CATTLE BY AN INDIAN ARTIST
It is curious that a cow's head, carved separately as an ornament, is seldom seen in old Indian work and never in that of to-day. Much as he loves the cow, a Hindu of the old rock would prefer not to drink from a fountain where the water issued from a carved cow's head,—the first idea to strike an English sculptor as "neat and appropriate." The head of the elephant is frequently used in ornament, that of the horse is a favourite old Rajput dagger pommel in jade and silver, and tigers' and lions' heads are plentiful, but never that of the cow. A steel garz or mace with a horned head, occasionally seen in collections of Indian arms, is really Persian, and represents one of their many fabulous beasts. The reason of this exclusion is that technically the cow's mouth is impure. A horse may drink from a vessel and, after the usual sacramental scrub with earth, it is no worse for family use, but a cow defiles anything it touches with its mouth.
Outcastes seldom find their way into pictures, so one of the most important subjects of the Western animal painter is lost to the Oriental limner, for dogs are not respectable enough to be drawn. The story of Yudhishtira and his dog, already mentioned, offers a good subject for illustration, but though the legend is known to educated Hindus, its hero has for centuries ceased to be popular and there are no pictures of him to be found. In illustrations to the popular romance of Leila and Majnūn a dog accompanies the lady, while a parrot perches on the gaunt shoulder of the passion-worn Majnūn. A dog, a staff, and a bottle are the attributes of the black Bhairon, most popular of Hindu divinities. Perhaps the science of dog-breeding or appreciation of the variety of canine races has been developed since St. Roch was canonised. At all events, the same casteless mongrel that waits on this holy man in Continental churches attends on Bhairon and runs after antelopes and tigers in such popular Indian romances as Raja Rasálu. The Greeks knew more and better, for they loved and classified their dogs, and sculptured them with discrimination of breed.
The Illustrated London News and the Graphic are foremost in an educational movement unnoted by many observers. In quite out-of-the-way places as well as in the large towns you may see the narrow wall spaces of the shops covered with their pictures, among coloured German lithographs and native prints. Portraits of the Queen and the Royal Family, pictures of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, of winners of the Derby, of prize cattle, of the buxom British infant and types of Western beauty, are stuck side by side with the blue Krishna and the black Kali, and nobody sees any incongruity. Some say that European picture papers are fraught with peril for the Indian artist. There is, however, no possibility of keeping them out of the country, so we must be content to wait for a generation or two before we can judge of their evil effects. Meanwhile, it is only fair to say in anticipation that races who for centuries have known how to accept and assimilate a long series of foreign importations and yet to maintain their own individuality of character may be trusted to deal even with the Illustrated London News and the Graphic.
The boar in art occurs only in a form so highly conventionalised as to be almost unrecognisable, in representations of the Boar avatar. There is a superb boar of colossal size at Khajuraho, carved in stone and completely covered over with row upon row of human figures in relief. It has never occurred to a Hindu to draw a pig for its own sake, while a Muhammadan would scorn to look at a pig picture.
In consequence of the popularity of the Monkey-god, Hanumān, the whole tribe has fared well at the hands of the Indian painter. He scarcely ever occurs in ancient carved work, and the sculptures of to-day are horribly rude, but in many pictures there is a first-rate appreciation of monkey character. In a MS. Rāmāyana in the Lahore Museum a pair of monkeys are shown drinking from a stream, and drawn with wonderful delicacy and naturalness. In the Ajanta frescoes there are some well-painted monkeys. Even in the much conventionalised representations of Hanumān, drawn for the poorest classes, there is often a quaint humour and observation, surprising to those who accept the common fallacy that the people of India are destitute of humour. That representations of the Monkey-god have long been admired is clear from the mention of his picture on Arjuna's banner in the ancient Hindu Epic. Rajput chivalry still bears a red Hanumān on the "five coloured" flags peculiar to the race.
One of the futile works of patience which so often take rank as works of Indian Art is a picture of Hanumān, composed of thousands of repetitions of the sacred name Ram. You draw the Monkey-god in pencil and then write Ram all along the lines in minute Hindi characters. Ram, ram, is a common salutation among Hindus, and mere repetition of the word is a sacrament. All sacraments mean more than meets the eye or ear, so we need not find anything absurd in the case of a Hindu personage who, by a curse of the Gods, was condemned to forego the use of the life-giving word. But he was permitted to say Mra, mra. This relieved his despairing soul, for, saying it quickly for an hour at a time, the most vindictive God or demon alive could hear only Ram, ram.