“THE important part which craftsmen, more especially Oriental craftsmen, have always played in the world’s history as missionaries of civilisation, culture, and religion, is not generally realised by bookmen. Even at the present day the Indian craftsman, deeply versed in his Silpa Sastras, learned in folk-lore and in national epic literature, is, though excluded from Indian universities or, rather, on that account far more highly cultured, intellectually and spiritually, than the average Indian graduate. In mediæval times the craftsman’s intellectual influence, being creative and not merely assimilative, was at least as great as that of the priest and bookman.”1

• 1. E. B. Havell, “Indian Sculpture and Painting” .