5,000 Years of Sculpture (Part-I) by Benoy K Behl

Online Event, India Habitat Centre, 25th October, 2025
Talk and Screening of Film Produced for Doordarshan.
By Benoy K Behl
Introduction by Sujata Chatterji 00:07; Subject Intro 02:20; Film 10:22; Talk 34:25

The early art of India is a valuable record of the vision of one of the most ancient civilizations in the world.

The phenomenal world of separated beings and objects seen around us is considered to be an illusion, perceived and brought to us by our senses. This information provided by our senses is of a personal and not an objective nature. Absorbed in this, we are blinded to the reality beyond.

The aesthetic experience is considered to be of great value in Indian thought. Our experience of beauty, when we respond to a sunrise or to a great work of art, is seen to be a moment when we perceive the grace which underlies the whole of creation. In that moment, the veils of illusion of the material world are lifted and we see the grace which underlies all that there is. In that instant it is not our material preoccupations which fill our consciousness and thereby blind us to the greater reality. Thus, art has played a most important part in the life of the Indian subcontinent.

The Chitrasutra which was penned by the fifth century CE, out of earlier oral traditions, is the oldest known treatise on art-making in the world. It states that art is the greatest treasure of mankind, far more valuable than gold or jewels.

For the Indian sculptor the grace of divinity is everywhere. The stone before him contains the image of divinity and it is for him to but remove the outward aspects and to reveal that form. The process of making an image is not only a personal joy of discovery and creation, it is also one of sharing the grace inherent in the world with others.

What survives today of the early art of India is only a small fraction of what would have been created. Yet it consists of such vast numbers of monuments and sculpture that it staggers the mind. The corpus is gigantic and spread to every corner of the subcontinent.