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• Standard treatises on the history of Indian plastic arts usually focus on the origin and evolution of the mainstream or high tradition of respective arts (music, dance, theatre, literature).
• These treatises often neglect the tributaries—the tribal and folk arts—that have influenced and enriched the mainstream of Indian art, which should not be ignored in the study of art history.
• Indian art history must also account for external influences—waves of foreign cultures impacting Indian art, sometimes integrating, sometimes being rejected.
• The ethnic history of the Indian people is complex, influenced by their ideas, institutions, religions, philosophies, economies, and cultural achievements.
• India has a long, continuous history spanning over four thousand years, with evidence of human habitation in prehistoric times.
• Early Indian inhabitants, such as the Negritos and proto-Australoids, are the autochthonous people, collectively known today as ādivāśīs or adimjātis.
• Over time, waves of people from various regions (west, northwest, north, northeast, east, and southeast) have immigrated into India, merging into the broader Indian identity.
• Dravidian-speaking peoples, one of the earliest groups, were likely civilized, commercial, and practiced city-building, with their own social organization, religious beliefs, and rituals (such as pūja and worship of the mother goddess).
• Aryan-speaking peoples arrived in India in several waves, initially as pastoral nomads, later learning agriculture, cattle-rearing, and various arts and crafts.
• The Aryan culture was highly intellectual, capable of abstract philosophical speculation and expressing it in sophisticated language, leading to a sophisticated socio-political organization and hierarchical social system.
• Aryans evolved a religion centered on yajña (sacrifice), and their intellectual and spiritual traditions gave rise to Buddhism, Jainism, and Ajivikism, which challenged earlier Vedic traditions.
• By the 3rd-4th centuries CE, the Aryan North became religiously and ideologically dominant, influencing the Dravidian South, especially in the development of Brahmanical Hinduism.
• The Dravidian South contributed to the Aryan-dominated culture, including puja rituals, and integration of Dravidian gods, goddesses, and beliefs into the mainstream Hinduism.
• The foundation of Indian culture is a fusion of Aryan and Dravidian cultures, shaped by the dominance of Sanskritand the Brahmanical Hinduism of the North, combined with the agricultural advancements of the time.
• Other ethnic groups contributed to the formation of India’s cultural base.
• Indigenous or autochthonous peoples were spread across the country with varying levels of culture.
• They spoke languages from Austric, Dravidian, or Tibeto-Burman families depending on their time and geographical location.
• These groups had their own religious beliefs, customs, rites, rituals, social systems, and arts and crafts.
• Over time, many of these ādivāsīs succumbed to the influence of the superior techno-economy, political and military power, and socio-religious systems of Aryan and Dravidian-speaking peoples.
• Despite this, many of their beliefs, practices, ideas, institutions, and arts were incorporated into the life of the Aryan and Dravidian peoples.
• These elements are now found in Hinduism, Indian Islam, and Christianity, particularly at the rural-agricultural level.
• Popular gods and goddesses, myths, legends, rites, and practices have pre-Aryan and pre-Dravidian origins, many of which are termed ‘primitive’ or ‘tribal’ by anthropologists.
• The common Indian psyche does not distinguish between ‘primitive’ and ‘sophisticated’ origins in these cultural practices.
• Adivasi communities were often pushed into inaccessible regions like forests and hills, maintaining their cultural identity.
• Their creative endeavors in music, dance, sculpture, painting, and oral literature are integral to Indian art and culture.
• Rural-agricultural societies in India were predominantly based on village life and the jāti-based social organization.
• This social organization had two faces:
  • One reflecting the priestly, religious, and cultural systems of higher societies (Brahmanical, Buddhist-Jain, Islamic, Christian).
  • The other focused on rural life, with most people tied to agriculture, poor, illiterate, but educated through experience and traditional channels.
• The rural population expressed their knowledge and culture through songs, dances, rituals, and visual arts, which were passed down orally.
• Visual arts were also created in a tradition, passed down and modified by each generation.
• Rural-agricultural societies were not isolated from higher caste societies, but often subservient due to their lower status.
• Despite these disparities, there were points of contact where rural and high art influenced each other.
• The rural folk arts were often relegated to the background, while higher-class art became recognized as the ‘great tradition’ of India.
• The difference between ‘tribal’ and ‘folk’ art and ‘high’ art is largely due to social and economic conditions over time.
• The ‘great tradition’ drew on tribal and folk elements, with the latter acting as the biological reservoir of India’s artistic creativity.
• The ‘high’ tradition periodically infused new life by incorporating elements from these ‘primitive’ and folk sources.
• Early Buddhist and Jain narrative reliefs, Rajasthani and Pahadi paintings, and Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jain iconography show the integration of rural folk and tribal elements.
• Many gods and goddesses in these traditions were adopted and adapted from folk and tribal communities, sometimes with minor changes in name and form.
• The myths, legends, ideas, beliefs, images, symbols, and rituals of these religions also incorporate elements from the folk.
• In Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jain socio-religious ceremonies (like marriage and nāmakaraṇa), there are śāstrāchāras (rituals sanctioned by religious texts) and deśācharas, lokāchāras, or kulāchāras (unwritten regional or folk rituals).
• Over time, folk rituals and practices were incorporated into the śāstriya (scriptural) codes, just as gods and goddesses were included in the pantheon.
• This process of integration is also evident in dance, drama, and music.
• Many dance movements and gestures in classical forms (e.g., Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Kathak) evolved from folk and tribal dances, which were gradually refined and incorporated.
• Folk theatre has influenced contemporary theatre, particularly in regional languages and in the works of Rabindranath Tagore.
• Indian music has two main classifications: mārga (mainstream, standardized music) and deśī (local, regional, folk, and tribal music).
• Many ragas (e.g., Savara, Baṅgāla, Mālava, Gauda, Turushka, Gurjari) originated from tribal and folk tunes, which were later polished and refined for the mārga tradition.
• This transformation is also seen in the Bengali kirtan, which evolved in the Malla kings’ courts.
• Folk and tribal musical instruments were transformed into refined, sophisticated instruments like flutes, stringed instruments, and percussion instruments.
• Most traditional Indian instruments (except imports like the sehnai, rehbab, sitar, esrāj, and harmonium) have tribaland folk origins.
• The historical and archaeological records, including collections at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and the Sangeet-Natak Akademi, support the idea that most instruments originated in folk and tribal contexts.
• The distinction between ‘tribal’, ‘folk’, and ‘high’ or ‘civilized’ art is not always clear-cut.
• The differences between these categories are often degree-based, not kind-based, relating to chasteness, elegance, subtlety, sophistication, and complexity.
• Both tribal and folk art forms have their own aesthetic standards and are not just of magical or ritualistic significance.