(3000–2000 B.C.E.) An ancient and highly
developed urban culture, so named
because the first two sites discovered,
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, both lie
on the Indus River in what is now
Pakistan. Further searching has
uncovered other sites along much of the
Indus, as well as a web of settlements
stretching east to the upper Ganges
basin, south through the modern state
of Gujarat and into modern
Maharashtra, and along the coast of
modern Pakistan. The greatest concentration of these settlements has been
found along the banks of the Ghaggar
River, a small and seasonal watercourse
that runs through the state of
Rajasthan. Some historians claim that it
is the bed of the ancient Saraswati
River. Evidence from the sites seems to
indicate that the sites further to the
south developed later, but remained
vital after the cities in the Indus River
Valley, particularly Harappa and
Mohenjo-Daro, had fallen into oblivion.
The discovery of these sites in the early
twentieth century prompted significant
historical revision, since before then it
had been generally assumed that the
people known as the Aryans were the
earliest developed culture in India.
The most striking feature of these
cities is their uniformity—their general
city plan was nearly identical from place
to place (although they differed in
scale), the bricks used throughout all the
cities were exactly the same size, and
there was a standardized set of weights
and measures. Each of the cities also
had a large central granary, which stored
the grain necessary to feed such a sizable urban population. Such evident
uniformity over such long distances
bears clear witness to a strong and
centralized government, which some
analysts have speculated was religious
in nature.
Another striking feature of all the
cities was an advanced sanitation system. All the houses had channels for
water, and an elaborate network of
drains and sewers ran throughout the
city, even in those sections where the
houses were the smallest, and people
presumably the poorest. Mohenjo-Daro
also has a great tank built of brick and
sealed with pitch, which the archaeologists have dubbed the “Great Bath.” Why
were the people who built these cities so
concerned with sanitation and bathing?
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Indus Valley Art
Some experts believe this reflected religious concern for ritual purity, rather
than hygiene.
Many of the artifacts from these
cities are remarkably well preserved,
and give us a fairly comprehensive picture of their material culture: what they
ate (wheat and barley were the primary
food grains), what they wore (cotton),
which animals they had domesticated
(cattle, fowl, goats, sheep, pigs, donkeys,
and dogs), and the implements of everyday life.
Archeological excavations have also
found more than 2,000 small seals,
which are assumed to have served as the
insignia for mercantile families. Many of
the seals bear writing, although it has
never been deciphered, as well as realistic pictures of animals and human
beings. Three of the seals display a
horned figure sitting with his upper legs
splayed and his heels touching one
another. Some viewers have cited the
figure on these seals as proof that the
Indus Valley culture is the ultimate
source for the god Shiva, a figure who
does not appear in the Vedas, the earliest Hindu religious texts, but who later
becomes one of the primary Hindu
deities. In the same way, recovery of several statues of women with grossly exaggerated female characteristics—breasts,
buttocks, and genitalia—have prompted
others to claim that this culture was the
source for the later Hindu cult of the
Mother Goddess.
One of the controversies connected
with the Indus Valley culture is what
people were living there and whether
their descendants still live in India. The
generally accepted theory among Western
scholars describes a period of contact
between the people in these cities and a
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Indus Valley Civilization
Ruins in Mohenjo-Daro. These structures are some of the earliest discovered evidence of the
Indus Valley civilization, a society believed to have emerged around 3000 B.C.E.
pastoral group of outsiders called the
Aryans. The language of the Aryans,
Sanskrit, shows certain structural relationships with classical European languages and even closer connections to
the Avesta, religious texts of ancient
Iran. Based on an analysis of the relationships between these languages and
the rate at which these languages have
changed, scholars have inferred that all
these languages came from a common
mother language, and that people
speaking this parent language originated
in central Asia, somewhere near the
Caspian Sea. From there, some went
west to Europe, some went southwest to
Turkey, and some went south toward
Iran, and later to India. This entire theory
is thus based almost solely on the
observed similarities between languages and assumptions about the rate
of linguistic change—some of which are
necessarily arbitrary.
The one piece of material evidence
for this theory comes in the remains of
horses found at the Indus Valley sites.
The horse was an established part of
Aryan life, according to references based
on the Aryan religious texts, the Vedas,
whereas it seems to have been absent
from the Indus Valley cities—it is not
portrayed on any of the carved seals,
which show many other animals, and
the only bones that have been recovered
from the Indus Valley cities are found in
the most recent archeological strata.
This theory describes a period of contact and possible conflict between the
Aryans and Indus Valley peoples, after
which the Aryan culture and religion
became the dominant force in Indian
life. The Indus Valley cities were completely forgotten until they were excavated in the early twentieth century.
The Aryan migration theory accounts
for the dissemination of various languages, but is not universally accepted.
Many modern Indians subscribe to the
Indigenous Aryan (IA) theory, which
contends that the Aryans are the original
inhabitants of India, and as proof points
to the artifacts found in the Indus Valley
civilization. Some IA supporters are
reacting against the Aryan migration
theory’s perceived colonialist bias,
since the theory was developed by
Europeans and assumes that the dominant groups in modern India must have
come from outside. Other supporters
are the proponents of Hindutva, who
identify being Hindu with being an
Indian. The IA theory allows Hindutva
proponents to claim that all Indians are
“really” Hindus and thus one social
group, whatever their particular religious beliefs. This assertion has profound political implications in modern
India, where Christians and Muslims
are not only religious communities,
but social and political ones. By connecting Hindu identity and good
Indian citizenship, Hindutva proponents are marginalizing Christians and
Muslims as outsiders.
Such claims are intriguing, but there
is slim evidence for them. The real truth
is that researchers have recovered lots
of material objects, but what these
things mean is open to interpretation.
At the very least, we know that this
culture flourished for about a thousand
years. Its final collapse—because of
a prolonged drought, according to
one theory—took place around 2000
B.C.E. For further information see
Walter Ashlin Fairservis, The Roots of
Ancient India, 1975.