Studies in Indian Art c7.s2.3

c7.s2.3

Indian art presents a long panorama, extending from the Ṛigvedic period to the close of the 18th century. As observed by Giedion in his *Space Time and Architecture*: "History is not a compilation of facts but an insight into a moving process of life." A true and close-up study of Indian art must lead to an insight into the moving process of life that unfolded itself under the Indian sky during the successive ages. Art has preserved in visual documentation the discoveries of thought and the impact of mind on the world around as manifested during the long course of our history. The Vedic period, initiating the great march of Indian culture on its onward path, is truly the period of ‘land taking’. Not only in a physical sense when this nation got settled on the land, but in the region of thought also it was an age of Path-finders, the Pathikrit Rishis, who chartered unknown domains of the mind and created eternal motifs of thought that formulate and explain the cosmic processes as applicable equally to the life of the individual and the much bigger entity of the world. A clear inventory of the Vedic motifs remains a desideratum and the work should be carried out comprehensively from the viewpoint of art history. Dr. Coomaraswamy offered brilliant expositions of some of these great symbols of thought and life, which also were virtually the symbols of art.