Abstract
While it may sound like this is a book about Vishwakarma, the deity, it is about the craft communities who are named after him. An interesting grouping of the practitioners of certain crafts, the Vishwakarmas (or the Vishwabrahmins) come into recorded history roughly between the fifth and the eighth centuries
Most often, the five craftworkers, that is, goldsmiths, braziers (or brass smiths), blacksmiths, carpenters and masons are given a joint identity and nomenclature as the Vishwakarmas, the Kammalars, Pancha Kammalars, Kammalas or Rathakaras (and variations of these in peninsular India, such as the Panchalars or the Panchananamuvaru). These specific crafts and the times during which they first began to coalesce into a group, when temples began to be constructed on a large scale, is seen as the logic to integrally associate the Vishwakarmas with temples. The association between this grouping of crafters and temple construction seems to be far better worked out for peninsular India, as can be seen in the section that deals with that region. It is likely that this association is easier to delineate due to the greater wealth of inscriptional evidence in peninsular India, as compared to northern India. Does this close institutional association, highlighted by several scholars such as Subbarayalu, Lakshmi and A. Varghese, imply a form of attached specialisation? Ramaswamy (p. 4) points to the revival of temple construction under the Cholas in the eighth and ninth centuries
On the basis of the responsibility towards temple construction, an urban locale seems to be proposed for this collective, with a distinction being made between urban and rural crafters. Yet we do know that several temples were constructed in villages and smaller settlements, and it would be good if we could shift the gaze to some of these rather than look only at the major shrines. Was this artisan collective responsible for temple construction in varying locales? This seems to mirror an interesting range in terms of where craft communities lived. In several cases, they are located in cheris (settlements or habitations) along with low castes and even outcastes, in separate streets in urban centres, but also associated with brahmadeya and non-brahmadeya villages. Ramaswamy suggests that rural crafters were affiliated to a jati identity while their urban compatriots used the appellation of Vishwakarma. This is an important distinction and she uses it to make a more contentious distinction between artisan and crafter. The suggestion here is of the existence of two parallel economies: the urban focused on elite, ritual needs, with the rural being responsible for producing and maintaining the tools and implements required for agricultural production.
The distinction between artisan and crafter is given (Ramaswamy, p. 63) in the form of an example between the maker of ploughs and the metal crafter. She uses the term ‘craftsman’ in relation to the worker in metal, and by implication, the maker of ploughs is an artisan. She makes the point that while every ‘craftsman was an artisan, every artisan was not a craftsman’. Perhaps the reverse is more likely the case. The difference between art and craft, as noted by Richard Sennett 1 (The Craftsman, Penguin, London, 2008), is often seen where the former includes work that is unique or distinctive, while the latter is a more anonymous, collective and continued practice. From that point of view, the maker of ploughs, without applying any value judgement, would be more likely in the latter category. Her greater interest is in their geographical location, where the maker of ploughs is located in the rural sphere while the ‘metal craftsman’ is seen to have the ability to travel, ‘an expanding clientele’, and, hence, theoretically, is less anonymous. This version of art and craft seems to be echoed in another chapter, where the author (Rao, p. 225) suggests that artisans were settled, providing services to the rest of the settlement, while crafters were mobile, specialising in different fields. The problems here lie with using sedentism and mobility as differentiators between artisans and crafters, the too easy conflation of art with artisan, and with the lack of a realisation that a crafter has more in common with an artisan.
The issue of the Vishwakarmas as a collective has been investigated from a social point of view in terms of identity, and the legal efforts to which the community went to proclaim its high upper caste status are fascinating. One can understand this focus given the kind of sources used by many of the contributors to this volume, but it would be interesting to see how it works out technologically in terms of skill and specialisation. There is no doubt that urban crafters would have access to a larger consuming base, and that urban centres may have seen the bulk of monumental construction. However, the construction of temples in brahmadeya villages may have opened up opportunities in smaller settlements too.
Differences in ability create hierarchies within crafting groups, with some individuals achieving greater levels of skill. In the context of the fivefold grouping of the Vishwakarmas, there appears no clear-cut hierarchy. However, Lakshmi (p. 213) does point out that the stonemason, the carpenter, the metalworker and the jeweller/goldsmith consider each other as equal while the blacksmith is seen as their elder brother who provides tools to all the other crafters. On the other hand, Subbarayalu (p. 191) suggests greater prestige given to the goldsmiths as compared to the other crafting groups. This may have had to do with the nature of the raw material with which they worked.
While we know that craft skills are usually transmitted down through generations within a familial, often patriarchal set-up, certain individuals may achieve higher status by excelling at their craft. This not only creates difference but also changes the situation of crafters being anonymous. It is usually thought that craftspeople, particularly those who worked in their households within villages, remained anonymous, in contrast to artisans, who achieved fame and were invited by name to other regions and new patrons. Besides a seeming binary between art and craft, another way of perceiving this difference is on the basis of sub-specialisation within a craft that concentrates on a particular raw material. Thus, a worker in wood, as from an example given above, could make ploughs, while another may make pillars and architectural elements, while yet another would sculpt wood. Ethnographic evidence shows up some of these differences in Kerala, such as calling by different names, a hewer of wood, from one who saws or splits wood, to another who cuts firewood, and so forth (A. Verghese, p. 249).
Particular themes are interwoven across the different chapters that allow the volume to have a certain coherence. One of these, continuing from above, is the issue of anonymity. Several chapters bring this in, telling us through the evidence of inscriptions that name engravers, sculptors, architect-masons, stonecutters, carpenters, and often show suffixes used by them such as Acari, Bhatta, Oja (Ramaswamy, p. 65; Rao, p. 225) and tell us of their individual, as separate from their collective, identity. Some inscriptions are semi-legal as they name crafters when they are given land in return for work, while others just refer to them by name. We might wonder at the latter. Do these inform us of the recognition being accorded to them by their patrons? Prasad’s paper shares a remarkable collection of Sanskrit inscriptions during the Sultanate period in northern India that acknowledge the work of crafters by name. These also tell us how crafters inscribed their names or had them inscribed for them, as well as others that indicate they were not quite in situ where they were found. These are indicators of recognition, of valorisation of their craft by their patrons, and their desire to be remembered. Rezavi’s (pp. 171–177) documentation of marks and symbols found on legal documents and on buildings (see also Misra, pp. 43–44) indicate the aim to distinguish the work of individuals and groups.
Another major theme is migration. It is well known from early Indian inscriptions that craftspeople took recourse to migrating to different areas due to varying reasons, ranging from persecution to a search for new patrons. Competition sometimes necessitated itinerancy (Misra, p. 48), but often it was more permanent movements. There are many medieval inscriptional references to weavers, for example, having moved from Saurashtra to peninsular India. The fivefold grouping of crafters at the centre of this book too were known to have shifted to new regions away from their old homes. In Kerala, for example, artisans, known as the Tamil Vishwakarmas or the Ainkudi Kammalar, were known to have migrated from Tamil Nadu (A. Varghese, p. 250).
This book is an addition to the corpus of existing material on the social lives of craft communities in South Asia through history. We know that craft knowledge in South Asia was often passed down through generations within families and the household was the pre-eminent site for the transmission of crafting knowledge and skills. Here, too, we are told that many of the crafts were practiced in domestic spaces. We are also told that, socially, inter-dining and inter-marriage was not a feature of identifying as Vishwakarma. However, the social and legal rights claimed by the Vishwakarmas is not further investigated to understand what a crafting collective like theirs might mean technologically. Did they share resources and facilities, did they cooperate for procuring raw materials, did they have a guild-like function? Answers to some of these questions would have enlarged our understanding of a fascinating crafting collective.