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Rh the bhakti-marga, giving up his life to the service of his patron saint or devata, was determined that his work, like the building itself, should be as durable as human skill and science could make it. Thus only could he acquire merit in the sight of the great artist of the Gods, Vishvakarma, his master, and hand it on to his children's children.

Painting on a grand scale, therefore, tended to become entirely subsidiary to sculpture; but nevertheless an indispensable art, for without the final intonaco of plaster, thinner than an egg-shell and highly polished, and the due performance of the eye-painting ceremony with its appropriate mantras which gave it the breath of life divine, a stone image was an inert block unfit for worship. The intonaco also protected the surface of the sculpture from exposure to weather. It could easily be renewed when necessary. The painting of temple banners and icons belonged to the calligrapher's art which was also the parent of the later schools of Indian miniature painters.

This very ancient art practice still survives among the traditions of the temple craftsmen of India. Hindu temples now built in Northern India, in the districts where red sandstone is mostly used, are still covered with this fine polished intonaco, and sometimes decorated with frescoes. In the days of the old John Company the interior walls and columns of Anglo-Indian mansions in Calcutta and Madras were often finished with this beautiful white polish; but the fresco-painting for which it was intended to be the ground was held to be inconsistent with the correct classic taste of those days, and in modern times patent paints of European brand and unwholesome wallpapers have been substituted for it. About fifteen years ago I brought some temple craftsmen from