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Indus Valley Civilization

Chapter · January 2019

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-024-1036-5_251-1

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I
Indus Valley Civilization
Nalini Rao
Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo,
CA, USA
The Indus Valley Civilization that flourished
along the river Indus in north-western India
(3000 B.C.E. and 1500 B.C.E.) was the largest
and the most advanced in the ancient world, with a
high level of technological sophistication. The
archaeological remains of this civilization are
found in Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan in
Pakistan, in the states of Haryana and Gujarat in
India, and in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and
Iran. Since the first city that was excavated was
Harappa (Hariyupa), now in Pakistan, the civili-
zation is also known as the Harappan Civilization.
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were the two impor-
tant sites that were excavated in early twentieth
centuries. However important breakthroughs have
been made, and numerous Indus Valley cities have
been discovered and excavated in India, around
the river Indus and the lost river Sarasvati. Some
of the important ones include Lothal, Kalibangan,
Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, Banawali, Chahnudaro,
Surkotada, Bhiranna, Kunal, Banawali, and
others, that account to a total of about 2400
archaeological sites have been found.
The extent of the Indus Valley ranged from
680,000 km2 to 1 million km2. (more than ancient
Greece and Mesopotamia put together). It
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
P. Jain et al. (eds.), Hinduism and Tribal Religions, Encyclopedia of Indian Religions,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1036-5_251-1
comprised of about 1500 settlements that included
few large cities and small towns. The civilization
evolved gradually from the pre-existing Pre-
Harappan culture and can be broadly divided
into Early Harappan 3700–2600 B.C.E., Mature
Harappan 2600–1900 B.C., and Late Harappan
1900–1700 (or even to 1500) B.C.E.
Salient Features of the Civilization
The most striking feature of the Indus Civilization
is its homogeneity. The uniformity of its products,
form and content of its products, and standardiza-
tion of goods are remarkable. All Harappan cities
have a uniform system of urban planning and
civic administration. Towns and cities were built
on identical gridiron plan, neatly laid-out streets
and lanes, a high standard of public sanitation,
similarity of tools and weapons, and organized
trade on a uniform pattern. Even the sizes of
house and bricks, tools and ornaments, and
weights and measurements were standardized. In
addition, this civilization is remarkably different
from the Mesopotamians and Egyptian civiliza-
tion, in terms of the size and composition of the
bricks, weights, and seals.
Indus Valley cities display a uniformity in city
planning. Almost all cities consist of a citadel
(or Acropolis) or upper town where perhaps the
ruler lived and a lower town for the rest of the
population. The whole town was divided into
blocks, on which houses stood on a platform and
2 Indus Valley Civilization
houses constructed orderly on either side. For
instance, in Lothal, in Western India, the average
size of the house was 9  5.5 m, and only larger
houses had a bath each. In Lothal, drains were
paved by bricks, and to render them watertight,
the joints were almost hairbreadth and the floor
skirted by flat bricks. In regard to the underground
drains, they were built all over the city to carry
sullage and storm water, and lager soakage jars
were added to them. The hole in the bottom of the
soakage jar permitted liquid waste to soak into the
ground, while the solid waste was regularly col-
lected and removed to prevent choking of drains
and overflowing of sullage water into the streets.
The cities were designed uniformly and scien-
tifically. They were fortified, with several distinct
quarters, assembly halls, manufacturing units, fur-
naces for production of copper tools, ornaments,
public baths, private houses for most inhabitants,
sewerage through underground drains built with
precisely laid bricks, an efficient water manage-
ment with reservoirs, and wells. Width of the
streets was in a set ratio: if the narrowest lane
was one unit in width, other streets were twice,
thrice, and so on. Houses were built with mud
brick (sometimes kiln fired), and the bricks
followed a standard ratio of 4: 2: 1.
Arts and Crafts
Harappans were expert craftsmen. They made
beads of carnelian, agate, amethyst, turquoise,
and lapis lazuli and manufactured bangles out of
shells, glazed faience, and terra-cotta. They
carved ivory; worked shells into ornaments,
bowls, and ladles; and cast copper and bronze
for weapons.
Some of the famous artworks include the
Dancing Girl from Mohenjo-daro and Male
Torso from Harappa. They worked silver and
gold objects with great skill as seen in the gold
necklace from Lothal. They engraved seals,
mostly in steatite (or soapstone) with remarkable
artistry, and over 3000 of these have been found.
Each seal is incised with a writing in intaglio with
an animal motif. It is believed that they served
commercial purpose to identify consignments to
be shipped and some ritual or spiritual images to
invoke deities.
Aryan Invasion Theory
In recent years there has been tremendous debate
regarding the nature of the civilization and its
relation with the Vedic culture. Indus and Vedic
have been interpreted as foreign versus indige-
nous, superior versus inferior, Aryan/Sanskritic
versus Dravidian, urban versus rural, and illiterate
versus literate, respectively. There are some mis-
conceptions and theories that have reigned
supreme in the minds of people about this civili-
zation such as the Aryan invasion theory. The
uncritical acceptance of this theory has resulted
in preconceived notions about the nature of the
roots of Indian civilization. This is one of the most
hotly contested issues since the 1990s and has
become politicized. The theory has been chal-
lenged over the last couple of decades by both
Western and Indian scholars on the ground that
there is no convincing evidence to posit such an
invasion or migration. An objective interpretation
of the scientific excavations of the site disproved
the Aryan invasion theory. It is important to
reappraise the place of Indus Civilization within
the indigenous Vedic culture in the light of new
evidence.
The story of the beginnings of Indian civiliza-
tion is still told by Indians by recitations and
repetitions of the word Sarasvati. On the banks
of this river were composed the Vedic hymns,
among which the Rigveda mentions the river
Sarasvati 60 times as the most auspicious and
uttered with the highest praise. Interpretation of
the roots of Indian civilization changed when it
was announced that a more ancient civilization
had been discovered by Daya Ram Sahni and
R.D. Banerjee and later excavated by Sir John
Marshall (1922–1931) and E.J. H. Mackay at
Mohenjo-daro and by Vats at Harappa. While
Marshall was inclined to name it Indo-Sumerian
Civilization, Mackay called it Harappa Civiliza-
tion, as Harappa was the first site to be discovered.
However due to its marked differences from the
Mesopotamian cities, Marshall changed the title
Indus Valley Civilization
to Indus Civilization due to its proximity with the
river Indus.
However, even before the unearthing of the
two sites, in 1785, Sir William Jones discovered
that a number of languages such as Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, Old German, Per-
sian, and other languages had a common origin;
hence he gave it the name of Indo-European/Indo-
Germanic languages. Thus began a pursuit to
locate the homeland, of the Indo-European-
speaking people outside India which was fixed
in South Russia, Central Asia. With further exca-
vations at the two sites, there grew a desire to
know the place of origin of these languages, and
their relation to Vedic culture was sparked. The
latter with its superior Sanskrit language and
grammar led to the theory that one branch of
Indo-European language group probably left
their homeland around 2000–1200 B.C.E.;
migrated to Mesopotamia, Iraq, Iran, and Balochi-
stan; and settled in Saptasindhu the land of seven
rivers, where they composed the Rigveda. It was
asserted that the Indus Civilization was pre-Aryan
and charged the Vedic Aryans with destroying the
urban cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro on the
river Indus. The Aryan invasion theory was
archaeologically constructed on the basis of a
few skeletons reported to have been found
scattered in Mohenjo-daro and by relating the
Rigvedic term pur to the fortifications in Indus
cities which were destroyed by invading Vedic
Aryans. In the 1960s, a careful examination
revealed that neither did the skeletons belonged
to one and same stratigraphical context nor was
there any proof of any massacre. Most of the
skeletons positively showed that the few were
drowned in severe and sudden flood in the river
and there was no evidence of warfare. Moreover,
the literary interpretation of the word pur was
wrong, thereby proving that there was no battle
between the Aryan and Dravidians. Linguisti-
cally, the theory claimed that a group, speaking
an Indo-Aryan language, a sub-branch of the
Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family
of languages, had invaded India in 1200 B.C.E.
and imposed a very difficult Sanskrit language.
This led to the dating of the Rigveda to circa
1500 B.C.E. In addition no such event is said to
3
have been recorded in the Vedas or Puranas. Thus
with no literary or archaeological proof, or collec-
tive memory, mythology, or cult, the theory was
proved to be have been misconstrued; in the
meantime its ramifications had been tremendous.
Dales, Rao, Lal, Kenoyer, and other archaeolo-
gists agree that the invasion was in the imagina-
tion of the early excavators – Gordon Childe,
Marshall, Piggott, and Wheeler.
With the partition of India and Pakistan in
1947, similar archaeological sites were discov-
ered and scientifically excavated in India, such
as at Lothal, Kalibangan, Chahnudaro,
Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, Surkotada, and others.
Almost 2400 settlements came to be known
beyond the banks of the river Indus, and soon
the Indus Civilization came to be known as the
Indus Valley Civilization. The Vedic-Harappan
dichotomy was replaced by Aryan migration the-
ory, which contended that there were no invaders
but migrants in small batches at different points of
time and spread over a long duration and believed
to have migrated from Ukraine, through Ontic
steppes, Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan to
India. The migration theory claimed that the
Dasas and Panis of the Indus Civilization were
also outsiders and Indo-Aryan speakers, speaking
a dialect different from the one used by the
Aryans.
Several archaeological cultures were identified
with the migrating Indo-European speakers on
their way to India, such as Pit, Hut and Early
Timber, and Andronovo cultures but more impor-
tantly the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Com-
plex (BMAC). BMAC is the Bronze Age culture
that was discovered during archaeological exca-
vations in the Bactria-Margiana area. Bactria
includes the basis of the Amu Darya or Oxus
River in Northern Afghanistan and adjacent
Southeastern Uzbekistan and Margiana, the del-
taic region of the river in South Turkmenistan.
Proof of the migration of the Indo-Europeans
from BMAC was provided by artifacts in
Mehrgarh VIII and at Sibri (typical of BMAC)
and Jhukar culture of Sindh and Gangetic Copper
Hoards (Parpola 1995, p. 370). The authors of the
BMAC were believed to be the Dasas and the
destroyers of the strongholds (purs) described in
4 Indus Valley Civilization
the Rigveda, relating to the Arya-Dasa wars in
Central Asia. The BMAC and related minor the-
ories regarding the flow of the Sarasvati in
Afghanistan also negatively impacted the study
of Indus Valley Civilization.
The Aryan invasion theory had been proved as
false as early as 1964 by Dales, Rao, and Lal and
rejected by Shaffer, Kenoyer Hemphill, Lukacs
and Kennedy, Elst, and Danino. With a shift
toward the indigenous nature of the civilization,
an out of India theory arose which was expressed
in different ways. It held that the Rigveda was part
of an earlier layer of world civilization that
flourished before the rise of ancient Egyptian,
Sumerian, and Indus Valley civilizations [1].
Based on a more logical linguistic interpretation
were those who date the composition of the
Rigveda to pre-3150 B.C.E. [2]. They assume
that the Mesopotamian cultures were the bor-
rowers from Indian cultures particularly in the
use of bricks, rituals, astronomy, mathematics,
writing, and mythological concepts. Meanwhile,
in 1993 a dramatic evidence in the form of lands at
imagery exposed the paleochannels which pro-
vided a scientific evidence of the drying of the
historical river Sarasvati, around 1900 B.C.E. The
collapse of the Indus Civilization seems to be
wholly due to the disappearance of the Sarasvati
and its associated rivers. The river Sarasvati lost
two major sources of water, namely, the Satluj
(Sutlej) and the Yamuna which used to feed the
Sarasvati. The Sutlej began to join the Indus, and
the Yamuna joined the Ganga due to tectonic
disturbances.
This initiated a rethinking of existing theories
by providing a firm time period to the origins,
evolution, and decline of the Indus/Vedic civiliza-
tion(s), thereby altering the paradigm of the
debate. The discovery of many more Indus Valley
sites infused a new spirit into the controversy
about the Aryan invasion theory. It was found
that more Indus sites existed on the dry bed of
river Sarasvati (Ganweriwala, Lakhmirwala,
Kalibangan, Banawali) than on the river Indus.
No longer were Indus sites restricted to Indus
Valley but extended to Balochistan with
129 sites (belonging to mature phase), 108 in
Sind, 310 in Gujarat, 60 in Pakistan Punjab, and
360 in Sarasvati. In other words about 32% of
total sites were on the dry bed of the Sarasvati
basin which comprised of Haryana, Indian Pun-
jab, North Rajasthan, and Cholistan. The
uncontested evidence is from the nonevidence of
weapons. It was proved that at Mohenjo-daro the
so-called massacre is an exaggerated domestic
feud in which not more than six or seven were
injured. Further the few skeletons bearing cut
marks did not belong to the latest phase inferring
that no invasion of Aryans had taken place.
The correlation between the two cultures is
exemplified by many cultural facets, such as the
discoveries of fire altars in Lothal and Kalibangan,
discovery of Shivalinga in Harappa and
Kalibangan, and two terra-cotta figurines of ladies
wearing Sindhu in the parting of the hair from
Nausharo (2600 B.C.E.). Besides the observance
of Aryan religious rites such as fire worship and
animal sacrifice, and the use of Aryan symbols as
the Svastika and Asvattha (pipal leaf), the fact that
the Harappans had knowledge of the horse and
rice and practiced yoga conclusively proves that
the indigenous population of the Indus-Sarasvati
and Sabarmati Valleys were followers of Vedic
religions. Terra-cotta figurines in yogic asanas
(from Mohenjo-daro), Vedic priest from
Mohenjo-daro, a terra-cotta figurine greeting
with Namaste from Harappa, and probably
impression of a seal depicting Siva in his aspect
of Pasupati or lord of animals all support the fact
that the Indus Civilization was part of India’s rich
Vedic cultural and religious tradition. In addition
is the substratum evidence in Vedic terms, i.e., an
indigenous language as not being subsumed and
displaced by an alien intrusive language has never
happened in history. Furthermore the grammatical
features and vocabulary of Indus seal inscriptions
indicate the language belonged to the old Indo-
Aryan (Sanskrit family) according to the reading
of the Indus script by Dr. S.R. Rao. Thus the Indo-
Aryan language was indigenous to India. Archae-
ologists have been successful in finding tangible
archaeological evidence which proved that the
invasion was a myth. Thus the extensive research
by archaeologists removes any lingering doubt on
the reality of the great river Sarasvati and the
associated civilization and establishes that the
Indus Valley Civilization
highly evolved Indus and Sarasvati civilizations
were in fact one and the same.
The Aryan invasion theory was perpetuated
and incorporated in all textbooks in India,
although it was refuted by innumerable world
archaeologists, historians, philologists, religious
specialists, anthropologists, and DNA specialists.
There is absolutely no archaeological or literary
evidence for the theory and is based solely on
misinterpretation of certain words. The word
“arya” was a cultural term and does not pertain
to race in ancient India and never was in Indian
history. In fact, the civilization that flourished in
India from about 3000 B.C.E. to 1200 B.C.E. was
a singular, indigenous culture (Nalini Rao,
Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization: New
Perspectives).
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5
A study of the human skeletal remains from
Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Lothal, and Kalibangan
has revealed that the Indus population was not
homogenous; it was pluralistic. The Indus empire
which was built on economic foundation rather
than military force had innovated a system of
writing. After the catastrophe in 1900 B.C.E.
(when the river Sarasvati changed its course),
many of the inhabitants migrated to safer regions
and the civilization did not die a sudden death.
References
1. Frawley D (2001) The Rig Veda and the history of
India. Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi
2. Talageri SG (2000) The Rigveda: a historical analysis.
Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi