The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence
personality indelibly stamped on the product of his work that which is the best
part of him.
We saw how an artist transfers his sense of beauty to a piece of canvas and
leaves behind a masterpiece for posterity to cherish and admire. While that
artist was dabbing bits of paint on to the canvas it must have seemed hard
work-drudgery of days and days. But such labour had to go into the making of a
masterpiece. A lithograph may avoid such drudgery and hard work but its
products are as wastepaper when compared with the work of the real artist.
Even before the work of the picture is launched on, hours of hard work were
necessary for the skilful mixing of paints and blending of colours. The colours
used at the Ajanta Caves must have taken decades to evolve to have attained
such perfection as to have lasted all these many centuries. The artists of those
times did not grudge the labour on it; and posterity pays its obeisance to them
for their peerless gift. Those artists did not devise ways and means of obtaining
the effect without the labour involved. Nature is a hard task-master. It never
awards permanence to grudgingly rendered work. If we wish to attain
permanence we must put in whole work, no transient labour which satisfies
only the passing moment will answer the purpose. Nature refuses to be
browbeaten or cheated.
Similarly, a beautiful emblem of devoted labour has been bequeathed to
generations yet unborn by those creators who hewed out of living rock the
whole edifice of a temple at Ellora. That sense of proportion and symmetry are
not the result of an attempt to shirk work nor the outcome of seeking shortcuts
so as to avoid labour. It is the product of an opportunity squarely faced. Labour
properly directed blesses those who work and also the products of their labour.
To give out one more example of faithful work well done, there is a steel pillar
near the Kutub Mimar at Delhi bearing an ancient inscription. This pillar has
stood in the open exposed to sun and rain, heat and cold for centuries on end,
yet, there is not a speck of rust on it. The composition of this alloy has
confounded the best of modern metallurgists. The iron smiths of old who cash
this wonderful pillar did not seek any shortcuts to produce this effect. They did
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