History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c35.s1.25

v1.c35.s1.25

In the early Indian civilization, wood had always been the basic material in the manufacture of furniture. Owing to its perishable nature and the hot and damp climate of the country made its survival for long centuries impossible. The total absence of any piece of furniture from the excavated remains is undoubtedly due to its being fashioned out of wood or other perishable material. We have therefore to depend solely on the plastic representations of furniture, if we seek to comprehend the ancient Indian furniture. For this, the sculptures of Barhut, Sanci, Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, Gandhara, Mathura and the murals of Ajanta and sculptures of later period under review form a potential source of the study. The contemporary literary sources form a vital source in supplementing the sculptural and mural data of the furniture. They refer to the variety of furniture articles and amazingly, many of them find place in the lithic and mural representations.