Radha Krishna Miniature Painting

There are many books and study material in the market for studying Indian art and culture. The choice of book depends upon your purpose of studying them. You may be wanting to study about Indian art and culture just for the sake of grabbing knowledge for your own knowledge enhancement purpose or you may be a student who want to rely on certain trusted Indian art books and other “notes material” so that you crack exams like UPSC Civil Services, SSC or any other State PCS exam etc.

Today I am going to cover Indian art and culture books which can be studied for your UPSC preparation. These books are sufficient for both Mains and Prelims and takes care of the changing pattern of UPSC Civils prelims exam.

The Civil Services exam covers topics like Indian architecture, Indian paintings such as ancient mural paintings like Bhimbetka paintings and the paintings in Ajanta Caves, Mughal Era paintings, Indian folk paintings such as Madhubani paintings, Bengali Alpana art etc., Indian sculpture like the bronze sculpture of dancing girl (Mohenjo-daro), Literature of ancient India, philosophy of India, Indian Music, Indian Dances and other random topics like Indian puppetry, Socio-religious movements, astronomy, UNESCO world heritage sites etc. You also need to read about famous India artists like Raja Ravi Verma, M. F. Hussain, S. H. Raza, Amrita Sher Gil, Anjolie Ela Menon to keep yourself abreast with important personalities associated with art and culture.

Let’s jump to the book list of Indian Art and Culture on which an UPSC aspirant can rely:

Ancient History NCERT’s (Old ones)

Nitin Singhania Book (Click the image below to buy)

Spectrum – Indian Culture (Click the image below to buy)

In addition to these books you need to have a look at previous years question papers, take test series(mocks) and read newspaper like Hindu thoroughly.

I personally believe that if you have read these books along with 2-3 revisions then your Indian art and culture section would become very strong.

I would highly recommend you to make notes of whatever you study as studying a book more than 2 times becomes a very monotonous task and at the end you read everything and remember nothing. So, do not compromise note making at any cost.

Kindly comment below if you want us to include other Indian art and culture books that a UPSC aspirant must read for the preparation.