Bath, Mohenjo-Daro

One of the most striking structures excavated at Mohenjo-Daro, the first city of
the Indus Valley civilization to be discovered. This bath is an oblong pool,
thirty-nine by twenty-three feet in area
and eight feet deep. It is built of brick
and sealed with pitch. The tank could be
drained through an opening in one corner, and it was surrounded on all four
sides by small rooms reminiscent of
changing rooms. The Indus Valley cities
gave great attention to plumbing, sanitation, and sewers, suggesting that
bathing (snana) may have been connected with ritual purity as in modern
Hindu life. With this in mind, the bath
was probably not a swimming pool but
rather had some deeper connection
with religious life. For further information see Walter Ashlin Fairservis, The
Roots of Ancient India, 1975.