Studies in Indian Art c8.s1.1

c8.s1.1

The earliest material of Indian art is found in the Indus Valley. This forms a part of a civilisation extending from the valley of the Sarasvati-Sutlej, along the Indus, upto Saurashtra. It was an extension of over fifteen hundred miles with about a hundred sites clustered in three chief sectors, with a uniform culture from the point of view of religion, life and arts. This is termed proto-historic, coming after the pre-historic ages as known under palæolithic, microlithic and neolithic with their respective stone tool industries mostly in the principal river valleys of the Deccan, south of the Vindhyas. The proto-historic phase was at one time assigned to the millennium, C. 3500-2500B.C., but now generally shifted to C. 2500-1500 B.C. as inclining towards a relationship with historical beginnings of early India. The Indus Valley people have much greater importance as holding the key to the patterns of Indian civilisation than perhaps has been realised upto now. In religion and art many a form of Indian culture owes their origin to them. Those people seem to be intensely creative, capable of evolving a highly civilised urban life in which both beauty and order occupied a prime place. Almost one third of India covering about half a million square miles stretching from Rupar in Ambala District to Bhagatrao on the Kim river (midway between the Narbda and Tapti) the southernmost settlement known so far, was the arena of origin and growth of the Indus Valley civilisation. Wheeler rightly calls it the most extensive pre-classical civilisation.