After destruction of Indus valley civilisation, indus valley art practice came to standstill and new art practice unrelated to indus valley art is seen in the Vedic Culture. Vedic period marks a tremendous growth of literature and the most significant literary evidence of vedic art practice is found in the oldest literary work "Rigveda". The archaeological sources of this period are almost nil so far. Very recently sites of the ancient cities of Hastinapur, Alamgirpur, Batesar etc have been excavated & its period have been fixed between 1000 to 700 BC, the time of later vedic period. Only a few copper implements, some iron-arms & tools, traces of houses of unbaked bricks and a little of painted grey pottery have been found. Remains of such pottery have also been found in the valley of Saraswati river in the east.
Therefore the main source of information of this period are still almost entirely sacred texts, later vedas viz., Brahmanas, Aranyakas & Upanishadas. Unlike the indus valley people, vedic people (Aryans) did not pray before the images of the animals such as bulls, the elephants, the rhinoceros & birds. They sang the glory of the Sun (Surya), Sky (Varuna), Thunder (Indra), Fire (agni) and Dawn (Usha). Therefore it is likely that vedic people did not made images of these gods & godesses in stone. Though paintings are refer in Rigveda, the coulourful works of art described therein would perish only too easily in a tropical climate, owing to the nature of their material. Consequently we have no very clear idea of vedic art which preceded the Pre-mauryan art.
In one legend, supreme god "Brahma" is refered to as painter hinself who made portrait of a king's young son when he taught king about how to bring his dead son back to life and finally he put life in the portrait of a king's son. Another legend goes as Brahma was playing with colours and made human figures which he liked so much that he put life in to them. These stories of Brahma as a painter gave visual art great important and the joy of creation is teated at par with "Ananda", the moment of "Supreme bliss".
Apart from literary evidences on the practice of paintings in the vedic age, a startling discovery has been made recently in a rare old Japanese manuscript. This manuscript is based on the Indian tradition & has revealed a series of portraits of vedic sages with identifying incriptions, The portrait of the vedic Rishi Vasistha, Rishi Angirasa with his wife and a portrait of maharishi Atreya seated with his wife has been found in the manuscript. There are two portraits of Vasistha, one in a sitting posture and another in a walking pose. This amply proves that the vedic artists were making life-sketches of the sages. The tradition of vedic painting has also been corroborated by two significant pictures painted on a manuscript of a Jaina "Kalpsutra". One representing sunrise called "Sri Suryodaya" & another miniature depicting a mountain on fire. Dr. A. K. Kumaraswami was emphatic about these two pictures of being a vedic in formulation.
In the Ramayana and Mahabharata also references have been made to a big painted halls, so there might have been the tradition of wall paintings in those times. These stories in Vedas and epics shows that art of painting was practised by people during first thousand years of our civilisation. However art pratice and its exact extent is still not known as there is no direct evidence for period between the decline of the indus vallery civilisation and the definite historic period starting with the Mauryas.