Indian Or Harrapan?
We all recall the first chapter of our every history textbook — The Harrapan Civilization. But whenever we try to recall what we learned in it, all we recall are statues, great bath and probably that’s it. I am sure the civilization was way beyond that — it was structures in such a way that historian are still devoting their lives to decode it correct.
Now, before we start, let me remind you that the Harrapan script has never been decoded. Linguists and scientists and historians and everyone have been working day and night to understand a miniscule of it but till now, they haven’t been quite successful. The script suggests that writing developed independently in the Indus Valley Civilization from the script employed in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Now what do we do when we see magnificent things but fail to describe them? We start rumors( like the Harrapans were Dravidians, Aryans slaughtered Harrapans, contacts with aliens bla bla bla). There are numerous rumors on this civilization, some might actually be true; but obviously, until the language is decoded, we would never know.
The earliest written reference to the Harrapans is found in Mesopotamian civilization who refer to them as the ‘Meluhhas’. Carnelian beads with an etched design in white were probably imported from the Indus Valley by Mesopotemia, and made according to a technique of acid-etching developed by the Harappans.
Various inscriptions also mention the presence of Meluhha traders and interpreters in Mesopotamia. Some Indus seals seem to show possible Mesopotamian influence, as in the “Gilgamesh” motif of a man fighting two lions (2500–1500 BCE). Now we all know that the more a civilization trades, the richer it gets. And this one traded a lot !
It is considered a Bronze Age society, and inhabitants of the ancient Indus River Valley developed many techniques in metallurgy — the science of working with copper, bronze, lead, and tin.
Many indigenous writers like David Frawley use the “Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation”, as they consider the Ghaggar-Hakra river to be the same as the Sarasvati, a river mentioned several times in the Rig Veda .Recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, whose descriptions in the Rig Veda are those of a snow-fed river, the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers, which became seasonal around the time that the civilisation diminished, approximately 4,000 years ago.
According to one estimate, the population of the Indus civilization at its peak may have been between one and five million
The civilization may have also been the first to use wheeled transport which may have included bullock carts that are identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as well as boats. Ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran which suggest considerable mobility and trade are also seen.
An interesting fact is the absence of grand palaces and forts. In fact we find grand public offices, granaries and public utility structures. This might suggest an absence of monarchy and the presence of a republic-democratic system, which lay the foundations of modern political thought. The site of Kot Diji represents the phase leading up to Mature Harappan, with the citadel representing centralized authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Although some houses were larger than others, the cities were remarkable for their apparent, if relative, egalitarianism. All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities giving an impression of a society with relatively low wealth concentration, though clear social levelling is seen in personal adornments.
Over the time, three major theories have proposed concerning Harappan governance or system of rule. The first is that there was a single state encompassing all the communities of the civilization, given the similarity in artifacts, the evidence of planned settlements, the standardized ratio of brick size, and the apparent establishment of settlements near sources of raw material. The second theory posits that there was no single ruler, but a number of them representing each of the urban centers, including Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and other communities. Finally, experts have theorized that the Indus Valley Civilization had no rulers as we understand them, with everyone enjoying equal status.
Masson, an ex-soldier of the British East India Company, was highly interested in researching the paths of Alexander, the great, only to discover something greater. He chose for his wanderings some of the same towns that had featured in Alexander’s campaigns, and whose archaeological sites had been noted by the campaign’s chroniclers. Masson made copious notes and illustrations of Harappa’s rich historical artifacts, many lying half-buried. In 1856, British engineers were laying the East Indian Railway Company line connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore, when their crew discovered hard, well-burnt bricks in the area and used them for ballast for the railroad track, unwittingly dismantling the ruins of the ancient city of Brahminabad. Later, these ruins were surveyed more intensely by Cunningham(although his original goal of demonstrating Harappa to be a lost Buddhist city mentioned in the seventh century CE travels of the Chinese visitor, Xuanzang proved elusive) and various others who then dated it way before Buddha.
A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture was the civilization. The quality of municipal town planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene. A very prominent feature is scarce presence on weapons. This might suggest a friendly and peaceful civilization( many people hence claim it to be Jain). The systems of sewerage and drainage that were used in cities throughout the region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India today! Maybe shifting focus from violence to actually something productive isn’t quite bad.
They were also among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures(weights and measures later used in Kautilya’s Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the same as those used in Lothal).
Part bull, part zebra, with a majestic horn on the seals have been a constant source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims that the image had religious or cultic significance. Seals have been found depicting a figure standing on its head, and another, on the Pashupati seal, sitting cross-legged in what some call a yoga-like pose. This figure has been variously identified.
Sir John Marshall identified a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva ( making people claim that they belonged to the Shaivaite sect of Hinduism which is familiar with various sorts of mysterious animals and ghosts).
A handful of realistic statuettes have been found at IVC sites, of which much the most famous is the lost-wax casting bronze statuette of a slender-limbed Dancing Girl adorned with bangles, found in Mohenjo-daro. Statues glorifying the female organs have also been found along with the ones which display near-Classical treatment of the human shape: the statuette of a dancer who seems to be male, and a red jasper male torso, both now in the Delhi National Museum. Sir John Marshall reacted with surprise when he saw these two statuettes from Harappa:
When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture. Modeling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged … Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks of the Indus.
John Marshall, identified the following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants; symbolic representation of the phallus (linga) and vulva (yoni); and, use of baths and water in religious practice. Marshall’s interpretations have been much debated, and sometimes disputed over the following decades. Some of the stone-statues interpreted by Marshall to be sacred phallic representations are now thought to have been used as pestles or game counters instead, while the ring stones that were thought to symbolize yoni were determined to be architectural features used to stand pillars(it is important to note that the Sankrit language does not have a word for mortar-pestle and it has been borrowed from some different language).
The death rituals of the civilization are marked by fractional burial (in which the body is reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements before final interment), and even cremation.
Towards the end of the civilization, urban amenities such as drains and the public bath were no longer maintained, and newer buildings were “poorly constructed”. Stone sculptures were deliberately vandalized, valuables were sometimes concealed in hoards, suggesting unrest, and the corpses of animals and even humans were left unburied in the streets and in abandoned buildings. According to historian Upinder Singh, “the general picture presented by the late Harappan phase is one of a breakdown of urban networks and an expansion of rural ones.”
The largest Late Harappan sites are Kudwala in Cholistan, Bet Dwarka(marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 m (120 ft) underwater near Dwarka could be over 9,000 years old & the city is believed to be even older than the ancient Harappan civilization) in Gujarat, and Daimabad in Maharashtra, which can be considered as urban, but they are smaller and few in number compared with the Mature Harappan cities. Bet Dwarka was fortified and continued to have contacts with the Persian Gulf region, but there was a general decrease of long-distance trade along with a shift of rural settlement towards the east and the south.
The end of the city of Mohenjo-daro is known and was dramatic and sudden. Mohenjo-daro was attacked toward the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE by raiders who swept over the city and then passed on, leaving the dead lying where they fell. Who the attackers were is matter for conjecture. In Rigveda the newcomers are represented as attacking the “walled cities” or “citadels” of the aboriginal peoples and the invaders’ war-god Indra as rending forts “as age consumes a garment.” However, one thing is clear: the city was already in an advanced stage of economic and social decline before it received the coup de grâce. Hence, one city is not enough to owe the entire destruction to Aryans.
The pottery of the Late Harappan period is described as “showing some continuity with mature Harappan pottery traditions,” but also major differences. Formerly typical artifacts such as stone weights and female figurines became rare. There are some circular stamp seals with geometric designs, but lacking the Indus script which characterized the mature phase of the civilization. Script is rare and confined to potsherd inscriptions. There was also a decline in long-distance trade, although the local cultures show new innovations in faience and glass making, and carving of stone beads.
During the latter half of the 2nd millennium BCE, most of the post-urban late Harappan settlements were abandoned completely ( there is greater continuity and overlap between later Harappan and subsequent cultural phases at sites in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, primarily small rural settlements).
Recent findings suggest the occurrence of a major flood was responsible for the extinguish. Again, we hear stories in Rigveda of the great flood where Manu takes all the vital creatures, grains and seers along with him to a safe place(Himalayas?). Hence, maybe is possible that the Vedic civilization is simply an continuation of the Harrapan civilization.
Various earthquakes, draughts and floods have also been dated to this period ( which sound like the description of the great dooms day) which were most certainly responsible for the end of the civilization.
The traditional Indian style of having a courtyard (aangan) at the center of the house is also seen in Harrapan houses and was maybe taken from them.
Thus, Harrapan civilization(3300 — c. 1300 BCE) ended and people probably merged with the new Vedic cultures of the times.