The Indus Valley Seals

The excavation of the Indus Valley civilization has revealed many intriguing artifacts. The most interesting of these relics are seals used to stamp designs in soft clay. Anthropologists believe that these seals probably have some religious significance. When anthropologists say that something has religious significance what they really are saying is that they don’t know what these objects meant.

These seals were probably used to mark property in trade, but the importance of the design themselves is a matter of speculation. It is interesting to note that similar seals have been found as far away as Mesopotamia, suggesting perhaps a commercial connection between these great civilizations.

The Power of Sexuality

Most scholars who examine these seals think that the images depicted on them were related in some way to fertility rituals. The great majority of seals portray animals, almost exclusively male animals with horns and massive flanks and legs. The emphasis in the horns and flanks does suggest an intense interest in sexuality and reproductive functions.

Some of the seals

This sort of concern with the power of sexuality is not at all uncommon and it is intimately connected with the experience of the sacred. Still, we are up to wonder why animals rather than humans are taken as representative of the males’ sexual powers.

I’d like to suggest that perhaps these depictions are associated with the human effort to appropriate animal powers. Throughout the world, early humans often sought to incorporate into themselves certain qualities that they admired in animals.

In the movie “Dances with Wolves”, the character played by Kevin Costner is directed to eat the warm heart of the first bison that he kills as a way of appropriating its courage, which is believed to reside in the heart.

The depiction of sexual energy in animals we find in the Indus Valley seals may suggest a similar effort to acquire powers that humans lacked or simply wanted in greater abundance.

Female Sexuality

Indus Valley’s culture fascination with sexuality is also evidenced with the discovery of numerous terracotta figurines depicting women with exaggerated hips and breasts. Similar representations have been unearthed in many parts of the world, leading scholars to theorize the existence of a mother goddess religion, long antedating the worship of male gods.

The details of that theory are debatable but is does seem evident, at least in the Indus Valley civilization, that the reproductive powers of women were revered and celebrated. Perhaps women themselves were regarded as sacred. It is clear that the worship of goddesses has a long and deeply rooted tradition in Hinduism, and may in fact derive from Indus Valley’s practices.

The Origin of Meditation?

There is a seal illustrating a man sitting down in what appears to be the lotus position, a fundamental pose in yoga and meditation. This seal rises the intriguing possibility that this early dwellers on the Indus were practitioners of meditation. If true, then India has had a contemplative spirit throughout its history.

The Pashupati Seal

The sited figure seems to have three faces looking in different directions. It is not clear what or who this image represents. Many scholars believe that this figure may be an early representation of the god who later came to be known as Shiva. Multiple faces are often used in Hindu iconography to suggest omniscience.

To compare the Indus Valley image with a modern Hindu image of Shiva helps substantiate the scholarly claim.

A modern statue of Shiva

To round up this portrait of the religious dimension of the Indus Valley let me sum up what we know. Indus Valley religion seems intensely concerned with procreation and purity. It may have involved the worship of male animals as a way of incorporating their sexual powers. Female powers of reproduction were also regarded as sacred.

Purification practices, meditation and the well organized cities suggest that the Indus dwellers were very interested in order and restrain.

The Demise

After the Indus Valley was discovered in the 19th century, scholars were faced with having to explain the demise of this great civilization and its relationship with the Aryans, the people with whom Hinduism has long been associated.

The dominant theory suggested that the Indus civilization came to an end around 1500 B.C. when bands of lighter skinned Aryans verged into the Indian subcontinent and conquered the darker skinned Indus dwellers. Today, this invasion theory is in serious doubt. Scholars are revising their understanding of the cultures of early India, although many still hold to the idea of Aryan conquest.

We know that the Indus civilization was already in decline by 1500 B.C., when the Aryans supposedly subdued the region by military conquest. Between 1900 and 1600 B.C. the Indus river may have changed its course. Maybe the entire region desiccated. This has been confirmed by recent satellite photography.

Furthermore, there is no evidence archeological or otherwise to suggest such a massive conquest. Aryans’ own extensive writings don’t mention a migration of people from outside of India. In fact, there is evidence that the Aryans and the Indus may have coexisted in the same are for some time before the ultimate demise of the Indus Valley culture.

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The Indus Valley Civilization

About 150 years ago, a discovery was made that has caused scholars to revise their understanding of the early history of India. In 1850’s, while excavating for a railroad system in Northern India, workers discovered the existence of an ancient and sophisticated civilization that had long been forgotten.

The Indus Valley civilization, as it is now known is considered one of the great cultures of the ancient world. What came to light since the first excavation suggests that the Indus Valley civilization was as great as ancient Egypt. Although Hindus would not regard the Indus Valley civilization as part of their sacred history, there is evidence that elements from this culture contributed to the great amalgam of Hinduism.

A Well Organized Urban Society

What is known about the Indus Valley culture comes exclusively from archaeological evidence, since its cryptic language has never been completely deciphered. In fact, we do not know what the inhabitants of this civilization called themselves.

The archeological evidence suggests that the Indus Valley culture flourished between 3000 and 1500 B.C. About 17 different cities have been unearthed so far and they display remarkably similar features, suggesting a social and political unity. Indus Valley civilization may have expanded over one million square kilometers.

The cities were well organized and carefully planned. The Indus Valley was relatively peaceful culture, as very few weapons have been discovered. The residences were specially impressive. Many were equipped with inner bathrooms and plumbing. In fact, great concern with cleanliness is evidenced throughout the civilization.

Not only homes features sophisticated toilet facilities, but municipalities did as well. The cities Mohenjo-daro and Harappa each had large central baths with public access.

The prominence of these baths in homes and cities suggests that the dwellers of the Indus Valley civilization were concerned with more than simple hygiene. They seem to be greatly interested in matters of ritual purity. Ritual purity is not a concept that is familiar to modern Westerners. It might be helpful to clarify this concept.

All societies maintain structures of order, what we might call simply a sense of what is right and appropriate. The structures are not always explicit or written out as laws. Taboos are often given to those areas of life were one may run the risk of violating order. For the structures to be maintained many cultures reinforce taboos with harsh punishments.

One of the most common ways for societies to maintain order is with the opposition of cleanliness and dirt. More technically purity and pollution. Essentially, all societies have things that they regard as clean and dirty. These things might be food, people or kinds of activities.

Purity and Pollution

Accounts of what is clean and dirty varies greatly from culture to culture and time to time. This has nothing to do with hygiene as such, but it has a great deal to do with social and religious order.

Frequently, cleanliness and dirtiness are functions of context rather than the intrinsic nature of things. For example, suppose that I’m at a restaurant enjoying a green salad. As long as I observe proper attitude and politely convey my food to my mouth with the fork all is well, but at the moment I drop a piece of lettuce on my tie I’m dirty. On the plate, on the fork and in my mouth the lettuce is nice and clean. On my tie, it is dirt. Nothing about the lettuce changes but its context has. A sense of order has been violated.

Some people would not drink water drawn from the bathroom tap because they regard it as somehow dirty. It is not really unhygienic because it is the same water that comes from the kitchen tap and it is the same water you use to brush your teeth. However, to some people drinking water from a bathroom tap seems out of place and inappropriate.

Understanding the dynamics of purity and pollution helps us to grasp what is probably the central purpose of the great baths in the Indus Valley civilization: to remove the ritual dirt incurred by everyday living. Today, many Hindu temples have tanks that function as ritual baths. Many bodies of water, such as the Ganges, serve this purpose.

In these baths, people came to restore the pristine order that may have been disrupted by inappropriate behavior or simply by coming into contact with a person that is seen as unclean.

What we see in the Indus Valley civilization is the earliest expression of a religious practice that runs throughout all of the Hindu history.

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