An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s9.27

v1.c9.s9.27

The high level of civilization achieved by the Harappans is reflected not merely in their town-planning and architecture but also in other items connected with their day-to-day life, in their love for art and in their flair for trade and commerce. The most commonly used article in everyday life by persons at all economic levels is pottery and if the pottery of a people shows variety and artistic merit it should speak well of them. The Harappa pottery [11.3] is well-fired and sturdy and is often provided with a slip over which is painted a variety of designs in black pigment. Sometimes polychrome has also been used, as in a pleasing little vase from Harappa. The painted designs not merely include geometric, floral, faunal and even human motifs but sometimes also depict scenes which bring to the mind stories recorded later on in the *Pañcatantra*. Thus, on a pot from LOTHAL are portrayed two birds perched on a tree and holding fish in their beaks, and at the bottom is an animal with a bushy tail, perhaps a fox. This scene is reminiscent of the story of ‘the cunning fox’, in which the fox praised the crow that it sang exceedingly well and the crow, getting puffed up, opened its mouth to sing. In doing so, it dropped the piece of flesh which it held in its mouth, and the cunning fox immediately ran off with it. On another pot from the same site occurs a scene in which on one side of a tree is shown a crow with a pitcher in front of it and on the other an animal turning his head back and looking, as if in wonder, at the crow. The depiction recalls the story of a wise crow, in which a thirsty animal failed to drink water from a narrow-necked pitcher, while the crow kept on dropping pebbles in it until the water-level rose high enough to let the crow drink it.