In the Central Provinces the term Mochi is often used for the whole
caste in the northern Districts, and Jingar in the Maratha country;
while the Chitrakars or painters form a separate group. Though the
trades of cobbler and book-binder are now widely separated in civilised
countries, the connection between them is apparent since both work
in leather. It is not at first sight clear why the painter should
be of the same caste, but the reason is perhaps that his brushes are
made of the hair of animals, and this is also regarded as impure, as
being a part of the hide. If such be the case a senseless caste rule
of ceremonial impurity has prevented the art of painting from being
cultivated by the Hindus; and the comparatively poor development of
their music may perhaps be ascribed to the same cause, since the use
of the sinews of animals for stringed instruments would also prevent
the educated classes from learning to play them. Thus no stringed
instruments are permitted to be used in temples, but only the gong,
cymbal, horn and conch-shell. And this rule would greatly discourage
the cultivation of music, which art, like all the others, has usually
served in its early period as an appanage to religious services. It
has been held that instruments were originally employed at temples and
shrines in order to scare away evil spirits by their noise while the
god was being fed or worshipped, and not for the purpose of calling
the worshippers together; since noise is a recognised means of driving
away spirits, probably in consequence of its effect in frightening wild
animals. It is for the same end that music is essential at weddings,
especially during the night when the spirits are more potent; and
this is the primary object of the continuous discordant din which
the Hindus consider a necessary accompaniment to a wedding.
Except for this ceremonial strictness Hinduism should have been
favourable to the development of both painting and sculpture, as being
a polytheistic religion. In the early stages of society religion and
art are intimately connected, as is shown by the fact that images and
paintings are at first nearly always of deities or sacred persons or
animals, and it is only after a considerable period of development
that secular subjects are treated. Similarly architecture is in its
commencement found to be applied solely to sacred buildings, as temples
and churches, and is only gradually diverted to secular buildings. The
figures sculptured by the Mochis are usually images for temples,
and those who practise this art are called Murtikar, from _murti_,
an image or idol; and the pictures of the Chitrakars were until
recently all of deities or divine animals, though secular paintings
may now occasionally be met with. And the uneducated believers in a
polytheistic religion regularly take the image for the deity himself,
at first scarcely conceiving of the one apart from the other. Thus
some Bharewas or brass-workers say that they dare not make metal
images of the gods, because they are afraid that the badness of their
handiwork might arouse the wrath of the gods and move them to take
revenge. The surmise might in fact be almost justifiable that the end
to which figures of men and animals were first drawn or painted, or
modelled in clay or metal was that they might be worshipped as images
of the deities, the savage mind not distinguishing at all between an
image of the god and the god himself. For this reason monotheistic
religions would be severely antagonistic to the arts, and such is in
fact the case. Thus the Muhammadan commentary, the Hadith, has a verse:
"Woe to him who has painted a living creature! At the day of the last
judgment the persons represented by him will come out of the tomb
and join themselves to him to demand of him a soul. Then that man,
unable to give life to his work, will burn in eternal flames." And
in Judaism the familiar prohibition of the Second Commandment appears
to be directed to the same end.
Hindu sculpture has indeed been fairly prolific, but is not generally
considered to have attained to any degree of artistic merit. Since
sculpture is mainly concerned with the human form it seems clear that
an appreciation of the beauty of muscular strength and the symmetrical
development of the limbs is an essential preliminary to success in
this art; and such a feeling can only arise among a people who set
much store on feats of bodily strength and agility. This has never
been the character of the Hindus, whose religion encourages asceticism
and mortification of the body, and points to mental self-absorption
and detachment from worldly cares and exercises as the highest type
of virtue.