The first known
sculpture in the Indian subcontinent is from the
Indus Valley civilization (3300–1700 BC), found in sites at
Mohenjo-daro and
Harappa in modern-day
Pakistan. These include the famous small bronze female dancer. However such figures in bronze and stone are rare and greatly outnumbered by pottery figurines and stone seals, often of animals or deities very finely depicted. After the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization there is little record of sculpture until the Buddhist era, apart from a hoard of copper figures of (somewhat controversially) c. 1500 BCE from
Daimabad. Thus the great tradition of Indian monumental sculpture in stone appears to begin relatively late, with the reign of
Asoka from 270 to 232 BCE, and the
Pillars of Ashoka he erected around India, carrying his edicts and topped by famous sculptures of animals, mostly lions, of which six survive. Large amounts of figurative sculpture, mostly in relief, survive from Early Buddhist pilgrimage stupas, above all
Sanchi; these probably developed out of a tradition using wood that also embraced
Hinduism.