Moen Jo Daro
Until
the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, the development
of literature and culture in India was always credited to the Aryans. In
1920 archaeologists announced the discovery of extensive urban ruins in
the Indus Valley which pre-dated the earliest archaeological sources and
this has caused scholars to re-examine their views on the different
phases of Indian culture. The Rig Veda which speaks in such derogatory
terms of the enemies subdued by the Aryan tribes, gives the impression
that they were all savage barbarians.
The Brahmins for centuries have degraded the original inhabitants of India
with the intention of self elevation, preservation and oppression. These
ancient dwellers in India were Dravidians, and in fact, their culture
had developed a highly sophisticated way of life. The existence of the
Brahui tribe in Baluchistan, to the west of the Indus, who speak a
Dravidian language like South Indian Tamil, gives evidence that a
migration of people or culture did occur. Also the Harappa religion
shows many similarities with those elements of Hinduism which are
specially popular in the present Dravidian culture.
Archaeological
evidence shows that the Indus Valley culture moved from west to east, with
sites towards central and southern India flourishing after Harappa and
Mohenjo-daro had declined. This civilization is one of the three great
early civilizations that arose in the late fourth and third millennia BC
around the three large alluvial systems of the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile and
Indus rivers.
This civilization was thought to have been confined to the valley of the river
Indus, hence the name given to it was Indus Valley civilization. This
civilization was a highly developed urban one and two of its towns,
Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, represent the high watermark of the settlements.
Subsequent archaeological excavations established that the contours of
this civilization were not restricted to the Indus valley but spread to a
wide area in northwestern and western India. Thus this civilization is now
better known as the Harappan civilization. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are
now in Pakistan and the principal sites in India include Ropar in Punjab,
Lothal in Gujarat and Kalibangan in Rajasthan. Recent research has shown
Sutkagen Dor in Baluchistan next to Iran is the westernmost known Harappan
site. It is thought to have once been on a navigable inlet of the Arabian
Sea, and the usual citadel and town are present, as well as defensive
walls 30 feet wide. Sutkagen Dor would have been on the trade route from
Lot al to Mesopotamia.
The extensive excavations carried out at the two principal city sites, Harappa
and Mohenjo-daro, indicates that this Dravidian culture was well
established by about 2500 B.C. What we know of this ancient civilization
is derived almost exclusively from archaeological data since every attempt
to decipher the script used by these people has failed so far. Recent
analyses of the order of the signs on the inscriptions have led several
scholars to the view that the language is not of the Indo-European family,
nor is it close to the Sumerians, Hurrians, or Elamite, nor can it be
related to the structure of the Munda languages of modern India. If it is
related to any modern language family it appears to be Dravidian akin to
Old Tamil, presently spoken throughout the southern part of the Indian
Peninsula.A study of the evolution of scripts in India indicates that the
Dravidians, over the centuries, have made the key contributions to the
development of language and literature in India.
There are literary as well as archaeological evidences to show that there was trade
with Mesopotamia. The presence of a number of Indus seals at Ur and other
Mesopotamian cities and the discovery of a 'Persian Gulf' type of seal at
Lothal - otherwise known from the Persian Gulf ports of Bahrain and
Failaka, and from Mesopotamia-provide convincing corroboration of the sea
trade suggested by the Lothal dock in Gujarat. Ancient Mesopotamian texts
speak of trading with at least two seafaring civilizations - Makkan and
Meluha - in the neighborhood of India in the third millennium B.C. This
trade was conducted with real financial sophistication in amounts that
could involve tons of copper. The Mesopotamians speak of Meluha as an
aquatic culture, where water and bathing played a central role. A number
of Indus Valley objects have been found buried with Mesopotamians.
The Indus
cities seem to have had very few public buildings. The only one of any
note is the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro which appears to have been used in
the performance of certain rituals. Nothing that can be clearly identified
as a temple or a shrine has yet been discovered. A structure once
considered a granary is now thought to have been a palace with ventilated
air ducts.The people depended upon agriculture and trade for their
livelihood. Wheat, barley and the date palm were cultivated; animals were
domesticated; and the cotton textiles, ivory and copper were exported to
Mesopotamia, and possibly China and Burma in exchange for silver and other
commodities. Production of several metals such as copper, bronze, lead and
tin was also undertaken and some remnants of furnaces provide evidence of
this fact. The discovery of kilns to make bricks support the fact that
burnt bricks were used extensively in domestic and public buildings. The
Harappans used the same size bricks and standard weights.
Evidence for
the religious beliefs and practices of these people is slight, since the
Indus script cannot be read and apart from the bath, there appears to be
no religious structure. A certain amount of information has been derived
from scenes depicted on seal-amulets and from the terra-cotta figurines
found at different sites throughout the area. However such evidence is
open to wide interpretation. The predominance of female figurines and
seals depicting a horned goddess in association with the sacred pipal tree
are generally regarded as evidence of the worship of a mother goddess who
presided over fertility and birth and who may have acted as guardian and
protector of the dead.
In some of the
mother goddess cults of the Ancient Near East, the Great Mother who
symbolized the power of fertility came also to be associated with the
renewal of human life after death. She protected and revived those
committed to the earth from whence this new life sprang. Inhumation was
the most common method of disposing a corpse and they were buried with an
assortment of grave goods, including pottery vessels which may have
contained food and drink offerings.
The great bath at Mohenjo-daro could not have been constructed for the purpose of hygiene
since all the private dwellings were equipped with excellent bathrooms.
Since so many elements of the Indus culture appear to have found their way
into Hinduism, it is possible that ancient purification rites were taken
over and reinterpreted by members of the Brahmin caste. If this is so the
later practice of constructing artificial lotus ponds may be very ancient
indeed. These lotus ponds were used during historic times for various
purification ceremonies and one theory suggests that the bath was probably
used by the mother goddess cult. The cult at Mohenjo-daro may have
involved some form of ceremonial bathing as a prelude to ritual
cohabitation with prostitutes associated with the goddess, carried out in
the small ante-chambers adjoining the bath.
One seal
uncovered at Mohenjo-daro depicts a three-faced male god with arms
outstretched, seated on a low platform in a cross legged position (like a
yogi). His arms are adorned with bangles and his head is crowned with a
fan-shaped head-dress from which two horns project. He is surrounded by
animals and fertility symbols suggest that he concerned with the promotion
of fertility.
The appearance
of coarser type of pottery indicates invaders in the Indus cities. At
Mohenjo-daro large rooms were divided into smaller ones and mansions
became tenements, and the street plan no longer maintained. Evidently the
city was over populated and law an order were less kept, perhaps because
the invaders were already ranging the provinces and city was full of
newcomers. Around 1750 B.C. the uniform culture of this great area broke
up. The cause or causes of the end of the Indus civilization are not easy
to determine. At Mohenjo-daro groups of sprawling skeletons in this period
suggests some sort of massacre or invasion. The end of the Indus Valley
Civilization may have been fairly abrupt and violent, but long before the
end came, there seems to have been a gradual process of internal decay and
stagnation.
There is not
enough evidence to say that the destroyers of the Indus cities were
members of the group of tribes whose priests composed the RgVeda5. However
it is probable that the fall of this great civilization was partly due to
the widespread migratory movements of charioteering peoples which altered
the face of the whole civilized world in the 2nd millennium B.C. During
King Solomon's reign over Israel (970-931 B.C.) we see that chariots and
horses were imported from Egypt and exported to Asia Minor.
From the evidences presented in religions of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, and
the linguistic evidence in Sanskrit, we can see that early Indian
Christianity totally transformed the religions and worships in India.
However, these earlier practices were syncretised into Christianity
resulting in it's corruption and decay.