History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c34.s4: Various Techniques

History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c34.s4

Language: English

v1.c34.s4.t1 Casting — 1 part
v1.c34.s4.t2 Dies or Thappā Technique — 1 part
v1.c34.s4.t3 Gilding — 1 part
v1.c34.s4.t4 Filigree — 1 part
v1.c34.s4.t5 Enamelling — 4 parts
v1.c34.s4.t6 Inlay Work — 4 parts
v1.c34.s4.t7 Studding of Gems (Māṇikya-bandhan) — 30 parts

Various Techniques

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The process of fashioning the jewellery in India involved various technique. The metal required for the fashioning of an ornament had to be first examined for the its purity through a special technique, called assaying. The familiar method for assaying was to rub the metal on the touch stone (*kasaūṭi*). The rubbing of the metal on the *kasaūṭi* left a mark of certain colour which used to suggest the purity of the metal or the amount of alloy of other metals contained in it. Similarly, the alloying was sometimes found necessary to give a certain hardness to the metal for working intricate patterns and design on its. The gold was alloyed with copper or silver and the silver was alloyed with copper or zinc. The soldering was done to join the different parts of the ornament together. The gold, silver and copper were mixed in soldering gold ornaments and silver and zinc in silver ones. The techniques is locally known as “*Taṅkā*”.

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The different types of works in fashioning the Indian jewellery can be divided into four major categories. Firstly, the *Sunār* hammers down the metal into desired shape or form of an ornament. He may also cast it in a die. Secondly, the patterns are brought out by chasing or embossing. Thirdly, the enamelling on the back of the ornaments and fourthly, the studding of gems.

Casting

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At first, a resin model of ornament is prepared with the help of fingers alone. It is afterwards enclosed in a mixture of clay and cowdung. The enclosed model is provided with containing the metal and later placed on the fire. After gradual heating, the molten metal enters through the vent and reaches the resin model. The resin model melts ultimately and gives place to a similar model of molten metal. Thus, an exact replica or the resin model is produced in gold or silver. This is probably the crude form of the present ‘cire-perdue’ or lost wax method.

Dies or Thappā Technique

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However, the ordinary method is to melt the metal and to hammer it into a desired form. This method is suitable to produce solid (*thos*) ornaments. However, if the object is hollow (*polā*), the two halves are produced and then joined together with solder. The patterned ornaments, like the ear-rings with floral designs, bracelets and amulets and produced by putting small circular pieces of molten metal on the dies (*thāppā*) and hammering them until the metal takes the shape required for an ornament. All the smaller units prepared in this process are put on plain pieces of metal at the back and joined together with solder. The ornament is again put in the fire for a few minutes and taken out for cleaning and brightening the surface. Later, it was passed on to *nakās* for engraving artistic design on it, which were to be enamelled.

Gilding

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The *Mulammas* or the beaten gold-leaf were applied by the skilled craftsmen called, *Mulammasaz*. It is the technique of gold- gilding. After heating, the gold leaf is set with the help of an agate piece called, *Mahari* or *Mahara*. The ornament is then sent to Zilasaz who gives the finishing touches to the surface.

Filigree

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The filigree is one of the earliest techniques employed in India for fashioning the ornaments. The work is done in pure silver. The metal is cast into long bars. The long silver bars are cut into small pieces and the same are beaten and drawn into wires, with the help of a *Jantra*. The wires are taken one by one and carefully arranged and cemented on a sheet of mica to produce parts of intricate designs and patterns. Later, the different parts are united by soldering. lastly, the process of cleaning and brightening the surface is completed to give a snowy appearance.

Enamelling

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The enamelling is another technique which has been practised in India since remote antiquity. The enamel beads from the various Buddhist sites, like Sankisa, in India trace the history of enamelling to early historic period. Such enamelled beads are divided into two groups, viz; the white enamel on a black or cornelian ground and the black enamel on grey or white agate background. The enamel patterns are chiefly pentagonal, hexagonal, circles with dots in the centre, or else five rows of tiny spots or bands of two or three in number running round the beads. The circle and dot pattern is so arranged on the round beads as to form the tried symbol.

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The enamelling in medieval India was generally applied in grooves. The motif or patterns were drawn by the Citera or artist and the piece was handed over to the goldsmith, who completed his work leaving grooves to be enamelled. The enameller or *Mīnākār* first cleaned and burnished the plate and when applied his colours in order of their hardness or the power of resisting fire, beginning with the hardest or that which most resists the fire. All the known colours can be applied to gold. The black, green, blue, dark yellow, orange, pink and peculiar salmon can be applied to silver. The white, black and pink colour only can be applied to copper. In order of hardness, the colours are white, blue, black, yellow, pink, green and red. The pure ruby red, being the most fugitive, requires a great care and precision of an experienced craftsman. The Jaipur enamellers were the best in handling this colour. The pink enamel of Banaras was equally famous.

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The colours are mineral oxides which were obtained in opaque vitreous masses from Lahore. They are ground in postle and mortar and mixed with water. The colours are then filled in the grooves very cautiously with a brush much in the same way as a picture is painted. The paint, if over-flowed, is carefully wiped with a pieces of cotton. The articles is then left in the fire for half an hour or so, when the enamel firmly sets in. It is then rubbed by *kurand* or corundum-bone or *sohan*. The article is next repolished by heating it gently. The last process is to rub it with the file and clean it with the acid of tamarind or lemon. The enamelling was generally done at the back of Mughal ornements.

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Another famous centre for a different kind of enamelling was at Pratapgarh. Sir George Watt has described this technique, as he says, "The article is made of a piece of green or red coloured glass, or thick layer of enamel, the crude material which is imported from Kashmir”, he further writes, “A frame of silver wire, of the exact size and shape of the glass, is next made, and across this is attached a sheet of fairly thick gold leaf. This is then embedded on lac and the pattern punched out and chased on the gold. The glass is then semi-fused, and while still hot the rim of silver and film of gold are slipped over the edge and pressed on to the surface of the glass. The article is again heated, until a sort of fusion takes place and the gold and glass become securely united. before mounting the article, a piece of silver tin-foil is placed underneath the glass to give it brilliancy”.

Inlay Work

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The origin of inlay work in India goes back to remote antiquity. There has been a wrong notion among the scholars that the inlay technique in India came from Damascus and hence, the name damascening. In fact, the origin of inlay work in Damascus appears to be quite late, not earlier than 13th century, as compared to its old Indian origin. The technology of a limited use of silver and copper inlay on bronze or brass objects in the Near East may indeed have migrated from the Abbasid heartlands during 11th-12th A.D. which, in its own turn, was influenced from Kashmir, a geographically much closer and adjoining region. The flowering of bronze casting technique in Kashmir is to be associated with the Karmotas, who assumed power in Kashmir sometime in 7th century A.D. The great Karmota king, Lalitaditya ruled over Kashmir in the first half of 8th century A.D. and it is possibly in his reign that the fine datable Buddhist images are largely found. Both silver and copper inlay was used, the silver mostly for the eyes and copper for the inlay of the garments. Buddhism appears to have continued in the eastern Iran and Afghanistan for a few centuries after the Islamic conquest and many such images must have been cast there during Islamic times also.

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The influence of Kashmir on inlay-work of the Near Eastern Islamic world during the early Islamic period therefore would be a more logical conclusion. Perhaps this tradition, rather than the Abbasid, was responsible for the introduction of small quantities of inlay into Samanid and Ghaznavid bronzes.

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The inlay of turquoise and copper for the eyes of lion-shaped incense burners, presently housed in the Louvre and Hermitage and signed by ’Al ibn Muhammad al-Taji are, indeed, reminiscent of the early Buddhist tradition. The pre-eminent tradition of the Samanid and Ghaznavid lands for the production of cast-bronze objects in a wide variety of shades would suggest that the thriving Buddhist tradition producing huge quantities of cast images in these lands prior to the advent of Islam might be responsible for the subsequent neighbouring Islamic tradition of inlay workmanship. It is only in the second half of the 12th and the beginning of 13th century that Khurasan and Herat in particular, produced inlaid bronzes and brasses of hitherto unparalleled splendour and intricacy. Here the quality of the casting and the sheet working is superb which would suggest a long-standing tradition in the past. The inlaid objects of brass and copper found from Iraq and Syria follow the Iranian tradition. Damascus followed the same tradition during the 13th century A.D. Hence, it will not be incorrect to suggest that the inlay technique in the Near East and the Arab world had reached from Kashmir which had an earlier tradition of bronze casting.

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Inlay is meant to fill the depression by use of silver or copper wire on the surface of another metal. In India, inlay has generally been practised on the finished objects of metal, stone and wood. The main purpose of inlaying was to beautify the surface of art objects, may it be ornaments, weaponry or wooden furnitures, and for delineating floral motifs, human and animal figures and abstract motifs and designs in contrasting colours.

Studding of Gems (Māṇikya-bandhan)

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India has a hoary tradition of fashioning precious and semi- precious stones. The discovery of crystal reliquaries from a number of Buddhist sites belonging to 3rd-2nd century B.C., are adequate proof to the technique of stone carving in India. The process of fashioning some precious and semi-precious stones to produce exquisite art forms is one of slow and patient abrading with the help of abrasives which are powdered out of harder stones. Thus, the term carving is erroneous, as the precious stones were never cut with steel. The abrasives used right from the ancient times are quartz, sand, crushed almandine, garnets, corundum, diamonds and, in modern times, Carborundum. Thus abrasives are prepared by pounding, grinding and sifting of raw materials and later on turned into paste ready to be applied. Tools are generally made of wood and metal. Amongst the tools commonly used by the craftsmen are the lap wheels and diamond drills of various sizes. The difference between the Chinese craftsmen and Indian artisans is that in China they used treadle lathe in place of the bow lathe which is still used in India by those craftsmen who have not succumbed to the electric motor. After fashioning the object in its desired shape, polishing was done to provide it with a glossy surface. The work of polishing was done mostly with the help of a stone, known as “Mohari”.

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After the completion of the enamelling, the hollow ornament is filled with shellac on which precious stones are set. The ornament was sent to a different craftsmen, Māṇikya-bandhaka or the Kundansāz, who used to set the precious stones over it. “The grooves are initially made for this setting in the form of an artistic scroll. A piece of thin silver sheet (dāk) alloyed with three ratis of pure gold to a tola, to prevent it from tarnishing, is cut to shape, made concave and then highly polished. This is then fixed in each groove to give lustre to the stone. Upon it is placed the stone and then it is set. In the case of coloured stones, if its colour is light, the dāk is tinted with transparent colour, or the back of the stone itself is given a tint called Joban. The purest gold leaf is employed for this setting, which is well pressed around the gems with a steel bit, forming an edge around them. The thinner this edge is, the better it looks. In ancient India, the precious stones were generally set in their original shape. However, if a spot was detected, the entire piece was covered with facets in order to hide the flaw. As it has been pointed out by a scholar, “upto 14th century, pierced stones cut on cabochon were the greatest fashion”. The gems were later set by the Kundansāz by using lac, tinsel or gold foil, prepared by the Bindligar. In fact, the Kundan is the ancient name given to the fine variety of purified gold, the foils of which were set at the base to hold the gem in its place firmly. Later, the work itself was known as *Kundan*- work. In ancient jewellery, sometimes the crystal is found encrusted in place of precious gems. With the advent of the British rule in India, the gems are set more with ‘open claw’ technique, which leaves the underside of a stone clear. The polishing was done keeping in view the original shapes and colour of the stone. The chased surface of the ornament was rubbed with agate to produce a smooth and glittering surface.

Linked texts (3)

Harṣacarita — Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Sanskrit
Kādambarī — Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Sanskrit
Sankisa