THE GUIDED TOUR

The National Museum has over 200,000 objects, representing almost all disciplines
of art: sculptures in stone, bronze and terracotta, miniature and Tanjore paintings,
evolution of scripts, coins, decorative arts, jewellery, textiles, arms and armour,
manuscripts and anthropological objects. This museum was born in the Rashtrapati
Bhawan in 1949, and moved to this building in 1960. An exhibition of Indian
antiquities was held in London in 1949. On its return, the objects were exhibited in
the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The objects in this exhibition became the nucleus of the
National Museum.
I will be taking you on a quick tour of the galleries, stopping at major art objects,
the most significant or representative of the collections. In order to organise this
quick tour, we will skip a large number of beautiful and significant objects. Please
remember that this tour is only to introduce yourselves to the vast collection of the
museum – I would encourage you to return to the galleries after the Tour, or come
back later, to see the collection properly, and appreciate its vastness and depth. If I
am able to stimulate your interest in the collections, this little tour would have been
useful!
I will be happy to take questions at each stop, but you will understand that I may
have to reserve my answers on some questions for later, as our time at each stop is
limited.
I request you not to touch any of the objects or lean against the showcases.
The Harappan Gallery 1

Stop 1:Blow-up showing the four Ancient Civilizations

We start our tour here, in the Harappan Gallery, with one of the most important
collections of objects relating to the Indus Valley civilisation. The Indian sub
continent was home to an early civilization, around 5000 years ago. This civilisation
is comparable to the other early civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China. The
Harappan civilization spanned across a stretch of 1,600 km, along the Indus and
Saraswati rivers.

1
These footnotes are being added for the clarification of the VG and need not be mentioned unless asked.
Harappan is usually used interchangeably with ‘Indus Valley Civilization’
[Pointing to the script]Here, you can see an example of the script of that period.
However, this script has not yet been deciphered.
Stop 2: [At the map showing the major Harappan Civilization sites] This
great civilization lay undiscovered till 1921, when archaeological excavations were
carried out in Harappa and Mohenjodaro. But several other sites in India have since
been excavated in recent years, including Lothaland Dholavira in Gujarat, Kalibangan
in Rajasthan and Rakhigarhi in Haryana. [With the sweep of hand, showing]
Harappa and Mohenjodaro are now in Pakistan.
Stop 3: Standing at Showcase with the priest head

The Harappan civilization was a highlysophisticated and technologically advanced

one. It had planned cities with neatly planned roads and lanes,[pointing to the
blow-up of the township of Dholavira] as you can see here, a broad street in
Dholavira, one of the excavation sites and water reservoir.
We have evidence of a rich Bronze Age culture through artefacts that have been
discovered during excavations. This gallery has copper and bronze artefacts and
terracotta objects. These seals depictbulls, elephants, crocodiles, tigers and even
unicorns. Here is a depiction of Pasupati, or proto-Shiva.
Some of the most famous objects of Harappan art are the dancing girl and the Priest
head which we see in many text books.

Stop 4: The Dancing Girl

This beautiful piece is a masterpiece of Harappan Art. The
dancing girl is in bronze. It was excavated in Mohenjadaro.

Let’s take a look at this beautiful girl. Note the anatomical

detail. Her features are prominent, with large eyes, curly hair
and flat nose. She is nude, her hair is plaited, and she is
wearing jewellery – see the tiny necklace and the array of
bangles. Her pose seems to be related to dancing. This tiny
figure has been appreciated by scholars and laymen alike,
and has become an iconic image of the Harappan civilisation. Sir John Marshall, who
is credited with naming the ‘dancing girl’, found it difficult to believe that these
figures were more than 3000 years old. The figure is cast using the ‘lost wax’
method. This is an ancient process in which the artist makes a wax model, after
which a mould is created from this model, and finally, the sculpture is cast with
molten metal.

Stop 5: Harappan city of Dholavira (conjectural)

This is a city plan of Dholavira, a Harappan site. Dholavira is in Kutchh district of

Gujarat. The site is more than 250 acres in area. The roads and lanes were neatly
laid to cross each other at right angles. Some of the houses had open courtyards,
toilets, kitchens and living rooms, and a few had staircases leading to roof terrace
or upper storey. Most Harappan settlements were secured by defensive walls with
gateways. Each city was planned differently and a city was broadly divided into two
major sectors – the ‘citadel’, probably for the elite, and the ‘lower town’ meant for
the common public. The town had areas for shops and bazaars and for social
gatherings. There is archaeological evidence of fire-altars2, public baths, sewage and
drainage systems, dockyards, granaries and warehouses.
(Pointing to the pillar base) These are two pillar bases from Dholavira, which
give an idea of the size of the buildings.

(Walking past the pottery showcase) This is an example of pottery.We also

have beautifully decorated pottery that indicate high levels of artistic achievement.
The pottery were primarily in red-ware and grey-ware. (Pointing while walking
past) These are storage-jars, and these jars were probably for purifying water.
Stop 6: Terracotta showcase:

The gallery has some interesting terracotta images of animals, and of what is
probably a depiction of a mother goddess, perhaps symbolizing fertility.
(While walking towards the skeleton from Rakhigari point towards
‘Sarcophagus’ and ‘Burial Urns’) Archaeologists are of the view that both burial
and cremation were practised in the Harappan period. This is a coffin for a child
(pointing towards the ‘Sarcophagus’) and these are burial urns for adults.

In Lothal and Kalibangan

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Stop 7: skeleton from Rakhigari
Rakhigari is an archeological site near Hissar in Haryana. This skeleton is one of the
eleven excavated from the site. An interesting feature is that all skeletons were
discovered with their faces pointing to the north. You can see that this female
skeleton has shell bangles on her hands, and there are a number of pottery items
placed around her. This portrays that the Harappans believed in life after death.

(At the Mauryan Gallery)

We are now in a gallery that displays art objects from Mauryan, Shungan and
Satavahana periods.

Stop 8: At the blow-up of the Lion-Capital

A question very frequently asked is about the large gap between the Indus Valley
Civilization and the Mauryan period, a period of around 1,700 years, approximately
from 2000 B.C.E to 300 B.C.E.
There is a lack of archaeological evidence during this period. There is evidence of
the population moving from the Indus Valley cities to small settlements – hamlets –
doing subsistence farming and herding and in the proximity of forests. Lack of
agriculture surplus, lack of royal patronage, use of materials like wood that could not
survive climatic conditions, would have contributed to the lack of archaeological
evidence. Historians consider this one of the most intellectually fertile phases of
history. For example, the philosophy of Upanishads was established during this
period.This was the period of Shakyamuni Buddha and Vardhamana Mahavira,
founders of the two great religions, Buddhism and Jainism.
The Mauryan empire, from 4thto 3 rd century BCE, covered most of the subcontinent
and beyond India. Art and architecture flourished during the Mauryan empire. We
have many wonderful objects of Mauryan Art, the most famous being the national
emblem of India, the sandstone lion capital of Sarnath, now in the Sarnath Museum
in UP. This Capital was originally erected around 250 BCE atop a pillar erected by
emperor Ashoka. The capital contains four lions, standing back to back, mounted
on an abacus, with a frieze[point it out] carrying sculptures in high relief of an
elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion, separated by intervening spoked
chariot-wheels over a bell-shaped lotus. It is carved out of a single block of polished
sandstone. The Indian emblem does not have the inverted lotus.
Mauryan sculpture is characterised by the use of chunar sandstone and mirror like
polish. The probable reason for such masterly art has been attributed to the
Achaemenian sculptors who fled from Persepolis when Alexander the great sacked
the city and the sculptors took shelter in the Mauryan court.3

Mauryan stone art was also distinguished for its monumental size and very fine and
precise execution. All Mauryan sculptures, including the monolithic pillars, were
executed in hard sand stone mostly quarried at Chunar near Varanasi. Mauryan art,
particularly the pillars and animal figures, were greatly influenced by Persia, but is
clearly distinguishable from them and in some respects superior to them.
(Point towards the Mauryan Heads)
Going by the features, the mopped hair combed backwards and a band on his
forehead, it is evident that the sculpture is that of a foreigner who commanded not
only respect but a sculptural tribute.
Stop 9: Ground plan and elevation of the Stupa.

(Point out) Please see the plan of the Stupa. One enters through the Torana, the
gateway, and the dome is enclosed by the vedika, the railing. The dome is mounted
by a series of umbrellas, the chatravali.

This is an example of Shunga period sculpture depicted on a coping stone from

Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh. The sophisticated and monumental style of the Mauryan
period was followed by a simpler, folk style under the Shunga dynasty, which was
from 2nd to 1st century BCE. The sculpture of the Shunga period was used to
decorate stupas at Bodh Gaya, Bharhut and Sanchi. Most of these works of art
depict scenes from the life of the Buddha, or the Jataka stories.

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(i) The evidence to support this probability can be seen in the pillar
hall/Chandragupta-sabha. The remains of which are preserved in the
archaeological site called ‘Kumrahar’ in Patna, Bihar.
From rounded sculptures, we now have a horizontal sculpture in low relief.This
fragment of the coping stone from Bharhut presents the last episode of Buddha’s
life, related to the end of his mortal remains. The relics were distributed equally in
eight parts by a Brahmin, Drona and transported to various kingdom by the kings
themselves with great pomp and show, as seen. The elephants here are mounted on
top with the kings balancing the casket with the relics on their heads.

Stop 10: Railing pillar [Vedika] depicting Asita’s visit

and the one next to it.

Around this time, the Satavahana dynasty, from 2nd BCE to

2nd CE, dominated the Deccan, and their rule continued for
more than four centuries after the Shunga dynasty had
declined in the 1st century B.C.E. The sculptures at
Amaravati, in Andhra Pradesh, finely carved out of soft
green limestone.
This beautiful fragment is from the railing around the great Buddhist stupa at
Amaravati. Amaravathi, on the banks of the river Krishna, was one of the most
important centres of Buddhism in southern India. The inner face of the railing pillar
– as seen here- was the face which would have been seen by devotees performing
pradakshina or circumambulation. You can see here the story of Asita, an elderly
sage who went to see the baby Siddhartha and he predicted that the boy will be a
great ‘monarch’ or a great ‘monk’. Siddhartha is indicated only symbolically, by
footprints on the cloth held by Asita in the centre. There is no physical image shown.
As you will see here [the next sculpture] Buddha was symbolised by a dharma
wheel, empty throne, footprints and other symbols like the Bodhi tree, umbrella,
lotus, until the first century CE..

[Walking up to and in front of ] Stop 11: Standing Buddha

The Kushan empire ruled large parts of north India and beyond
from the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. It was during this period that the
Buddha was first shown in human form. The main centres of
artistic activity under Kushana rule were Gandhara and Mathura. The Gandhara style
was influenced by ancient Greek iconography and the themes were primarily
Buddhist.

This magnificent work is carved in grey schist stone, around the 2nd century C.E. The
standing Buddha shows the influence of Greek art. The facial features and the curly
hair are typical of this style. Notice the long flowing drapery placed loosely on the
body with heavyfolds. The right hand, which is largely lost, was in abhaya mudra
[demonstrate it], a typical feature of the standing images of Buddha. He is holding
the hem of the robe in his left hand.

(While standing between the shiva linga and kubera and pointing out
each object)
The Mathura style drew inspiration from images of folk deities, called yakshas and
yakshis. The themes were Brahmanical, Buddhist or Jain. An example of
Brahmanical art is Chaturmukhi Shivalinga with four faces and here are Bodhisattva4,
an example of Buddhist art, and a Jain Votive plaque, an example of Jain art.
Mathura sculptures, as can be seen, were made of spotted red sandstone.

4
Bodhisattva is an enlightened being who assists others to attain enlightenment