A journey from the land in between the river Tigris & Euphrates to the land of the river Ganges in India. – By Snigdhendu kumar Show
World’s three most ancient civilizations were Sumerian, Eyptian and Sindhu or Indus, starting from the land of Mesopotamia ( today’s Iraque ), Egypt and Indus vally ( Mahenjodaro & Harappa of Pakistan ) before 3000 years BC. The premitive proto-austroloid neolithic tribes of that era had no religion but they believed in ‘Spirit” and their manifestation in art symbols were vertical representation of reality, as they perceived it. To this reality, was added the ‘animus’ of the spirit and all the figures they sculpted in metals ( copper, bronze etc.) by following the technique of “Lost-wax”, still have the primitive forces of art of mankind. It was found that wherever the primitive minds worshiped nature and the spirit, inherent in all natural symbols. Metal was the earliest medium of art form, invented during these civilizations (apart from cave painting) and regularly used by these nomadic tribes who once had started their journey from the land in between the river Euphrates and Tigris and lastly they reached the land of the river Ganges in India where some of these unique manifestations of the primitive mind still survive in groups of artists and artisans, popularly known as ‘Dhokra’.
After categorical audit and experiments on the metallic products and art objects excavated from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, it was found the similarities of the workmanship with the artworks and ‘Lost-wax’ making process of these ‘Dokra’ artisans of India. From where, it was decided that after the demolition of Sindhu Civilisation these Dravidian Proto- Australoid Neolithic tribal artisans moved towards northern part of India from Pakistan who ultimately evacuated from there by the Aryans. As a result, they scattered in several groups and one group slipped away towards Dandyakarannaya (todays Baster, M.P, India) crossing over Purbaghat and Bindhya mountains, accordingly another section of this group moved towards Andhrapradesh and Tamilnadu.
Another one group moved through the Himalayan plateau towards Chitrachal mountain of Assam, where a section of this nomadic tribes deviated through Chotanagpur plateau, Bihar, Bengal up to Orisha. As per the opinion of the Sociologists, in their journey some of them entered in the Rarh Bengal (the area of the districts of Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia and a portion of Midnapore and Murshidabad is called Rarh Bengal) through Chotanagpur plateau and finally stayed here in clusters, one in Dariapur village at Purba Bardhaman and another in Bikna village at Bankura. Now these ‘Dokra’ clusters are entered into the “Geographical Indication” map of West Bengal under “Bengal Dokra” category.
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