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.
4. Antagonism of Mochis and Chamārs
As a natural result of the pretensions to nobility made by the Mochis, there is no love lost between them and the Chamārs; and the latter allege that the Mochis have stolen their rāmpi, the knife with which they cut leather. On this account the Chamārs will neither take water to drink from the Mochis nor mend their shoes, and will not even permit them to try on a new pair of shoes until they have paid the price set on them; for they say that the Mochis are half-bred Chamārs and therefore cannot be permitted to defile the shoes of a true Chamār by trying them on; but when they have been paid for, the maker has severed connection with them, and the use to which they may be put no longer affects him.
5. Exogamous groups
In the Central Provinces the Mochis are said to have forty exogamous sections or gotras, of which the bulk are named after all the well-known Rājpūt clans, while two agree with those of the Chamārs. And they have also an equal number of kheras or groups named after villages. The limits of the two groups seem to be identical; thus members of the sept named after the Kachhwāha Rājpūts say that their khera or village name is Mungāvali in Gwālior; those of the Ghangere sept give Chanderi as their khera, the Sitāwat sept Dhāmoni in Saugor, the Didoria Chhatarpur, the Narele Narwar, and so on. The names of the village groups have now been generally forgotten and they are said to have no influence on marriage, which is regulated by the Rājpūt sept names; but it seems probable that the kheras were the original divisions and the Rājpūt gotras have been more recently adopted in support of the claims already noticed.
6. Social customs
The Mochis have adopted the customs of the higher Hindu castes. A man may not take a wife from his own gotra, his mother’s gotra or from a family into which a girl from his own family has married. They usually marry their daughters in childhood and employ Brāhmans in their ceremonies, and no degradation attaches to these latter for serving as their priests. In minor domestic ceremonies for which the Brāhman is not engaged his place is taken by a relative, who is called sawāsa, and is either the sister’s husband, daughter’s husband, or father’s sister’s husband, of the head of the family. They permit widow-remarriage and divorce, and in the southern Districts effect a divorce by laying a pestle between the wife and husband. They burn their dead and observe mourning for the usual period. After a death they will not again put on a coloured head-cloth until some relative sets it on their heads for the first time on the expiry of the period of mourning. They revere the ordinary Hindu deities, and like the Chamārs they have a family god, known as Mair, whose representation in the shape of a lump of clay is enshrined within the house and worshipped at marriages and deaths. In Saugor he is said to be the collective representative of the spirits of their ancestors. In some localities they eat flesh and drink liquor, but in others abstain from both. Among the Hindus the Mochis rank considerably higher than the Chamārs; their touch does not defile and they are permitted to enter temples and take part in religious ceremonies. The name of a Saugor Mochi is remembered who became a good drawer and painter and was held in much esteem at the Peshwa’s court. In northern India about half the Mochis are Muhammadans, but in the Central Provinces they are all Hindus.
7. Shoes
In view of the fact that many of the Mochis were Muhammadans and that slippers are mainly a Muhammadan article of attire Buchanan thought it probable that they were brought into India by the invaders, the Hindus having previously been content with sandals and wooden shoes. He wrote: “Many Hindus now use leather slippers, but some adhere to the proper custom of wearing sandals, which have wooden soles, a strap of leather to pass over the instep, and a wooden or horn peg with a button on its top. The foot is passed through the strap and the peg is placed between two of the toes.”[5] It is certain, however, that leather shoes and slippers were known to the Hindus from a fairly early period: “The episode related in the Rāmāyana of Bhārata placing on the vacant throne of Ajodhya a pair of Rāma’s slippers, which he worshipped during the latter’s protracted exile, shows that shoes were important articles of wear and worthy of attention. In Manu and the Mahābhārata slippers are also mentioned and the time and mode of putting them on pointed out. The Vishnu Purāna enjoins all who wish to protect their persons never to be without leather shoes. Manu in one place expresses great repugnance to stepping into another’s shoes and peremptorily forbids it, and the Purānas recommend the use of shoes when walking out of the house, particularly in thorny places and on hot sand.”[6] Thus shoes were certainly worn by the Hindus before Muhammadan times, though loose slippers may have been brought into fashion by the latter. And it seems possible that the Mochis may have adopted Islām, partly to obtain the patronage of the followers of the new religion, and also to escape from the degraded position to which their profession of leather-working was relegated by Hinduism and to dissociate themselves from the Chamārs.