Indus Valley Religion

Although some experts have made
definitive claims about the religion of
the Indus Valley civilization, it must be
remembered that all these claims are
highly speculative, since they are solely
based on the remains from the cities.
Artifacts such as grains, animal bones,
traces of fabric, and building foundations give us a good basis for knowing
about the material life of this culture—
what people ate, what they wore, and
the types of dwellings they lived in.
The notion of religion, however, is far
more abstract. It is thus not only harder
to infer what types of religion were practiced from the artifacts that have been
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Indus Valley Religion
recovered, but these same artifacts can
also be used as evidence for widely differing conclusions. The objects themselves are mute and can be interpreted
in many ways. Still, among these objects
are several artifacts that are intriguing.
Among the artifacts found at sites in
the Indus Valley civilization have been
ceramic female figures with grossly
exaggerated female characteristics—
breasts, buttocks, and genitalia. These
figures strongly resemble the Bronze
Age European image known as the
“Venus of Willendorf,” which has been
associated with the worship of female
fertility and procreative power. Given
these similarities, it seems likely that a
similar cult existed in the Indus Valley
civilization. The statues give no indication of how widespread this cult was—
whether it was related to fertility cults in
other places or was simply a parallel
development. There is no proof that this
cult was the basis for the later Hindu
worship of the Goddess as the supreme
reality. Any such claims are making
broader inferences from this limited
material evidence—at best, such claims
are highly speculative; at worst, they
are irresponsible and driven by an
underlying agenda.
The other intriguing artifacts from
the Indus Valley civilization have come
from seals, of which several hundred
have been found. Many of the seals have
pictures of animals or objects from
everyday life, but three of the seals from
Harappa bear the image of a horned figure sitting cross-legged on a small platform. Some viewers have described this
figure as a “Proto-Shiva,” since it has
several features associated with the
Hindu god Shiva—the sitting posture is
associated with the practice of yoga, and
the figure’s horns indicate his form as
Pashupati, the “Lord of Beasts.”
Proponents of this theory point to
the Indus Valley culture for the roots of
Shiva, rightly noting that although Shiva
becomes prominent in later Hinduism,
he is virtually absent from the Vedic
pantheon. Virtually the only place that
Shiva appears is in the Shvetashvatara
Upanishad, one of the latest of the mystical texts known as the Upanishads,
which describes the god Rudra—later
identified with Shiva—as the supreme
power in the universe.
Although it is possible that the worship of Shiva lies in the Indus Valley culture, anyone not inclined to believe this
at the outset will be hard-pressed to find
this particular evidence persuasive.
There is also mysterious writing on the
seals, and if and when this writing is
deciphered these relationships may
become clearer. See also Veda.