Page:A Handbook of Indian Art.djvu/239

Rh Indian craftsman, when the Muhammadan conquest made a revolutionary change in his hereditary craft practice. Thousands of craftsmen, each expert in his own special branch, were forced into the service of Islam in different parts of Asia and Europe, and set to work indiscriminately at the bidding of their masters. The expert builder of Hindu vimānas might not build a temple spire, but he could design or build the dome of a mosque or tomb equally well. The image-maker might not make images, but he could construct the mihrāb of a mosque or carve texts from the Kurān. The painter might not paint pictures, but he could ornament enamelled tiles, decorate walls without using figures or animals, and draw designs for the mullahs when they were planning a mosque or tomb.

Thousands of Indian craftsmen thus settled down to a new life and new work in their forced exile, took Muhammadan names, and became Persians, Arabs, Turks, Spaniards, or Egyptians. A few centuries afterwards the establishment of a Muhammadan empire in India increased the demand for Musalman craftsmen, and offered many inducements for the descendants of these Indian captives to seek employment in the opulent cities some of which their ancestors had helped to build. The new ideas brought into India by these "foreigners" were only the old ones in a new shape, the craft ritual of India adapted to different technical conditions and to a new environment. Religious animosities by this time had softened down. The Hindu and Musalman craftsmen worked amicably together without compulsion, and used their inventive faculties to add to the splendour of Indian cities and gratify the taste of their Mogul rulers, who planned their capitals after the traditions of Indo-Aryan royalty, and were themselves generally more than half Indian by birth.