Horse in Early Indian Art

Horse has been one of the noblest animals whose use came quite handy to man at very early age. For its nobility, energy and power horse was very soon universally acknowledged for the progress of human civilization. In its tremendous energy and power, man discovered something unusual and something divine and as such all over the ancient world some sort of divine flavour came to be attached to it by countries evolving different civilizations. The usefulness of this animal was also felt by our ancestors who attributed it to a high position and allowed the same to be symbolic theriomorphically of some of their very important gods and goddesses. Religious recognition which the horse received from the early Indians had also inspired Indian artists to compose meaningful and fascinating themes in stone, terracotta and in colour with horse as the pivotal character. Only a few books and articles have so far been written on animals in Indian art and in each case the studies have been very summarily undertaken. The present work for the first time studies exhaustively a single animal viz., the horse. Various aspects of horse including its history, its place and position in Indian mythology and its depictions in early Indian art have been dealt with utter devotion and affectionate sympathy.