Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c8.s1.11

c8.s1.11

Here it may be remarked that in comparison with the rich remains revealed by excavations in other fields of research of relatively the same early age, the discoveries at Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and Chanhu-daro, in the Indus Valley, have produced a disappointingly small amount of material of an artistic nature. As far as the present evidence testifies the inhabitants of these parts possessed no pronounced aesthetic aspirations, as the severely practical treatment of their buildings bears witness. Nor do they seem to have held any marked religious convictions, as the absence of temples, shrines or tombs, on which they might have expressed themselves architecturally, or artistically by means of painting or sculpture, is significant. In view of the innate sensibility, and outstanding record of artistic achievement maintained throughout the entire historical period of the Indian people, such a sterile beginning awaits further investigation. One explanation may be that this pre-historical population of the western regions of what is now India, was by no means indigenous, but the result of a racial drift from other and even remote parts, migrants who, having exhausted the resources of their own native land, were driven to seek "fresh woods and pastures new" out of sheer necessity. Such favourable conditions were discovered by them in the virgin soil and primeval forests of the lower Indus river where they eventually settled, and began the work of clearing and cultivating the newly acquired territory. In the course of time they multiplied and spread over much of the expanse watered by the lower reaches of the "Five Rivers," developing into a large and important agricultural and commercial colonization, centering mainly on the two cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa. But as a people they appear to have possessed very commonplace ideals, the pattern of their lives disclosing "an almost puritanical utilitarianism," an existence restricted in its spiritual outlook, their minds pre-occupied with the subject of material needs. Accordingly, when the natural productiveness of the land declined, owing apparently to unrestrained exploitation, the civilization itself declined, having served its purpose and run its allotted course leaving no heritage except that of a definitely provocative order, remains of which recent explorations have brought to light. Further research may however tend to enliven this somewhat uninspiring view, which is indeed relieved to a certain extent by the emergence from the deeply buried records of this long lost civilization, of a small series of examples of plastic art each having a very distinctive character. So diverse, however, both in their nature and intention as well as in their material and its manipulation are these relatively small and in every instance portable specimens of art craftsmanship that it seems within the bounds of possibility they were not the product of indigenous hands but importations from other and extraneous schools of culture, objects expressly acquired in the course of trade relations to satisfy the occasional cravings of a few enlightened individuals for some pleasing article to adorn the otherwise severe simplicity of their surroundings.