ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the way in which dance is represented in Indian rock art and to consider what forms of dance can be identified and what information this provides about the development of dance in India. Dance is a medium for the physical expression of psychological urges in an artistic manner. Indian examples are the primary source of information about the earliest form of dance for which people may be able to develop culturally continuous ethnographic parallels. It is possible to suggest two broad categories into which representations of dance. The first type consists of scenes, the main theme of which is the dance itself. The second type of scene consists of those which represent occasions including rituals, in which dancing is not performed for its own sake but for instrumental reasons, often considered magical, towards the realization of set objectives. The collective dance scenes are significant from the point of view of tribal and folk dances of India.
