Manu, from 900 to 300 B.C., has secured to the village system of
India a permanent class of hereditary artistic workmen and artisans,
who have through these 2500 years, at least, been trained to the same
manipulations, and who therefore translate any foreign work which is
placed before them to copy, into something characteristically
Indian."[39] Indian art has borrowed freely from all sources without
losing its own individuality. It has been said, "There is nothing
newer in it than of the sixteenth century; and even then nothing was
original, especially in the minor arts." But this is owing to the
Hindu being equally endowed with assimilative and receptive
capacity,[40] so that in the hands of the Indian craftsman everything
assumes the distinctive expression of ancient Indian art.

In India everything is hand-wrought; but as the spirit of its
decorative art "is that of a crystallized tradition, its type has
remained almost unaltered since the Aryan genius culminated in the
Ramayana and Mahabharata--and yet each artisan in India is a true
artist."[41] In art, unfortunately, "the letter killeth;" and true
artists as they are, the ancient traditions bind and cramp them,
while the ancient materials, the dyes, and the absolute command of
time are failing: so that the beauty of Indian embroideries and other
decorations is gradually reducing itself to mannerism, which is more
dangerous to art than even had been the vicissitudes of war; for when
peaceful days returned, and the waves of conquest had subsided, the
ancient arts were found again deeply embedded in the traditions of the
people. They gradually returned to their old ways, which are so
indelible in the Hindu mind, that they will perhaps survive even the
fashions of to-day.[42]

From Yates' account it would appear that Europe had been fertilized
with taste in art and manufactures from the East by three different
routes.

The Egyptian civilization, with all its Eastern antecedents and
traditions, came to us by the Mediterranean and the Adriatic; the
Phoenicians being the merchants who brought it through those
channels. The Etruscans, who were the pedlars of Europe, travelled
north, conveying golden ornaments and coral, and bringing back jet and
amber. Their commercial track is to be traced by the contents of tombs
on their path.[43]

[Illustration: Pl. 3.
St. John. From King Alfred's Celtic Book of the Gospels. Lambeth
Palace Library.]

Secondly, t