A History of Agriculture in India v1.c16.10

v1.c16.10

Apart from the technique of potteries, it is the representation of domestic animals which provides us with a clue to the life of the people. The typical painted decoration on Kulli ware consists of zones of non-representational motifs between which, in many instances, runs a frieze of naturalistic representations of animals and plants. The frieze represents a standard scene, in which two humped cattle dominate, in grotesquely elongated form, a landscape with formalized trees and rows of diminutive, stylized wild goats (Capra hircus). The cattle are usually shown as tethered, either to one of the trees between which they stand or to a peg. In between a bull and cow is a branch of a pipal-tree with heart-shaped leaves (Fig. 54). Comparison may be made with the bull in a Mughal painting of the eighteenth century (Fig. 55). The resemblance between the two is remarkable.