Origin

According to traditional belief, Vishwabrahmins are descended from five sons of lord Vishwakarma. They are Manu (blacksmith), Maya (carpenter), Thwastha (metal craftsman), Silpi (stone-carver) Vishvajnya (goldsmith). The community is spread widely throughout India and played a vital role in the village economy. Their socio-economic status varied from a very high level to the low level in different parts of India as they earned high wages in towns because of their factory employment and low in villages.Dr. Krishna Rao says “The most highly organized & efficient of the industrial classes was Virpanchal comprising of Goldsmith, coiner blacksmith, carpenter and mason. In finest period of Indian art particularly between eighth and ninth century, they claimed and enjoyed a social status in the community, equal to Brahmans. The art of engraving & sculpture had attained a high stage of development. It was exclusively cultivated by Panchals who wore sacred thread & considered themselves as Vishwakarma Brahmans. The craftsman being deeply versed in national epic literature always figured in the history of India as missionaries of civilization, culture & religion. The intellectual influence being creative & not merely assimilative was at least as great as that of the priest and the author”.

Gotras 

Vishwabrahmins are divided into five gotras or exogamous clans, each corresponding to a Rishi named in the Yajur Veda (4.3.3) They are (i)  Sanaga Rishi, (ii) Sanaathana Rishi (iii)   Abhuvanasa Rishi, (iv)  Prathnasa Rishi and (v)   Suparnasa Rishi. Each of the five gotras are also identified with a traditional occupation: 1.  Manu (blacksmith), 2.   Maya (carpenter), 3.   Thwastha (metalcraftsman), 4.   Silpi (stone-carver) and 5. Vishvajnya(goldsmith). The five gotras are further divided into a total of 25 sub-clans (upa-gotras). Because of their fivefold division, they are also known as Panchals. They are said to follow five Vedas (instead of the standard four), the fifth being the "Pranava Veda".

The Pranava Veda is a text that elucidates the process of energy (Brahmam) turning itself into matter (the material world). In this text, pure energy or consciousness goes through a process that can be observed as a mathematical order. That process can be emulated by humans through applying that mathematical order to dance, music, poetry, architecture and sculpture thus creating arts that vibrate in a way that causes the viewer, listener, inhabitant to vibrate with the Divine qualities that the art form does. This Pranava Veda was cognized by Brahmarishi Mayan about 10,000 years ago. One known copy exists today and it is in the hands of Dr. V. Ganapati Sthapati of Chennai, TN, India, which is being translated to Tamil and English. A translation project is being sponsored by The America University of Mayonic Science and Technology under the guidance of Dr. V. Ganapati Sthapati.

The world of the Indian smiths has neither been studied much in detail by ethnographers nor by historians. In historical studies, the smiths have not received the same attention as agriculturists, priests, or even weavers. Those scholars who have made crafts and craftsmen central to their studies focus especially on contemporary technical aspects of the crafts (Untracht, 1969; Fischer & Shah, 1979; Krishnan, 1976; Strandgaard, 1976; Mukherjee, 1978; Blankenberg, 1985). In these studies, the tacit object of the study is to displace the artisans’ knowledge in favour of so-called updated technology befitting the market forces or a welfare state, thus greatly reducing the indigenous comprehensive sphere of (technological) knowledge. Even more sensitive studies of particular crafts, notably pottery (Dumont, 1952; Srinivas, 1959; Saraswati, 1963; Ishvaran, 1966; Behura, 1978), did not help the artisans to become more knowledgeable agents themselves. This was mainly caused by the mono-disciplinary approach of the authors.

Furthermore, the social position of the Visvakarma artisans have generally been treated in the anthropological literature as anomalous, aberrant and not fitting a model with much of the debate focused on the issue of right and left hand castes.

The Visvakarma caste comprises ironsmiths, carpenters, coppersmiths, sculptors, and goldsmiths. They are manufacturers who disturb an existing natural order to obtain material which they transform into cultural artifacts meant to be static and permanent.

Their ideology comes to us in three forms, viz., origin myths oral or written, printed handbills with coded schema’s and coloured pictures. It shows a single bodily image of the Lord Visvakarman, the mythological ancestor of all Visvakarma craftsmen. The latter are the living replicas of the Lord. The single body, the Virat Visvabrahma or universal essence is equated with Prajapati. From the five faces of this Brahma, the five archetypical craftsmen emanated: Manu, the ironsmith; Maya, the carpenter; Tvashtri, the coppersmith; Silpi, the sculptor; and Visvajna, the goldsmith.

The Visvakarma ideal is thus concerned with autonomy and completeness, while it gains significance through the homology between Lord Visvakarman and the Visvakarmas of the social world. The five archetypical craftsmen have no relationship with one another apart from belonging to the same body in this ideal image, there is absolute separation between the five craftsmen; one does not depend on the other and together they are self-contained. Painted or printed pictures show this Visvakarman with five (coloured) faces and ten arms holding ten different, often violent, attributes. While below Visvakarman there is a picture of the cow and the tiger and the lineahimsa paramo dharmah, which means 'non-violence is the (our) supreme way of life’. Thus for the artisans, the centre of the moral universe lies with them and not elsewhere as we read in much of the available anthropological and sociological literature. The Visvakarmas have stepped out of the Hindu fold, like Christians, Buddhists, Virashaivas, but unlike them, they have at once stepped back and formulated their own cultural ideology without rejecting the Vedic and classical Sanskrit literature. We can arrive at a better prospect for understanding the whole of Hindu society by focusing on the rhetoric and discourse of Self and Society as provided by the Visvakarmas.

(compiled from various sources)