Teleseismic earthquake waveform data from 10 broadband stations spread over the Indian shield and in operation since 1997, were analyzed to infer the crustal structure, using the receiver function technique. The South Indian shield is characterized by a 33--39 km thick, and remarkably simple crust, with an average Poisson's ratio close to 0.25. The Archaean crust is devoid of any prominent intra-crustal discontinuities. The velocity contrast at the well developed Moho is large, resulting in very clear P-to-S conversions as well as first-order multiples. In contrast, the predominantly Proterozoic crust in the northern part of the shield exhibits a complex character, due to the presence of additional seismic discontinuities. Moho conversions, which are considerably weaker compared to the Archaean terrains, indicate crustal thicknesses of more than 40 km. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union