Arts and Crafts of India

Crafts of India

A thriving creative tradition requires two basic elements: a diverse ethnic mix bringing together the inspiration of a number of cultures, and a wide range of raw materials. The Indian subcontinent offers both: contained within its frontiers does an enormous variety of peoples inhabit a no-less-diverse physical and climatic environment. Throughout the centuries, as waves of foreigners swept through the land, drawn by the rich alluvial plains, the previous inhabitants retreated into the less-promising hills and scrubby jungles. At the fringes their ideas intermingled. India’s climate, ranging from tropical rain forest through arid sandy desert to the eternal Himalayan snows, provided a complete environmental spectrum for the rich variety of animals and plants needed to supply ivory, bone, leather, timber, bamboo and cane; the rock beneath the soil was also rich geologically.

The massive diamond-shaped territory that comprises modern India extends south into the ocean and north into the snowy heart of Asia, and projects eastwards to enfold Bangladesh. Geographically, India is divided into five parts: the Himalayan Mountains and their foothills to the north; a broad band south of these foothills, encompassing the extensive alluvial plains of Punjab and the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers; the rajasthan Desert in the west; the Deccan plateau – the core of peninsular India – a vast and ancient igneous mass tipped gently east (the western Ghats plunge to a slender coastal plain on its western margin); and the coastal plain, fringing the Deccan and including much of Gujarat. Partition in 1947, which created Pakistan as a shelter for the Muslims of the subcontinent, tore asunder several cultural entities, such as Punjab and Bengal; consequently and consideration of the cultural background of the region must allow for much overlap across modern political borders.

The overwhelming majority of Indians are descended from Indo-Aryans, peoples who seem to have originated in the Caucasus, spreading across the Iranian plateau through arid Baluchistan of mountainous Afghanistan and entering the rich plains along already well-worn routes. They settled the Indus basin and expanded throughout the Ganges basin, speaking a tongue sprung from the same root as most of those of Europe. They interbred with the native peoples just as later invaders interbred with them. Their languages are current throughout the Ganges basin, Punjab, Assam, Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Within this vast area, in the rougher terrain, can be found the older peoples, including the Bhils of south Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh; the Gonds of eastern Madhya Pradesh; and on the hills to the north and east the peoples of Mongolian extraction – Tibetans of Ladakh, Nepalis, Bhutas, Khasis, Mizos, Nagas and Mainpuris (the last three ill-at-ease with the Delhi Government) Most of their languages are completely distinct, bearing little relation to Sanskrit. The peoples of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerla and Tamil Nadu are Dravidian, one of the pre-Aryan races of India, who, retreating to the south, managed to resist the tides of later invaders- even the Mughals failed to conquer the tip of the peninsula. In their turn, the Dravidian peoples dislodged tribal folk such as the tiny Toda community, known for their characteristic ringlets and handsome black-and-white woven clothes, who cling on in the Nilgiri Hills.