How is nature represented in Indian art? An answer to this question is approachable, if we first make a typological classification of Indian art, according to (A) landscape, (B) animals, (C) human figures, and then make a study of specific examples from each category. (A) We cannot generally find any true landscape depiction in Indian art except in miniature paintings dating from the 16th and 17th centuries onward, at which time Indian art was influenced by contemporary European paintings. It is thought that landscape had not been an important theme earlier because nature was not conceived as a place with spatial qualities. Rather, nature was viewed as so many independent objects, each of which had its own significance in terms of energy and form : the artistic world of early Indian art was the sum of many parts, each alive and unique. So even in those cases where landscape motifs appear in the backgrounds of each paintings, they function as independent clues which help us understand natural phenomena but do not describe a natural setting in a photographic way. (B) Indian artists have always had a special interest in animals, regarding them either as the symbols of the Gods in the Brahmanistic pantheon or as beings in a series of Metempsychosis, Samsara, from the Buddhistic point of view. One finds a consistent reverence for animals in early Indian art. They are represented not as pray in a hunting scene but as objects of affection, often personified as though they were living human beings. (C) In the representation of human beings the stress is on sensual beauty. A predilection for nude and semi-nude figures can be said to be a unique Indian trait in contrast to a preference for clothed figures seen in Persian and Chinese art. This can be explained in terms of Brahmanistic thought, which regards human bodies as energetic sources of procreation and life. It is for this reason that the female body is represented with large breasts and hips. Indian Buddhistic images, too, are decidedly sensual reflecting influence from Brahmanism. Generally speaking, one comes to the conclusion that the expression of nature Indian art lies in universals, i.e., that the religious or spiritual idea of nature came before any representation of the phenomenal shape of natural objects, and conversely, then, that the visual world was not something that Indian artists were obliged to "repeat", as it were. In other words, early Indian artists were bound inextricably to the religious idea, and were limited or forced to symbolize it.