HINDOO MANUFACTURES. Under EAST INDIA COMPANY We have glanced at the commercial relations which exist between India and other 'countries. We have here to speak of the native skill of the Hindoos. It is evident from the most ancient Sanskrit works, as well as from the testimony of the Greeks who visited the country, that the use • ful and fine arts had attained a considerable degree of perfection among the Hindoos in very early times. The Ramayana (a Sanskrit manuscript of great antiquity) contains nume rous proofs of the progress they had made in working metals. The art of smelting iron ore and of manufacturing steel is undoubtedly of great antiquity ; and their skill in the manu facture of gold and silver ornaments is evi dent from the descriptions of the Ramayana. The degree of perfection to which the Hindoos carried the art of weaving in ancient as well as modern times is well known. has always been distinguished for the number and excellence of the substances which it contains for dyeing the beauty and brilliancy, as well as durability, of their colours were as celebrated among the Greeks and Romans as among ourselves, Silk was probably manufactured in India in very early times. The art of obtaining intoxicating liquors by, distillation is mentioned in the Ramayana and the laws of Menu.
In painting the Hindoos have not attained much proficiency: their artists draW with great accuracy, but they have no knowledge of perspective. With regard to music their instruments are numerous; but their compo sitions are confined to a few simple melo dies.
With respect to the present state of the arts among, the Hindoos;,BishoP Heber re marks; Nor is it trite that in the mechanic arts they are inferior, to the general run of European nations. Where they fall short of us (which is chiefly in agricultural instru ments and the mechanics of common life), they are not, so far as I have understood of Italy and the South of France; surpassed in any great degree by the people of those countries.
Their goldsmiths and weavers produce as beautiful fabrics as our own; and it is so for from true that they, are obstinately wedded to their old patterns, that they show an anxiety to imitate our models, and do. imitate them very successfully. The ships built by native artists at Bombay are notoriously as good as any which sail from London or Liverpool. The carriages and gigs which they supply at Calcutta are as handsome, though not so durable, as those of Long Acre. In the little town of Monghyr, three hundred miles front Calcutta, I had pistols, datible-barrelled guns, and different pieces of cabinet work brought down to my boat for sale, which in outward form nobody could detect to be of Hindoo origin; and at Delhi, in the shop of a native wealthy jeweller, I found brooches, ear-rings, snuff boxes, &c., of the latest models, and Ornamented with French devices and mot toes.' Architecture.—The architecture of the Hin doos has hitherto been little studied by pro fessional men. On examining, the Hindoo works of construction; or edifices erected above ground, we can hardly avoid being struck by the prevalence Of masses and forms, as exhibited in pagodas or towers. The Egyptian structures of, this kind bear a much closer resemblancete natural or rudely constructed prototypes cio,those of the Hindoos. , The gopuras, or pagoda towers erected over the gateways leading, to temples are indeed pyramidal in Bleb general form, but infinitely more complex than, not the pyramidal alone, but anything else we meet; with in Egyptian architecture. Neither do they terminate in a Point or mere platform; but have generally a great deal of ornament bestowed on their summit; which sometimes assumes, not inelegantly, the form of a crown. Besides-this, they differ from the pyramid in being of far loftier proportions. Of a domical termination, if not exactly a dome, we have an example in the great „pagoda at Tanjore, which is considered one of the finest mens of the kind in India.