of body, and never by any expression of individual and personal character.
So foreign to the Hindus is the idea of figure sculpture in the aesthetic sense, that in the noblest temples the idol is often found to be some obscene or monstrous symbol. It is owing, I believe, to the very fact of their being condemned to a strictly ritualistic representation of their gods, that the feeling for the higher forms of sculpture has been destroyed in them. How completely their figure sculpture fails in true art is seen at once when they attempt to produce it on a natural or heroic scale ; and it is only because their ivory and clay and stone figures of men and animals are on so minute a scale that they excite admiration. Their larger figure sculpture is indeed never pleasing, except when treated conventionally. It is a strange failing.
Lac Work.
Lac work is a great and widely-extended industry in India. The shell lac itself is manufactured on a large scale in many parts of Bengal. There is a lac manufacture at Elambazaar in Beerbhum in the Bardwan division ; and there are several factories in the Lohardugga district of Chota-Nagpur and along the banks of the Parulia, between Jhalda and Ranchi in the Manbhum district of the same division. Large quantities of stick lac are also drawn from Chota-Nagpur, and from Raipur and Sambalpur in the Central Provinces. The higher class of lac work, applied to furniture and house decorations, is centred in the great towns ; but the making of variegated lac marbles, and lacquered walking sticks, lac mats, and bangles and lacquered toys is carried on almost everywhere, even by the wandering jungle tribes. The variegated balls and sticks are made by twisting variously colored melted sealing-wax round and round the stick or ball from top to bottom in alternate bands. Then the stick or ball
