Indian Sculpture c7.2

c7.2

MONUMENTS are coming to light (Amri) and show that the antiquity of art in India extends to a past remoter than that of Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and other cities. The achievements of these millenia out-lasted their actual existence. What had brought them about remained active as long as Indian sculpture itself. But this ancient art of India, carried on—it may be surmised—from the palæolithic age, though it underlies ineradicably the many varieties, phases and provinces of Indian sculpture, as an aspect of art had itself by the second century B.C. sunk into the background. By that time many seeds sown on its fertile soil had germinated. Its rich humus supplied them with vitality. The earthbound quality of ancient Indian sculpture from the palæolithic age—actual relics are known hitherto from the chalcolithic period only—was to withstand, by assimilating while transforming, whatever racial influx touched upon it.