Stone carving is the oldest representational art. Ancient Indian sculpture features various graceful designs and themes taken from lifestyle. Sculptors use hammers and chisels as the basic tools for stone carving. The stone sculpture involves five important procedures such as rouging out, rough shaping, fine shaping, detailing and smoothing. The rough sketch is done on the stone to get a rough idea for carving. Then the artisan starts to remove the unwanted stone to get a basic rough shape by using respective chisels and hammer.

The next process is rough-shaping, at this stage artisan begins to add more definition to the form. This kind of rough shaping is done with the flat or round chisel, tooth chisel and point chisel. Whereas the aim of rough shaping is to define the form of the figures, by leaving a surface that could be easily smoothened and detailed with the flat chisel. The rough shaping follows with the fine shaping, usually carried out with a flat chisel but sometimes with a roundel or tooth chisel. Once done with the fine shaping, the sculptor starts to add details to the sculpture. Then the detailed sculpture is smoothened by using an emery or buffing machine to obtain a smooth finish.

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