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It has been suggested that this article be merged into Indus Valley Civilisation#Religion. (Discuss) Proposed since August 2021.

Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization is a debated topic and remains a matter of speculation. If the Indus script is ever deciphered, this may provide clearer evidence.

Background

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from today's northeast Afghanistan, through much of what is now Pakistan, and into western and northwestern India. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through India and Pakistan along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers.

Overview

The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley people have received considerable attention, especially from the view of identifying precursors to deities and religious practices of Indian religions that later developed in the area. However, due to the sparsity of evidence, which is open to varying interpretations, and the fact that the Indus script remains undeciphered, the conclusions are partly speculative and largely based on a retrospective view from a much later Hindu perspective. Geoffrey Samuel, writing in 2008, finds all attempts to make "positive assertions" about IVC religions as conjectural and intensely prone to personal biases — at the end of the day, scholars knew nothing about Indus Valley religions.

An early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu interpretations of archaeological evidence from the Harappan sites was that of John Marshall, who in 1931 identified the following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants; symbolic representation of the phallus (linga) and vulva (yoni); and, use of baths and water in religious practice. Marshall's interpretations have been intensely critiqued, and most of his specific details have failed to stand the test of time. Yet, states Asko Parpola, Marshall's conclusions have been generally accepted.

Some contemporary scholars (most significantly, Parpola) continue to probe the roles of Indus Valley civilisation in the formation of Hinduism; others are ambivalent of these results. This notion of IVC-traces, says Hiltebeitel, is deemed as the "substratum theory" by scholars in opposition.

Seals

Pashupati Seal

Most discussions on religion in IVC centers around a seal that shows a large central figure, either horned or wearing a horned headdress and possibly ithyphallic, seated in a posture reminiscent of the Yogic Lotus position, surrounded by animals. Marshall determined the figure as Pashupati (Lord of Animals; epithet of the Hindu deities Shiva and Rudra) and it remained an unassailable evidence in favor of IVC influencing Hinduism for a few decades. Some scholars of Yoga — Karel Werner, Thomas McEvilley et al — have since used it to trace back the roots of Yoga to IVC.

In 1976, Doris Meth Srinivasan mounted the first substantial critique of Marshall's identification. Gavin Flood, two decades later, noted that neither the Lotus position nor the anthropomorphic form of the central figure was deducible to any certainty. Geoffrey Samuel, writing in 2008, rejects Marshall's theory as mere anachronistic speculation; he goes on to reject that yoga has its roots in IVC, as does Andrea R. Jain.

Paleontologist cum Indologist Alexandra Van Der Geer, in her 2008 survey of Indian mammals in art, comments the figure to remain "unknown" until the script is deciphered. Samuel had taken a similar stance. Wendy Doniger, writing in 2011, takes a similar stance and notes of multiple scholars to have engaged in intense speculations on whether a millimeter long raise imprint in an inch-long seal denotes phallic erection or not (waistband/dhoti-knot)! Michael Witzel considers the image to be an instance of Lord of the Beasts found in Eurasian neolithic mythology or the widespread motif of the Master of Animals found in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean art, and the many other traditions of horned deities. Alf Hiltebeitel suggests that the legend of Mahishasura may have roots in IVC as seal 279 depicts man hurling a spear at buffalo.

Swastika Seals

Swastika is a symbol sacred to multiple Indian religions — Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. That the icon has been located in IVC artifacts, a continuum has been posited by few scholars but it is not yet proved. The artifacts were utilized by political and religious leaders of the subcontinent to claim ties of Hinduism with IVC.

IVC Swastikas were prim. engraved in button (and square) seals. Manabu Koiso and other scholars classify them as embossed with "geometric motifs" (including concentric circles, knots, and stars); these types became extremely predominant at the end of the Mature Harappan Phase and their relative sizing might have reflected socio-economic, political, and religious hierarchy.

E. C. L. During Caspers found the Swastika Seals to have served "mercantile purposes" in certain trade routes; Gregory Possehl has documented trade-circulation of these seals. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer notes the IVC Swastika to be an abstract "decorative motif" that might have reflected contemporary ideology; he also posits a possible usage in trade — the seals either denoted the owners involved in a commercial transaction or were proto-bureaucratic certifications. Overall, the precise purpose of these seals in IVC continue to remain inconclusive but it is unlikely that they served any religio-ritualistic purpose.

Also, Swastika had developed in multiple cultures of the world contemporaneous to or even pre-dating IVC. That Swastika has been recorded in early Andronovo culture, the roots of Hindu Swastika might easily lie in the Indo-Aryan migrations.

Miscellaneous icons

IVC seals show a variety of trees, that are since considered as sacred in Hinduism — banyan, pipal, and acacia.

Sculptures

Terracotta Figurines - Mother Goddess

Certain terracotta statuettes have been identified as figurines of "Mother Goddess" (and fertility, by extension) by a spectrum of scholars — Ernest J. H. Mackay, John Marshall, Walter Fairservis, Bridget Allchin, Hiltebeitel, Jim G. Shaffer, and Parpola among others — thus positing links to the Shakti tradition in Hinduism.

Scholars like David Kinsley and Lynn Foulston accept the figurine-identifications, but rejects that there is any conclusive evidence to link them with Shaktism. Sree Padma, in an anthropological study of the Grāmadevatā tradition, finds pre-Hindu roots but declines to explicitly identify it with IVC. Kenower remains ambiguous — the figurines might have been worshipers or deities — and does not mention of any links with Shaktism. Yuko Yukochi, in her "landmark publication" on Shaktism, refuses to discuss IVC influences — the undeciphered script did not allow integrating the archeological with the literary.

Peter Ucko had challenged the very identification as early as 1967 but failed to make any noticeable dent. In the last three decades, the identification has been increasingly rejected by a newer generation of scholars — Sharri Clark, Ajay Pratap, P.V. Pathak, and others. Shereen Ratnagar (2016) rejects the identification, as being based on flimsy evidence. As does Doniger. Clark, in what has been described as a ground-breaking work on terracotta figurines of Harappa, emphatically rejects that there exists any bases for the Mother Goddess identification or hypothesizing a continuance into Hinduism.

Priest King

Ernest J. H. Mackay, the archaeologist leading the excavations at the site when the piece was found, thought the statuette to represent a "priest". John Marshall agreed and regarded it as possibly a "king-priest", but it appears to have been his successor, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who was the first to use the designation of Priest-King in support of his proposition that the urban complexities had to necessarily result from a ruling class. One of the "seven principal pieces of human sculpture from Mohenjo-daro", Parpola has even hypothesized it to resemble later Indian traditions of Priesthood.

The terminology is not preferred in modern scholarship and scholars have increasingly shifted to the view that IVC was a far egalitarian society with some kind of clan rule. Modern scholars find the term as well as the hypothesis to be highly speculative, problematic, and "without foundation" — Wendy Doniger in a scathing review noted that Parpola's "desire and imagination" surpassed available evidence. The statuette is now believed by many to be the result of interactions with the culture to the north, the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, around the Oxus river.

Miscellaneous

A broken stone sculpture — after reconstruction of missing limbs — has been proposed to assume a dancer's pose, thus being evocative of later-day Nataraja.

Architecture

Buildings

Kenower notes that certain large structures might have been used as temples but their precise function cannot be determined. Hiltebeitel suggests that the elevated citadel complex might have served sacred functions.

Stones - yonis

John Marshall and Ernest Mackay proposed certain stones (excavated at Harappan sites) to be the symbolic representation of yonis, thus drawing links to the cult of phallic worship in Hinduism. Most scholars treat this hypothesis with suspicion.

Arthur Llewellyn Basham found these archaeological identifications to be "extremely doubtful". George F. Dales chose to outright reject the hypothesis — Marshall's findings were untenable on an overall review of excavation finds — and Asko Parpola agreed with him; yet in light of other evidence, Parpola cautioned against ruling out Marshall's hypothesis in totality. The "yoni-stones" have been since understood to be components of pillars but Jane McIntosh notes the possibility of the stones/pillar being sacred architecture, as not yet foreclosed. Dilip Chakrabarti and Hiltebeitel however support Marshall's identification.

Great Bath

Many scholars propose the Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro to be a forerunner of ritual bathing, central to Hinduism. Doniger rejects the hypotheses; to her, the Great Bath is only suggestive of Harappans having a propensity for bath.

Sewage system

Elaborate sewage networks suggest to Hiltebeitel and Parpola an excessive concern with personal cleanliness, which is correlated to the development of caste-pollution theories in Hinduism.

See also

• Indus Valley Civilisation
• History of Hinduism
• History of India

Notes

1. Wright: "Mesopotamia and Egypt ... co-existed with the Indus civilization during its florescence between 2600 and 1900 BC."
2. Wright: "The Indus civilisation is one of three in the 'Ancient East' that, along with Mesopotamia and Pharaonic Egypt, was a cradle of early civilisation in the Old World (Childe, 1950). Mesopotamia and Egypt were longer-lived, but coexisted with Indus civilisation during its florescence between 2600 and 1900 B.C. Of the three, the Indus was the most expansive, extending from today’s northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and India."
3. Reviews of Parpola's works have been fairly critical.
4. Compare linear versus synthetic development in the origins of yoga.
5. Witzel: "It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); ..." (p. 70) "a Vedic connection of the so-called Siva Pasupati found on some Harappa seals (D. Srinivasan 1984) cannot be established; this mythological concept is due, rather, to common Eurasian ideas of the “Lord of the Animals” who is already worshipped by many Neolithic hunting societies."
6. Mahishasura is a Sanskrit word composed of Mahisha meaning buffalo and asura meaning demon, thus meaning Buffalo Demon. Mahishasura had gained the boon that no man could kill him. In the battles between the Devas and the demons (asuras), the Devas, led by Indra, were defeated by Mahishasura. Subjected to defeat, the Devas assembled in the mountains where their combined divine energies coalesced into Goddess Durga. The newborn Durga led a battle against Mahishasura, riding a lion, and killed him. Thereafter, she was named Mahishasuramardini, meaning The Killer of Mahishasura.
7. The absence of palatial structures meant that typical kings weren't a good fit. So, the idea of a military-theocratic state was borrowed from Mesopotamia.
8. For an example, see Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund referring to the statuette as "so-called Priest King" in the latest edition of their classic introductory text for undergraduates, A History of India.

References

1. Hiltebeitel, Alf (1978). Anthropos. Vol. 73. pp. 767–797. ISSN 0257-9774.
2. ^ Parpola 2015.
3. ^ Wright 2009, p. 1.
4. ^ Wright 2009.
5. Giosan et al. 2012.
6. Wright 2009, pp. 281–282.
7. ^ Samuel, Geoffrey, ed. (2008), "Introduction", The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–14, ISBN 978-0-521-87351-2, retrieved 2021-08-09
8. Ratnagar 2004.
9. Marshall 1931, pp. 48–78.
10. Possehl 2002, pp. 141–156.
11. Srinivasan, Doris (1984). "Unhinging Śiva from the Indus Civilization". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1): 77–89. ISSN 0035-869X.
12. Jamison, Stephanie W. (2020). "Review of The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 140 (1): 241–244. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0241. ISSN 0003-0279.
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15. Flood 1996, p. 24-30, 50.
16. ^ Hiltebeitel 1989.
17. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
18. For a drawing of the seal see Figure 1 in: Flood (1996), p. 29.
19. Sullivan 1964. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSullivan1964 (help)
20. Steven Rosen; Graham M. Schweig (2006). Essential Hinduism. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 45.
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22. Flood 1996, pp. 28–29.
23. Geer, Alexandra Van Der (2008). "Rhinoceros Unicornis". Animals in Stone : Indian Mammals Sculptured Through Time. Brill. p. 384. ISBN 9789004168190.
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25. Witzel 2008, pp. 68–70, 90.
26. Witzel 2008, pp. 90.
27. Hiltebeitel, Alf (1978). "The Indus Valley "Proto-Śiva", Reexamined through Reflections on the Goddess, the Buffalo, and the Symbolism of vāhanas". Anthropos. 73 (5/6): 767–797. ISSN 0257-9774.
28. Lochtefeld, James G. (2002). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: A-M. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 410. ISBN 978-0-8239-3179-8.
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30. ^ Robinson, Andrew (2021). "Trade". The Indus: Lost Civilizations. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781789143850.
31. ^ Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (2005). "Culture change during the Late Harappan period at Harappa: new insights on Vedic Aryan issues". In Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie (eds.). The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. Routledge. p. 21. ISBN 9780203641880.
32. ^ Parpola, Asko (2018), Jamison, Gregg; Ameri, Marta; Scott, Sarah Jarmer; Costello, Sarah Kielt (eds.), "Indus Seals and Glyptic Studies: An Overview", Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 127–143, doi:10.1017/9781108160186.011, ISBN 978-1-107-19458-8, retrieved 2021-08-09
33. ^ Avari, Burjor (2007). "The Harappan Civilisation". India: The Ancient Past : A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge. p. 49. ISBN 9780415356152.
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35. Caspers, Elisabeth C.L. During (1973). "HARAPPAN TRADE IN THE ARABIAN GULF IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM B.C." Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 3: 3–20. ISSN 0308-8421.
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37. Kuz’Mina, E. E.; Mallory, J. P. (2007-01-01). "Ceramics". The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. p. 73.
38. ^ Ratnagar, Shereen (2016-12-01). "A critical view of Marshall's Mother Goddess at Mohenjo-Daro". Studies in People's History. 3 (2): 113–127. doi:10.1177/2348448916665714. ISSN 2348-4489.
39. ^ Bhardwaj, Deeksha (18 October 2018). "Traces of the Past: The Terracotta Repertoire From the Harappan Civilisation". Sahapedia.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
40. Foulston, p. 4.
41. Kinsley(a), p. 217.
42. Padma, Sree (17 October 2013). Vicissitudes of the Goddess : Reconstructions of the Gramadevata in India's Religious Traditions. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199325030.
43. Sarkar, Bihani (2019-05-29), "Durgā", Hinduism, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/obo/9780195399318-0219, ISBN 978-0-19-539931-8, retrieved 2021-08-10
44. Yuokochi, Yuko (2004). The Rise of the Warrior-Goddess in Ancient India: A Study of the Myth of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skanda-Purāṇa (Thesis). University of Groningen. p. 7-8.
45. Fritz, John M. (June 2019). "Review of "The Social Lives of Figurines: Reconstructing the Third-Millennium-BC Terracotta Figurines from Harappa. Sharri R. Clark. Cambridge, MA: Papers of the Peabody Museum 86, 2017, 362 pp. + CD. $85.00, paper. ISBN 9780873652155."". Journal of Anthropological Research. 75 (2): 269–270. doi:10.1086/702805. ISSN 0091-7710.
46. Clark, Sharri R. (20 February 2017). The Social Lives of Figurines: Recontextualizing the Third-Millennium-BC Terracotta Figurines from Harappa. Papers of the Peabody Museum: 86. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780873652155.
47. ^ Possehl, 115
48. ^ Coningham & Young 2015, pp. 480–83a. sfn error: no target: CITEREFConinghamYoung2015 (help)
49. ^ Green, Adam S. (2021-06-01). "Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization". Journal of Archaeological Research. 29 (2): 153–202. doi:10.1007/s10814-020-09147-9. ISSN 1573-7756.
50. Possehl, 113
51. Wright 2009, p. 252.
52. Possehl, 57; Green; Singh (2008), 176-179; Matthiae and Lamberg-Karlovsky, 377
53. Possehl, 115 (quoted); Aruz, 385; Singh (2008), 178
54. Kenoyer 2014, p. 424,b "The most famous of these stone figures was originally referred to as the “Priest-King” (Fig. 1.25.8) based on similar images from Mesopotamia, but there is no way to confirm this identification without the aid of written texts." sfn error: no target: CITEREFKenoyer2014 (help)
55. Vidale, Massimo (2017). "Contacts with other regions and the Indus". Treasures from the Oxus: The Art and Civilization of Central Asia. Bloomsbury. p. 56. ISBN 9781784537722.
56. Asko Parpola (1985). "The Sky Garment - A study of the Harappan religion and its relation to the Mesopotamian and later Indian religions". Studia Orientalia. 57. The Finnish Oriental Society: 101–107.
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• Marshall, John, ed. (1931). Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization: Being an Official Account of Archaeological Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro Carried Out by the Government of India Between the Years 1922 and 1927. London: Arthur Probsthain.
• Parpola, Asko (2015-07-15). The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-022693-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Possehl, Gregory L. (2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 978-0-7591-1642-9.
• Ratnagar, Shereen (April 2004). "Archaeology at the Heart of a Political Confrontation The Case of Ayodhya" (PDF). Current Anthropology. 45 (2): 239–259. doi:10.1086/381044. JSTOR 10.1086/381044. S2CID 149773944.
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• Articles to be merged from August 2021
• History of India
• Hinduism
• History of South Asia