Pottery traditions
Pottery traditions — Khurja, Khanapur, terracotta, blue pottery of Jaipur
12 min read · Updated 2026-05-25
What is Indian pottery?
Indian pottery is the country's oldest continuous craft, and its living traditions fall into three groups: unglazed terracotta such as the Bankura horse of West Bengal and Gorakhpur ware; glazed pottery such as Khurja in Uttar Pradesh and the quartz-bodied Blue Pottery of Jaipur, which contains no clay; and burnished black pottery from Nizamabad, Khanapur and wheel-less Longpi in Manipur.
The story
It is 3000 BCE, the city of Mohenjo-daro. The Harappans have just fired a clay pot in a kiln at ~1000°C. The pot is black with a polished sheen, decorated with black-painted peepal leaves and intersecting circles on a red slip. The shape is geometrically precise — clay turned on the world's first true potter's wheel. The pot will outlast its city by 4,500 years; archaeologists in 1924 will lift it from the ruins and place it in the Karachi Museum.
Travel forward to today, the village of Khurja in Bulandshahr district of UP. Eight kilns are firing simultaneously. Each holds ~2,000 pieces. The kiln-master watches the flames change colour from yellow to blue at ~1180°C — the precise moment to seal the kiln. Inside, the glazed Khurja pottery is taking on its characteristic blue + green + brown floral pattern fixed by lead oxide + cobalt + copper. The kiln will burn for 36 hours. Tomorrow the kiln-master's family will sleep; today they don't.
Indian pottery is the oldest continuous craft in the subcontinent. The Harappan red-and-black ware. The Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) of the Mauryan period. The terracotta horses of Tamil Nadu's Aiyyanar shrines. The blue pottery of Jaipur, brought by Mongol artisans via Iran. Khurja's glazed factory pottery. Each layer of Indian history left its own clay record.
Why this matters for UPSC
Pottery is asked in most Prelims years as part of either "match the craft to the region" (Khurja, Blue Pottery, Black Pottery) or "Harappan-era archaeology" (red-and-black ware, NBPW). Mains GS-I touches it periodically on the artisan-livelihood + GI
- heritage angles. Interview boards love pottery questions because they bridge archaeology + craft + livelihood + GI economy. Six Indian pottery traditions carry GI tags; pottery employs ~1.2 million Indians.