Ancient Indian Architecture

Famous Hindu Akshardham temple in South Delhi

Indian architecture is that vast tapestry of production of the Indian Subcontinent that
encompasses a multitude of expressions over space and time, transformed by the
forces of history considered unique to the sub-continent, sometimes destroying, but
most of the time absorbing. The result is an evolving range of architectural production
that none the less retains a certain amount of continuity across history.

Ajanta Caves

The Ajanta Caves in India are 29 rock-cut cave monuments which date from the 2nd
century BCE. The caves include paintings and sculptures considered to be
masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art (which depict the Jataka tales) as well as
frescos which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya paintings in Sri Lanka. The caves were
built in two phases starting around 200 BCE, with the second group of caves built
around 600 CE.
Since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The caves
are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon, just outside the village of
Ajintha. Caves are only about 59 kilometers from Jalgaon Railway station (on Delhi Mumbai, Rail line of the Central railways, India); and 104 kilometers from
Aurangabad (from Ellora Caves 100 Kilometers).

Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and the Vedic Village

The earliest production in the Indus Valley Civilization was characterized by well
planned cities and houses where religion did not seem to play an active role. The
presence of drainage systems and public baths showed advanced standards of hygiene
and sanitation and ingenious planning. The Vedic village had certain distinct
characteristics that influenced subsequent architectural production. The Vedic grama
could have a pur, or a fort-like structure within it. The Vedic hymns speak of "purs"
made of stone and metal.
The Vedas have many words for houses. It appears that the main distinction was
between chardis (house with a thatched roof), harmyam (a house of brick and stone
that had a courtyard in the middle), and gotra (a multi-dwelling complex with sheds
for animals). The Rig-Veda speaks once of a palace with 1000 doors, and twice of a
palace with 1000 columns.

Buddhist and Jaina Architecture

Buddhism gained prominence during the reign of the emperor Ashoka. It is primarily
represented by three important building types- the Chaitya Hall (place of worship), the
Vihara (monastery) and the Stupa (hemispherical mound for worship/ memory)exemplified by the magnificent caves of Ajanta and Ellora and the monumental
Sanchi Stupa. The Greek influence led the Indian architecture of the time, especially
the rock-cut art, to fall under one of the two categories: the Mathura school of art
which was strictly Indian in spirit and did not adopt from the Greek styles, and the
Gandharva school of art which incorporated influences of the Greek art. The division
of Buddhism into Hinayana and Mahayana phases also influenced the nature of rockcut art, the former being represented by artifacts used by the Buddha, and the latter by
images of the Buddha. The Jaina temples are characterized by a richness of detail that
can be seen in the Dilwara Temples in Mt. Abu.

Ellora Cave Architecture World Heritage Site

Other Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu Caves and Temples
Temples

The Hindu Temples

Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal

The reference to temples in literature go back early with Panini (520 BC - 460 BC)
and Patanjali mentioning temples which were called prasadas. Early beginnings of
Hindu temple architecture have been traced to the remains at Aihole and Pattadakal in
present day Karnataka, and have Vedic altars and late Vedic temples as described by
Panini as models. Later, as more differentiation took place, the Dravidian/ Southern
style and or the Indo-Aryan/ Northern/ Nagara style of temple architecture emerged as
dominant modes, epitomized in productions such as the magnificent Brihadeeswara
Temple, Thanjavur, and the Sun Temple, Konark. The older terminologies of
Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are not used in current practice because of their racial and

dubious origins. Buddhist elements and motifs have influenced temple architecture to
a considerable extent.
Early temples were rock-cut, later structural temples evolved. The Kailasanatha
temple at Ellora is a good example of the former, excavated from top to bottom out of
a massive rock face.
The pyramid formed an essential architectonic element in any temple compositionstepped in the Dravidian style, stepped and slightly curved in the Northern style. The
structural system was essentially trabeated and with stone being the basic raw material
for the Indian craftsman, construction could be carried out with minimal or no mortar.
Decoration was fundamental to Indian architecture and is seen in the myriad details of
figured sculpture as well as in the architectural elements. The concept of fractals has
been used to examine the form of the Hindu temple, both in terms of its planning and
external appearance.
The garba-griha or the womb chamber forms the central focus housing the deity of the
temple and is provided with a circumambulation passage around. However, there are
also many subsidiary shrines within temple complexes, more particularly in the South
Indian (the Dravidian style) temple. As the Hindu temple is not meant for
congregational worship, the garba-griha is small in scale when compared to the whole
temple complex. However, it is articulated externally by the vimana or the sikhara.
Pillared halls or mandapas are found preceding the garba-griha.
The spatial experience of a South Indian temple complex is considered particularly
rich and meaningful. In many of them, such as the Ranganathaswamy temple at
Srirangam, the concentric enclosures or prakaras along with the series of gopurams or
entrance gateways reducing in scale as they move towards the garbha-griha set up a
rhythm of solids and voids as well as providing a ritual and visual axis.The principles
of temple architecture were codified in treatises and canons such as Manasara,
Mayamatam, and Vaastu Shastra. These offered an ordering framework yet allowed a
certain latitude for contextual articulation.
Today most of the ancient Hindu architecture thrives in temples of south India and
south-east Asia as the subsequent forces of Islam transformed the cultural landscape
of India more dominantly in the north.

Influence of Islam and the Mughal Architecture

With the advent of Islam, the erstwhile Indian architecture was slightly adapted to
allow the traditions of the new religion, but it remained strongly Indian at its heart and
character. Arches and domes began to be used and the mosque or masjid too began to
form part of the landscape, adding to a new experience in form and space. The sahn or
the open courtyard for congregational worship with the enclosing cloisters or liwans
and the sanctuary at the Western end offered a different architectural vocabulary. The
fundamental difference lay in the fact that Islam prohibited idol worship and therefore
a concentrated point of focus such as the garba-griha was unnecessary. However, the
mihrab on the Western wall of the sanctuary articulating the Qibla or the direction
towards Mecca offered a notional focus. As idolatory was prohibited, the main means
of adornment was surface decoration through the use of geometry, arabesque and
calligraphy. Later, mosques began to be built with original material. The Jami masjid
at Delhi is a representative example of an Indian mosque. Islamic architecture was
also represented by distinct regional styles that drew a lot of inspiration from the local
context.

Taj Mahal
The most famous Islamic buildings in India emerged during the Mughal period.
Mughal architecture built on the traditional Hindu architecture with influences from
the Persian world. Over time, Hindu and Islamic architecture produced a synthesis
that is exemplified in the glorious production of Akbar- the city of Fatehpur Sikri,
considered by many to be superior to the Taj Mahal (often seen as representing India)
in terms of what it has to teach to civilisation- syncretism, tolerance and the best of
different worlds, and the Taj itself, renowned for its beauty in white marble, its
intricate engravings, its minarets and its setting.

The most popular Islamic building type in India is the tomb or the mausoleum which
evolved from the basic cube and hemisphere vocabulary of the early phase into a more
elaborate form during the Mughal period where multiple chambers are present and
tombs were set in a garden known as the char-bagh. The tomb chamber houses the
cenotaph below which is the grave. Well known examples are the Gol Gumbaz,
Bijapur and the Taj Mahal, Agra.

Secular Architecture
The colonial attention towards Indian architecture was mainly focused towards
religious buildings and hence there is much scholarship in this area. In recent times,
the secular production of India is gaining the attention it merits. Cities of the desert
region in the North such as Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, towns such as Srirangam in Tamil
Nadu evolving around the temple as nucleus, the stepped wells of Gujarat, the
vernacular architecture of the warm, humid area of Kerala- all these are unique in
their response to socio-cultural and geographic context.

Architecture Under the Colonial Rule

With colonization, a new chapter began. Though the Dutch, Portuguese and the
French made substantial forays, it was the English who had a lasting impact.
The architecture of the colonial period varied from the beginning attempts at creating
authority through classical prototypes to the later approach of producing a supposedly
more responsive image through what is now termed Indo-Saracenic architecture- a
mixture of Hindu, Islamic and Western elements. Institutional, civic and utilitarian
buildings such as post offices,railway stations, etc., began to be built in large numbers
over the whole empire. Perhaps the most famous example is the Chhatrapati Shivaji
Terminus (CST) in Mumbai, originally named in honor of Queen Victoria. The
creation of New Delhi in early 20th century with its broad tree lined roads and

majestic buildings generated lots of debate on what should be an appropriate

architecture for India.

Post-independence architecture of India

With the introduction of Modern Architecture into India and later with Independence,
the quest was more towards progress as a paradigm fuelled by Nehruvian visions. The
planning of Chandigarh- a city most architects hate/love- by Le Corbusier was
considered a step towards this. Later as modernism exhausted itself in the West and
new directions were sought for, in India too there was a search for a more meaningful
architecture rooted in the Indian context. This direction called Critical Regionalism is
exemplified in the works of architects such as B.V. Doshi, Charles Correa, etc.,

Conclusion
Indian architecture as it stands today is a pluralistic body of production that cannot in
all justice be exemplified by the approaches, buildings and architects cited above.It
has evolved over the centuries and has been affected by numerous invaders aho have
brought different styles from their motherlands.But it is an unavoidable fact that
certain expressions tend to get magnified and others reduced when set against the vast
canvas of the world. In that sense, there is a distillation to an essence that does not
have all the ingredients. A more representative selection can occur only at a deeper
level of study.
http://www.crystalinks.com/indiarchitecture.html

Indus Valley Civilization

Gateway At Harappa: Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300-1300 BCE;
mature period 2600-1900 BCE) extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan
to Pakistan and northwest India. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was
one of three early civilizations of the Old World, and of the three the most widespread
It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and the
Ghaggar-Hakra River, which once coursed through northwest India and eastern
Pakistan.
At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of over five million.
Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in handicraft
(carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The
Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage
systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large non-residential buildings
The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization, after
Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab

province of British India, and now is Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa, and soon
afterwards, Mohenjo-Daro, was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the
founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj.Excavation of
Harappan sites has been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring
as recently as 1999.
There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan,
in the same area of the Harappan Civilization. The Harappan civilization is sometimes
called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures.
Until 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements had been found, of which 96 have been
excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and
their tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa,
Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala in Cholistan
and Rakhigarhi.
The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the
Indus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or ElamoDravidian language family is favored by a section of scholars.

Chronology

The mature phase of the Harappan civilization lasted from c. 2600 to 1900 BCE. With
the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures - Early Harappan and Late
Harappan, respectively - the entire Indus Valley Civilization may be taken to have
lasted from the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. Two terms are employed for the
periodization of the IVC: Phases and Eras.
The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases are also called the
Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, respectively, with the
Regionalization era reaching back to the Neolithic Mehrgarh II period. "Discoveries at
Mehrgarh changed the entire concept of the Indus civilization", according to Ahmad
Hasan Dani, professor emeritus at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. "There we
have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of settled village life."

Geography
The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan and parts of
northwestern India, Afghanistan and Iran, extending from Balochistan in the west to

Uttar Pradesh in the east, northeastern Afghanistan to the north and Maharashtra to the
south.
The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilizations that arose there in a highly
similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural lands being
surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. Recently, Indus sites have been
discovered in Pakistan's northwestern Frontier Province as well.
Other IVC colonies can be found in Afghanistan while smaller isolated colonies can
be found as far away as Turkmenistan and in Gujarat. Coastal settlements extended
from Sutkagan Dor in Western Baluchistan to Lothal in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site
has been found on the Oxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan, in the
Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan, at Manda,Jammu on the Beas River
near Jammu, India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi.
Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient
seacoast, for example, Balakot, and on islands, for example, Dholavira.
There is evidence of dry river beds overlapping with the Hakra channel in Pakistan
and the seasonal Ghaggar River in India. Many Indus Valley (or Harappan) sites have
been discovered along the Ghaggar-Hakra beds. Among them are: Rupar, Rakhigarhi,
Sothi, Kalibangan, and Ganwariwala. According to J. G. Shaffer and D. A.
Lichtenstein, the Harappan Civilization "is a fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, and Koti Dij
traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley on the borders of India and
Pakistan".
According to some archaeologists, more than 500 Harappan sites have been
discovered along the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its
tributaries, in contrast to only about 100 along the Indus and its tributaries;
consequently, in their opinion, the appellation Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization or
Indus-Saraswati civilization is justified.
However, these politically inspired arguments are disputed by other archaeologists
who state that the Ghaggar-Hakra desert area has been left untouched by settlements
and agriculture since the end of the Indus period and hence shows more sites than
found in the alluvium of the Indus valley; second, that the number of Harappan sites
along the Ghaggar-Hakra river beds have been exaggerated and that the GhaggarHakra, when it existed, was a tributary of the Indus, so the new nomenclature is
redundant. "Harappan Civilization" remains the correct one, according to the common
archaeological usage of naming a civilization after its first findspot.

Emergence of Civilization
The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River, lasted from circa
3300 BCE until 2800 BCE. It is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in the GhaggarHakra River Valley to the west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase (2800-2600 BCE,
Harappan 2), named after a site in northern Sindh, Pakistan, near Mohenjo Daro. The
earliest examples of the Indus script date from around 3000 BCE.
The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri
in Pakistan. Kot Diji (Harappan 2) represents the phase leading up to Mature
Harappan, with the citadel representing centralised authority and an increasingly
urban quality of life. Another town of this stage was found at Kalibangan in India on
the Hakra River.
Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of
raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. Villagers
had, by this time, domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates,
and cotton, as well as animals, including the water buffalo. Early Harappan
communities turned to large urban centres by 2600 BCE, from where the mature
Harappan phase started.
By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities had been turned into large urban
centres. Such urban centres include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-Daro in modern
day Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern
day India. In total, more than 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in
the general region of the Indus Rivers and their tributaries.

Cities
A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus
Valley civilization. The quality of municipal town planning suggests knowledge of
urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on
hygiene. The streets of major cities such as Mohenjo-daro or Harappa were laid out in

a perfect grid pattern, comparable to that of present day New York. The houses were
protected from noise, odors, and thieves.
As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, and the recently discovered Rakhigarhi, this urban
plan included the world's first urban sanitation systems. Within the city, individual
homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to
have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which
lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes.
The ancient Indus systems of sewage and drainage that were developed and used in
cities throughout the Indus Empire were far more advanced than any found in
contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in
some areas of modern Pakistan and India today. The advanced architecture of the
Harappans is shown by their impressive dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick
platforms, and protective walls. The massive citadels of Indus cities that protected the
Harappans from floods and attackers were larger than most Mesopotamian ziggurats.
The purpose of the "Citadel" remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilization's
contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, no large monumental structures
were built. There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or templesor, indeed, of
kings, armies, or priests. Some structures are thought to have been granaries. Found at
one city is an enormous well-built bath, which may have been a public bath. Although
the "Citadels" are walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive.
They may have been built to divert flood waters.
Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others
pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighborhoods. Materials from distant
regions were used in the cities for constructing seals, beads, and other objects. Among
the artifacts made were beautiful beads of glazed stone called faence. The seals have
images of animals, gods, etc., and inscriptions. Some of the seals were used to stamp
clay on trade goods, but they probably had other uses.Although some houses were
larger than others, Indus civilization cities were remarkable for their apparent
egalitarianism. For example, all houses had access to water and drainage facilities.
One gets the impression of a vast middle-class society.

Harrappa

The ruins of Harrappa were first described in 1842 by Charles Masson in his Narrative
of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab, where locals talked
of an ancient city extending "thirteen cosses" (about 25 miles), but no archaeological
interest would attach to this for nearly a century.
In 1856, General Alexander Cunningham, later director general of the archeological
survey of northern India, visited Harappa where the British engineers John and
William Brunton were laying the East Indian Railway Company line connecting the
cities of Karachi and Lahore. John wrote: "I was much exercised in my mind how we
were to get ballast for the line of the railway". They were told of an ancient ruined city
near the lines, called Brahminabad. Visiting the city, he found it full of hard well-burnt
bricks, and, "convinced that there was a grand quarry for the ballast I wanted", the city
of Brahminabad was reduced to ballast. A few months later, further north, John's
brother William Brunton's "section of the line ran near another ruined city, bricks from
which had already been used by villagers in the nearby village of Harappa at the same
site. These bricks now provided ballast along 93 miles (150 km) of the railroad track
running from Karachi to Lahore".
In 187275 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal (with an
erroneous identification as Brahmi letters). It was half a century later, in 1912, that
more Harappan seals were discovered by J. Fleet, prompting an excavation campaign
under Sir John Hubert Marshall in 1921-22 and resulting in the discovery of the
civilization at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni and
Madho Sarup Vats, and at Mohenjo-daro by Rakhal Das Banerjee, E. J. H. MacKay,
and Sir John Marshall.
By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro had been excavated, but excavations continued,
such as that led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, director of the Archaeological Survey of
India in 1944. Among other archaeologists who worked on IVC sites before the
partition of the subcontinent in 1947 were Ahmad Hasan Dani, Brij Basi Lal, Nani
Gopal Majumdar, and Sir Marc Aurel Stein.
Following the Partition of India, the bulk of the archaeological finds were inherited by
Pakistan where most of the IVC was based, and excavations from this time include
those led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1949, archaeological adviser to the Government
of Pakistan. Outposts of the Indus Valley civilization were excavated as far west as
Sutkagan Dor in Baluchistan, as far north as at Shortugai on the Amu Darya (the
river's ancient name was Oxus) in current Afghanistan, as far east as at Alamgirpur,
Uttar Pradesh, India and as far south as at Malwan, Surat Dist., India.
On July 11th, heavy floods hit Haryana in India and damaged the archaeological site
of Jognakhera, where ancient copper smelting were found dating back almost 5,000

years. The Indus Valley Civilization site was hit by almost 10 feet of water as the
Sutlej Yamuna link canal overflowed.

Mohenjo Daro

Mohenjo Daro - Mound of the Dead - is an archeological site in the province of Sindh,
Pakistan. Built around 2600 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient
Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements,
contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete.
Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE, and was not rediscovered
until 1922. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city,
which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. However, the site is
currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.

The 4,500-Year-Old City of Mohenjo Daro Is Crumbling

Smithsonian - October 18, 2013
Mohenjo Daro likely was, at its time, the greatest city in the world. Roughly 4,500
years ago, as many as 35,000 people lived and worked in the massive city, which
occupies 250 acres along Pakistans Indus river. Mohenjo Daro sat beneath the soil
for thousands of years, a preserved relic of the ancient Indus Valley civilization. But
excavation exposed the city to the elements, and now, says the Telegraph, the ruins
may have as little as 20 years left.

Government
Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for a center of power or for
depictions of people in power in Harappan society. But, there are indications of
complex decisions being taken and implemented. For instance, the extraordinary
uniformity of Harappan artifacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks. These
are the major theories:

There was a single state, given the similarity in artifacts, the evidence for planned
settlements, the standardized ratio of brick size, and the establishment of settlements
near sources of raw material.
There was no single ruler but several: Mohenjo-daro had a separate ruler, Harappa
another, and so forth.
Harappan society had no rulers, and everybody enjoyed equal status.

Science and Technology

The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length,
mass, and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights
and measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across
the Indus territories. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found
in Lothal, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale
of the Bronze Age. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement
for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their
hexahedron weights.
These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5,
10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams,
similar to the English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were
weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871. However, as in other cultures, actual
weights were not uniform throughout the area. The weights and measures later used in
Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the same as those used in Lothal.
Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze,
lead, and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in
building docks.
In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan,
made the discovery that the people of the Indus Valley Civilization, from the early
Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was
announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic)
evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in
Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a

Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates from 7,500-9,000 years ago. According to
the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming
cultures of that region.
A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably used
for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India).

Trade and Transportation

The Indus civilization's economy appears to have depended significantly on trade,
which was facilitated by major advances in transport technology. The IVC may have
been the first civilization to use wheeled transport. These advances may have included
bullock carts that are identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as well as
boats. Most of these boats were probably small, flat-bottomed craft, perhaps driven by
sail, similar to those one can see on the Indus River today; however, there is
secondary evidence of seagoing craft. Archaeologists have discovered a massive,
dredged canal and what they regard as a docking facility at the coastal city of Lothal
in western India (Gujarat state). An extensive canal network, used for irrigation, has
however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort.
During 43003200 BCE of the chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus Valley
Civilization area shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northern
Iran which suggest considerable mobility and trade. During the Early Harappan period
(about 32002600 BCE), similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments, etc.
document intensive caravan trade with Central Asia and the Iranian plateau.
Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilization artifacts, the trade networks,
economically, integrated a huge area, including portions of Afghanistan, the coastal
regions of Persia, northern and western India, and Mesopotamia. There is some
evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to Egypt.
There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and
Mesopotamian civilizations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much
commerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain
and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf). Such long-distance sea trade became feasible

with the innovative development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single

central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.
Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani),
Sokhta Koh (astride Shadi River, north of Pasni), and Balakot (near Sonmiani) in
Pakistan along with Lothal in India testify to their role as Harappan trading outposts.
Shallow harbors located at the estuaries of rivers opening into the sea allowed brisk
maritime trade with Mesopotamian cities.

Agriculture
The nature of the Indus civilization's agricultural system is still largely a matter of
conjecture due to the limited amount of information surviving through the ages. Some
speculation is possible, however.
Earlier studies (prior to 1980) often assumed that food production was imported to the
Indus Valley by a single linguistic group ("Aryans") and/or from a single area. But
recent studies indicate that food production was largely indigenous to the Indus
Valley. Already the Mehrgarh people used domesticated wheats and barley and the
major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row
barley. Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site
"demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and
that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex social
organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural
developments."
Indus civilization agriculture must have been highly productive; after all, it was
capable of generating surpluses sufficient to support tens of thousands of urban
residents who were not primarily engaged in agriculture. It relied on the considerable
technological achievements of the pre-Harappan culture, including the plough. Still,
very little is known about the farmers who supported the cities or their agricultural
methods. Some of them undoubtedly made use of the fertile alluvial soil left by rivers
after the flood season, but this simple method of agriculture is not thought to be
productive enough to support cities. There is no evidence of irrigation, but such
evidence could have been obliterated by repeated, catastrophic floods.

The Indus civilization appears to contradict the hydraulic despotism hypothesis of the
origin of urban civilization and the state. According to this hypothesis, cities could not
have arisen without irrigation systems capable of generating massive agricultural
surpluses. To build these systems, a despotic, centralized state emerged that was able
to suppress the social status of thousands of people and harness their labor as slaves. It
is very difficult to square this hypothesis with what is known about the Indus
civilization. There is no evidence of kings, slaves, or forced mobilization of labor.
It is often assumed that intensive agricultural production requires dams and canals.
This assumption is easily refuted. Throughout Asia, rice farmers produce significant
agricultural surpluses from terraced, hillside rice paddies, which result not from
slavery but rather the accumulated labor of many generations of people. Instead of
building canals, Indus civilization people may have built water diversion schemes,
which - like terrace agriculture - can be elaborated by generations of small-scale labor
investments.
In addition, it is known that Indus civilization people practiced rainfall harvesting, a
powerful technology that was brought to fruition by classical Indian civilization but
nearly forgotten in the 20th century. It should be remembered that Indus civilization
people, like all peoples in South Asia, built their lives around the monsoon,a weather
pattern in which the bulk of a year's rainfall occurs in a four-month period. At a
recently discovered Indus civilization city in western India, archaeologists discovered
a series of massive reservoirs, hewn from solid rock and designed to collect rainfall,
that would have been capable of meeting the city's needs during the dry season.

Diet
Some post-1980 studies indicate that food production was largely indigenous to the
Indus Valley. It is known that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and
barley,[53] and the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop
derived from two-row barley (see Shaffer and Liechtenstein 1995, 1999).
Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates
that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the data
support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization
in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments".

Others, such as Dorian Fuller, however, indicate that it took some 2000 years before
Middle Eastern wheat was acclimatised to South Asian conditions.

Indus Script

Indus Valley Seals

It has long been claimed that the Indus Valley was the home of a literate civilization,
but this has recently been challenged on linguistic and archaeological grounds. Well
over 400 Indus symbols have been found on seals or ceramic pots and over a dozen
other materials, including a 'signboard' that apparently once hung over the gate of the
inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira. Typical Indus inscriptions are no more
than four or five characters in length, most of which (aside from the Dholavira
'signboard') are exquisitely tiny; the longest on a single surface, which is less than 1
inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs long; the longest on any object (found on three
different faces of a mass-produced object) carries only 26 symbols. It has been
recently pointed out that the brevity of the inscriptions is unparalleled in any known
premodern literate society, including those that wrote extensively on leaves, bark,
wood, cloth, wax, animal skins, and other perishable materials.

Based partly on this evidence, a controversial recent paper by Farmer, Sproat, and
Witzel (2004), argues that the Indus system did not encode language, but was related
instead to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems used extensively in the Near East. It
has also been claimed on occasion that the symbols were exclusively used for
economic transactions, but this claim leaves unexplained the appearance of Indus
symbols on many ritual objects, many of which were mass produced in molds. No
parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions are known in any other early ancient
civilizations.
Photos of many of the thousands of extant inscriptions are published in the Corpus of
Indus Seals and Inscriptions (1987, 1991), edited by A. Parpola and his colleagues.
Publication of a final third volume, which will reportedly republish photos taken in
the 20s and 30s of hundreds of lost or stolen inscriptions, along with many discovered
in the last few decades, has been announced for several years, but has not yet found its
way into print. For now, researchers must supplement the materials in the Corpus by
study of the tiny photos in the excavation reports of Marshall (1931), Mackay (1938,
1943), Wheeler (1947), or reproductions in more recent scattered sources.
The term Indus Script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan
civilization of ancient India (most of the Indus sites are distributed in present day
North West India and Pakistan) used between 26001900 BC, which evolved from an
earlier form of the Indus script attested from around 3300 BC. They are most
commonly associated with flat, rectangular stone tablets called seals, but they are also
found on at least a dozen other materials.
The first publication of a Harappan seal dates to 1875, in the form of a drawing by
Alexander Cunningham. Since then, well over 4000 symbol-bearing objects have been
discovered, some as far afield as Mesopotamia. After 1900 BC, use of the symbols
ends, together with the final stage of Harappan civilization. Some early scholars,
starting with Cunningham in 1877, thought that the script was the archetype of the
Brahmi script used by Ashoka. Today Cunningham's claims are rejected by nearly all
researchers, but a minority of mostly Indian scholars continues to argue for the Indus
script as the predecessor of the Brahmic family. There are over 400 different signs, but
many are thought to be slight modifications or combinations of perhaps 200 'basic'
signs.

Homes

Houses were one or two stories high, made of baked brick, with flat roofs, and were
just about identical. Each was built around a courtyard, with windows overlooking the
courtyard. The outside walls had no windows. Each home had its own private drinking
well and its own private bathroom. Clay pipes led from the bathrooms to sewers
located under the streets. These sewers drained into nearly rivers and streams.
Harappan cities did not develop slowly, which suggests that whoever built these cities
learned to do so in another place. As the Indus flooded, cities were rebuilt on top of
each other. Archaeologists have discovered several different cities, one built over the
other, each built a little less skillfully. The most skillful was on bottom. It would
appear that builders grew less able or less interested in perfection over time. Still, each
city is a marvel, and each greatly advanced for its time.
Their towns were laid out in grids everywhere (straight streets, well built homes!)
These people were incredible builders. Scientists have found what they think are giant
reservoirs for fresh water. They have also found that even the smallest house at the
edge of each town was linked to that town's central drainage system. (Is it possible
that they not only drained waste water out, but also had a system to pump fresh water
into their homes, similar to modern plumbing.

Clothing
Men and women dressed in colorful robes. Women wore jewelry of gold and precious
stone, and even wore lipstick! Among the treasures found was a statue of a women
wearing a bracelet. (Bracelets with similar designs are worn today in India.)
Clothing was for the most part, similar for both men and women. The basic costume
of ancient society was a length of cloth wrapped around the lower part of the body,
and a loose fitting garment for the upper body, which was usually another length of
fabric. A headdress was also worn, mainly by the men.
Women in Vedic society wore a variety of garments. The first being a skirt type
garment (dhoti), with a blouse (choli) and scarf. Second is a sari, which is a length of
fabric wound around the body with the loose end (pallu) thrown over the shoulder.
Sometimes a choli would be worn with this. The last garment was worn mainly by
tribal women. The Adivasi is a length of fabric tied around the waist with no upper
garment worn.
Men also had a choice in their clothing though not as varied as the women. Men
usually wore a Dhoti, which is a length of fabric wrapped around the waist. This could
be left as a skirt or brought through the legs and made into a pants type garment. Men
of the south rarely wore shirts, but men of the north wore a fitted upper garment. Male
headdress was also a length of fabric, wrapped around the head, called a Turban.
Women sometimes wore the turban also.
Due to the large area of India many differences in clothing emerged, mainly due to
climate differences. The southern Indians wore much less than in the colder north.
Women in the south rarely wore a upper garment. Northern women adopted a fitted
upper garment to be worn under the loose fitting one.
Clothing was made from resources found in each region. Cotton and wool were the
most abundant, since silk was not introduced from China until around the 1st century
B.C.E. People also enjoyed lavish embroidery and embellishments. Gold being the
preferred, though there was also an abundance of silver and precious gems.

Entertainment
A beautiful small bronze statue of a dancer was found, which tells us that they enjoyed
dance and had great skill working with metals. In the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro,
scientists have found the remains of a large central pool, with steps leading down at
both ends. This could have been a public swimming pool, or perhaps have been used
for religious ceremonies. Around this large central pool were smaller rooms, that
might have dressing rooms, and smaller pools that might have been private baths.
Some of the toys found were small carts, whistles shaped like birds,

and toy monkeys which could slide down a string.

Music
Musical instruments include the Sarangi, Sitar, Tabla, Tambora, and Tanpura.

The Tambora

Since Vedic times, Indians had been required to correctly recite, the Vedas. The
correctness in recitation was very important as the Vedas were, in those days,
transmitted through memory (Smriti) and were learned through hearing (Shruti).
This kind of an emphasis on recitation the correct pronunciation lead to studies in
phonetics and sound manipulation. This was the birthplace of Indian Musical Raga
(metre) and Swaras (rhymes). That Music in ancient India was given considerable
recognition is illustrated by the fact that Saraswati, the Indian goddess of learning is
shown to be holding a musical instrument (Veena) in her hand.

Traditionally, vocal music in India has tended to be devotional music (Bhakti-geet),

and temples have been places where musicians used to practice music to please the
deity and the devotees. Indian vocal music is broadly divided into two schools - the
Hindustani or north Indian school and the Carnatic or South Indian school. As far as
instrumental music goes there is a general identity of instruments that have been used.
The main Indian musical instruments are the Sarod, the Veena, the Sarangi, the
Tambora, the Harmonium, the Ghata, the Tabla, the Tanpura, the Satar, etc., As
compared to art and architecture Indian music has had less impact on the outside
world. This was so as most of Indian musical instruments require specialized material
and craftsmanship for their manufacture. And in the absence of transmission of these
skills and the absence of trade in musical instruments, Along with the necessity of
long and arduous practice which was required to master these instruments, made the
transmission of music a difficult task.
However, as far as, devotional vocal music goes, Indian musical traditions did travel
to the countries of South east Asia. The instrumental and vocal music of Korea has
many elements of Indian music, which it received along with the Buddhist invocative
and devotional songs and slokas (religious couplets). Along with Buddhism, some
Indian musical instruments like the flute (bansi), temples bell (Ghanta), etc., went to
the countries of south-east Asia. Even Europe owes certain instruments to India.
Two popular European musical instruments namely the flute and violin are believed to
be of Indian origin. Though we do not know about the process of transmission of
these instruments, however in India the flute (bansi) and the violin (a variant of the
Veena) are definitely indigenously Indian.
A pointer to the fact that these instruments have been in usage in India since a very
long time is that the bansi is associated with Sri Krishna and the Veena with the
goddess Saraswati.
This apart, in modern times the western musical instruments like the Tambourin and
the Tambour are adaptations of the Indian Tambora and Tanpura. The names
Tambourin and Tambour are also derived from the word Tambora. The Saralngi,
another Indian musical instrument has also found its place in western music. The
acceptance of these musical instruments in the west is also evident from the fact that
the words Tambora, Sarangi and Tabla are mentioned in the Oxford Dictionary.

Art and Culture

Terracotta Figurines

Priest King
Ancient India's fine art and performing arts attest to this fact. This find expression in
music, musical instruments, dancing, paintings and several other art forms.
Music had a divine character in India and in recognition of that the Indian Goddess of
learning, Saraswati is always shown holding a musical instrument, namely, the veena.
Likewise, Krishna is associated with 'banshi', that is, the flute - a musical instrument,
which traveled throughout the world from India. Indian devotional songs and reciting
influenced religious recitations in several eastern countries, where the style was
adopted by Buddhists monks. The India developed several types of musical
instruments and forms of dancing, with delicate body movements and grace.
Paintings have remained the oldest art form as found in several cave paintings across
the globe. In India also, in places like Bhimbetka, a UNESCO declared world heritage
site, pre-historic cave paintings have been discovered. In relatively recent times,
paintings and carvings on rock had significantly developed, and many such rock
carvings have been found dating to the period of the emperor Ashoka. Indian
influences may be seen in paintings at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and in Miran and
Domko in Central Asia. Sometimes, such paintings depict not only Buddha but Hindu
deities such as Shiva, Ganesha and Surya.
Ancient India had marvelous craftsmen, skilled in pottery, weaving, and metal
working. Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed
figurines in terracotta, bronze, steatite have been found at the excavation sites. The
pottery that has been found is of very high quality, with unusually beautiful designs.
Several small figures of animals, such as monkeys, have been found. These small

figures could be objects of art or toys. There are also small statues of what they think
are female gods. They found bowls made of bronze and silver, and many beads and
ornaments. The metals used to make these things are not found in the Indus Valley. So,
either the people who lived in this ancient civilization had to import all of these items
from some other place, or more probably, had to import the metals they used to make
these beautiful things from somewhere else.
A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothal
indicate the use of stringed musical instruments. Seals have been found at Mohenjodaro depicting a figure standing on its head, and one sitting cross-legged; perhaps the
earliest indication, at least illustration, of the practice of yoga. A horned figure in a
meditation pose has been interpreted as one of the earliest depictions of the god Shiva.
The very first works of visual art created in the Indian sub-continent were primitive
cave or rock paintings. Many are assumed to exist, but the largest number of
discoveries are in Central India, on sandstone rock shelters within a hundred mile
radius around Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. these paintings are dated at around 5500
B.C. i.e. they are 1500 years old. Some of these paintings have been overlaid with
later paintings and graffiti.
The paintings generally depict animals, in scenes such as hunting. Human figures are
also shown with bows and arrows, and swords and shields. The colors used An
intricately carved pillar at Ellora in Maharashtra dating back to the 7th century. are
made up of natural minerals and are in various shades of red and orange. These
paintings are the forerunners of the frescos of a later age which are seen at Ajanta,
Ellora and elsewhere in India. But unfortunately no well preserved art remains, to
document the period between the coming of the Aryans i.e. 1500 B.C. to about the
time of Buddha i.e. 550 B.C.
We are told by the literary sources that the art of painting was practiced. In the
Buddhist texts, elaborate palaces of kings and houses of the wealthy are described as
being embellished with wall paintings. But actual evidence about this art is lost. How
this art could have been, can be guessed from the paintings on stone surfaces found at
Ajanta and Ellora which are said to have been done in around 400 A.D. These
paintings at Ajanta and Ellora depict Buddhist tales from the Jatakas. Though the
paintings are today 1500 years old, the paint has not only retained its color but also
much of its luster.
The technique of painting has been thus described by a student of Indian Art. The
surface of the stone was first prepared by a coating of potter's clay, mixed variously
with cow dung, straw, and animal hair. Once this was leveled to a thickness of half an
inch to two inches, it was coated with a smooth fine white lime plaster which became

the actual painting surface. On the still-damp wall, the artist first laid out his
composition with a red cinnabar line and then defined the subjects with an undercoat
of grey or terre verte.
This was followed by the addition of local colors, and once the whole wall was
completely colored, a brown or black line restated the drawing to finish the
composition. A last burnishing with a smooth stone gave it a rich lustrous surface. The
colors which were natural and water soluble, consisted of purple, browns, yellow,
blue, white, green, reds and black.
Thus it is evident that the technique of painting had developed to an advanced level
This monumental bull was carved in marble in the 3rd century B.C. It stood on a
column built by Emperor Ashoka, which was inscribed with Buddhist edicts. of
sophistication due which the paintings could survive for 1500 years.
Though the colors used are supposed to have been derived from minerals and
vegetables they had been treated to last long. The above description also illustrates
how, complicated procedures of preparing the surface to be painted had evolved in
India. This technique of painting had also spread to central Asia and South-east Asia.
Some strains of Indian painting can even be identified in western church paintings and
mosaics. Indian influence is clearly evident in the paintings at Bamiyan in
Afghanistan and in Miran and Domko in Central Asia. Not only do these paintings
depict the Buddha but also Hindu deities such as Shiva, Ganesha and Surya.

Indian Architecture

Dance

The mention of the word dance conjures up images of Nataraja - Lord of Dance - as
the Indian God Shiva is portrayed. Apart from Shiva even Ganesha and Srikrishna are
associated with dance and music. India has many classical dance styles. The oldest
text dealing with aesthetics covering various art forms including dance is the
Natyashastra which is authored by Bharatamuni.
All the Indian classical dance styles viz. Bharata Natyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Odissi,
Mohiniattam, Kathakali, Manipuri, etc., are derived from the Natyashastra. Some of
these dance styles have evolved from folk dances and are intimately connected with
the art of story telling. Most of these stories are drawn from our epics like the
Ramayana and Mahabharata, tales from collections like the Panchatantra,
Hitopadesha, Katha Sarit Sagara, etc., also from the subject matter of these dance
styles. In fact the Kathak and Kathakali from U.P. and Kerala respectively, derive their
names from the term Katha which in Sanskrit means a story. As the story is told in the
form of dance, these dance styles can actually be called dance-dramas, the only
difference is the absence of dialogues.
The Charkul dance-drama of Central India revolves around a story generally from the
Indian epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Similar traditions of dancedramas are prevalent in other parts of India too. In Maharashtra, you have the
Dashavatara, in Karnataka you have the Yakshagana The Kathak dance of North India
and the ktha*ali dance of Kerala also originated as dance dramas and derive their
names from the Sanskrit work 'Katha' which means a story.
The story has to be told solely through actions and hence an elaborate pattern of facial
expressions (Mudra), movement of hands (Hasta) and the simulation of various moods
like anger (Krodha), envy (Matsara), greed (Lobha), lust (Kama), ego (Mada), etc.,
have been evolved. The mastery of perfect expression of these feelings by subtle
movement of the lips and eyes forms the root of all the classical Indian dance styles.

In fact the combination of the three qualities viz. expression, rhyme and rhythm i.e.
Bhava, Raga, and Tala go into the determination of the term Bha-Ra-Ta, which is used
as the name of one dance style viz. Bharata Natyam.
The integration of Indian classical dance with the physical exercises of Yoga and the
breath control of "Pranayam" has perfected the dance styles. Yoga especially had
given the dance styles an excellent footwork which is called Padanyasa and
Padalalitya. Another feature of these dance styles is that they are integrated with
theology and worship.
Traditionally these dances were patronized by the temples. During festivals and other
religious occasions, these dances were performed in the temple premises to propitiate
the deity. Thus the dance came to combine both art and worship. Even today every
recital of any Indian classical dance begins with an invocation to Nataraja or
Nateshwara the god of dance.
In Indian folklore and legend, the God of Dance is himself shown to be dancing in a
form called the Tandava. This has also been depicted in the statues and carvings in
temples like, Khajuraho and Konark in Northern India, and at Chidambaram,
Madurai, Rameshwaram, etc. in the South.
Indian dances have also evolved styles based on the Tandava like the Urdhra Tandava,
Sandhya Tandava, etc. Indian classical dance found its way outside India, especially to
the countries of Southeast Asia. The dance styles of Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, etc.,
have so heavily borrowed from the Indian classical dance traditions that to a casual
observer there would seem to be hardly any difference between the two. While
Western dance has not directly borrowed anything from Indian classical dance, it has
borrowed from Indian folk dance through the medium of the Gypsies.

Gypsies
The Gypsies as has been established today, migrated from India to the west many
centuries ago. The Gypsies speak a language called Romany which has many common
words with Indian languages. The religion of the Gypsies is a modified form of early
Hinduism. The Gypsies seem to have been the Banjar nomads who are still found in
India. Being a very carefree nomadic community the Gypsies earned their living by

giving performance of folk dances, along with the pursuing of other nomadic
activities.
Gypsy dance has influenced western dance styles like the Waltz and the foxtrot. Even
the American Break dance and other dances associated with jazz music have borrowed
elements from the gypsy folk dance. The Gypsy folk dance, is itself a free flowing and
care free dance, a modified version of which is found in the folk dances of many
Adivasi and nomadic tribal communities in India.

Theater
The origin of the Indian theatre or rather folk theatre and dramatics can be traced to
religious ritualism of the Vedic Aryans. This folk theatre of the misty past was mixed
with dance, ritualism, plus a depiction of events from daily life. It was the last element
which made it the origin of the classical theatre of later times. Many historians,
notably D.D. Kosambi, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, Adya Rangacharaya, etc. have
referred to the prevalence of ritualism amongst Aryan tribes in which some members
of the tribe acted as if they were wild animals and some others were the hunters.
Those who acted as animals like goats, buffaloes, reindeer, monkeys, etc. were chased
by those playing the role of hunters and a mock hunt was enacted. In such a simple
and crude manner did the theatre originate in India nearly 4000 years back in the tribal
Aryans of Rig Vedic times. There also must have existed a theatrical tradition in the
Indus valley cities, but of this we have no literary numismatic or any other material
proof.
The origin of drama and the theatre has been told to us in an aptly dramatic manner by
Bharatamui, the author of Natyashastra an ancient Indian text on dance and drama.
Bharatamuni is said to have lived around the 4th century but even he is not aware of
the actual origin of the theatre in India. He has cleverly stated in a dramatic manner
that it was the lord of creation Brahma who also created the original Natyashastra
(Drama). According to Bharatamuni, since the lord Brahma created the entire universe
we need not question his ability in creating dramas.
But Bharatamuni goes on to tell us that the original Natyashastra of Brahma was too
unwieldy and obscure to be of any practical use. Hence, Bharatamuni, himself took up

the task of making Natyashastra simple, intelligible and interesting. Thus the
Natyashastra of Bharatamuni was supported to be understood by lay people. So the
Natyashastra of Bharatamunii is not the oldest text on dance and drama, as Bharata
himself says that he has only simplified the original work of lord Brahma. The
Natyashastra assumes the existence of many plays before it was composed, and says
that most of the early plays did not follow the rules set down in the Natyashastra.
But the Natyashastra itself seems to be the first attempt to develop the technique or
rather art, of drama in a systematic manner. The Natya Shastra a tells us not only what
is to be portrayed in a drama, but how the portrayal is to be done. Drama, as
Bharatamuni says, is the imitation of men and their doings (loka-vritti). As men and
their doings have to be respected on the stage, so drama in Sanskrit is also known by
the term roopaka which means portrayal.
According to the Natyashastra all the modes of expression employed by an individual
viz. speech, gestures, movements and intonation must be used. The representation of
these expressions can have different modes (vritti) according to the predominance and
emphasis on one mode or another. Bharatamuni recognizes four main modes viz.,
Speech and Poetry (Bharati Vritti), Dance and Music (Kaishiki Vritti), Action
(Arabhatti Vritti) and Emotions (Sattvatti Vritti).
Bharatamuni also specifies where and how a play is to be performed. In ancient India
plays were generally performed either in temple-yard or within palace precincts.
During public performances, plays were generally performed in the open. For such
public performances, Bharatamuni has advocated the construction of a mandapa.
According to the Natyashastra in the construction of a mandapa, pillars must be set up
in four corners. With the help of these pillars a platform is built of wooden planks.
The area of the mandapa is divided into two parts. The front part, which is the back
stage is called the r angashrishu. Behind the ranga-shirsha is what was called the
nepathya-griha, where the characters dress up before entering the stage.
Bharatamuni has also specified that every play should have a Sutradhara which
literally means 'holder of a string'. The Sutradhara was like the producer-director of
today. Every play had to begin with an innovation of God. This invocation was called
the poorvaranga. Even today, plays in Indian languages begin with a devotional song
called Naandi. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata can be called the first recognized
plays that originated in India.
These epics also provided the inspiration to the earliest Indian dramatists and they do
even today. One of the earliest Indian dramatists was Bhasa whose plays have been
inspired by the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Bhasa's date cannot be definitely
ascertained, but that he lived before Kalidasa is proved by the latter's reference to

Bhasa as one of the early leading playwrights. As Kalidasa lived in the 4th century,
Bhasa should have lived in the early centuries of our era. Bhasa was a natural
dramatist who drew heavily from the epics, but Kalidasa can be called an original
playwright.
Kalidasa has written many plays, some of which are; AbhijananShakuntalam,
Kumarsambhavam, Meghadutam and Malavikagnimitram. Kalidasa was the court
playwright at the Gupta court. He lived at Ujjaini, the capital of the Guptas and was
for some days the Gupta ambassador at the court of the Vakatakas at Amaravati where
he wrote the play Meghadutam.
The next great Indian dramatist was Bhavabhuti. He is said to have written the
following three plays viz. Malati-Madhava, Mahaviracharita and Uttar Ramacharita.
Among these three, the last two cover between them the entire epic, Ramayana.
Bhavabhuti lived around the 7th century A.D., when Sanskrit drama was on its
decline, mainly due to the lack of royal patronage. The last royal patron of Sanskrit
drama seems to be king Harshavardhana of the 7th century. Harshavardhana is himself
credited with having written three plays viz. Ratnavali, Priyadarshika and Nagananda.
But nevertheless despite lack of patronage two more leading playwrights came after
Bhavabhuti, they were Shudraka whose main play was the Mricchakatikam, and the
second dramatist was Rajashekhara whose play was titled Karpuramanjari. But the
decline of Sanskrit theatre is evident from the fact that while Mricchakatikam was in
Sanskrit, the Karpuramanjari was in Prakrit which was a colloquial form of Sanskrit.
Rajashekhara has himself said that he chose to write in Prakrit as the language was
soft while Sanskrit was harsh. Sanskrit plays continued to be written up to the 17th
century in distant pockets of the country, mainly in the Vijayanagara empire of the
South. But they had passed their prime, the later Sanskrit dramas are mostly imitations
of Kalidasa or Bhavabhuti.
As in the case of the other fine arts, the Indian theatre has left its mark on the
countries of South-east Asia. In Thailand, especially it has been a tradition from the
middle ages to stage plays based on plots drawn from Indian epics.
This had been so even in Cambodia where, at the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories
from the Ramayana and Mahabharata have been carved on the walls of temples and
palaces. Similar, bas reliefs are found at Borobudur in Indonesia. Thus, the Indian
theatre has been one of the vehicles of enriching the culture of our neighboring
countries since ancient times.

Epic Poetry
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written on the Indian sub-continent. Written in
Sanskrit, Tamil and Hindi, it includes some of the oldest epic poetry ever created and
some works form the basis of Hindu scripture.
The ancient Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, occasionally termed
"Mahakavya" ("Great Compositions"), refer to epic poems that form a canon of Hindu
scripture. Indeed, the epic form prevailed and verse was and remained until very
recently the preferred form of Hindu literary works. Hero-worship was and is a central
aspect of Indian culture, and thus readily lent itself to a literary tradition that
abounded in epic poetry and literature. The Puranas, a massive collection of verseform histories of India's many Hindu gods and goddesses, followed in this tradition.
The post-sangam period (2nd century-6th century) saw many great Tamil epics being
written, including Cilappatikaram (or Silappadhikaram), Manimegalai, Jeevagachintamani, Valayapati and Kundalakesi. Later, during the Chola period, Kamban
(12th century) wrote what is considered one of the greatest Tamil epics - the Kamba
ramayanam of Kamban, based on the Ramayana.
The post-sangam period (2nd century-6th century) saw many great Tamil epics being
written, including Cilappatikaram (or Silappadhikaram), Manimegalai, Jeevagachintamani, Valayapati and Kundalakesi. Later, during the Chola period, Kamban
(12th century) wrote what is considered one of the greatest Tamil epics - the Kamba
ramayanam of Kamban, based on the Ramayana.
The first epic to appear in Hindi was Tulsidas' (1543-1623) Ramacharitamanasa, also
based on the Ramayana. It is considered a great classic of Hindi epic poetry and
literature, and shows the author Tulsidas in complete command over all the important
styles of composition - narrative, epic, lyrical and dialectic. He has given a human
character to Rama, the Hindu avatar of Vishnu, potraying him as an ideal son,
husband, brother and king.

Sports and Games

Decline, Collapse and Legacy

Around 1900 BCE, signs of a gradual decline begin to emerge. People started to leave
the cities. Those who remained were poorly nourished. By around 1800 BC, most of
the cities were abandoned.
By around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. In 1953, Sir Mortimer
Wheeler proposed that the decline of the Indus Civilization was caused by the
invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central Asia called the "Aryans". As
evidence, he cited a group of 37 skeletons found in various parts of Mohenjo-Daro,
and passages in the Vedas referring to battles and forts.
However, scholars soon started to reject Wheeler's theory, since the skeletons
belonged to a period after the city's abandonment and none were found near the
citadel. Subsequent examinations of the skeletons by Kenneth Kennedy in 1994
showed that the marks on the skulls were caused by erosion, and not violent
aggression.
Today, many scholars believe that the collapse of the Indus Civilization was caused by
drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia. It has also been
suggested that immigration by new peoples, deforestation, floods, or changes in the
course of the river may have contributed to the collapse of the IVC.

Previously, it was also believed that the decline of the Harappan civilization led to an
interruption of urban life in the Indian subcontinent. However, the Indus Valley
Civilization did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilization
can be found in later cultures. Current archaeological data suggest that material
culture classified as Late Harappan may have persisted until at least c. 1000-900 BCE
and was partially contemporaneous with the Painted Grey Ware culture. Harvard
archaeologist Richard Meadow points to the late Harappan settlement of Pirak, which
thrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the invasion of Alexander the
Great in 325 BCE.
Recent archaeological excavations indicate that the decline of Harappa drove people
eastward. After 1900 BCE, the number of sites in India increased from 218 to 853.
Excavations in the Gangetic plain show that urban settlement began around 1200
BCE, only a few centuries after the decline of Harappa and much earlier than
previously expected. Archaeologists have emphasized that, just as in most areas of the
world, there was a continuous series of cultural developments. These link "the socalled two major phases of urbanization in South Asia".
A possible natural reason for the IVC's decline is connected with climate change that
is also signaled for the neighboring areas of the Middle East: The Indus valley climate
grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BCE, linked to a general
weakening of the monsoon at that time. Alternatively, a crucial factor may have been
the disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar Hakra river system.
A tectonic event may have diverted the system's sources toward the Ganges Plain,
though there is complete uncertainty about the date of this event, as most settlements
inside Ghaggar-Hakra river beds have not yet been dated. The actual reason for
decline might be any combination of these factors. New geological research is now
being conducted by a group led by Peter Clift, from the University of Aberdeen, to
investigate how the courses of rivers have changed in this region since 8000 years
ago, to test whether climate or river reorganizations are responsible for the decline of
the Harappan. A 2004 paper indicated that the isotopes of the Ghaggar-Hakra system
do not come from the Himalayan glaciers, and were rain-fed instead, contradicting a
Harappan time mighty "Sarasvati" river.
A research team led by the geologist Liviu Giosan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution also concluded that climate change in form of the easterward migration of
the monsoons led to the decline of the IVC.[77] The team's findings were published in
PNAS in May 2012.
According to their theory, the slow eastward migration of the monsoons across Asia
initially allowed the civilization to develop. The monsoon-supported farming led to

large agricultural surpluses, which in turn supported the development of cities. The
IVC residents did not develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly on the seasonal
monsoons. As the monsoons kept shifting eastward, the water supply for the
agricultural activities dried up. The residents then migrated towards the Ganges basin
in the east, where they established smaller villages and isolated farms. The small
surplus produced in these small communities did not allow development of trade, and
the cities died out.

Legacy

In the aftermath of the Indus Civilization's collapse, regional cultures emerged, to

varying degrees showing the influence of the Indus Civilization. In the formerly great
city of Harappa, burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called
the Cemetery H culture. At the same time, the Ochre Colored Pottery culture
expanded from Rajasthan into the Gangetic Plain. The Cemetery H culture has the
earliest evidence for cremation; a practice dominant in Hinduism today.

Historical Context and Linguistic Affiliation

The Indus Vally Civilization has been tentatively identified with the toponym
Meluhha known from Sumerian records. It has been compared in particular with the
civilizations of Elam (also in the context of the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis) and with
Minoan Crete (because of isolated cultural parallels such as the ubiquitous goddess
worship and depictions of bull-leaping).
The mature (Harappan) phase of the IVC is contemporary to the Early to Middle
Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East, in particular the Old Elamite period, Early
Dynastic to Ur III Mesopotamia, Prepalatial Minoan Crete and Old Kingdom to First
Intermediate Period Egypt.
After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated with the
indigenous Dasyu inimical to the Rigvedic tribes in numerous hymns of the Rigveda.
Mortimer Wheeler interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the top
levels of Mohenjo-Daro as the victims of a warlike conquest, and famously stated that
"Indra stands accused" of the destruction of the IVC.
The association of the IVC with the city-dwelling Dasyus remains alluring because
the assumed timeframe of the first Indo-Aryan migration into India corresponds neatly
with the period of decline of the IVC seen in the archaeological record. The discovery
of the advanced, urban IVC however changed the 19th-century view of early IndoAryan migration as an "invasion" of an advanced culture at the expense of a
"primitive" aboriginal population to a gradual acculturation of nomadic "barbarians"
on an advanced urban civilization, comparable to the Germanic migrations after the
Fall of Rome, or the Kassite invasion of Babylonia. This move away from simplistic
"invasionist" scenarios parallels similar developments in thinking about language
transfer and population movement in general, such as in the case of the migration of
the proto-Greek speakers into Greece, or the Indo-Europeanization of Western Europe.
It was often suggested that the bearers of the IVC corresponded to proto-Dravidians
linguistically, the breakup of proto-Dravidian corresponding to the breakup of the Late
Harappan culture. Today, the Dravidian language family is concentrated mostly in
southern India and northern and eastern Sri Lanka, but pockets of it still remain
throughout the rest of India and Pakistan (the Brahui language), which lends credence
to the theory.
Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola concludes that the uniformity of the Indus
inscriptions precludes any possibility of widely different languages being used, and
that an early form of Dravidian language must have been the language of the Indus
people. However, in an interview with the Deccan Herald on 12 August 2012, Asko

Parpola clarified his position by admitting that Sanskrit-speakers had contributed to

the Indus Valley Civilization. Proto-Munda (or Para-Munda) and a "lost phylum"
(perhaps related or ancestral to the Nihali language) have been proposed as other
candidates.
The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization or
Indus-Sarasvati civilization by Hindutva groups. or the Indus-Sarasvati civilization.

Indian Architecture - Influences

( Originally Published 1921 )

I. Geographical.India, a great triangular peninsula of Southern Asia, covering an

area fifteen times the size of Great Britain, is bounded on the north by the Himalaya
Mountains and their lateral spurs, and on east, west, and south by the sea. By reason
of her geographical position, India in the earliest times received the overflow of the
ancient races of Central Asia, and thus was chiefly influenced from the north ; more
especially because the absence of good harbours along her coasts did not tend to
promote intercourse by sea. The great rivers Ganges, Indus, Nerbudda, Kistna, and
Jumna afforded employment to thousands of boatmen, and were utilised for rafting
down building-timber from the immense forests ; while cities naturally sprang up on
the banks of rivers which were trade routes and highways, and thus the Ganges-Jumna
Valley contains some of the principal cities of architectural importance. Delhi, the "
Rome of India," covering nearly fifty square miles, was the capital of the Mogul
Emperors (p. 85o), and its importance was undoubtedly due to its commanding
position at the junction of the four historic roads from the Lower Ganges, the Hindu
Kush, the Indus Valley, and the Gulf of Cambay. Delhi is the centre of India, as London
is of England, and after having been in succession the capital of Hindu, Mahometan,
and Mogul Empires, it has now recently been created the capital of the Empire of India.
On the Western Ghats along the coast-line there are rock-cut temples, which in their
capitals and columns suggest the influence of Egypt, Persia, and Assyria. The Greek
Bactrian Kingdom in the north-west had considerable influence on the architecture,
primarily of the Gandhara district, whence it spread over Northern India. The
comparatively open country on the east coast was more accessible to civilisation, so
that the ancient dynasties of Southern India fixed their capitals there, rather than on
the west coast, where there is only a narrow strip of lowland between the Ghats and
the seaboard, so that the inhabitants remain, even to this day, aloof from civilising
movements. The map (p. 785) with its diagrams taken from Choisy's " Histoire de
l'Architecture," indicates the different type of building characteristic of each district of

India.
II. Geological.The excellent building stone in the centre of the peninsula, and in the
hill country generally, influenced Indian architecture from the earliest times. The
famous pink marble of Rajputana, used in the buildings at Delhi and Agra, the "trap "
and granite of the Deccan, the sandstone of certain districts, and the volcanic potstone
of Hullabid, all contributed to develop those characteristics which are peculiar to the
different localities. In Western India the rock-cut " Chaityas " of the Buddhists were
produced in the actual geological formation ; for they were carved in the horizontal
strata of the living rock, where it rises sheer from the ground in perpendicular cliffs. At
Mahavellipore and Ellora, the Dravidian rock-cut temples, known as " Raths," were
hewn out of the amygdaloidal trap formations. Teak, the principal timber of the country,
is found on the Eastern and Western Ghats, and in the Himalayas while besides ebony
and bamboo there are the palms, which grow mostly on the lowlands of the coast, and
supply food, drink, clothing, and building material to the natives. In the low-lying plains
of Bengal, the alluvial soil was the only material available for building, which, made into
bricks, was used extensively in this district. Terra-cotta seems to have been employed
in early times, and the ease with which plastic clay was pressed into moulds may be
responsible for some of the exuberance of ornament in later periods. Lime for building
was obtained by burning limestone, shells, and kankar, a nodular form of impure lime
found in river valleys.
III. Climatic.India lies mostly within the tropics, and two principal seasons, wet and
dry, divide the year. Here, as in Egypt, Assyria, and Persia, flat terraced roofs for
coolness, exercise, and sleeping are the rule. The use of the great fan, or punkah, is an
indication of the intense heat, which influenced the size and treatment of architectural
openings ; thus the pierced screen or lattice window, which is so characteristic a
feature of Indian as of all Eastern art, was designed to excude the light and heat
caused by the constant sunshine. Canals, reservoirs, and tanks, which are conspicuous
in connection with the plans both of temples and palaces, were necessary for irrigation
and water-storage during the dry season.
IV. Religious.The Early Vedic religion, of which the " Rig-Veda " a collection of
poems addressed to the godsforms the literary memorial, had existed in the sixth
century before our era, and long before the rise of Buddhism.

Buddhist.Gotama or Buddha, the " Enlightened " (B.C. 623543), who, from the
age of thirty-five, spent his life in preaching his new-found faith, was the founder of
Buddhism, the religion which was the first great bond of union among the Indian races.
The Emperor Asoka (B.C. 272227) adopted Buddhism, and made it the state
religion, as Constantine did with Christianity in the West, and so it remained for nearly
a thousand years till A.D. 750. To his reign can be traced the historical architecture of
India, an architecture of religion, in which, however, sacred buildings were originally
not temples to gods, but monasteries or memorial shrines to holy men. The great
Buddhist monastery of Nalanda, south of Patna, accommodating 10,000 priests, existed
for the first five hundred years of our era, and corresponded to the European
monasteries of the Middle Ages, attracting and disseminating all the learning of the
age. The Chinese pilgrims to India in A.D. 400 and A.D. 630 have left interesting
descriptions of their visits to this and other buildings. The tenets of Buddhism are
inscribed on monuments at Buddh-Gaya, Bharbut, and on " topes" and gateways at
Sanchi and elsewhere. Relic worship, which was an essential feature of the Buddhist
religion, necessitated the erection of " topes " or " dagobas " to contain relics of saints.
The non-Aryan peoples of India introduced tree and serpent worship, which is
responsible for many decorative emblems, such as seven-headed serpents, and the
celebrated " Bo-Tree " at Anuradhapura, Ceylon, has been worshipped for over two
thousand years.
Jaina.This religion, which seems to have been founded on Buddhism, rose to
importance about A.D. 1000, and a statue of one of the twenty-four Jinas or saints,
with its distinctive sign, such as a bull, elephant, monkey, crocodile, rhinoceros, or lion,
is placed in each temple. The extraordinary number of image cells, 236 in one building,
has led to the supposition that the Jams believed the particular saint to whom the
temple was dedicated was honoured in direct ratio to the number of his statues. They
also regarded temple-building as a virtue, ensuring a happy future state, and this led
to the endowment of temples by private individuals. These buildings are conspicuous
by numbers rather than by architectural importance.
Hindu.The modern Hindu religion, generally known as the Brahmanical, from the
name of the priestly. order, dates from about A.D. 750. It was a joint product of the
Vedic cult,. Buddhism, and Brahmanism, and was, in reality, a social league resting
upon caste, a complicated system of division of the people according to race,

occupation, and geographical position. The Hindu or Brahmanical religion broadly

divided the community into castes, viz.: (a) Brahmans, or priests, law-givers, poets,
and scientists ; (b) Rajputs, or landowners and soldiers ; (c) Vaisyas, or Aryan
agricultural settlers and craftsmen ; (d) Sudras, or serfs. Each caste became, as it
were, a trade guild to whose care was entrusted the manufactures, decorative arts, and
working in precious stones. There were few tombs built in this period, for the
Brahmanical doctrine of the transmigration of souls did not encourage tomb-building.
Monastic life had ceased with the decay of Buddhism, and therefore monasteries were
replaced by hypostyle halls, which sheltered pilgrims, and there were sacred lakes
occasionally surrounded by porticoes.
The Mahometan religion and the forms in architecture to which it gave rise in India are
considered under Indian Saracenie.
V. Social.The peoples of India consist of (a) The Non-Aryan tribes or aborigines ; (b)
the Aryan or Sanskrit-speaking race, which includes Brahmans and Raj puts ; (c)
Hindus, a mixed population formed of the above ; (d) Mahometan invaders. These
races have really never amalgamated, but have become mixed in varying degrees, and
have always remained subject to the unchanging conditions which characterise the
East. The chief dividing lines are those of religion and caste, rather than of race and
language, and this has naturally produced an architecture which shows little
progressive development ; while there is diversity and absence of unity between the
different styles in this vast peninsula. The tenure of land by feudal princes produced
enormous revenues which were largely spent in the erection of religious monuments for
self-gratification. Among the most intellectual class, the spiritual and contemplative
aspects of life overshadowed the practical and political, and even influenced
architecture, as is seen in the avoidance of constructive problems. Architecture, like
other records of events, is silent from the expiring years of Buddhism (A.D. 750) to the
commencement of the eleventh century. The " Mahawanso " of Ceylon, however, a
series of rock inscriptions, forms a historical record of that island from B.C. 250. The
subordination of human personality under the caste system, which divided people into
communities rather than into families, was not favourable to domestic architecture,
which remained in a rudimentary state. The Sanskrit grammar of Panini, compiled
about B.C. 350, is still the foundation of the study of the Aryan language. The epic
poems known as the " Mahabbarata " or chronicles of the Delhi Kings up to B.C. 1200,

and the " Ramayana," or story of the Aryan advance into Southern India about B.C.
1000, are works by the Brahmans that may be compared to Homer's " Iliad" and
Virgil's " AEneid." Sir W. Hunter's " Brief History of the Indian Peoples " forms an
excellent resume of Indian art and life.
VI. Historical.Alexander's conquests in North-West India (B.C. 327) (p. 67) brought
that country into touch with European and West Asiatic art ; thus Greek, Assyrian, and
Persian influences are apparent in the architectural detail of that region. The Greek
Bactrian Kingdom (B.C. 323130), which, along with India, fell to Seleukos Nikator,
one of Alexander's generals and founder of the Syrian monarchy, exercised
considerable Classical influence over Northern India. From the time of Alexander to the
time of Vasco da Gama (A.D. 1498) Europe had little direct influence on the East. The
Tartar or Scythic inroads from B.C. 126 to the fifth century of our era succeeded those
of the Greeks. The Mahometan invasion, in the thirteenth century, led to the adoption
of Saracenic features, thus producing an Indian version of that style. From A.D. 1746
British rule in India was being consolidated, until in A.D. 1858 the annexation to the
British Crown was effected by Royal proclamation, a historic event which has still
further promoted an intermingling of European and native art. The selection of Delhi as
the capital of the Indian Empire has given an opportunity for English and native talent
to produce public buildings in accord with Oriental surroundings and suitable for their
Imperial purpose.

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles23/architecture-140.shtml

World Heritage Monuments of India

Back

Stamps on World Heritage Monuments of India

In 1972, the General Conference of UNESCO adopted a resolution with overwhelming enthusiasm
creating thereby a Convention concerning the protection of the World Cultural and Natural
Heritage. The main objectives of the convention were to define the World Heritage in both cultural
and natural aspects; to enlist Sites and Monuments from the member countries which are of
exceptional interest and universal value, the protection of which is the concern of all mankind; and
to promote co-operation among all Nations and people to contribute for the protection of these
universal treasures intact for future generations.
The recorded sites on the World Heritage list now stands at 830 which includes both cultural and
natural sites, .and endowment that is shared by all mankind and the protection of which is our
primal concern: India is an active member State on the World Heritage from 1977 and has been
working in close co-operation with other International agencies like ICOMOS (International Council
of Monuments and Sites), IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources) and ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of preservation and Restoration of
Cultural Property).
The World Heritage has 22 Cultural and 5 Natural Sites from India.

MAP

The Cultural Sites

Agra Fort, Agra (1983)

Agra Fort represents the first major building project of Akbar, with remains of only a
few buildings built by him which now survive. Built on the site of an earlier castle in
AD 1565-1575, the fort, apart from other important units, contains Jahangiri Mahal,
Khass Mahal, Diwan-i-Khass, Diwan-i-Am, Machchhi Bhawan and Moti Masjid. Many
extant buildings were erected by Shah Jahan (AD 1630-1655). Of its four gates, the
most impressive is the Delhi Gate on the west.

Ajanta Caves (1983)

The world famous Ajanta Caves including the unfinished ones are thirty in number,
of which five (9, 10, 19, 26 and 29) are chaitya-grihas and the rest
are viharas (monasteries). After centuries of oblivion, these caves were discovered
in AD 1819. They fall into two distinct phases with a break of nearly four centuries
between them. All the caves of the earlier phase date between second century BCAD. The caves of the second phase were excavated during the supremacy of the
Vakatakas and Guptas.
A few paintings, which survive on the walls of Caves 9 and
10date back to the second century BC-AD. The second group
of the paintings started in about the fifth century AD and
continued for the next two centuries as noticeable in later
Caves. Caves 1, 2, 16 and 17 have remarkable paintings with
themes intensely religious in tone and centre around Buddha,
Bodhisattvas, incidents from the life of Buddha and the
jatakas. The paintings are executed on a ground of mudplaster in the tempera technique.

Ellora Caves (1983)

The magnificent group of rock-cut shrines of Ellora, representing three different
faiths, Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jaina were excavated during the period from fifth
to the thirteenth century AD. The Buddhist Caves (1 to 12) were excavated
between the fifth and the seventh centuries AD, when the Mahayana sects were
flourishing in the region. Important in this group
are Caves 5, 10 and 12.
The Brahmanical Caves numbering 13 to 29 are
mostly Saivite. Kailasa (Cave 16) is a remarkable
example of rock-cut temples in India on account of
its striking proportion, elaborate workmanship,
architectural content and sculptural I
ornamentation. There are two dhvaja-stambhas or pillars with flagstaff in the
courtyard. The grand sculpture of Ravana attempting to lift mount Kailasa, the
abode of Siva, with his full might is a landmark in Indian art.
The Jaina Caves (30 to 34) are massive, well-proportioned, decorated and mark the
last phase of the activity at Ellora

Taj Mahal, Agra (1983)

Taj on the right bank of River Yamuna, about 1.5km from the Agra fort, was built to
enshrine the remains of Arjumand Banu Begam entitled Mumtaj Mahal, the queen
of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. lts construction commenced in AD 1631 and
completed seventeen years later at an enormous cost and labour. The intricate
carvings and inlay work in marble enhance the beauty of Taj in which the emperor
was also buried by the side of his queen after his death. Unlike other Mughal
garden tombs, the mausoleum is situated at the northern end of a large rectangular
area with its central portion divided into a square garden. The Taj is entered
through a majestic gateway in the centre of the southern side where there is a
spacious quadrangle. The monument is considered to be an epitome of love and
one of the most flawless architectural creations of
the world.

Mahabalipuram Group of Monuments (1984)

Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram, the city of Mamalla, is named after the title of
great Pallava ruler Narasimhavarman-I (AD 630-668). It was a sea-port during the
time of Periplus (first century AD) and Ptolemy (AD 140) and many Indian colonists
sailed to South-East Asia through this port town. While there is some evidence of
architectural activity going back to the period of Mahendrayarman-I (AD 600-630),
the father of Mamalla, most of the monuments like rock-cut rathas, sculptured
scenes on open rocks like Arjuna's penance, the caves of Govardhanadhari and
Mahishasuramardini, the Jala-Sayana Perumal temple (the sleeping Mahavishnu or
Chakrin at the rear part of the Shore temple complex) are attributed to the period
of Narasimhavarman-I Mamalla.
The monolithic Dharmaraja, Arjuna and Draupadi rathas are
square on plan, the Bhima and Ganesa rathas are
rectangular and Sahadeva ratha apsidal. Though monolithic
sculpturing, both cut-in and cut-out, continued even during
later periods (Atiranachanda cave, Pidari rathas and Tigercave), the structural architecture was introduced on a grand
scale by Pallava Rajasimha (AD 700728), culminating in
erection of the world famous Shore temple. The later period
witnessed a few additions during the late-Pallava and Chola
times. The grandiose Vijayanagara phase here is
represented by the Raja Gopurams and the Sthala-Sayana
temple, juxtaposed to the carved boulder of Arjuna's penance.

Sun Temple, Konark (1984)

Konark is the Kainapara of the Periplus (first century AD) - an important port of the
Orissan coast. The most notable marvel is the stately Sun Temple, built in c. AD
1250, during the reign of the Eastern Ganga King Narasimhadeva-I (AD 12381264), to enshrine an image of Sun (Arka), the patron deity of the place. The entire
complex was designed in the form of a huge chariot drawn by seven spirited horses
on twelve pairs of exquisitely carved wheels. The sanctum symbolises the majestic
stride of the Sun-god and marks the culmination of the Orissan architectural style.
The walls of the temple contain superb carvings of divine, semi-divine, human and
animal figures amidst floral and geometric ornamentations. The vivacious kanyas,
dancers and musicians are remarkable for their sensuous modelling, pulsating with
human emotions which are absorbed in a variety of gestures and rhythmic actions.
Mighty simha-gajas welcome the visitor at the
porches
Images

Group of Monuments at Hampi (1986)

Hampi, on the southern bank of the Tungabhadra, once formed the seat of the
mighty Vijayanagara empire. The contemporary chroniclers who came from far off
countries like Arabia, Italy, Portugal and Russia visited the empire and have left
graphic and glowing accounts of the city. Monuments were built here between AD
1336 and 1570, from the time of Harihara I to that of Sadasiva Raya. Royal
buildings were raised by Krishnadeva Raya (AD 1509-1530). Hampi covers an area
of nearly 26 sq km and is enclosed by seven lines of fortifications. Within the
innermost enclosure extensive remains of the palace are noticed. Temples of this
city are noted for their large dimensions, florid ornamentation, bold and delicate
carvings, stately pillars, magnificent pavilions and sculptural depictions from the
Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
The largest extant temple is that of Pampapati
with magnificent entrance tower caused by
Krishnadeva Raya. The Vitthala temple is an
exellent example of Vijayanagara style. The
monolithic statues of Lakshmi, Narasimha and
Ganesa are massive and graceful. The Krishna
temple, Pattabhirama temple, Hazara
Ramachandra, Chandrasekhara temple and the Jaina temples are noteworthy. Some
temples are flanked on either side by storeyed mandapas. The audience hall of the
king, Zenana enclosure with a massive stone basement of the Queen's palace and
an ornate pavilion Lotus Mahal' are examples of secular architecture. The corner
towers, Dhananayaka's enclosure (treasury), Mahanavami Dibba with sculptured
panels, a variety of ponds, tanks, mandapas, elephant stables, pillared mandapas
are awe-inspiring.

Churches and Convents of Goa (1986)

Velha Goa (Goa) is famous for the most spectacular group of churches and
cathedrals built during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD. These include
Se Cathedral, Church and Convent of St. Francis of Assisi, Chapel of St. Catherine,
Basilica of Bom Jesus, Church of the Lady of Rosary and Church of St. Augustine.
The Church of St. Cajetan is modelled on the original design of St. Peter's Church in
Rome. The Church of Bom Jesus with its facade is decorated with Ionic, Doric and
Corinthian pilasters.
The paintings in the churches were done on wooden borders
and fixed between panels having floral designs as in the
chapels housing the tomb of St. Xavier, the arches above the
altars in the transept of the Se' Cathedral and in the nave on
either side of the main altar in the Church of St. Francis of
Assisi. There are delicately carved painted wooden statues
besides a few in stone to adorn the altars, depicting mostly
the saints, Mother Mary and Jesus on the cross.

Fatehpur Sikri, Agra (1986)

In honour of saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, the Mughal emperor Akbar, the great,
founded a magnificent city on Sikri ridge. In 1571 he ordered the construction of
buildings for his own use and asked the noblemen to built houses for themselves.
Within a year, most of the work was finished and within the next few years, a well
planned city with administrative, residential and religious buildings came into
existence.
The Jami Mosque was perhaps among the first buildings to
come up. Its epigraph provides AH 979 (AD 1571-1572)
as the date of its completion. The Buland Darwaza was
added some five years later.
Among other important buildings are the tomb of Shaikh
Salim Chishti, the Naubat-or-Naqqar Khana (drum-house),
Taksal (mint), Karkhanas (royal workshops), Khazana
(treasury), Hakim's quarters, Diwan-i-Am (hall of public
audience), house of Maryam also called Sunahra Makan
(Golden House), palace of Jodha Bai, Birbal's house etc.

Khajuraho Group of Monuments (1986)

Khajuraho, the ancient Kharjjuravahaka, was the principal seat of authority of the
Chandella rulers who adorned it with numerous tanks, scores of lofty temples of
sculptural grace and architectural splendour. The local tradition lists eighty-five
temples but now only twenty-five are standing examples in various stages of
preservation. But for Chausath-Yogini, Brahma and Mahadeva which are of granite,
all the other temples are of fine grained sandstone, buff, pink or pale yellow in
colour. The Lakshmana temple dedicated to Vishnu built byYasovarman (AD 954), is
an ornate and evolved example.
The Visvanatha, Parsvanatha and Vaidyanatha
temples belong to the time of king Dhanga, the
successor of Yasovarman. The Jagadambi and
Chitragupta are noteworthy among the western
group of temples. The largest and grandest temple
of Khajuraho is the immortal Kandariya Mahadeva
which is attributed to king Ganda (AD 1017-1029).
The other examples that followed viz., Vamana, Adinatha, Javari, Chaturbhuj and
Duladeo, are smaller but elaborately designed. The Khajuraho group of temples are
noted for lofty terraces (jagati) and functionally effective plans. The sculptures of
divine and semidivine being win universal admiration for their delicate modelling.
Youthful female forms with their ravishing attire and ornaments also embrace the
winsome grace and charm.

Elephanta Caves (1987)

Elephanta anciently known as Gharapuri, the island capital of Konkan Mauryas, is
celebrated for its colossal image of Mahesamurti with three heads each
representing a different form.
In fact, there are seven caves out of which the
most important is the Mahesamurti cave. The main
body of the cave, excluding the porticos on the
three open sides and the back isle is 27 metres
square and is supported by rows of six columns
each. The gigantic figures of dvarapalas or
doorkeepers here are very impressive.
There are sculptured compartments in this cave with remarkable images of
Ardhanarisvara, Kalyana-Sundara Siva, Ravana lifting Kailasa, Andhakari-murti
(slaying of Andhaka demon) and Nataraja Siva.

Great Living Chola Temples (1987, 2004)

The celebrated Saiva temple, appropriately called Brihadisvara and Dakshinameru,
is the grandest creation of the Chola emperor Rajaraja (AD 985-1012) at Thanjavur.
It was inaugurated by the king himself in his 19th regnal year and named it after
himself as Rajesvara Peruvudaiyar. Architecturally, it is the most ambitious
structural temple built of granite. The temple is within a spacious inner prakara of
240.90 m long (east-west) and 122m broad (north-south), with a gopura at the
east and three other ordinary torana entrances one at each lateral sides and the
third at rear.
The sikhara, a cupolic dome, is octagonal and rests
on a single block of granite, a square of 7.8m
weighing 80 tons. The
majestic upapitha and adhishthana are common to
all the axially placed entities like
the ardha, maha and mukha-mandapas and linked
to the main sanctum but approached through a
north-south transept across the ardha-mandapa which is marked by lofty sopanas.
The moulded plinth is extensively engraved with inscriptions by its royal builder who
refers to his many endowments, pious acts and organisational events connected to
the temple. The brihad-linga within the sanctum is 8.7m high. Life-size iconographic
representations on the wall niches and inner passages include Durga, Lakshmi,
Sarasvati and Bhikshatana, Virabhadra, Kalantaka, Natesa, Ardhanarisvara and
Alingana forms of Siva. The mural paintings on the walls of the lower ambulatory
inside are finest examples of Chola and later periods.
As an extension to the Brihadisvara temple of Thanjavur which was inscribed as
World Heritage site in 1987, two more Chola temples have been added to it. The
site now includes the three great eleventh and twelfth century Chola Temples, i.e.,
the Brihadisvara temple of Thanjavur, the temple of Gangaikondacholisvaram and
the Airavatesvara temple at Darasuram.
The Temple of Gangaikondacholisvaram, built by Rajendra I with its
53m vimana (sanctum tower) has recessed corners and a graceful upward curving
movement, contrasting with the straight and severe tower at Thanjavur. It has
massive, monolithic dvarapala statues guarding the entrances.
The Airavatesvara temple complex, built by Rajaraja II, at Darasuram features a
24m vimana and a stone image of Siva. The three Chola temples of Southern India
collectively represent an outstanding creative achievement in the architectural
conception of the pure form of the Dravida type of temple, sculpture and painting.

Group of Monuments at Pattadakal (1987)

Pattadakal is not only popular for Chalukyan architecture but it is also a holy place
for royal coronation, Pattadakisuvolal. Temples constructed here mark the blending
of the RekhaNagara-Prasada and the Dravida
Vimana styles of temple building.
The oldest temple at Pattadakal is Sangamesvara
built by Vijayaditya Satyasraya (AD 697733). It is
a simple but massive structure.
Virupaksha temple of the Chalukyan period served as a model for the Rashtrakuta
ruler to carve out the great Kailasa at Ellora. The sculptural art of the early
Chalukyas is characterised by grace and delicate details, the ceiling panels of the
navagrahas dikpalas, the dancing Nataraja, the wall niches containing Lingodbhava,
Ardhanarisvara, Tripurari, Varahavishnu, Trivikrama bear ample testimony to the
sculptor's skill as well as the cult worship in vogue. The narrative reliefs illustrating
certain episodes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata and Panchatantra
fitted well with these grand religious edifices.

Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi (1989)

Imposing Stupa-1 with four gateways and railings made Sanchi a world famous
Buddhist site. The original stupa of the Asokan times was enlarged and faced with
stones.lt is decorated with balustrades, staircases and an umbrella on top. Besides
this, other stupas, monolithic Asokan pillar, many other temples, monasteries and
sculptures are found scattered at Sanchi and its adjoining hills from the Mauryan
period to the twelfth century AD.
In the first century BC, the Andhra-Satavahanas
extended their sway over the eastern Malwa and
carved the elaborate gateways to Stupa 1 with the
stories of the life of Buddha who was worshipped
here in symbolic form. The inscriptions on the
gateways and railings record the donation made by the corporate guilds and
individuals.
From the second to the fourth century AD, Sanchi along with Vidisa came under the
Kushan and Kshatrapa rulers and subsequently passed on to the hands of the
Guptas when some temples were built and decorated with sculptures. Some shrines
and monasteries were also constructed during the seventh to the twelfth century
AD.

Humayun's Tomb; New Delhi (1993)

The first substantial example of a garden tomb on charbagh pattern with high
arches and double dome was erected by Humayun's queen Hamida Banu Begam
(Haji Begam) in AD 1569 at a cost of 15
lakh rupees (1.5 million).
The high rubble built enclosure is entered
through two lofty double-storeyed
gateways on the west and south. A
baradari (pavilion) occupies the centre of
the eastern wall and a hammam (bath
chamber) in the centre of northern wall.
The lofty mausoleum is in the centre of
the enclosure and rises from a podium
faced with a series of cells having arched
openings. Red sandstone and marble have been used for veneering. The central
octagonal chamber contains the cenotaph, encompassed by octagonal chambers at
the diagonals and arched lobbies on the sides. Their openings are closed with
perforated screens. Each side is dominated by three arches, the central one being
the highest. This plan is repeated on the second storey also. The roof surmounted
by a double dome (42.5m) of marble has pillared kiosks (chhatris) placed around it.
Several rulers of the Mughal dynasty lie buried here. Bahadur Shah Zafar had taken
refuge in this tomb with three princes during the first war of Independence (AD
1857).
On the southwestern side of the tomb is located Barber's tomb (Nai-ka-Gumbad)
which stands on a raised platform, reached by seven steps from the south. The
building is square on plan and consists of a single compartment covered with a
double-dome.
Details

Images

Qutb Complex, New Delhi (1993)

Qutb-Minar in red and buff sandstone is the highest tower in India. It has a
diameter of 14.32m at the base and about 2.75m on the top with a height of
72.5m.
Qutbu'd-Din Aibak laid the foundation of Minar in AD 1199 for
the use of the mu'azzin (crier) to give calls for prayer and
raised the first storey, to which were added three more
storeys by his successor and son-in-law, Shamsu'd-Din
IItutmish (AD 1211-1236). All the storeys are surrounded by
a projected balcony encircling the minar and supported by
stone brackets, which are decorated with honey-comb design,
more conspicuously in the first storey.
Numerous inscriptions in Arabic and Nagari characters in
different places of the minar reveal the history of Qutb.
According to the inscriptions on its surface it was repaired by Firuz Shah Tughlaq
(AD 1351-1388) and Sikandar Lodi (AD 1489-1517).
Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, to the north-east of minar was built by Qutbu'd-Din
Aibak in AD 1198. It is the earliest extant mosque built by the Delhi Sultans. It
consists of a rectangular courtyard enclosed by cloisters, erected with the carved
columns and architectural members of 27 Hindu and Jaina temples as recorded in
the inscription on the main eastern entrance. Later, a lofty arched screen was
erected and the mosque was enlarged by Shamsu'd-Din lItutmish and Alau'd-din
,Khalji. The Iron Pillar in the courtyard bears an inscription in Sanskrit in Brahmi
script of fourth century AD, according to which the pillar was set up as a
Vishnudhvaja (standard of god Vishnu) on the hill known as Vishnupada in memory
of a mighty king named Chandra. A deep socket on the top of the ornate capital
indicates that probably an image of Garuda was fixed into it.
The tomb of IItutmish was built in AD 1235. It is a plain square chamber of red
sandstone, profusely carved with inscriptions, geometrical and arabesque patterns
in Saracenic tradition on the entrances and the whole of interior.
Details

Images

Mountain RaiIways of India (1999, 2005)

Still operational today, these hill passenger railways crossing regions of great
beauty are outstanding examples of bold, ingenious engineering solutions for the
problem of establishing an effective rail link through a rugged, mountainous terrain.
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway opened in 1881, while the Nilgiri Mountain
Railway, though proposed in 1854, was begun in 1891 and completed in 1908 due
to the difficulty of the mountainous location which scales an elevation of 326m to
2,203m

Mahabodhi Temple,Bodhgaya (2002)

The Mahabodhi Temple Complex is one of the four holy sites related to the life of
the Lord Buddha, and particularly to the attainment of Enlightenment. The first
temple was built by Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century B.C., and the present temple
dates from the 5th or 6th centuries. It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples built
entirely in brick, still standing in India, from the late Gupta period

Prehistoric Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka (2003)

The Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka are in the foothills of the Vindhyan Mountains on
the southern edge of the Central Indian plateau. Within massive sandstone
outcrops, above comparatively dense forest, are five clusters of natural rock
shelters, displaying paintings that appear to date from the Mesolithic Period right
through the historical period. Excavations from time to time have shown that the
site had continuous cultural remains from
Palaeolithic to historic period.
The site of Bhimbetka spread over 10 km in length
has more than 700 rock shelters, of which over
400 have paintings. The natural setting with
geological formations with which the human
culture was associated is noteworthy. Bhimbetka reflects a long interaction between
people and the landscape, as demonstrated in the quantity and quality of its rock
art. It also got the evidence of living tradition in the form of art among the
aboriginals of the area.
The continuity of human settlement from the Lower Palaeolithic to Upper
Palaeolithic period is exhibited by array of stone tools with characteristic features.
Bhimbetka witnessed a drastic change in the Mesolithic Period in tool typology and
raw material.
Though Bhimbetka is known for prehistoric remains, evidence of Buddhist
structures in the form of small stupas have also been discovered. Some of the
caves also bear inscriptions datable to Maurya and Sunga period.

Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park(2004)

The impressive archaeological remains, located about fifty kms from Baroda
(Gujarat) are at the foot of the Pavagadh hill. It was a prosperous medieval capital
which ranked with other medieval capitals viz.,
Fatehpur Sikri and Vijayanagara.
The spectacular Pavagadh hill contains some of the
old rock formations of India. Champaner, with
impressive natural setting, encompasses vestiges of
prehistoric times, a hill fortress of early Hindu
capital and remains of the fifteenth century deserted medieval capital. A temple
atop the hill is dedicated to Kalikamata.
Khichi Chauhans conquered the city in the tenth century and the area remained
under their control till AD 1484. The oldest existing monuments including temples,
fortification and extensive water storage systems belong to this period. After
Muslim intervention Champaner was annexed by Musafarids of Gujarat in AD 1484.
During this phase the settlement was shifted to the foot of the hill and cradled the
deserted capital established by Mahmud Begharda interspersed with tanks,
waterways, walls, bastions and remnants of medieval military architecture.
The site, in total, offers a variety of built heritage components like armoury,
barracks, catapults, gates, fortifications, pavilions, religious structures both temples
and mosques, civic structures like stepped - wells, water storage system, bridge,
roads, residential and commercial precincts. The Jama Masjid and Nagina Masjid
are some of the outstanding examples to represent Gujarat regional style of
architecture.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Bombay (Formerly Victoria Terminus) (2004)

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly known as Victoria Terminus in Mumbai,
is an outstanding example of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture in India, blended
with themes deriving from Indian traditional architecture. The building, designed by
the British architect F.W. Stevens, became the symbol of Bombay as the Gothic
City and the major international mercantile port of India. The terminal was built
over ten years starting in 1878 according to a High Victorian Gothic design based
on late medieval Italian models. Its remarkable stone dome, turrets, pointed
arches, and eccentric ground plan are close to traditional Indian palace
architecture. It is an outstanding example of the meeting of two cultures as British
architects worked with Indian craftsmen to include Indian architectural tradition and
idioms forging a new style unique to Bombay.

Red Fort Complex, Delhi (2007)

The Red Fort Complex was built as the palace fort of Shahjahanabad - the new
capital of the 5th Mughal Emperor of India, Shahjahan (1628-58). It gets its name
from its massive enclosing walls of red sandstone. It is adjacent to an older fort,
the Salimgarh, built by Islam Shah Sur in 1546, with which it forms the Red Fort
Complex. The private apartments consist of a row of pavilions connected by a
continuous water channel, known as the Nahr-i-Behisht, or the Stream of Paradise.
The palace was designed as an imitation of paradise as described in the Koran; a
couplet inscribed in the palace reads, If there be a paradise on earth, it is here, it is
here'. The Red Fort is considered to represent the zenith of Mughal creativity which,
under the Emperor Shahjahan, was brought to a new level of refinement. The
planning of the palace is based on Islamic prototypes, but each pavilion reveals
architectural elements typical of Mughal building, reflecting a fusion of Persian,
Timurid and Hindu traditions The Red Fort's innovative planning and architectural
style, including its garden design, strongly influenced later buildings and gardens in
Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra and further afield. The monument's significance is further
enhanced by the importance of events that happened. Through its fabric, the
complex reflects all phases of Indian history from the Mughal period to
independence.
Details

Jantar Mantar, Jaipur (2010)

The Natural Sites

Manas Wildlife Sanctuary (1985) (Endangered Site)

Manas National Park is on the borders of the Indo-Gangetic and Indo-Malayan
biogeographical realms which give it great natural diversity. It lies on a gentle
alluvial slope in the foothills of the Himalayas, where wooded hills give way to
grasslands and tropical forest and is home to a great variety of wildlife, including
many endangered species such as the tiger, the pygmy hog, and the Indian
rhinoceros and elephant.

Kaziranga National Park (1985)

In the heart of Assam, this park is one of the last areas in eastern India
undisturbed by a human presence. It is inhabited by the world's largest population
of one-horned rhinoceroses, as well as many mammals, including tigers, elephants,
panthers and bears, and thousands of birds

Kealodeo National Park (1985)

Established as a national park on 10 March 1982. Previously the private duck
shooting preserve of the Maharaja of Bharatpur since the 1850's, the area was
designated as a bird sanctuary on 13 March 1956 and a Ramsar site in October
1981. The last big shoot was held in 1964 but the Maharajah retained shooting
rights until 1972. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985.
The reserve is one of the major wintering areas for large numbers of aquatic birds
from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China and Siberia. Some 364 species of birds,
including the rare Siberian crane, have been recorded in the park

Sundarbans National Park (1987)

The Sundarbans covers 10,000 sq. km of land and water (more than half of it in
India, the rest in Bangladesh) in the Ganges delta. It contains the world's largest
area of mangrove forests. A number of rare or endangered species live in the park,
including tigers, aquatic mammals, birds and reptiles

Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Park (1988, 2005)

Nanda Devi National Park is one of the most spectacular wilderness areas in the
Himalayas. It is dominated by the 7,800m peak of Nanda Devi, Indias second
highest mountain which is approached through the Rishi Ganga gorge, one of the
deepest in the world. No humans live in the Park which has remained more or less
intact because of its inaccessibility. It has a very diverse flora and is the habitat of
several endangered mammals, among them the snow leopard, serow, Himalayan
musk deer and bharal.

The Valley of Flowers is one of the two core zones, with nearby Nanda Devi
National Park, of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve. This remote park protects one
of the most beautiful mountain wildernesses of the western Himalayas, long
celebrated for its flowers. More than 600 Himalayan species grow there in an area
of less than 2,500 hectares. It is also the habitat of the endangered snow leopard
and rare Himalayan musk deer.

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