The Indus Valley Civilization

Fairy Discover the fascinating world of the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the oldest cities in history. From 3000 BC to 1700 BC, this ancient culture flourished in the areas of ​​Harappa and Mohenjo.

Daro has one port on Lothar. Although this civilization left behind beautiful buildings, beautiful paintings, and advanced civil engineering, the Indus texts remain a mystery because they are unwritten and there are no written records.

Discover the layout of Mohenjodaro and its beautiful structures, such as well-planned, balanced waterways and beautiful spas. Explore the daily lives of their inhabitants, from food and clothing to crafts and trade contacts. Explore religions, including the worship of the Mother Goddess and Shiva as male deities.

This article also challenges the belief that the Vedic civilization was the foundation of ancient India by unraveling the mystery of the decline of the Indus Valley civilization and its possible impact on its position. Travel through the ancient Indus Valley and see the wealth and prosperity that played a huge role in the development of Indian history.

The Indus Valley Civilization

Historical Topic	The Indus Valley Civilization
Duration	approximately 3000-1700 BC
Major centers	Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
Port	Lothal
Script	Indus Script
Decline	1700 BC

Introducing the Indus Valley Civilization

In recent years, archaeological excavations have been carried out at Mohenjo-Daro in Larkana District, Sind, and at Harappa in Montgomery District, Punjab. These and smaller test excavations at various other sites in Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab, and still further east and south have proved beyond doubt that a highly civilized community flourished in these regions about four or five thousand years ago.

The antiquity of civilization in India is thus brought almost to the same period that witnessed the growth of ancient civilizations in Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia. The Indus Valley thus ranks with the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates Valleys as having contributed to the earliest phase of human civilization of which we are still aware.

A resource on the Indus Valley Civilization

Unfortunately, we have no written records of the Indus Valley Civilization comparable to those we possess with respect to others. Several seals have been discovered with several letters engraved on them, but these still remain undeciphered.

We are therefore totally ignorant of the political history of the Indus Valley and are in no position to form an adequate idea of ​​its culture and civilization. We have at best a vague and general idea of ​​the subject, derived entirely from a careful examination of the objects discovered at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

Mohenjo Daro and the surrounding region

Mound of the Dead is the local name of a high mound situated in the plains of Larkana in a narrow strip of land between the main bed of the Indus and the western channel of the Naru. The surrounding region is wonderfully fertile and is still called Nakhlistan, or the “Garden of Sind”. A city was built here five thousand years ago.

This city was successively destroyed and rebuilt no less than seven times, the inundation of the Indus being perhaps the chief means of destruction. Reconstruction did not always immediately follow destruction, but sometimes the city remained in ruins for a considerable time before a new city appeared on top of them. So many centuries passed after the city was founded before it was finally abandoned.

City of the Indus Valley Civilization

The city is quite large.

(1) Houses

Dwelling houses are numerous and vary in size from a small two-room building to a palatial structure with a frontage of 26 meters and a depth of 29–5 meters, with external walls 1–25 to 1–5 meters thick. They are made of bricks that are usually well-fired and of good quality. Very large bricks are sometimes used, measuring 51–5 centimeters in length, 26–5 centimeters in width, and 9 centimeters in thickness.

Large houses have two or more stories and feature paved floors and courtyards, doors, windows, and narrow staircases. It is particularly noteworthy that almost every house has wells, drains, and bathrooms. In addition to numerous residential houses, there are also several spacious buildings of elaborate construction and design. Some of them contain large colonnaded halls, one of which measures 24 square meters. The exact nature and purpose of these buildings cannot be ascertained. They are believed to have been palaces, temples, or town halls.

(2) The Great Bath

The most impressive building in the city is the Great Baths. It consists of a large open quadrangle in the center with galleries and rooms on all sides. In the middle of the quadrangle is a large swimming area, 12 meters long, 7 meters wide, and about 2-4 meters deep.

It has steps at both ends and is fed by a well located in one of the adjoining rooms. The water is carried away by a huge drain with a corbelled roof more than 1.8 meters high.

The Great Bath is 55 meters long and 33 meters wide, and its outer walls are about 2-4 meters thick. The strength of the structure amply confirms the fact that it successfully resisted the ravages of five thousand years.

(3) Streets

The streets of the city are wide and straight and are equipped with an elaborate drainage system along with cesspools for bedding.

Highly developed city life

Taken together, the ruins leave no doubt that the site was a large, populous, and flourishing city whose inhabitants freely enjoyed, to a degree unknown elsewhere in the ancient world, not only sanitary conveniences but also luxury and comfort. highly developed urban life. We must also state that the art of building has reached a high degree of perfection.

People and their lives

The ruins of Mohenjo-Daro tell us much about the people who lived in that luxurious city, and as they give us the first comprehensive view of the culture and civilization of India, we must note the essential features of social, economic, and religious conditions under appropriate heads or subjects.

(1) Food

The main food was wheat, but barley and dates were also known. They also used mutton, pork, fish, and eggs.

(2) Dress and ornaments

Cotton fabrics were commonly used, but wool was also used, evidently for warm textiles. Ornaments worn by men and women classes. Necklaces, fillets, bracelets, rings, and bracelets were worn by both men and women, as were women’s garters, nose studs, earrings, and anklets.

There was great variety in the shape and design of these ornaments, and some of them are of unique beauty. These ornaments were made of gold, silver, ivory, copper, and precious and semi-precious stones such as jade, crystal, agate, carnelian, and lapis lazuli.

(3) Household supplies

(i) Earthenware vessels of rich variety were made on the potter’s wheel and were either plain or painted. In rare cases, they were glazed. Vessels of copper, bronze, silver, and porcelain were known, although they were very rarely used. It is important to remember that no scrap iron was found and that the metal was apparently unknown.

(ii) Among other articles for domestic use may be mentioned spindles and spindles made of fired clay, porcelain, and shells; needles and combs made of bone or ivory; axes, chisels, knives, sickles, fish hooks, and razors made of copper and bronze; and small cubical blocks of hard stone, probably used as weights.

(iii) Children’s toys included, in addition to familiar objects, small carts on wheels and chairs, from which we can easily infer that they were used in real life. The discovery of dice shows the prevalence of this game.

(4) Domesticated animals

Skeletal remains prove that the humped bull, buffalo, sheep, elephant, and camel were domesticated. There are some doubts about the horse. Carvings of dogs on children’s toys show that this animal was also known.

Weapons of war

These include axes, spears, daggers, maces, and slings, with comparatively fewer examples of bows and arrows. The absence of swords is significant. Shields, helmets, or any other defensive armor are conspicuous by their absence. Weapons of war, all of an offensive nature, are usually made of copper and bronze, although a few stone tools have also been found.

seal

More than five hundred seals have been discovered. They are made of terracotta and are small in size. Some contain delicate depictions of mythical and realistically engraved animal figures. They all contain a short entry inscribed in some kind of pictorial script that remains undeciphered.

Art

The animal depictions carved on these seals often show a high degree of perfection. Several stone images found at Harappa resemble the finish and perfection of Greek sculptures and show a high degree of development of the sculptor’s art.

Trade and trade

Seals were most likely used in connection with trade. There is a lot of evidence that people traded not only with other parts of India but also with many countries in Asia. They certainly secured tin, copper, and precious stones from abroad.

Arts and Crafts

• (i) Some aspects of the art and industry of the early inhabitants of the Indus have been dealt with above. Agriculture must have played an important role in the everyday lives of the common people, and wheat, barley, and cotton, among others, were grown on a large scale. Among the industrial classes, the most prominent were the potter, weaver, carpenter, mason, blacksmith, goldsmith, jeweler, ivory worker, and stonemason.
• (ii) Great advances in technical knowledge are indicated by the potter’s wheel, kiln-fired bricks, drilling of hard substances such as carnelian, and casting and metal alloys. A high aesthetic sense is indicated by the beautiful patterns of ornaments, the wonderful relief figures on the seals, and the execution of fine stone sculptures.

Religion

• (i) The objects found at Mohenjo-Daro also teach us something about the religious faith and beliefs of the people. The cult of the Divine Mother seems to have been widespread, and many figurines of this Mother Goddess have come to light. This cult may not be the same as Sakti worship in later days, but the basic ideas seem to be the same, namely the belief in feminine energy as the source of all creation.
• (ii) Along with this there was also a male god who was identified as the prototype of the god Shiva. On one particular seal, he appears to be depicted seated in a yoga position surrounded by animals. He has three visible faces and two horns on two sides of a tall headdress. It is very interesting to note how this figure corresponds to and to some extent explains the later conception of Shiva. As is well known, Shiva is considered a Mahajogina and is styled Pasupati or lord of animals, his main attributes being three eyes and a Tribula or trident. Now the apparent yogic posture of the figure at Mohenjo-daro justifies the epithet Mahdyogin, and the animal figures around him explain the epithet Pasupati. The figure’s three faces may not be related to the later concept of three eyes, and the two horns with a high headdress could easily have given rise to the concept of a three-pronged trident.
• (iii) The identification of the male god with Shiva is further strengthened by the discovery of stone pieces that look exactly like the Shiva-linga, the form in which Shiva is almost universally worshiped today.
• (iv) Besides the worship of Siva and Shakti, both in human and symbolic forms, we find the predominance of that primitive religious belief which we call Animism. It means worshiping stones, trees, and animals in the belief that they are the abodes of spirits, good or bad. A natural consequence of this belief is the worship of Nagas, Yakshas, ​​etc., who are the incarnations of these spirits. Clear traces of all this are found in Mohenjo-Daro.
• (v) It is thus clear that modern Hinduism, which has all the above features, was largely indebted to the Indus Valley culture. Indications of the existence of the cult of Bhakti (loving devotion to a personal God) and even some philosophical doctrines such as Metempsychosis have also been found at Mohenjo-Daro. So we have to argue that there is an organic relationship between the ancient Indus Valley culture and present-day Hinduism.

Political life of the Indus Valley Civilization

One area of ​​continuing mystery concerns the nature of the political life of the Indus Civilization that may have existed from around 2500 BC. Assuming that the Indus Valley cities were colonies of Mesopotamia, the mode of government was assumed to be the same.

A theocratic polity was proposed, with a degree of centralized control that exceeded anything known in Western Asia; the area administered by the Indian cities was much larger.

This unitary state was believed to have administered a vast and homogenous cultural area since its inception. Now the postulated homogeneity is considered to be greatly exaggerated, and many scholars have outlined the differences between Mesopotamian and Harappan political and social systems.

Economic life of the Indus Valley Civilization

The economic life of the Indus Civilization was based on irrigated surplus agriculture, livestock rearing, proficiency in various crafts, and brisk internal and external trade. Here we will analyze various aspects of the Harappan economy, especially agriculture, crafts and industry, trade, and commerce.

Language and script of the Indus Valley Civilization

The language or languages ​​of the Harappans are still unknown and must remain so until the Harappan script breaks down here. In general, there would seem to be two main contenders as to the nature of the language: that it belonged—however unlikely—to the Indo-European or even Indo-Aryan family; or that she belonged to a Dravidian family.

Despite careful analysis of the corpus of Harappan inscriptions, now numbering about 3,000, the task of decipherment remains problematic, and the brevity of the inscriptions, almost all on seals or amulet tablets, makes interpretation difficult.

Perhaps it is because of this challenge that the related problems have attracted a number of scientists to try to solve them. Since no two trials have yet matched, and as the number increases, only one thing is more certain: the probability that someone will be right will decrease accordingly.

Several laborious attempts to read the inscriptions have been made by groups of scholars using various techniques, including computers.

Decline of the Indus Valley Civilization

Like deciphering the Harappan script, the decline of the Indus civilization is still a great mystery. During its late phase, sometime between 2000 and 1700 BCE, “the Harappan culture as a separate entity gradually ceased to exist.” Various causes have been given for its weakening and eventual collapse: climate, disease, invasions, disturbed and uncertain conditions, occasional floods, wear and tear of the landscape, etc.

General Conclusions of the Indus Valley Civilization

• (i) The study of the Indus Valley Civilization raises several interesting problems of a general nature. First of all, it offers a striking resemblance to the ancient civilizations of Sumer and Mesopotamia itself. Advanced urban life, the use of the potter’s wheel, fired bricks and vessels made of copper and bronze, and, above all, pictorial texts, are some of the common and characteristic features of all three prehistoric civilizations. The discovery of two seals of the Mohenjodaro type in Elam and Mesopotamia and a cuneiform inscription at Mohenjodaro leaves no doubt that there was intercourse between these countries.
• (ii) So the question naturally arises: Did these three civilizations develop independently, or was any of them an offshoot of the other? To put the same thing in a different form, did civilization spread from the Indus Valley to the West or vice versa? Or are we to assume that the growth of civilization in the Indus Valley was in no way influenced by civilization in the West?
• (iii) These and related questions cannot be definitively answered. Suffice it to say that all of the alternative hypotheses mentioned above have their supporters and detractors.
• (iv) Another question of greater practical importance is the relation of the Indus Valley culture to the Vedic civilization of the Indo-Aryans, which is usually regarded as the source from which all subsequent civilizations in India have sprung. At first glance, there are significant differences between them. Vedic Aryans are largely rural, while the Indus Valley civilization characterized by the advantages of developed urban life. The former probably knew iron and defensive armor, which are completely absent from the latter. The horse played an important role in the Vedic civilization, but its early existence in the Indus Valley is doubtful. There were also important differences in respect for religious beliefs and practices. The Vedic Aryans worshiped the cow, while the Indus people reserved their reverence for bulls. Not only do the Mother Goddesses and Śiva, the principal deities of the Indus Valley, play only a minor role in the early Veda, but the latter, according to some interpreters, strongly condemns phallic worship. Image worship was known in the Indus Valley but almost unknown to the Vedic Aryans.
• (v) Because of these striking differences, the Indus Valley civilization is usually considered to be different from and older than the culture of the Vedic period. This also fits well with the generally accepted chronological scheme. For, as stated above, the Indus Valley Civilization goes back to the third millennium BC, while the date usually assigned to the Rig Veda does not go beyond the second millennium BC. However, some would place the Vedic civilization before the Indus Valley Civilization and push the date of the Rig Veda to before 3000 BC.
• (vi) The question is indeed not without difficulty. While the points of difference would undoubtedly lead us to believe that the Indus Valley Civilization and the Vedic Civilization represent two different types of culture, the arguments for the priority of one over the other are not convincing. The mention of iron in the Rig Veda would indeed be a very strong argument for relegating the Vedic civilization to a later period, but this is dubious at best. As for the other points, the data are not good enough to warrant a definite conclusion. Overall, however, the priority of the Indus Valley Civilization seems more likely and holds the field.
• (vii) Be that as it may, there is not the slightest doubt that we can no longer accept the view now generally held that the Vedic civilization is the sole basis of all subsequent civilizations in India. There is no doubt that the Indus Valley Civilization described above was a very important factor contributing to the growth and development of civilization in that country.
• (viii) Finally, there is the question of the race of people among whom the Indus Valley Civilization grew. The previous discussion would have prepared us for some of the answers that were given. Some think they were the same as the Sumerians, while others hold that they were the Dravidians. Again, some believe that the two were identical. According to this view, the Dravidians once inhabited the whole of India, including Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan, and gradually migrated to Mesopotamia. The fact that the Brahui people of Balochistan still speak a Dravidian language lends strength to this view. There is also a theory that the “Indus” people were Aryans, but this currently finds few supporters. No definite conclusion can be reached at this point, and there is always the possibility that the people of the Indus Valley may have belonged to an entirely separate race.

Conclusion

Along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley is one of the oldest urban civilizations in the world. At its peak, the Indus civilization may have had a population of more than five million. The inhabitants of the ancient Indus Valley developed new techniques in handicrafts (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The civilization is known for its brick-built cities, road drainage systems, and multi-story houses.

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