National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum, New Delhi

Above all else, Delhi's National Handcrafts and Handlooms Museum establishes the timeless tradition of Indian crafts. The stress here is not on antiquity but on continuity. Thus, there are metal-casting methods and pottery techniques that bear striking affinity -- indeed, that may be distinctly traced -- to those of Harappan times. And thoughout the county, weavers still sit at the simple looms that their forefathers used for centuries, producing textiles of the same surpassing beauty.Catalogue groupings are made on the basis of materials used for techniques followed, which is why a South Indian icon may be juxtaposed with a ritual mask from Himachai. These links transcend barriers of time and region, forming a network of intriguing similarities. Every effort is made in the Crafts Museum, as it was formerly called to proide the larger social context within which a particular item takes its place. Thus we are not confronted with mere objects encased in glassThe first in a series of The Museums of India, this volume catalogues a specific collection; however it also serves as a handbook of India's folk arts and crafts. Through the Museum's continuing programme of workshops and live demonstrations by visiting craftspeople, the authors have gleaned a wealth of information on their everyday lives -- hitherto uncollated and unpublished -- and on the myths and legends that inspired them.