Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
In simple wordsImagine a city whose people left no readable books — but left their jewellery boxes, toys, kitchen pots, office stamps and a few prized statues. This chapter is a walk through that city’s museum, asking what each object tells us about the people who made and used it.
Chapter 1 showed art made by hunter-gatherers on rock. This chapter jumps to India’s first cities — the Indus Valley or Harappan civilisation — and to art made by specialist craftspeople: carvers, metal-casters, potters, seal-cutters and bead-makers. It is short and object-centred: each section takes one medium and its best examples. Because the script is unread, every identification (‘priest’, ‘mother goddess’, ‘Pashupati’) is a modern guess, and we present them as such.
Links in this book: Chapter 1 (rock paintings) comes before; Chapter 3 (Arts of the Mauryan Period) is the next great phase of stone sculpture; Chapter 7 (Indian Bronze Sculpture) returns to lost-wax casting with the Chola bronzes.
Links to Themes in Indian History: Theme One (Bricks, Beads and Bones) covers the same civilisation from the archaeologist’s side — subsistence, town planning, craft production, seals and script, authority and the ‘priest-king’ debate. Read the two together: this chapter for the objects as art, Theme One for what they tell historians.
UPSC: GS1 art and culture and ancient history. Prelims has asked about the ‘Dancing Girl’ (bronze, 2025), the animals on seals (2001), the script (1982) and male and female deities (2013). Mains has asked about Harappan town planning and architecture (2014, 2025), which Theme One covers.
Word
What it means here
Harappan / Indus Valley
Two names for the same civilisation; ‘Harappan’ after Harappa, the first site found
Steatite (soapstone)
A soft stone, easy to carve; used for most seals and the bearded bust
Terracotta
‘Baked earth’ — clay shaped and fired
Bronze
An alloy of copper (mainly) and tin, good for casting
Lost-wax casting
Making a metal figure from a wax model whose clay mould is emptied of wax and filled with metal
Intaglio
A design cut into a surface, so that pressing it gives a raised image
Faience
A glazed paste of ground sand or quartz, fired to a glossy finish (Beyond NCERT definition)
Slip
A thin coat of fine liquid clay on a pot before firing
Polychrome
Painted in several colours
Trefoil
A three-lobed, clover-like motif
Fillet
A band worn around the head
Burin
A sharp engraving tool
Amulet
A small object worn for protection or luck
The chapter’s dates drawn to scale against the mature Harappan phase given in Themes in Indian History I.
Reading NCERT’s chapter-opening seal photograph (page 9)A golden-brown square seal, shown face-on: a row of signs across the top; below, a bull-like animal in profile with a single long horn curving forward (the ‘unicorn’), a patterned collar or harness over its shoulders and a heavy body; in front of it a tall object on a stem. What to notice: the standard seal layout — script above, animal below, object in front — and the careful modelling of muscle in a very small space.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Map of Indus Valley sites’ (printed at the end of Chapter 1)An outline map, not to scale, shading the zone of the civilisation from the north-west through Sindh and Punjab to Gujarat, with ancient cities marked by dots: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Kot Diji, Amri, Chanhu-daro, Kalibangan, Banawali, Rakhigarhi-area sites, Ropar, Alamgirpur, Lothal, Rangpur, Rojdi, Surkotada and, furthest south, Daimabad. What to take away: the civilisation spread far beyond the Indus itself — east to the Yamuna (Alamgirpur) and south to Maharashtra (Daimabad).
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
Indus art: second half of the 3rd millennium BCE; media — stone, bronze, terracotta, seals, pottery, beads; realism in human and animal figures.
Stone: steatite bearded ‘priest’ bust (trefoil shawl, fillet, half-closed eyes) and red sandstone torso (sockets for head and arms).
Bronze by lost wax: ‘Dancing Girl’ (Mohenjodaro, ~4 inches), buffalo, goat, bull; Lothal copper dog and bird; Kalibangan bull; Daimabad (late Harappan).
Terracotta: crude human forms; ‘mother goddess’ figurines with fan-shaped head-dress; bearded males; horned-deity mask; toys and whistles.
Pottery: mostly wheel-made; plain > black-painted on red slip; polychrome, incised, perforated rare. Beads: factories at Chanhudaro, Lothal; spindle whorls; cinnabar, collyrium.
1. The civilisation and its art
In simple wordsThe Harappans built planned towns with straight streets and covered drains — and the same care shows in their small things: a seal no bigger than a stamp, a bead drilled through hard stone, a toy bull with a nodding head.
Indus Valley art emerged in the second half of the third millennium BCE. Its forms include sculptures, seals, pottery, jewellery and terracotta figures. NCERT credits the artists with fine sensibility and vivid imagination: human and animal figures are highly realistic, anatomical details are distinctive, and terracotta animals are modelled with special care.
The two great cities — Harappa in the north and Mohenjodaro in the south — are among the earliest examples of civic planning: houses, markets, storage, offices and public baths on a grid pattern, with a highly developed drainage system. Harappa and Mohenjodaro are in present-day Pakistan; important sites excavated in India include Lothal and Dholavira (Gujarat), Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Ropar (Punjab) and Kalibangan (Rajasthan).
Every site the chapter names, with the objects or evidence it links to each.NCERT’s verdict on each medium, side by side.
Small slips in NCERT’s introduction
NCERT puts both cities ‘along the Indus river’. Mohenjodaro is on the Indus; Harappa is on the Ravi, a tributary (Beyond NCERT). For maps, use the Ravi.
The chapter calls terracotta humans crude ‘in the Indus Valley’ but ‘more realistic in Gujarat sites and Kalibangan’ — which are also Harappan sites. Read it as: cruder in the core cities, more realistic at some outlying sites.
Beyond NCERT
Dholavira (Kachchh, Gujarat) was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021; UPSC 2021 tied it to an elaborate water-harvesting system.
Harappa was the first site identified (1921, Daya Ram Sahni), hence ‘Harappan’; Mohenjodaro was found in 1922 by R.D. Banerji (UPSC 1991) — see Theme One.
2. Stone statues: the bearded bust and the torso
In simple wordsOnly a handful of stone statues survive, but they show sculptors who understood how to make a solid figure feel alive from every side — not just a flat carving on a wall.
Statues in stone, bronze or terracotta are not abundant but refined. The stone figures from Harappa and Mohenjodaro handle three-dimensional volume well. Two male figures are much discussed: a torso in red sandstone and a bust of a bearded man in soapstone (steatite).
The bearded bust. Interpreted as a priest, the man wears a shawl passing under the right arm and over the left shoulder, decorated with trefoil patterns. The eyes are slightly elongated and half-closed, as if in meditation; the nose is well formed; the mouth is of average size with a close-cut moustache, short beard and whiskers; the ears look like double shells with a hole in the middle. The hair is parted in the middle, with a plain woven fillet round the head. An armlet is on the right arm, and holes round the neck suggest a necklace.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Bust of a bearded priest’ (page 9)A pale cream stone bust against a dark red background, seen in three-quarter view: a narrow head with a headband, heavy-lidded half-closed eyes, a straight nose, a neatly combed beard with the upper lip shaved, and a robe over the left shoulder covered with raised trefoil (three-lobed) motifs; the right shoulder is bare. What to notice: symmetry, calm and formality, the trefoil cloth, and the way the robe leaves one shoulder bare — the same way of wearing a shawl that NCERT later describes for ordinary dress.
‘Priest’ or ‘priest-king’? — a label, not a factNCERT says the figure is ‘interpreted as a priest’. Popularly it is the ‘priest-king’. Theme One explains why historians are cautious: the name came from archaeologists who knew Mesopotamia’s priest-kings; Harappan rituals are poorly understood and no text tells us who this was. In answers write ‘the bearded figure often called the priest-king’. Beyond NCERT: it was found at Mohenjodaro and is now in the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi.
The male torso. In red sandstone, it has socket holes in the neck and shoulders for attaching a separate head and arms. The frontal pose was chosen deliberately; the shoulders are well rounded and the abdomen slightly prominent.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Male Torso’ (page 17)A smooth, polished torso photographed in purplish light, headless and armless: round sockets at the neck and shoulders, softly modelled chest and a gently swelling belly, standing straight and frontal. What to notice: naturalistic, fleshy modelling — surprisingly lifelike for its age — and the composite construction (separate parts fitted together). NCERT’s caption says the shoulders are ‘well baked’ — a slip, since stone is not baked; read it as ‘well rounded’.
Beyond NCERT
The red sandstone torso is from Harappa and is in the National Museum, New Delhi.
Its naturalism is so striking that some scholars once doubted it was Harappan at all; it is still usually treated as Harappan. Mention the doubt only if the question invites it.
3. Bronze casting and the lost-wax method
In simple wordsTo cast a metal figure, you first make it in wax. Wrap it in clay, heat it so the wax runs out, and you are left with a perfect hollow in its shape. Pour in molten metal, let it cool, break the clay — and the wax figure has become metal. The wax is ‘lost’, hence the name.
Harappans practised bronze casting on a wide scale, using the lost-wax technique: wax figures were coated with clay and dried; the wax was heated and the molten wax drained out through a tiny hole in the clay; the hollow mould was filled with molten metal, which took the original shape; when the metal cooled, the clay was removed.
The five stages of lost-wax casting. A generic schematic of the method, not of any particular object.
⤵ Lost-wax casting, step by step (NCERT)
Model in waxthe figure is first made in wax
Coat with clayand allow it to dry
Melt out the waxheat it; drain the wax through a tiny hole
Pour in metalmolten metal fills the hollow mould
Remove the clayonce cool, the metal figure is revealed
What was cast. Human and animal figures. The best human example is the girl popularly called the ‘Dancing Girl’. Among animals, the buffalo with uplifted head, back and sweeping horns, and the goat are of artistic merit. Casting was popular at all the major centres: the copper dog and bird of Lothal and the bronze bull of Kalibangan are as good as the human figures from Harappa and Mohenjodaro. Metal casting was a continuous tradition: late Harappan and Chalcolithic sites such as Daimabad (Maharashtra) yielded excellent cast human and animal figures, and NCERT’s margin note says the same technique is still practised in many parts of India.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Dancing Girl’ (page 16)A slender dark-metal figure about four inches high, standing with weight on one leg: the right hand on the hip; the left arm covered with bangles almost to the shoulder; a bracelet and an amulet or bangle on the right arm; a cowry-shell necklace; long hair tied in a bun; large eyes and a flat nose. In the photograph the left hand hangs down by the left knee; NCERT reads it as clasped in a traditional dance gesture. What to notice: the relaxed, confident pose (one hip out), the long limbs, and the sense of movement — ‘expression and bodily vigour’.
Copper or bronze? — an NCERT inconsistencyThe text calls the Dancing Girl a bronze statue; the caption on page 16 calls it a ‘copper figure’. UPSC 2025 asked exactly this, with options carnelian, clay, bronze and gold — the answer is bronze. Use ‘bronze’. Also: ‘Dancing Girl’ is a popular title; we do not know that she is dancing.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Bull’ (page 16)A dark, heavy metal animal on a small base against a red background: thick legs, a massive body, the head turned towards the viewer’s right, with a cord round the neck. The caption praises the ‘massiveness’ and the ‘fury of the charge’. What to notice: weight and energy conveyed with very little detail — volume does the work. (NCERT says this bull is from Mohenjodaro; the text separately mentions a bronze bull from Kalibangan — do not merge the two.)
Beyond NCERT
The Dancing Girl is in the National Museum, New Delhi.
The Daimabad hoard (Ahmednagar district) includes a bronze chariot with a rider drawn by two oxen, and an elephant, a rhinoceros and a buffalo.
Lost-wax casting continues in Dhokra metalwork of central and eastern India and reaches its classic height in Chola bronzes (Chapter 7).
4. Terracotta: figurines, masks and toys
In simple wordsClay was cheap and everywhere, so terracotta was the art of ordinary homes — little figures with heavy jewellery, a mask, a cart with wheels, a whistle, a bird you could pull along. Rougher than bronze, but far more common.
Compared with stone and bronze, Indus terracotta human figures are crude — more realistic at Gujarat sites and Kalibangan. The most important are the female figures called mother goddesses. There are also a few bearded males with coiled hair, rigidly upright, legs slightly apart, arms parallel to the body; because this figure is repeated in exactly the same position, NCERT suggests he was a deity. A terracotta mask of a horned deity has been found. Terracotta was also used for toy carts with wheels, whistles, rattles, birds and animals, gamesmen and discs.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Mother goddess, terracotta’ (pages 10 and 17 — the same photograph)A reddish-orange clay standing female figure: a tall fan-shaped head-dress with a cup-like projection on each side, several heavy necklaces hanging over the chest, a girdle and loin cloth; tiny pellet eyes, a beak-like nose and a slit mouth. NCERT’s page-17 note lists exactly these features. What to notice: the face is summary and crude, the ornament is elaborate — attention went to adornment, not likeness.
‘Mother goddess’ — a debated identificationNCERT calls these figures mother goddesses. Theme One reminds us that early archaeologists tended to label unfamiliar objects as religious; such figurines might have been cult images, votive offerings, fertility charms or even toys. In answers: ‘female figurines, often identified as mother goddesses’. UPSC 2013 accepted that the Harappans worshipped both male and female deities — the standard textbook view — so tick that statement, but don’t overstate certainty in Mains.
Reading NCERT’s ‘A terracotta figurine’ (page 10)A pale, weathered clay head and upper body: a calm oval face with downcast or closed eyes, a band of beads or a necklace below the chin, and a broken, fan-like head-dress on one side. What to notice: a gentler, more naturalistic face than the mother-goddess type — evidence that terracotta quality varied.
Reading NCERT’s terracotta photographs (page 11)
Left: a clay bird-like figure fixed between two wheels on an axle peg — a pull-toy, matching ‘toy carts with wheels’.
Right (‘Terracotta’): a group of small figurines — standing females with pinched faces, head-dresses and ornaments, a seated figure, and an animal head. What to notice: hand-modelling by pinching and adding pellets of clay.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Terracotta toys’ (page 15)Two small clay animals: above, a humped bull with a short body and stubby legs; below, a reddish four-legged animal with a long face and pricked ears (possibly a dog). What to notice: animals reduced to a few simplified, solid forms yet instantly recognisable — NCERT’s ‘simplified motifs of animals’.
Beyond NCERTSome terracotta toy animals were made with movable heads — another sign that many small clay figures were playthings. Theme One also notes clay models of a plough (Banawali, Cholistan) — useful evidence of farming.
5. Seals and copper tablets
In simple wordsA seal is like a rubber stamp in stone. Press it into wet clay over a sack’s knot and you leave a mark that says ‘this is mine’ or ‘checked by me’. Indus seals carry a small animal picture and a few signs — the world’s most beautiful stamps, in a script nobody can yet read.
Archaeologists have found thousands of seals, mostly of steatite, occasionally of agate, chert, copper, faience and terracotta, and some of ivory. They show animals — unicorn bull, rhinoceros, tiger, elephant, bison, goat, buffalo — and the bull with or without a hump, and also monsters, sometimes trees or human figures; the realistic rendering of animals in various moods is remarkable. NCERT’s ‘standard’ seal is a square steatite plaque, ‘2×2 square inches’, engraved with a pictographic script yet to be deciphered. Figures are carved in intaglio.
Purpose. Seals were made mainly for commerce; they also seem to have been used as amulets carried by their owners — perhaps like modern identity cards.
How a stamp seal works: an intaglio face, a pierced back, and a raised, mirror-image impression. Generic schematic.
⤵ A seal’s working life
Cutsteatite square; animal and signs carved in intaglio
Carryworn or carried by its owner — perhaps as an amulet or ID
Pressinto clay on goods or containers (Beyond NCERT: such clay pieces are ‘sealings’)
Markthe raised impression identifies owner or sender in trade
Reading NCERT’s ‘Unicorn seals’ (page 12)Two square seals, one white and one cream, each with three or four signs across the top and a one-horned bull facing an upright, layered object on a stand. In one the animal faces left, in the other right — reminding you that seal and impression are mirror images (one may be a modern impression). What to notice: the harness-like lines on the shoulder, the fine, deep cutting and the balanced layout.
The ‘Pashupati’ seal. The most remarkable seal shows a figure in the centre with animals around. Some scholars call it the Pashupati seal; others identify the figure as a female deity. The figure sits cross-legged. An elephant and a tiger are on the figure’s right; a rhinoceros and a buffalo on its left; two antelopes below the seat. Such seals date from 2500–1900 BCE and were found in large numbers at sites such as Mohenjodaro.
Where NCERT places each animal, and the competing identifications. A layout grid, not a picture of the seal.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Pashupati seal/female deity’ (page 12)A grey, worn square: signs across the top; at the centre a figure seated on a low seat with knees spread and feet drawn in, wearing a large head-dress with two curving horns and many bangles on the arms; animals crowd around — an elephant and a tiger on the viewer’s left, a rhinoceros and a buffalo on the right — and small animals below. What to notice: symmetry around a central figure, the yogic-looking posture, and the crowding of animals — the visual basis for the ‘lord of animals’ reading. Note: NCERT says ‘right side of the seated figure’ — that is the viewer’s left.
Exam traps on seals
The cow is not shown on Harappan seals or terracotta; elephant, rhinoceros and tiger are (UPSC 2001).
The script is undeciphered (UPSC 1982) and pictographic; Theme One adds that it was written right to left.
‘Pashupati’ is one reading; NCERT also records a female deity reading. The name comes from John Marshall (Beyond NCERT).
NCERT’s ‘2×2 square inches’ is a unit slip — it means about 2 inches by 2 inches; many seals are smaller. Don’t build an answer on the exact size.
Copper tablets. Square or rectangular copper tablets carry an animal or human figure on one side and an inscription on the other, or inscriptions on both sides, cut with a burin. They seem to have been amulets. Unlike seal inscriptions, which vary each time, tablet inscriptions seem linked to the animal shown.
6. Pottery
In simple wordsPots break, but the pieces last for ever — so archaeologists have mountains of Harappan pottery. Most of it was plain red kitchenware made on a wheel; a few special pieces were painted, perforated or tiny enough to sit on a fingertip.
The huge quantity of excavated pottery lets us trace how design motifs evolved across shapes and styles. It consists chiefly of very fine wheel-made wares; very few are hand-made. Plain pottery is more common than painted. Plain pottery is usually red clay, with or without a fine red or grey slip, and includes knobbed ware decorated with rows of knobs. Black-painted ware has a fine red slip on which geometric and animal designs are painted in glossy black. Polychrome pottery is rare — mainly small vases with geometric patterns in red, black and green, rarely white and yellow. Incised ware is also rare, the incisions confined to the inside bases of pans and the dishes of offering stands. Perforated pottery has a large hole at the bottom and small holes all over the wall — probably for straining beverages. Household pots come in every practical shape; graceful curves are the rule, straight and angular shapes the exception. Miniature vessels, mostly under half an inch high, are marvellously made.
NCERT’s five kinds of Indus pottery, most common on the left.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Perforated pot’ and ‘Pottery’ (page 13)
Perforated pot: a cylindrical buff vessel, open at one end, its wall pierced by many small round holes — a strainer, perhaps for drinks.
Pottery: a group of red vessels against a blue background — a tall narrow jar with bands of fine black net and scale patterns, a round pot covered in overlapping scale or arc motifs, a small cup-like jar, a squat pot and a short offering stand (a dish on a stem). What to notice: black paint on red, all-over geometric patterns and smooth curving profiles.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Painted Earthen Jar’ (page 17)A squat, round-bellied buff jar from Mohenjodaro with a wide mouth; a band around the shoulder is filled with black-outlined triangles and leaf-like (vegetal) shapes divided by vertical lines. NCERT’s note: made on a potter’s wheel, shaped by finger pressure, baked, painted black and highly polished; motifs vegetal and geometric, ‘simple but with a tendency towards abstraction’.
⤵ How the painted jar was made (NCERT, page 17)
Throw on the wheelclay centred and raised
Shape by handpressure of the potter’s fingers
Bakefire the clay
Paintblack vegetal and geometric motifs
Polishhigh polish as a finishing touch
Exam traps
Plain pottery is more common than painted; polychrome and incised are rare.
Typical painted ware = black on red slip. Painted Grey Ware is not Harappan — it belongs to the later Vedic-period Ganga valley (UPSC 1991, 2001).
7. Beads, ornaments, dress and fashion
In simple wordsIf you want to know what people valued, look at what they wore. Harappans wore a lot — gold and stone necklaces, bangles, girdles, earrings — and took care over hair, beards and make-up.
Men and women wore ornaments of every material, from precious metals and gemstones to bone and baked clay. Necklaces, fillets, armlets and finger-rings were worn by both sexes; women also wore girdles, earrings and anklets. Hoards at Mohenjodaro and Lothal include gold and semi-precious-stone necklaces, copper bracelets and beads, gold earrings and head ornaments, faience pendants and buttons, and steatite and gemstone beads. A cemetery at Farmana (Haryana) had burials with ornaments.
Beads. Bead factories at Chanhudaro and Lothal show a developed industry. Beads were made of carnelian, amethyst, jasper, crystal, quartz, steatite, turquoise and lapis lazuli; of copper, bronze and gold; and of shell, faience and terracotta. Shapes: disc, cylinder, sphere, barrel, segmented. Some were two or more stones cemented, some stone with gold covers; some incised, painted or etched. Harappans also made naturalistic monkeys and squirrels as pin-heads and beads.
Bead materials, shapes and techniques listed in NCERT.
Reading NCERT’s ‘Beadwork and jewellery items’ (page 14)A hoard laid out on black cloth: a broad collar of long, tubular red-orange beads (carnelian-like) strung in rows between dark spacer beads, with two semicircular terminals; above it, gold discs, small cylindrical ornaments, strings of tiny beads, and at the bottom thin gold bands and small gold pieces. What to notice: very long drilled stone beads (great technical skill), the mix of gold and stone, and planned, symmetrical design.
Spinning and dress. Many spindles and spindle whorls in houses show that spinning cotton and wool was common; whorls were made of expensive faience as well as cheap pottery and shell. Men and women wore two pieces of clothing, like a dhoti and shawl, the shawl covering the left shoulder and passing below the right — just as on the bearded bust.
Fashion. Different hairstyles were in vogue and beards were popular. Cinnabar was used as a cosmetic, and face-paint, lipstick and collyrium (eyeliner) were known. At Dholavira many stone structural remains show stone used in building. NCERT’s closing line: Indus craftspeople were skilled in metal casting, stone carving, making and painting pottery and making terracotta, using simplified motifs of animals, plants and birds.
Beyond NCERT
Cinnabar is mercury sulphide, a bright red mineral.
Lapis lazuli came from distant sources (Theme One: Shortughai in Afghanistan); carnelian was worked from nodules found in Gujarat — part of the long-distance networks Theme One describes.
Cotton use is a well-tested fact: UPSC 2011 accepted that cotton was used for textiles in the Indus period.
8. What the art tells us about Harappan life
In simple wordsEach object is a clue. Put the clues together and you get a picture: a prosperous, trading, fashion-conscious urban people with specialist craftspeople — and beliefs we can only partly guess.
Object
What it suggests (cautiously)
Seals with script; copper tablets
trade and record-keeping; personal identity; amulets
Bead factories; long carnelian beads; gold hoards
specialist craft workshops; wealth; long-distance supply of stones
Lost-wax bronzes at many sites
skilled metal-workers; a technology shared across the civilisation
Female figurines; repeated bearded male; horned mask; ‘Pashupati’ seal
beliefs involving male and female figures and animals — identifications debated
Toys, whistles, rattles, gamesmen, discs
play, games and childhood
Spindle whorls; dhoti-and-shawl dress
spinning of cotton and wool at home
Ornaments for both sexes; cinnabar, collyrium; hairstyles
fashion-consciousness
Mostly plain, wheel-made pottery
mass production for daily use; a few fine painted pieces
⤵ From object to history: an answer method
Describematerial, size, form, decoration
Placesite and date; how common it is
Techniquehow it was made — carving, casting, firing, drilling
Usetrade, ritual, play, adornment
Cautionidentifications are modern; the script is unread
Why realism matters to examinersNCERT stresses realism — the seal animals, the torso, the bull. Later Indian art (Mauryan polish, Chapter 3; Mathura and Gandhara, Chapter 4) is often compared with it. A Mains answer that traces continuity — lost-wax from Harappa to Daimabad to Chola bronzes; terracotta from Harappan toys to present-day village crafts — scores well.
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
Q1, Q2 and Q4 are discussion questions; Q3 and Q5 are activities. Try each first.
Q1. Would you agree that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation were great art lovers? Give reasons.
Yes, with care in wording. Range of media: stone, bronze, terracotta, seals, pottery, beads. Quality: realistic seal animals in many moods; 3-D modelling of the torso; the bearded bust’s trefoil shawl; lost-wax bronzes (Dancing Girl, buffalo, bull). Art in daily life: painted jars, miniature vessels, toys, ornaments for both sexes, cosmetics, hairstyles. Technical skill: long drilled carnelian beads, gold caps, etched beads. Widespread: Lothal, Kalibangan, Daimabad. Caution: much was functional (seals for trade, pots for storage) — ‘art’ and ‘craft’ were not separate; we don’t know their own ideas of beauty.
Q2. What similarities and differences do you find between present-day terracotta and the Indus Valley terracotta?
Similar: hand-modelled clay fired at low heat; toys (bulls, carts, whistles), figurines of deities and votive objects; simplified, pinched forms with added pellets for eyes and ornaments; local, inexpensive production (e.g. Bankura horses, village toys). Different: today often wheel-made parts, glazes and paints, wider subjects (decorative items, tiles); known makers and markets; meanings recorded, whereas Indus meanings are inferred; modern kilns.
Q3. Make seals in a different medium; which animals would you carve and why?
Activity. Use clay, soap, potato or lino; carve a square, place signs at top and an animal below, cut in reverse (intaglio) so the impression reads correctly, add a loop at the back. Choose animals with a reason — e.g. elephant (strength), peacock (national bird), tiger (conservation), or a local animal — echoing the Indus choice of unicorn, bull, rhino, tiger and elephant.
Q4. What do the art objects that have survived tell us about the daily life of the people?
Use the table in section 8: trade and identity (seals, tablets); crafts (bead factories, bronze casting); dress (dhoti and shawl, spinning of cotton and wool); adornment (ornaments for men and women, cinnabar, collyrium, hairstyles, beards); household (wheel-made pots, strainers, storage); play (toys, rattles, gamesmen); beliefs (female figurines, bearded male figures, horned mask, ‘Pashupati’ seal — debated); burial customs (ornaments at Farmana). Close with the limits: no deciphered texts.
Q5. As a museum curator, create an exhibit of at least ten Indus objects in stone, metal and terracotta.
Plan by medium with labels: Stone — bearded bust (steatite), male torso (red sandstone), unicorn seal, ‘Pashupati’ seal. Metal — Dancing Girl, buffalo, Mohenjodaro bull, Lothal copper dog and bird, Kalibangan bull, a Daimabad bronze. Terracotta — mother-goddess figurine, bearded male, horned mask, toy cart, whistle, bull toy. Others — painted jar, perforated pot, carnelian necklace. Each label: name, site, material, technique, date (c. 2600–1900 BCE), one sentence of meaning — mark debated names (‘often called…’). Use your own sketches or licensed museum images.
Reading the map at the end of the chapter — ‘Map showing Mauryan sites’ (after page 17)The last page of this chapter’s file is the opening map of Chapter 3, on the Mauryan period; it is studied there, not here.
What to remember
Numbers
Period of Indus art (NCERT)second half of the 3rd millennium BCE
Mature Harappan phase (Themes I)c. 2600–1900 BCE
‘Pashupati’-type seals2500–1900 BCE
Stone male figures discussed2 (red sandstone torso; steatite bearded bust)
Dancing Girl heightabout 4 inches
Standard seal (NCERT)square, ‘2×2’ inches, steatite
Seals foundthousands
Seal materialssteatite (mostly), agate, chert, copper, faience, terracotta, ivory
Animals on the ‘Pashupati’ sealelephant, tiger, rhinoceros, buffalo + 2 antelopes
Polychrome coloursred, black, green (rarely white, yellow)
Dancing Girl: NCERT’s caption says ‘copper’, the text says bronze — UPSC 2025 key: bronze.
‘Priest-king’ and ‘mother goddess’ are modern labels, not proven identities.
‘Pashupati’ is one reading; NCERT also records a ‘female deity’ reading.
The cow does not appear on Harappan seals or terracotta (UPSC 2001).
The figure’s right (elephant, tiger) is the viewer’s left.
Plain pottery outnumbers painted; Painted Grey Ware is not Harappan.
Harappa is on the Ravi, not the Indus itself, though NCERT says ‘along the Indus’.
The red sandstone torso, not the bearded bust, has sockets for head and arms; the bust is steatite.
The Mohenjodaro bronze bull (photo) and the Kalibangan bronze bull (text) are different objects.
Lothal’s dog and bird are copper; Kalibangan’s bull is bronze.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
Objects and materials: Dancing Girl = bronze (2025); priest bust = steatite; torso = red sandstone; seals = mostly steatite; know which site each comes from.
Seals: animals shown and not shown (cow absent, 2001); script undeciphered (1982); ‘Pashupati’ seal animals and the debate; intaglio; commercial use.
Religion as seen in art: male and female deities (2013) — accept the textbook view in Prelims; Theme One covers the wider religion and town questions (1986, 2011, 2026).
Techniques: lost wax, slip, polychrome, faience, bead-making — likely statement questions; Painted Grey Ware is not Harappan (1991, 2001).
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
No Mains question so far is on Indus art as such; the Mains questions on Harappan town planning and architecture (2014, 2025) sit on Theme One. Prepare a 150-word answer on ‘Harappan art reflects a sophisticated urban culture’ using sections 2–7.
Frame: media and examples → techniques (lost wax, intaglio, wheel, bead drilling) → realism and abstraction → daily life and belief (with caution) → continuity into later Indian art (Daimabad, Dhokra, Chola bronzes, terracotta).
Always qualify identifications: ‘the figure often called the priest-king’, ‘female figurines usually identified as mother goddesses’.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. The ‘Dancing Girl’ found at Mohenjodaro is made of:
2. The bearded male bust usually called the ‘priest’ is made of:
3. In the lost-wax process, the hollow mould is created by:
4. Which animal does NOT appear on Harappan seals and terracotta?
5. On the ‘Pashupati’ seal as described by NCERT, which animals are below the seat?
6. Which kind of Indus pottery is the MOST common, according to NCERT?
7. Bead factories mentioned by NCERT were found at:
UPSC questions from this chapter
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