1. The Indus Valley Civilization

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1. The Indus Valley Civilization
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What came to be called Hinduism was an amalgamation of beliefs and practices from several sources. This
chapter focuses on the first of the two major contributors: the indus Valley Civilization. in subsequent
chapters we will focus on the second: the indo-aryans. The discovery of the indus Valley Civilization in
the nineteenth century revealed a sophisticated and long-forgotten ancient culture that appears to have
contributed to the development of the hindu traditions. in this chapter, we examine the architectural ruins
and artifacts left by this civilization and contemplate their import for its inhabitants and for subsequent
hindu history. This examination reveals that indus Valley religion focused on maintaining ritual purity and
appropriating divine powers to assist in reproduction and the maintenance of life. Finally, we introduce the
indo-aryans with a brief discussion of their relationship to the dwellers of the indus Valley.
Two major cultural
streams contributed to was then northwestern India and is now Paki-
the development of what later came to be stan stumbled upon the remains of an ancient
called Hinduism. The first was an intriguing city known only to locals. The engineers were
and sophisticated ancient culture known today only interested in the well-fired bricks from the
as the Indus Valley Civilization. The second ruins, and they proceeded to quarry the city for
source was a nomadic people called the Indo- that resource. It was not until the early twenti-
Aryans, whom most scholars believe migrated eth century, as other similar sites were uncov-
into India from Central Asia and bequeathed ered, that archaeologists appreciated the full
to Hindus their most sacred texts and rituals. significance of this unwitting discovery. They
In this and the next two chapters, we will study determined that the ancient city, now reduced
each of these cultures and explore their respec- to railroad ballast, was part of a vast network of
tive influences on the evolution of the Hindu villages and towns constituting an entire civili-
Traditions (box 1.1). zation long forgotten by the rest of humanity.
The discovery of this ancient culture, one of the
most remarkable archaeological finds of modern
The Indus Valley Civilization
times, compelled scholars to revise their under-
standing of the earliest history of India and has
In the nineteenth century, British engineers in recent years sparked a heated debate about the
searching for ballast for a railway line in what original inhabitants of the Indian Subcontinent.
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The Indus Valley Civilization, so named as impressive as ancient Egypt and Sumeria.
s because many of its settlements were situated While many Hindus today do not regard the
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ur along the Indus River, turned out to be one of Indus Valley Civilization as part of their sacred
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Cul the great cultures of the ancient world.1 What history, the evidence suggests that this culture
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arl has come to light since the first excavations contributed significantly to the grand complex
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a’s suggests that the Indus Valley Civilization was known to many as Hinduism.
di
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t i Box 1.1 two viewS oF time
ar
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s
n a Hindu view of time
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Ti Traditional hindus regard the passage of time as cyclical rather than linear. according to an ancient hindu
i
d
a cosmology developed after the Vedic era, the universe undergoes a series of four successive ages, or yugas,
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T of varying lengths before it is destroyed and re-created. The world’s destruction at the end of the final yuga
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d marks a new beginning, initiating a whole new cycle of yugas. This pattern has had no beginning and will
n
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h have no end.
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h The first period, known as the satya Yuga, is a golden age in which the gods maintain close
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relationships with human beings, who are naturally pious and live an average of a hundred thousand
years. The later yugas—the Treta, dvapara, and Kali (the current period)—are characterized by the decline
of human piety and morality and evinced by cruelty, discord, materialism, lust, and shorter life spans.
according to a common method of reckoning, the four yugas make one Mahayuga, lasting for a period of
4,320,000 human years. one Mahayuga is a single day in the life of brahma, the creator god according to
many traditions. a period of 360 brahma-days equals one brahma-year, and a brahma lives one hundred
such years. Thus, a brahma lives 155,520,000,000,000 human years!
the Periods of Hindu History
although most hindus would not think of their history in a linear fashion, the following scheme is one way
to view the stages of hindu history.
3300–1400 b.c.e. indus Valley Civilization
1600–800 b.c.e. Vedic Period
800–200 b.c.e. Classical Period (coincident with the axial age)
200 b.c.e.–500 c.e. epic and early Puranic Period
500–1500 c.e. Medieval and late Puranic Period
1500 c.e.–present Modern Period
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What is known about the Indus Valley cul- fied as villages or towns. The largest and most
ture comes exclusively from archaeological evi- important are cities known as Mohenjo-daro C
h
dence, because its cryptic script has never been and Harappa. These names are post–Indus ap
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completely deciphered. We do not even know Civilization designations that refer to towns r
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what the citizens of this civilization called built much later on the ruins of the ancient —
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themselves. The archaeological data indicate urban centers. In their heyday, Mohenjo-daro e
In
that the Indus Valley culture was established and Harappa may have each hosted a popula- d
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around 3300 b.c.e. and flourished between tion as large as forty to fifty thousand, which s V
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2600 and 1900 b.c.e. Around 1900 b.c.e., it was immense by ancient standards. Harappa lle
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entered a period of decline and ultimately appears to have been the capital, and accord- C
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disappeared around 1400 b.c.e. At its height, ingly the culture is sometimes referred to as the iliz
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the Indus Valley Civilization covered most of Harappan Civilization. tio
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present-day Pakistan, the westernmost part of All of the Indus Valley municipalities were
present-day India, and parts of Afghanistan, in highly organized and carefully planned, dis-
an area estimated to include over five hundred playing remarkably similar features. The uni-
thousand square miles (figure 1.1). Over fifteen formity of these cities suggests a centralized
hundred Indus Valley sites throughout this authority and code enforcement, since many of
region have been unearthed so far, and most the settlements were over fifty miles apart. The
have yet to be fully excavated. Several hundred remains of buildings and the layout of the towns
of these sites are large enough to be classi- indicate that their inhabitants prized order and
0 400 miles
0 400 km
AFGHANISTAN CHINA
Islamabad
IRAN H
Lahore i
Harappa m
a
PMAoKheISnjToA-dNaro Inadr uRs. R. Delhi NlEPaALya s
g
g
a
h
G
Arabian Ahmadabad
Sea
INDIA
Major Harappan sites
Other archaeological sites
Modern cities Mumbai
Existing rivers
Former rivers Bay of
Extent of Harappan civilization Bengal
Fig. 1.1 The Indus Valley Civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization was spread throughout the northwestern part of the
Indian Subcontinent in an area roughly the size of Texas. (Mapping Specialists.)
AFP15 Map 1.1 Indus Valley Civilization
Second proof
3/01/11
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Purity and Pollution
organization. But aside from the urban consis-
s tency that indicates central administration, we One of the most obvious and intriguing fea-
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ur know very little about the way Indus dwellers tures of the Indus cities is the evidence that
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C governed themselves or structured their soci- points to an intense concern with cleanliness.
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arl ety. We also know little about their economy Private homes were furnished with sophisti-
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a’s except that village life focused on agriculture cated indoor bathing and toilet facilities that
ndi and cattle herding and life in the larger cities were plumbed and lined with ceramic tiles in a
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centered on the production of arts and crafts. relatively modern way. The plumbing and sewer
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ar The discovery of Indus Valley artifacts as far systems were superior to those found in other
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s away as Mesopotamia and Central Asia sug- cultures of the time and are in fact superior to
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o gests that trade played a significant role in the facilities found in many Indian and Pakistani
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i Harappan economy. homes today. Not only did individual homes
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a Although the archaeological data do not feature advanced lavatories, but municipali-
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u tell the complete story of this society, they do ties did as well. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa
d reveal enough for scholars to make informed each had a large central bath with public access
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hi judgments about its worldview and religious (figure 1.2). These public baths predate similar
he practices. Yet, since literary sources are unavail- facilities in ancient Rome by many centuries.
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able for corroboration, and because the arti- The ubiquity of the baths, their central loca-
facts are often ambiguous, these judgments tions, and the care with which they were con-
remain conjectures and are frequently debated structed all point to a deep preoccupation with
by experts. We will consider the archaeological purity and cleanness.
discoveries that appear to have religious import Almost certainly, this concern was more
and attempt to comprehend what they tell us than a matter of bodily hygiene. Like many
about the Indus culture and its possible impact premodern cultures, and like Hindus today, the
on the development of the Hindu Traditions. Indus dwellers were probably anxious about
Fig. 1.2 The Great
Bath of Mohenjo-daro.
The prominence of
this bathing facility in
Mohenjo-daro suggests
the centrality of ritual
purity for the inhabitants
of the indus Valley
Civilization. (Photo: © dea
Picture library / art resource,
n.Y.)
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ritual purity. Ritual purity, as compared to not always explicit or written into law. Unspo-
hygiene, involves more than removing the sweat ken taboos are often laid upon those areas of C
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and grime that accumulate on the body and life where one may run the risk of violating ap
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avoiding germs that cause disease. In its most order. Societies impose these restrictions out of r
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basic sense, ritual purity is the state of cleanness the shared belief that they prevent personal and —
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that is required for approaching what is sacred, social disorder, and for this reason many cul- e
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or holy. It often concerns what and how one tures enforce taboos with harsh punishments d
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eats, the kinds of clothes and ornamentation for violations. Whenever order has been vio- s V
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one wears, the flow of one’s bodily fluids, and lated, it must be restored to ensure social and lle
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the great mysteries of life: birth, sex, and death. personal well-being. Cultures therefore develop C
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What counts as pure and impure varies greatly methods for reestablishing ritual purity. iliz
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from culture to culture and time to time (box We do not know what specific things the tio
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1.2). Observant Jews and Muslims regard pork Indus dwellers regarded as ritually impure.
as unclean, but others consider it a great deli- Whatever the cause of impurity, the baths
cacy. Traditional Christianity once considered most likely served to remove contaminants and
childbirth to be an occasion requiring ritual reinstate the order of things, just as public and
purification, but most contemporary Christians private baths do in contemporary Hindu tradi-
no longer regard it as such. In some societies, tions. In modern India, the first religious act of
including Hindu India, one may become ritu- the day for most Hindus is bathing, a ritual that
ally contaminated simply by coming into con- brings the individual into the appropriate bodily
tact with someone who is impure. and mental states for relating to the gods and
Despite the wide variation in practices, all other persons. Today, many Hindu temples have
purity regulations essentially involve maintain- tanks or reservoirs that function as ritual baths.
ing a community’s order, its sense of what is Many natural bodies of water, such as the river
right and appropriate. Purity regulations are Ganges, serve this purpose as well (figure 1.3).
Fig. 1.3
Bathing in
the Ganges.
bathing for ritual
purification is
still an important
aspect of the
religious practice
of most hindus.
(Photo courtesy of
Creative Commons,
ilya Mauter.)
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Box 1.2 ritual imPurity
s
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ur The kinds of activities considered to be ritually polluting vary from culture to culture and from time to time.
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C There is often great variation within cultures as well. The following list delineates some of the activities that
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arl different religious traditions (or parts of those traditions) have regarded as unclean.
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n Judaism Shinto
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t i • eating pork, shellfish, catfish, amphibians, • sickness
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P reptiles, bats, birds of prey, and snails • Contact with blood
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• eating meat that has not been slaughtered in a • death, especially that of one’s father
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T prescribed manner • speaking taboo words
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a • eating with non-Jews or using utensils used by • Wearing shoes in a home
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u non-Jews • Wicked thoughts
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n • drinking wine made by non-Jews
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e • Touching a dead body, a human bone, or a zoroastrianism
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T grave • Contact with dead bodies
• Touching someone with leprosy • Coming into contact with snakes, flies, ants, or
• Menstruation wolves
• abnormal bodily discharges • sickness
• Childbirth • body waste such as excrement and clipped hair
• sexual intercourse or nails
• Masturbation • Menstruation
• Miscarriage or stillbirth
islam
• Touching a pig or dog Hinduism
• Menstruation • Tanning and leatherwork
• eating pork, amphibians, reptiles, bats, and • eating meat
birds of prey • death
• Consuming alcohol • Contact with dead bodies
• eating meat that has not been slaughtered in a • scavenging
prescribed manner • Menstruation
• defecating • eating food prepared by a person of a lower
• Touching a corpse that is unwashed and has caste
become cold • Childbirth
• sleep or other forms of unconsciousness • eating with the left hand
• Flatulence • Touching or seeing someone who is unclean
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There, devout Hindus restore the pristine order cance of the images on the seals is still a matter
that might have been disrupted by inappropri- of speculation and debate. C
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ate behavior or thoughts, or by contact with a The great majority of the seals portray male ap
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person who is deemed unclean. What we find animals with horns and massive flanks and legs r
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in the sophisticated baths and lavatories of the (figure 1.4). Indeed, throughout the artifacts —
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Harappan Civilization is probably the earli- found in the Indus Valley ruins, the male sex is e
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est expression of religious practices that run almost exclusively represented by animals; artis- d
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throughout Hindu history. tic representations of the human male are rare. s V
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Many of the animals are easily recognizable: lle
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buffaloes, elephants, rhinoceroses, bulls, tigers, C
Artifacts iv
and antelopes. But other seals display strange iliz
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In addition to architectural ruins, the excava- creatures that appear to be products of the tio
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tion of the Indus Valley cities has revealed a imagination, such as a three-headed antelope
host of intriguing artifacts. Some of the most and a bull with a single horn protruding from
interesting of these relics are the hundreds of its forehead, like a unicorn’s. This “unihorned”
tiny soapstone seals that were used to stamp bull is one of the most common images on the
designs into soft clay. These seals were probably seals. The bull often appears along with what
used to mark property in the merchant trade, as seems to be a brazier or censer, either of which
one might use a signet ring. Similar seals have may have been used for ritual purposes. Bra-
been found as far away as Mesopotamia, sug- ziers can be used for cooking sacrificial meat,
gesting a commercial connection between these and censers are receptacles for burning incense.
two civilizations. While the practical use of the The soapstone images raise many questions.
Harappan seals is not so mysterious, the signifi- Why do they depict only male animals? Why
Fig. 1.4 Seals. steatite, or soapstone, seals provide archaeological evidence for much of our understanding of indus Valley
religious practices. (Four on left: scala / art resource, n.Y. Four on right: borromeo / art resource, n.Y.)
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is the male sex represented almost exclusively sexually potent animals, the dwellers of the
s in animal rather than human form? Why do Indus Valley may have intended to acquire that
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ur the images accentuate the animals’ horns and potency for themselves. Furthermore, it is pos-
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C flanks? Do the animals have religious impor- sible that the animals themselves were regarded
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arl tance, as suggested by what appear to be ritual as sacred because of their sexual prowess. If so,
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a’s objects on some of the seals? If the seals have they may have been worshiped and made the
ndi religious meaning, why would they have been objects of cultic practice. Its frequent appear-
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used for commercial purposes, such as mark- ance in these designs might indicate that the
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ar ing property for trade? Why are some of the bull was the principal object of veneration.
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s animals realistic and others imaginary? Efforts Further underscoring the Indus Valley cul-
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o to answer these questions will be speculative, of ture’s captivation with sexuality is the discov-
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i course, but not necessarily uninformed. What ery of numerous terra-cotta figurines depicting
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a we know of other ancient cultures and later women with exaggerated hips, full thighs, bare
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u Hindu beliefs and practices can help guide our breasts, and elaborate hairstyles. While men
d hypotheses. But because answers cannot be seemed somehow insufficient to symbolize
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hi certain without confirmation from literary or male sexuality in this society, the same was not
he other sources, they must be held tentatively and true of women (figure 1.5).
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kept always open to revision. Whether these images signify human
With this caveat in mind, let us try to elu- women or goddesses (or different manifesta-
cidate the meaning of these unusual images. tions of a single goddess) cannot be ascertained
To begin, we may reasonably conclude that the by examining the figurines alone. But two fac-
images express an intense fascination with, and tors support the argument that the images are
perhaps anxiety about, sexuality and reproduc- goddesses. First, the Hindu traditions assumed
tive functions. That the seals portray only male to have roots in the religion of the Indus Valley
animals, with their genitals on obvious display, do not always make sharp distinctions between
supports this supposition, as does the strong the divine and the human domains. The gods
emphasis on the animals’ horns and flanks. and goddesses, as we shall see in subsequent
Still, we must wonder why animals rather than chapters, can assume human forms, and indi-
humans are taken as symbols of male sexual- vidual human beings can come to be regarded
ity. Perhaps these depictions are associated as divine.2 Because of the permeability between
with the human appropriation of animal pow- these two realms, the fact that the figurines
ers. Throughout the world, human beings have appear unremarkably human does not rule out
often sought to incorporate certain qualities the possibility that they symbolize the divine.
they admired in animals. In some cultures, for Second, similar representations of females from
example, eating the heart of a powerful animal the same time period have been unearthed in
was believed to allow a human to incorpo- many parts of the world (figure 1.6). These
rate the animal’s courage and strength, which comparable figurines are almost certainly sym-
were thought to reside in the heart. The animal bols of divine females.3
images of the Indus Valley seals may represent The widespread discovery of such images
a symbolic attempt to obtain such powers. By has led some scholars to theorize the existence
creating and using visual representations of of a vast mother goddess religion that long
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Fig. 1.5 Female figurine from the Indus Valley. images Fig. 1.6 The Venus of Willendorf. This figurine from
such as this terra-cotta statuette from the indus Valley northern europe is one example of an ancient goddess
Civilization were perhaps representations of goddesses who who some believe may have been at one time the object of
were worshiped for their live-giving powers. worldwide devotion. (Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, Matthias
(Photo: bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / art resource, n.Y.) Kabel.)
antedated the worship of male gods.4 That women themselves were perhaps regarded as
hypothesis has been controversial and does sacred.
not enjoy universal acceptance among schol-
ars. But whether or not such a wide-reaching
Sexuality and the Sacred
cult ever existed, it is quite likely that the
dwellers of the Harappan Civilization vener- The intimate connection between sexuality and
ated a mother goddess. The worship of a divine the sacred may strike some modern persons,
mother figure has a long, deep-rooted tradi- particularly those living in the West, as odd.
tion in Hindu history, and thus it is at least For many today, religion seems more involved
plausible that the Indus Valley images are the in suppressing sexuality rather than encour-
vestiges of what may be the earliest form of aging and celebrating it. To understand the
that tradition. Even if the figurines are not correlation of sex and divinity in the ancient
goddesses per se, it seems evident that in the world, we must appreciate several things about
Indus Valley culture, the reproductive powers the way early humans viewed the world and
of women were revered and celebrated, and their role in it. First, we must bear in mind
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that the reproductive process was the object of of sexuality may have been a way of magically
s awe. How new human beings were produced petitioning and assisting the divine forces in
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ur by the sexual union of males and females was the crucial matter of continuing life.
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C a fundamental mystery. The idea that new life
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e Proto-Shiva
a’s did not arise until the late eighteenth and early
ndi nineteenth centuries, little more than two cen- Another bit of Harappan archaeology worth
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turies ago. That reproduction was controlled by our attention is a seal illustrating a person sit-
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ar powers beyond the reach of human beings was ting in what appears to be the lotus posture, a
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s for millennia a reasonable assumption. Second, fundamental pose in the Hindu practice of yoga
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o although the ancients thought reproduction and meditation (figure 1.7). This seal raises the
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i was governed by forces greater than themselves, intriguing possibility that the earlier dwellers
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a they often believed it was necessary to cooper- on the Indus—or at least some of them—were
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u ate with and assist these forces in certain ways. practitioners of meditation. If true, then India
d One of the functions of sacrifice, for example, has had an interior-looking, contemplative
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hi was to provide the gods with the nourishment spirit throughout its history. There are other
he and raw materials (in the form of meat and tantalizing features to this seal as well. The indi-
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blood) they required to produce (or reproduce) vidual is surrounded by various kinds of animals,
life. In this sense, the divine and human realms including a tiger, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and
were dependent on each other. a bull or buffalo. The seated figure seems to have
Third, most ancient peoples believed in the three faces looking in different directions. For
power of what we would call magic. Magic, in
this sense, is the process of achieving a desired
effect through the use of rituals, words, thoughts,
and other technical means. For example, many
societies believed ceremonial dancing could
induce rain. Because reproduction, both human
and animal, was so vital to human survival, it
was often made the object of magical practices.
The mythologies of some cultures told how the
world and its inhabitants were produced by the
sexual union of a god and goddess. In such cul-
tures, men and women might perform ritual-
ized sex acts to ensure the fecundity of the land
and its people. A magical performance imitat-
ing the primordial act of the gods was thought
to provoke them to re-create or to harness the
same creative and procreative powers in the ser-
Fig. 1.7 Pashupati, Lord of the Animals. This soapstone
vice of human reproduction. In the Harappan
seal from the indus Valley displays a figure in a posture
culture, the creation and usage of the soapstone associated with meditation in the later hindu traditions. (Photo
seals and terra-cotta figurines depicting aspects courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:shiva_Pashupati.jpg.)