Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.150

c12.150

There are some agreeable toys, usually made out of baked clay, though here it is not always possible to make a sharp distinction between children’s toys and figurines which might adorn a household shrine (Pl. 8). But cattle with movable heads that waggle with a string, and monkeys that slide down a rope and, owing to the deliberately bent perforation, can be stopped at will by tightening the string, are clearly for fun and not for worship, and the same may be said of many of the toy carts. The model cart made of clay was a favourite toy in early historic India, and indeed *The Little Clay Cart* is the title of one of the best-known plays of ancient India, written somewhere before the eighth century A.D.; the plot turns on the hiding of jewels in a small boy’s toy cart. Then there are pottery whistles made in the shape of a hen or other bird, which can be made to give a surprisingly loud coo-ing noise when blown in the right way.