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20 material, but it lost the sacramental character it had acquired as the means of sacrifice and the vehicle of the Fire-god, Agni. At the same time, the forms of Aryan craftsmanship, such as the tribal ensigns, the carved sacrificial posts and railing, the tabernacles in which the Yogi meditated, and the stūpa, preserved the sacramental character they had acquired in the Vedic era, and were therefore for a long time closely imitated by the Buddhist masons and sculptors. This was not, as is generally assumed, because the technical skill for adapting wooden construction to that of stone was lacking.

Buddhism, also, though it was by no means a creed of universal brotherhood in the same sense as Christianity—for the Buddha would not admit slaves, debtors, nor persons in the royal service into his Sangha—certainly must have made the Aryan building craft less exclusive; for in rejecting the Vedic sacrificial system, Buddhism abolished the distinction between the "pure" who could, and the "impure" who could not, take part in the performance of sacrifices. Thus an Indian Buddhist king had a much wider choice of craftsmen for the royal service than would have been the case if he had followed the pre-Buddhist Aryan traditions.

It was not, however, until Asoka's time, when Buddhism became the state religion of Aryāvarta, that the Sangha began to enlist the painter and sculptor into its service. The earliest Buddhist ritual was of a strictly Puritan character, for the Buddha's teaching was a protest against the extravagance of Brahmanical sacrifices. Music, painting and sculpture were to be regarded as worldly snares which diverted the mind of the novitiate from the contemplation of the Four Aryan Truths: firstly, that suffering is in-