gifts of grain and food, clothing and money so that they did not have to cultivate land for food but could pursue their craft to perfection.

In the Town: While the artists in the village worked as a family, individual artists in the towns formed guilds to protect their interests and to ensure the quality of their work. The guild protected the group and its occupational interests, punishing the wrong doer, negotiating prices and enforcing standards of work. The artist in the town was also paid in kind and with land grants or produce from land.

In the Court: Through the ages rulers tried to attract well-known performing artists and craftsmen like sculptors to work in their court. It is the creations of such artists that provide an idea of cultures and eras gone by. Rulers understood that having brilliant architects and sculptors would enhance their empire in many ways. They knew that the creation of magnificent buildings, shrines and sculptures would carry the message of their grandeur to distant places and countries. This is why there are many royal records of grants and gifts to artists who excelled in their work.

The artist who attached himself to the court found employment in the royal workshops and was often a privileged person, given payment for an assignment not only in kind but also in land. The Jetavanarama Sanskrit inscription (first half of the ninth century) of a Buddhist monastery records that:

There shall be clever stone-cutters and skilled carpenters in the village devoted to the work of temple renewal. They all… shall be experts in their respective work. To each of them shall be given one-and-a-half kiri (in sowing extent) for their maintenance… an enclosed piece of land. And one hena (or a plot of dry land) shall be granted to each of them for purposes of sowing fine grain.

– Ananda K.Coomaraswamy, The Indian Craftsman

Emperor Akbar’s royal diary records that payment was given to artists for their work and special awards for excellence were given on pleasing the emperor with the creation of a rare object.

The practice of gathering skilled artisans in the palace workshops and homes of rich landlords continued right into the nineteenth century.

In the east the princes and great nobles and wealthy gentry, who are the chief patrons of these grand fabrics, collect together in their 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.

– George C.M. Birdwood, Industrial Arts of India

Who are the patrons of stone artists today? Is there a difference in how they are paid in rural areas and urban centres? Is there any recognition of their work? What are the problems that craft communities face today? These are some of the questions that have to be asked to understand the health of the crafts sector in India.

Growing Up as an Artist

Living and growing up in a family of artists enables a young child to acquire skills and sensibilities from his/her parents and grandparents. The child growing up in a potter’s home knows how to mix clay from childhood and is sensitive and familiar with the qualities of clay, knowing, for example, by its scent whether it is dry or wet or ready for firing. The sensitivities developed through such familiarity would seem almost natural and effortless.

Critics of Indian art and craft have remarked that Indian artists rarely invented or experimented with tool-making to improve their work, or to develop labour-saving devices. Tools were kept to the minimum, while the process of achieving perfection was as important as the job itself. Skills practised for over 5000 years are still in use in India. Today artists, whether they are stone or wood carvers, potters or weavers, continue to work with the technology and methods used by their forefathers.

It appears that once a simple way of making something was developed it lasted for centuries and became the most uncomplicated way of achieving the real goal of crafts. Perhaps finding time-saving devices, effort-saving technologies was not the goal of crafts communities as is illustrated by the experience of a well-known wood carver from Kerala (see box below).

At the turn of the nineteenth century when machines and technical training were overrunning the old system, many scholars like Coomaraswamy wrote about the loss of this parental education and the discontinuity of culture and living craft traditions.

… for in the East there is traditionally a peculiar relation of devotion between master and pupil, and it is thought that the master’s secret, his real inward method, is best learnt by the pupil in devoted personal service, so we get a beautiful and affectionate relation between the apprentice and the master, which is impossible in the case of the busy professor who attends a class at a Technical school of a few hours a week…

– Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, The Indian Craftsman

Coomaraswamy believed that by living and working with the family the child acquired valuable trade secrets, an understanding of the culture and customs to which they belonged, the rituals and festivals for which their craft was required and the philosophic traditions that transformed their work into art. By attending festivals and rituals, listening to grandmothers’ legends and stories, the child learnt the content of sculptures that he would make later in life. Such an education is not available in technical or art schools of today. It was this guru–shishya and parent–teacher system that led to the continuity and excellence of Indian art.

Contemporary Demands

In Mahabalipuram the sculptors make certain figures which they feel have a demand. They also execute orders received from various organisations, like temples. There is a preponderance of the so-called traditional iconographic forms: gods, goddesses, the elephant god Ganapathy and the whole gamut of religious figurines. The background to this is the College of Traditional Art and Architecture where traditional iconography and architecture is taught. They take on various kinds of contracts for both the local and the export market, especially tombstones for Korea and Japan.

There exists now a burgeoning construction industry almost all over the country. People are demanding more in terms of ‘finish’ to their houses than just plain cement and concrete. They like to beautify houses with objects of art both functional and aesthetic, traditional and modern. Carved stone lends itself to both interior and exterior spaces. It can be used in construction work, objects of art, traditional and modern designs. Stone can be used in a variety of combinations with other materials.

Innovation comes in when there is an active interaction between customer/designer and the craftsman. The craftsman needs to understand the requirements of the client and the customer/designer needs to understand the material, its capabilities and the capacity of the craftsman.

Another important factor is cost. The craftsman would obviously like to make and sell something that can be made as cheaply as possible and sold as dearly as possible. It is important that the price worked out should be such that the craftsman gets the maximum benefit at an affordable cost to the client. A simple example would be carved pillars for a portico. A range of styles should be available from simple columns to carved ones so that they can suit the taste and budget of the client.

EXERCISE