Our understanding of it is made easier by the notion of what in Hindu doctrine is called "svadharma", that is the performance by every being of an activity consistent with his own nature, and it is also by this notion, or rather by its absence, that the deficiency of the profane conception is most clearly marked. In the latter, a man can adopt any profession and he can even change it according to his will, as if this profession were something purely exterior to him, without any real connection with that which he really is and by virtue of which he is himself and not another. According to the traditional conception, on the contrary, every one must normally fulfil the function for which he is destined by his very nature; and he cannot fulfil any other without a grave disorder resulting from it which will have its repercussion over the whole social organisation to which he belongs; more than that: if such a disorder becomes general, it will have its effects on the cosmical realm itself, all things being linked together according to strict correspondences. Without insisting any further on this last point, which, however, could easily be applied to the conditions of the present epoch, we may remark that the opposition of the two conceptions, in a certain connection at least, can be reduced to that of a "qualitative" and a "quantitative" point of view: in the traditional conception, the essential qualities of beings determine their activities; in the profane conception, the individuals are considered as mere "units", interchangeable, and as if in themselves they were without any quality of their own. This last conception is closely connected with the modern ideas of "equality" and "uniformity" (the latter is contrary to true unity, for it implies the pure and "inorganic" multiplicity of a kind of social "atomism") and can lead logically to the exercise of a purely "mechanical "activity only in which nothing properly human subsists; it is just this, in fact, that we can see today. It is thus well understood that the "mechanical" crafts of the modern age, being but a product of the profane deviation, cannot by any means offer the possibilities of which we intend to speak here; they even cannot in truth be considered as crafts, if one wishes to preserve the traditional meaning of the word, the only one with which we are concerned at present. Journal of The Indian Society of Oriental Art, Volume VI. 1938 INITIATION AND THE CRAFTS