Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c7.s5.2

c7.s5.2

The following designs are painted : intersecting circles, which are peculiar to the Indus Valley; sigmas and wavy lines; komb; sun-symbol, in one case with a thousand rays (Mackay, *Further Excavations* Pl. LXX, 39); punched circlets; stars; arrow-heads; four-petalled flowers (*Chauphuliā* चौफुलिया); check-board formed of squares in black against a red backgronnd; net; fret (*kuñjarāksha*); hatching, a common motif to distinguish one square or triangle from another; double inverted pots (*Uttāna-chamū*, RV. I. 164. 33); fish-scales (Skt. *Matsyaśalka*, Hindi, *Sahresā*, सहरेसा); a ribbon round the jars. Besides these geomatrical patterns figures of animals and birds, snakes or fishes occur. In some cases a row of animals is shown, a motif well-known in Elam and Sumer. Animal figures are generally associated with natural objects such as leaves (specially of *pīpal*) and trees or birds (peacock) perching on them. Human figures are a few, e. g. a fisherman carrying two nets suspended from a shoulder pole on two sides (Skt. *Vihaṅgikā*) (Vats, *Harappa*, LXIX, 16). On a pot-sherd from cemetry H is a hunting scene showing two antelopes with the hunter between them shooting the animal on the right with bow and arrow and the animal on left being torn by a pursuing dog. Polychrome pottery is a special ware at Amri in pre-Harappan levels and also at Nal in north Baluchistan. [Fig. 20].