Studies in Indian Art c7.s2.16

c7.s2.16

The main problem of the Indus Valley art is an investigation of its historical connections with the ancient art of Western Asia on the one hand and its subsequent links with the historical art of India herself. The Mother-Goddess and the Yogi-Śiva offer clear pointers to Indian affinities, and similarly are the decorative motifs, the geometrical and floral patterns linked to historical survivals, and it seems highly improbable that an art of such vital growth which flourished on the Indian soil from the Sutlej to the Arabian Sea for a thousand years should have vanished without leaving a trail for its successors. Of its survivals we have as yet only dim intimations, but the subject does not seem to have been properly broached as yet. Recently my attention was drawn to the ring-stones of haematite found at Taxila (Fig. 6), Mathura, Kosam, Ahichchhatra, Bhita, Rajghat, Pataliputra and elsewhere. They represent a mother-goddess with alternating tree and animal motifs unconnected with any other objects of the historical period. A seal from Rajghat of the same material shows a bull with a crib before it similar to the Indus Valley unicorn and crib. It also bears a Brahmi inscription which I have not been able to decipher. It seems to be an important bit of evidence, a unique relic, but an isolated link in the chain of evidence that might be required to shed light on this obscure problem.