I

• Filpa refers to a comprehensive term covering a range of skilled human activities, from making toys, utensils, chariots to personal life itself.
• No distinction was made between what is called fine art and applied art/craft in traditional, pre-industrial societies.
• The distinction is not between art and craft, but between objects produced by artistic skill and those produced by technical virtuosity.
• Artistic skill involves mind, imagination, aesthetic experience, and creative energy; whereas technical virtuosityinvolves reproduction by mechanical application of rules.
• Examples of artistic objects include terracotta toys, ritualistic pūnaghaṭa, and scroll paintings.
• The term art is used here in the traditional sense, referring to artistic skill distinct from mere technical skill.
• A work of art is a mūrti, an embodiment of a felt idea, and a concretization or externalization of an inner experience.
• A painting or sculpture is called a chitra in Sanskrit, assuming it is an externalization of what was originally in the chit (consciousness).
• The formal structure of a work of art is as important as the intuitive vision to ensure proper realization of the idea in form.
• An icon is not necessarily a mūrti; it can be a pratimā—often a symbol used for communicating abstract concepts, distinct from a felt experience.
• A mūrti communicates itself through its own imagery, being a unified and coherent structure of form that embodies life movement, prāṇa, and rūpa (breath and sap of life).
• The main purpose of a mūrti is to provide a direct experience of life movement, which is the essence of being and becoming.
• The humanist orientation of Indian art lies in experiencing this human experience.
• Chetana (full consciousness) is integral, seen in even serene yoga images of Buddha or Śiva and the motionless image of Vishnu reclining on the Anantanāga.
• A mūrti is not a copy of external objects but must have verisimilitude (sādṛśyam) with such objects and must align with the laws of nature or chhandas (inner rhythm of life).
• Distortions in anatomical features may be done intentionally for artistic effect but should not disturb the inner life movement.
• The surface quality of an object (proportion, balance, harmony) is less significant than whether the object is a coherent living entity.
• Only a unified and coherent live entity can be called a mūrti; a pratimā can be a mūrti if endowed with symbols that communicate abstract meanings.
• A pratimā by itself can never be a mūrti.
• A mūrti is a presence, a manifestation of the unceasing inner process of life, offering an intrinsic experience of the law and essence of things.

II

• Indian art was recognized as a product of human thought and imagination, at least from the time of the Upanishads and the Buddha.
• Early art was largely representational and symbolic, with objects of art depicting landscapes, mythical heroes, suprahuman beings, and various symbols like the sun, moon, wheel, lotus, trident, feet, stūpa, and dhvajā.
• The majority of early Indian art was narrative and symbolic, incorporating current symbols.
• Even in later centuries, art maintained a representational and narrative character.
• Early examples of more interpretative art can be seen at Bodhgaya and Sanchi, such as the urkshakā figure at Bodhgaya and the bracket vrkshakās at Sanchi, but the focus remained on understandability.
• In the Amaravati reliefs (1st-2nd century A.D.), art began to emphasize the emotional and expressive qualities of figures, moving beyond mere narration.
• The reliefs at Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, Goli, and Mathura (2nd/3rd century A.D.) marked a shift towards interpretative life representation and aesthetic delight.
• The Pali Jātakas and Gathās were narrative and representational, focusing on explicitness and clarity of stories.
• Texts like the Panchatantra, Vetālapañchaviśati, Kathāsaritsāgara, and Daśakumāracharitam also fall into this narrative and representational category, culturally belonging to the pre-Christian centuries.
• Later literary works like Buddhacharitam and Saundarānanda by Asvagosa, Svapnavāsavadatta by Bhasa, Mṛcchakatika by Sudraka, and Gathāsaptaśati by Hala marked a shift from purely narrative to criticism and interpretation of life, with a more aesthetically pleasurable approach.
• There are no certain technical or speculative texts on silpa, natya, or alaṁkāra from the pre- or early Christian centuries.
• Bharata is traditionally considered the earliest codifier of the arts of dance, drama, and music, and the first to expound the theory of rasa.
• Bharata is traditionally ascribed to the 2nd century B.C., but the Nāṭyaśāstra attributed to him is believed by many scholars to have been compiled no earlier than the 5th or 6th century A.D..
• The compilation of the Nāṭyaśāstra likely evolved over time, and its current form was likely developed later than traditionally thought.
• Codification, technical analysis, and theoretical enunciation of art typically follow the creation of art objects, not precede it.
• Codes, principles, and theories of classification are formulated based on analysis of art specimens that show high achievement in value, volume, variety, skill, technique, forms, and styles.
• Bharata could not have compiled his work without studying artworks in dance, drama, music, sculpture, and painting that displayed significant achievement.
• Bharata’s concept of rasa (psychological feeling and emotion) relates to the thematic content of situations and characters in art.
• Rasa was likely not exploited for artistic effect before the works of Kālidāsa, the Mahabharata, Ramayana, or the sculptured reliefs of Mathura, Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, and Ajanta.
• The period from the 6th to the 12th century saw a significant development in speculative writings on poetics, dance, drama, sculpture, painting, and architecture.
• This period marked the most creative phase for Indian technical treatises on poetics and the plastic arts, though less significant for poetry and drama, which reached their peak before this period.
• The period witnessed two or more stages in the evolution of the fundamental ideas about the nature and essence of art in India, reflecting changes in the evolution of the arts themselves.
• The 5th-6th century is the earliest point when we can ascribe authoritative technical texts on arts, following a period where Indian arts had already produced some of their finest works.
• By the end of the 6th century, a large corpus of Indian art objects had established clear directions, aims, principles, norms, and forms.
• Writers and commentators on art theory had knowledge of existing forms and styles, using these to create rules and guides for the appreciation and understanding of art.
• The findings in their writings were practical, offering tools for analysis, classification, and rules for creating art objects.
• These texts did not focus on speculative questions about how art was created or the nature of creative imaginationbecause such concerns were linked to the metaphysical positions of various religio-spiritual schools.
• An artist or poet could belong to any of these schools and approach speculative questions differently without affecting the concretized manifestation of their idea or vision.
• Aesthetics in Indian thought was tied to metaphysics and ethics, rather than to speculative treatises on art.
• Art in India was viewed as a creative activity with a practical nature, governed by rules and principles of forms and techniques.
• The method of externalizing an idea or vision in art followed certain rules and principles, reflecting the collective psyche and will in traditional art.