Of Fucked up Fascists and Aryan Invasion Theory
Sid Harth
Questions about the Aryan identity
SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN
The Vedic People, Their History and Geography by Rajesh Kochhar; Orient
Longman, Hyderabad, 2000; pages xiv + 259, Rs.425.
"HISTORY cannot be written without implicating the historian," says
Rajesh Kochhar as he begins his journey into the remote past. By any
standards, he is an unconventional historian, an astrophysicist who has
equipped himself with the tools of diverse di sciplines - ethnography,
linguistics, metallurgy, paleobotany, among others - to interpret a
period which to this day remains wrapped in mystery. More than the
obscurity of the archaeological and scriptural records, the more
formidable barriers to unders tanding have been posed by the layers of
political partisanship that the study of the Vedas - as historical
documents - have acquired over the years.
Interpretations of the Vedas have always been closely interwoven with
competing views on the construction of the modern Indian state.
Theorists of nationhood as a primordial solidarity dating back to
antiquity, cite the authority of the Vedas in self-rationalisation. In
the early days of India's struggle against colonialism, the liberal
sections of the nationalist leadership were torn by a question of
priorities: should nationalist consolidation precede or follow social
reform? Lala Lajpat Rai, the grea t spokesman of Hindu nationalism, had
a simple solution to the conundrum: "Reform is revival and revival is
reform". While national consolidation through social reform was
undoubtedly important, this should be based entirely on rational
foundations, said Lajpat Rai. And "nothing can be national or rational
which is against the spirit of the Vedas".
This variety of blind faith has inspired a whole branch of history
which today purports to be the truly scientific interpretation, purged
of all the political implants. In this context, Kochhar's work
represents an effort to apply the widely accepted rules of rational
inquiry to both summarise the existing state of knowledge of the Vedas
and propose some rather bold solutions to its many unresolved
questions. He points out that the Vedas began to acquire value as
historical documents, as opposed to pure ly priestly records of ritual,
with the early European arrivals in India. The term "Arya", which
occurs frequently in the Vedas, was first understood as an epithet that
could be applied to the speakers of the Vedic and analogous languages.
But later phil ologists, in the flush of their discovery of the common
roots of what are today called the Indo-European languages, provided a
much broader ambit for the term.
A further note of controversy was imparted by the elevation of the
Aryan theory of race - tenuous at the best of times - to a hallowed
principle of national revival. The German philologist Max Mueller had a
crucial role in this respect. For certain elements within Indian
nationalism, the connotations of racial equality that the Aryan theory
of race carried, seemed a promise of national redemption. The racial or
ethnic basis of the Indian nation was its primeval origin in the days
of Aryan glory and its scriptural underpinnings were provided by the
Vedas. Since the idiom of nationalism then required every religion to
have an encoded system of values, beliefs and practices, Hindu
nationalism had little difficulty in casting the Vedas in that role.
Archaeological excavations beginning around 1920 turned up evidence of
the Indus Valley civilisation, confronting this school of thought with
a serious challenge. This left the Hindu nationalists with no recourse
but to seek to assimilate the Harappan ruins to the Vedic literary
corpus. In this enterprise, the antiquity of the Vedas had to be pushed
back several centuries and the Vedic river Sarasvati had to be assigned
a greater priority than the Indus as a cradle of ancient civilisation.
The initial verdict from the archaeologists was devastating for the
pretensions of the Vedic nationalists. As summed up by Mortimer
Wheeler, "Indra", the principal deity of the Vedas, "stood accused" of
destroying the Harappan civilisation. One of the many attributes of
Indra that attracts frequent references in the Vedas is in
fact, "Purandara" or "destroyer of forts". From here, it was all too
easy to build the theory of Aryan conquest over a settled Harappan
civilisation, entrenching the supposed ant inomy of Aryan and Dravidian
even deeper into the Indian political psyche.
The "Aryan conquest" was a welcome hypothesis for the thinkers who had
consistently opposed the Hindu revivalist agenda and read the Vedas as
little more than a manifesto of racial separation and social hierarchy.
Always a battleground of modern ideas, a ncient India became after this
an even more sharply contested political terrain. Rationality could
very easily have been the principal casualty of this sharp contest of
political interests. Fortunately though, historical inquiry managed to
transcend this bitter conflict between contemporary political
interests.
The varieties of evidence that Kochhar seeks to marshal in his task of
establishing the authentic history of the Vedic people cover a wide
range. When examining the literary evidence of the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, he proceeds with the robust premise that these
Puranas "are a classic example of how history should not be recorded".
And yet, these oral accounts which were committed to written texts far
after the events they purport to describe, remain the only source for
the study of ancient history, and "rejecting them outright would be
like throwing the baby with the bathwater".
Kochhar has no alternative, then, but to proceed on the basis of a
number of plausible surmises. All genealogies are traced in the Puranas
to the primal figure of Manu. Kochhar assumes that the lines of
monarchical succession delineated in these texts ar e accurate and that
a generation is roughly of 18 years duration. He then tests the
narrative against astronomical phenomena of the period, which can be
inferred with a fair measure of accuracy. Oblique references to the
state of mathematical and geometrical knowledge are culled out from the
text and correlated with known details of the evolution of Indian
thinking in these disciplines. His conclusion is that the Bharata
battle, as an epic contest of strength between the diverse clans and
tribes of the region, must have taken place around 900 B.C. He
intentionally eschews the term "Mahabharata' since the "Maha" he
argues, refers only to the numerous embellishments that succeeding
years have added on to the original account. This dating, in his view,
is infirm when viewed in isolation. But it concurs with the dating that
can be inferred from "more reliable sources such as the Vedic texts and
archaeology".
IT is a verity often overlooked that modern territorial definitions
have no meaning in the study of ancient history. To study the Vedas (or
the first of them, the Rigveda) in isolation from the Zend Avesta, an
almost equally hoary record of established religious practice from the
Iranian region, would be in Kochhar's view, completely futile. The
congruences in the vocabulary and the content are too numerous to
overlook and the partly antithetical philosophies strongly suggest an
element of political contestation between the adherents of the two
orthodoxies. Kochhar follows up this study of the texts with a broader
analysis of their linguistic contexts in the larger Indo-Iranian and
Indo-European habitats.
A particularly striking feature of the book is its effort to separate
the verbiage and the poetic effusions that surround the Rigvedic cult
of Soma, (or Haoma in the Avesta) and identify its material basis. As a
plant whose alkaloid resin is supposed to produce certain magical
effects on its users, Kochhar examines several possible candidates for
the category, before finally narrowing his focus to the ephedra plant
which is known to grow profusely in the mountainous regions of Central
Asia.
The life-sustaining rivers Sarasvati and Sarayu are similarly common to
both the Vedas and the Avesta. Modern orthodoxy allows that the Vedic
Sarasvati could possibly refer to the Ghaggar river system, which is a
rainwater drain for the Shivaliks and later broadens its channels as it
transits into the Cholistan desert in modern-day Pakistan. Kochhar
finds this identification to be rather flimsy for several reasons. Even
after allowing for all possible geological and ecological changes over
the millennia , it is simply implausible, he argues, to say that the
mighty Sarasvati of the Vedic narrative could be in such reduced
circumstances as today's Ghaggar.
The inferences that Kochhar draws are arresting and deserve quotation
at some length: "...the river names Sarayu and Sarasvati, that occur in
both the Rgveda and Avesta, refer to the rivers in Afghanistan. Sarayu
is the same river, Hari-rud, in both cas es, whereas the name Sarasvati
applied to the Helmand in the Rgveda is transferred to its tributary,
the Arghandab, in the Avesta... The significance of the occurrence of
the names Sarayu and Sarasvati in both the texts needs to be fully
appreciated... T he most natural explanation for the commonality of
these names is that they were given to the Afghan rivers by the Rgveda
composing branch of the Aryans. The Iranian branch which came to
dominate the area later, decided to retain the names. When the Rgvedic
people moved eastwards, they carried these names along and selectively
reused them. The names that were not reused lost their geographical
identity and became literary terms. This would explain the curious fact
that in spite of the Rgveda's uninterrupted sanctity and the continuous
Aryan presence in India, a large number of the Rgvedic names of rivers,
lakes and mountains are unrecognisable."
The numerous "well-established linkages" between the Rigveda and the
Avesta, Kochhar argues, firmly rule out "the Indian origin of the
Aryans". Equally definitively, it is simply inconceivable that the
Harappan civilisation could have been Aryan. A number of arguments are
advanced in support of this assertion, one among them being the absence
in known Harappan sites of any well-testified remnants of the horse, a
crucial animal in Vedic lore.
There are also serious mismatches between the available archaeological
record and the Vedic descriptions, which fly in the face of the effort
to identify the Ghaggar as the Vedic Sarasvati and ascribe to it a
greater priority than the Indus in the Harappan
civilisation. "Archaeologically," Kochhar points out, "the oldest
(Harappan) sites are in Baluchistan, followed by the lower Indus, lower
Ghaggar and upper Ghaggar in that order." The Rigveda reverses this
entire chronology, since the hymns venerating the Sarasvati are its
oldest. Archaeologically in other words, there is a pointer to an
eastward migration of the Vedic people, which can only be squared with
the scriptural evidence if the Vedic Sarasvati is identified as the
rivers of Afghanistan.
All this constitutes a very provocative reading of ancient India. Being
a relative outsider to the discipline of history, Kochhar is able to
advance bold hypotheses that the more conventional historian would stop
short of. But the audacity of his inferences is underpinned by rigorous
scientific reasoning. And he forswears the notion of an Aryan conquest,
preferring to argue on the basis of the preponderance of evidence that
the reality was one of a gradual migration eastwards, an assimilation
of pre-existing cultures in the Indus region and of progress into the
Ganga-Yamuna basin following the discovery of iron.
As a historian fully implicated in the process of inquiry, Kochhar
brings to bear a unique combination of skills. His work is a synthesis
of specialised writings in a range of disciplines, leavened by bold
leaps of conjecture and imagination. The non-specialist would be amply
rewarded for the effort put into comprehending Kochhar's multifarious
arguments. For the specialist, they constitute a challenge to innovate
and work with new techniques of inquiry, to lay bare the social
realities of the distant past.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl%40listserv.aol.com/msg53392.html
Re: [CTRL] Origin of the word "Aryan" was 500 GERMAN etc.
From: Tenorlove
Subject: Re: [CTRL] Origin of the word "Aryan" was 500 GERMAN etc.
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 03:29:37 -0700
-Caveat Lector-
> I believe the term comes from the now largely discredited theory that
> us white folk originated in the Aryas mountains in Asia Minor. A
> similar theory regarding the Caucus Mountains is where you get the
> term 'Caucasian'.
from Encarta Encyclopedia:
<<About the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC the Indo-Iranians
migrated eastward, away from the other Indo-European peoples, and
settled in Iran. By about 1000 BC, the two language branches,
Indo-Aryan (also called Indic) and Iranian, had probably separated,
with Iranian being spoken around Iran and Afghanistan and Indo-Aryan
developing in northwestern India (see Indo-Iranian Languages). The
Indo-Aryan speakers must have encountered Dravidian speakers in
northern India; the original Dravidians were either overrun or forced
to move southward on the peninsula, where they are found today.
The history of the Indo-Aryan language branch is often divided into
three main stages: (1) Old Indo-Aryan, comprising Vedic and classical
Sanskrit (see Sanskrit Language); (2) Middle Indo-Aryan (from about the
3rd century BC), which embraces the vernacular dialects of Sanskrit
called Prakrits, including Pali; and (3) New, or Modern, Indo-Aryan
(from about the 10th century AD), which comprises the modern languages
of the northern and central portions of the Indian subcontinent.
Vedic Sanskrit, the language used in the Vedas, the sacred Hindu
scriptures, is the earliest form of Sanskrit, dating from about 1500 BC
to about 200 BC. A later variety of the language, classical Sanskrit
(from about 500 BC), was a language of literary and technical works.
Even today, it is still widely studied in India and functions as a
sacred and learned language.
The Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrits existed in many regional varieties,
which eventually developed literatures of their own. Pali, the language
of the Buddhist canonical writings, is the oldest literary Prakrit. It
remains in liturgical use in Sri Lanka, Myanmar (formerly known as
Burma), and Thailand.
The Prakrits continued in everyday use until about the 12th century AD,
but even by about the 10th century, the Modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars
had begun to develop. Today, about 750 million people in India alone
speak one of the Indo-Aryan languages, as do more than 100 million in
Bangladesh. The number of languages is difficult to specify. Roughly 35
are of some significance, particularly Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Bihâri,
Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani,
Tamil, and Telugu, each of which has at least 10 million speakers.
Despite their separate names, Hindi and Urdu are actually slightly
different dialects of the same language. The main differences lie in
their vocabulary sources, scripts, and religious traditions. Hindi
vocabulary derives mainly from Sanskrit, while Urdu contains many words
of Persian and Arabic origin; Hindi is written in the Devanagari
script, and Urdu in a Persian Arabic script. Hindi is spoken mainly by
Hindus; Urdu is used predominantly by Muslims-in India as well as
throughout Pakistan.
Two major varieties of Hindi are spoken; together they have more than
400 million speakers in India alone. Western Hindi, which originated in
the area around Delhi, includes literary Hindi and Urdu. Eastern Hindi
is spoken mainly in central Uttar Pradesh and eastern Madhya Pradesh;
its most important literary works are in the Awadhi dialect.
(Hindustani is an older term, used less and less frequently since
partition in 1947. It referred to the mixed Western Hindi-Urdu language
that developed in the camps and marketplaces around Delhi, was spread
throughout India from the 16th to 18th century, and functioned as a
lingua franca among the different language groups.) Bengali is spoken
in West Bengal and by almost the entire population of Bangladesh. Like
Hindi, it is descended from Sanskrit. It is the language of the poet
Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature (1913),
and has the most extensive literature of any modern Indian language.
Punjabi (Panjabi), spoken in the Punjab, a region covering parts of
northeastern India and western Pakistan, was the language of the gurus,
the founders of the Sikh religion. The sacred teachings of Sikhism are
recorded in Punjabi in the Gurmukhi script, which was devised by a Sikh
guru. In India, Punjabi is close to the Hindi language; to the west, in
Pakistan, Punjabi dialects differ markedly.
Bihâri is actually the name of a group of three related
languages-Bhojpuri, Maithili, and Magahi-spoken mainly in northeastern
India in Bihâr. Despite its large number of speakers, Bihâri is not a
constitutionally recognized language of India. Even in Bihâr, Hindi is
the language used for educational and official matters.
Other significant Indo-Aryan languages include Sinhalese, the official
language of Sri Lanka; and Romani, the language of the Roma (Gypsies),
which originated in India and was spread throughout the world. The
Sanskrit origin of Romani is apparent in its sounds and grammar.
The origin of most scripts for the Indo-Aryan languages can ultimately
be traced to Brahmi, which is of North Semitic derivation. Devanagari,
a development of Brahmi, is used for Nepali, Marathi, and Kashmiri (by
Hindus), as well as for Hindi, Sanskrit, and the Prakrits. Gujarati,
Bengali, Assamese, and Oriya all have individual writing systems
derived from Devanagari. A Persian Arabic script is used for Urdu,
Sindhi (also written in Devanagari), and Punjabi.
"Indian Languages," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.>>
It was used strictly as a linguistic term. It only acquired racial
overtones from Blavatsky, from whom Hitler got his ideas.
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Om
http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~plal/mohenjo-daro.html
MOHENJO-DARO
"Sir John Marshall wrote [about Mohenjo-Daro] in 1924: 'Hitherto India
has almost universally been regarded as one of the younger countries of
the world. Apart from paleolithic and neolithic implements and such
rude primitive remains as the Cyclopean walls of Rajagriha, no
monuments of note were known to exist of an earlier date than the third
century B.C., when Greece had already passed her zenith and when the
mighty empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt had been all but forgotten.
Now, at a single bound, we have taken back our knowledge of Indian
civilization some 3,000 years earlier and have established the fact
that in the third millennium before Christ, and even before that, the
peoples of the Punjab and Sind were living in well-built cities and
were in possession of a relatively mature culture with a high standard
of art and craftsmanship and a developed system of pictographic
writing.'" (Cumming 1939:98)
The ancient site of Mohenjo-Daro is located within the Indus Valley, in
modern-day Pakistan, near the mouth of the Indus River. It is divided
into two natural regions by an imaginary line running from the Gulf of
Cambay to the Himalayas mountains. This site is located twenty
kilometers south of Larknana in the province of Sindh (West Pakistan).
It lies in the Sind Desert, eight miles from the city of Dorki (Pigott
1945). Mohenjo-Daro was discovered after Harappa, the first site found
associated with the Harappan culture. Harappa's discovery promoted the
interest of many anthropologists in the early civilizations of the
Indus Valley. Since the discovery of Harappan nearly one thousand other
Harrappan sites have been found in the Indus Valley (Naqvi 1985).
Mohenjo-Daro's primary excavation in 1922 by the Archaeological Survey
in India, (before the founding of Pakistan this area was part of
India). Mohenjo-Daro is considered one of the greatest civilizations of
Harappan culture, dating to 2500-3500 BC. Although archaeologists have
learned a great deal, only one-tenth of the site has been excavated.
Much is still left to be uncovered (Dikshit 1967).
R.D. Banjeri found the city of Mohenjo-Daro in 1922 when he excavated a
Buddhist stupa. After Sir John Marshall learned of Banjeri's findings,
Marshall became intrigued and started greater excavations. Marshall is
often credited for completing the first excavations of Mohenjo-Daro,
between 1922 and 1927 while he was the Director General of the
Archaeological Survery of India. Marshall divided the site into three
periods: Early, Intermediate, and Late. These classifications are still
used today. However, the very early sites have not yet been excavated
due to water-logging issues that will be discussed later. From 1927 to
1931 E.J.H. Mackay took over the excavations. He concentrated on
vertical digging, yet the site description was still unsatisfactory
under modern scutiny. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, R.E.M.
Wheeler became the Archaeological Advisor to the Pakistan government,
and used Mohenjo-Daro as a field school for South Asian archaeologists.
He was the first archaeologist to address the issues and problems with
excavating the very early water-logged levels (Dales and Kenoyer 1986).
Some of these water-logged levels were water logged even before Mohenjo-
Daro's collapse which is shown by some of the wells that actually rise
through earlier, older, rooms.
Where did the residents of Mohenjo-Daro come from? Anthropologists
believe they came from the foothills to the west of the site and
occupied Mohenjo-Daro continuously for at least one thousand years;
this great city's prime was in the middle of the second centuty B.C.
(Naqvi 1985). The cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are about 400
miles apart and it is probable, due to similar findings at both sites,
that constant trade between the two occured. (Dikshit 1967).
The spatial layout was very well planned, with safety and sanitation in
mind. Mohenjo-Daro is one of the earliest and greatest examples of town-
planning, which was not replicated until the time of the Greeks and
Romans. The streets are aligned from east to west, or north to south,
crossing at right angles. Some of the streets are of notable size. For
example, First Street runs straight for a half mile from north to south
and divides the largest stupa mound into two sections. In some parts,
areas are over thirty-three feet wide and probably were used for
several lines of wheeled traffic, typically the cart and chariot. This
signifies the importance of this street. Other streets excavated
include East Street and Central Street. These wide streets were not
paved, and walking on them most likely entailed being up to one's
ankles in dust or mud (Mackay 1948). However, not all streets were this
wide. The narrow lanes, or roads, served the rows of residential houses
and are another example of the importance of safety to the people of
Mohenjo-Daro. The doors of houses would always open towards a narrow
street, even if the house faced a main street. The idea was to avoid
pedestrians interfering withthe heavy traffic of the main streets.They
planned the placement of buildings so that the periodic flooding of the
Indus would not affect them. They were built high above the reach of
the waters. However, when the river did flood, everyday life was
greatly impacted. For instance, commerce was hindered, which had a
significant affect on these commercial people due to their dependence
on trade.
The Stupa mound is one of the important areas, and it is about thirteen
and a half feet wide. About twenty feet from the bottom of this mound
is a man-made brick platform that actually forms the base of an oblong
citadel. This makes the height one of the essential features of the
mound. This citadel structure contained large buildings and the great
bath. An area called Dk is another significant site. It is an area with
many homes, shops, courts, and alleys. All of this is contained in the
same gridiron street plan.
In addition to having an impressive spacial layout, the buildings of
Mohenjo-Dao were superior, yet undecorated, in comparison to other
comtemporary societies. Their bricks were made by burning the alluvial
clad reddily provided by the Indus River and used not only for the
walls but also for some of the floors. The bricks themselves were made
in excellent standard proportions and show a great deal of engineering
skill. Most of the homes were of a standard size, indicating that there
was very little economic differentiation. The average small home was
about 30 feet by 27 feet and contained about four to five rooms. Larger
homes were usually occupied by large joint families and could contain
thirty or more rooms. The largest buildings in Mohenjo-Daro were about
242 feet by 112 feet. They contained several courtyards surrounded by
living quarters and storage rooms. A family of high social status must
have occupied these homes. However, all the rooms were small and
separated by thick walls, used along with beans to support an second
story, (staircases were commonly found in most homes). The first floor
of most buildings usually contained a small number of sleeping
apartments which surrounded a courtyard. The courtyard usually
contained fireplaces in each of the corners and was used to hold the
cattle at night (Dikshit 1967:16). Cooking was done mostly in the
courtyard inside a house. Small kitchens existed within homes as well,
and fuel was placed on raised brick platforms. The courtyard was a
place of domestic chores, such as sewing and other light housework.
Since feeding bins have been found, animals may have been kept there as
well (Sengupta 1957:22). Within the city limits buildings were placed
so closely together that there was no where else to keep the cattle.
The rooves of these houses were also utilized, especially in the warmer
months when residents would sleep on the rooves to keep cool. The
rooves were composed of a matting of reed coated with mud. The
furniture in these homes was simple. Large jars to store grain, reed
mats, and wooden of reed stools were commmon.
In comparison to other contemporary societies, the most unusual room in
these homes was the bathroom, of which there was at least one, if not
more, in every home. The water was supplied to these rooms by both
private and public wells, and was wasted by connecting the floor,
sloped off to direct the excess water towards a hole in the floor, to
the drainage system of the street. The floors in these bathrooms were
made water resistant by covering the floor with pottery fragments. The
importance of personal hygiene to the these people may have been the
origin of the Hindu belief in the ceremonial daily bath (Dikshit
1967:17).
The importance of sanitation to the people of Mohenjo-Daro is apparent.
Therefore, wells were also important. Almost every home included a
well, and as mentioned earlier both private and public wells existed.
Some of these were designed so well that not only are they still in
use, but they are the preferred source of water by excavators. Wells
provided all the water used by the Indus people for cooking, cleaning,
and bathing. The wells used a typical pulley system to bring up water.
Mohenjo-Daro was the first civilization whose members placed so much
emphasis on sanitation; some homes even contained private privies. Not
only did people bath on a regular basis but the city itself contained a
public drainage system to lead stormwater and waste, (most notably
night soil), away from the city. People dumped their waste into a pipe
which would then carry the waste away from the home and down the
street. These drains ran along the side of the streets and were covered
by bricks, again to keep the waste away from the public eye. Finally
the waste would come to a "soak jar" which caught most of the waste and
was periodically cleaned. The only problem was that sometimes the
drains were too close to the wells and the wells got contaminated
through sepage (Dikshit 1967:19).
One of the most amazing architectural finds of Mohenjo-Daro is the
Great Bath. This large brick structure was found a few hundred meters
from the densely populated section of the city. It is 80 feet in depth,
39 feet in length, and 23 feet in width (Cummings 1939: 111). A person
entering the Great Bath would have had to use a staircase which stood
nine inches wide and each step was eight inches high (Mackay 1948:42).
Architecturally the bath is an open rectangle with verandahs on each of
the four sides and a series of chambers, halls and small bathrooms
surrounding it; (the small bathing rooms may also have been
supervisors' rooms). The Great Bath itself is surrounded by a walkway
and even includes a safe shallow bathing area for children located
along the entire edge of the pool. The floor and sides of the bath are
sealed with bitumen, (a watertight finish found a far distance from
Mohenjo-Daro), surrounded by two layers of brick and lime mortar to
make the Great Bath completely watertight. The bath was filled with the
water from three nearby wells and emptied through a hole in the
southwest corner. The floor was sloped to direct water toward this
outlet which then went into a covert covered by a corbelled roof
(Dikshit 1967: 17-18). This corbelled arch was a great architectural
acheivement in itself due to the fact that the roof was not supported
by wooden beams as most other ceilings were. What purpose did the Great
Bath serve? One theory is that it may have been used for ceremonial
purposes since it is situated near the temple. It is likely that there
was an order of holymen who performed regular ablutions at regular
intervals throughout the day. Another theory, although there is no
evidence to support it, is that the Great Bath was used to house sacred
fish or crocodiles (Mackay 1948:65).
A vast and substantial amount of relics and remnants were found at
Mohenjo-Daro. In fact, although the Indus Valley civilization predates
the Vedic times, the arts and crafts of the former are considered more
advanced than the latter. Some of the tools discovered were silver
vessels, copper and bronze axe-blades, copper swords, spear blades,
daggers, arrowheads, and chisels. Lead was most commonly used for mace
heads. Alabaster, limestone, quartzite, slate, cotton, candlesticks,
and whetstones were also found. Stone was used in buildings, and was
maneuvered quite well during this time. Pottery was an important and
commonly found remnant. Pottery was coated with red and designs were
drawn in black pigment. Other pottery colors include white and green.
Wheel-made pottery was quite common, and although some was decorated,
plain pottery was more common. Clay was molded from the river, which
was mixed with sand mica. The pots were shaped with the help of a
wheel. For the people of Mohenjo-Daro, pottery was a greatly developed
art. Small ornaments and animal figures were made out of glazed and
vitreous (?) pastes. Shell, ivory, bone, and copper were some of the
common mediums for artwork. Metal was also found in this site. Daggers,
arrows, knives, and fishhooks were other mediums. Bronze was used for
metals as well as for figurines. The Indus people used a diverse number
of meduims and left behind the reminants of a diverse culture.
A great deal may be learned from the pottery to explain the religion
practiced by the Indus people. They seem to have practiced a form of
religion which was animistic and polythiestic in nature. A prevalent
figure is one of a semi-nude female wearing a small skirt, and a great
deal of jewerly. There were cup-shaped objects on each side of its
head. These cups had smoke stains inside them, which probably came from
burnt incense and were most likely used in a god or goddess worship.
Figures of males and females represented by the pottery and seal-
amulets are perceived to represent gods and goddesses. For instance, a
seal-amulet found at Mohenjo-Daro of a tiger was considered to be
symbolic of a goddess. There is one representation of a buffalo
standing over a group of its victims, which possibly represents a deity
overcoming his enemies. The goat held a secondary status on the seals,
thus was probably a minor deity. It was usually connected with a tree
spirit, which is associated with the notion of fertility. A river-god
is symbolized by the fish-eating crocodile, which appeared on other
amulets. Another seal-amulet figure is of a horned human figure with
feet and tail of a bull, probably a demi-god. There existed a practice
of depositing votive-figures of animals and humans in shrines to please
a god. A pottery figure of a pregnant woman, for example, was an
offering to the gods thanking them for the birth of a child. No
cemetery has yet to be excavated at Mohenjo-Daro. This is unfortunate
because cemeteries shed light on beliefs of the after-life, and they
usually contain many sacred objects, such as amulets, that would give
us more concrete and possibly eye opening information (Mackay 1948).
Most inhabitants of Mohenjo-Daro were either traders or farmers. Goods
cultivated by farmers were barley, wheat, cotton, melons, dates, and
other fruits. These people were surely meat-eaters, as evidenced by the
stock they raised for beef, mutton, pork, and poultry. Animals such as
goats, cattle, chickens, buffaloes, sheep, and elephants were
domesticated. Remains of rhinoceros, tigers, water buffaloes, and
elephants have also been found.
Some of the items excavated give evidence about the customs and
amusements of the Indus people. Both men and women were likely to spend
their free time spinning cotton. The toys that have survived were made
out of pottery, shell, and ivory. Wood may have been used, but it has
obviously perished over time. The toy found in greatest number was a
little pottery cart. These were miniature replicas of the full-size
vehicle, which shows that it must have been in great use at that time.
Children enjoyed modeling animals out of clay. Several clay pieces were
found which obviously had to be completed by children. Dice was
commonly used as an amusement. They were made out of pottery or stone
and had superior workmanship. Bricks have been found with marks
representing its use as a game board. Marbles, made of stones, jasper,
and agate, were also a common pastime in Mohenjo-Daro (Mackay 1948).
Our knowledge of the clothing of the Indus people was deduced largely
from the pottery and seal-amulets. Robes were worn that went over the
left shoulder and under the right arm. Short skirts were usually worn
and secured by a girdle, however nudity was considered to be a
characteristic of the Harappan lifestyle. Jewelry, such as necklaces,
earings, bracelets, bangles, and hard stone beads were a common
accessories, but pearl necklaces and gold chains were also worn.
Cornelian, jadeite, steatite, lapis-lazuli, gold, electrum, and silver
were some of the jewerly materials found. Women's hair was usually long
and secured in a loop coiled inwards at the end. The people of this
region most likely did not have any footwear.
Overall, the peole of Mohenjo-Daro led a very pleasent life. The main
form of subsistence was farming. Wheat, barley, vegtables, and cotton,
(used to make clothing), were grown in the fertile Indus flood plain.
This was not their only form of subsistence, however. As mentioned
earlier, cattle husbandry was practiced along with the domestication of
pig and sheep. The form of government is not certain, but there was a
single large building which was thought to have been a palace of a
Governor's residence. Although all sources agree on these points there
seems to be some confusion about the form of government that ruled
Mohenjo-Daro. Some anthropologists believe Mohenjo-Daro was an
egalitarian society. This infers that there was efficient means for
control, communicatin, transportation, and that the ideals of the Indus
people laid the basis for democracy (Naqvi 1985: 34). Another argument
is that Mohenjo-Daro was a commercial oligarchy. This argument draws on
the fact that the city contained a well planned and carefully managed
drainage system, a watch and ward system, (a type of watch system in
which individuals at different posts keep an eye on things to prevent
crime), and public storage houses (Dikshit 1967:22). In both models the
prosperity of this great city comes from trade, both foreign and
domestic.
The location of Mohenjo-Daro, near the mouth of the Indus river, puts
it directly along the trade route. Due to this same fact, the people of
Mohenjo-Daro were different from any other contemporary society in yet
another way, the makeup of their population. The citizens of Mohenjo-
Daro were of all different races; it was a consmopolitan city. The two
races that made up a majority of the population were Austro-Asiatic,
the people of the Mediteranean who became residents due to trading
ties, and the Mongolian people, who had a more gradual infiltration
(Dikshit 1967).
The writing of the Indus Valley has not yet been deciphered despite the
effort of many linguistic experts durring the past sixety years. What
we do know about the language is that it is a form of pictograph
writing with clear and rectangular characters, (of which 350 can now be
recognized), that can be read from right to left. One element of
importance to the Indus culture was stamped seals. These seals were
made from steatite. They were cut into different shapes using a saw,
chisel,and drill, before being fired with a calcium coating.
Afterwards, people carried them around at all times and a form of
signature. Many seals were animals along with pictographic characters
(Naqvi 1985).
When the excavations of Mohenjo-Daro began in 1922 the site was in
excellent condition. However, since then, many problems have surfaced
including waterlogging, salinity, and erosion due to flooding of the
Indus river. One of the major problems is the salinity of the soil
which is causing the deterioration of many buildings by entering into
the cracks using capillary action, (the salt is disolved in the water),
and then when the water evaporates the salt stays behind and eventually
crystalizes, causing the bricks to break down. Excavations stopped in
1964 to prevent furthur damage. One solution to this problem is to keep
the water level down which may be done by pumping out groundwater. The
site is now surrounded by twenty six electronically powered tubewells,
which seems to be working thusfar. The water level has gone down from
within 1.5 meters of the surface to within 9 meters of the surface. If
all goes well, excavations will be able to start up again soon (Bingham
1987).
The city of Mohenjo-Daro came to an unexpected end at about 1500 B.C.
There are many theories on the cause of this deterioration including a
violent end caused by Aryan invaders, who may have pillaged, burned,
and conquered the area; or a more peaceful end caused by natural
phenomenon. This theory includes a tectonic shift that changed the
ecology of the area. However more research must be done before any
definite conclusion may be reached. This city is quite spectacular for
it's time and it is very distinct from any counterpart discoveries.
Further excavations will help us understand the early people of the
Indus Valley.
For Cool Pictures, Click Here <http://www.harappa.com/har/har0.html>
For More Pictures <http://www.harappa.com/indus/slideindex.html>
For Even More Pictures <http://www-osl.cs.uiuc.edu/~jamali/sindh-
pics/mohenjo.html>
References:
Bingham, Annette.
Fighting the Flood at Mohenjo-Daro. History Today 37: 4-5.
Cumming, Sir John (editor).
1939 Revealing India's Past. The Indial Society, London.
Dales, George F. and Jonathat Mark Kenoyer.
1986 Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan: the Pottery. The University
Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Dikshit, Rao Bahadur K. N.
1967 Prehistoric Civilization of the Indus Valley. Super Power Press,
Madras.
Mackay, Dorothy (editor).
1948 Early Indus Civilizations. Luzac & Company L.D.T., London.
Naqvi, Syed A.
Mohenjo-Daro. The Courier 38:32-35.
Piggott, Stuart.
1945 Some Ancient Cities of India. Oxford University Press, London.
Sengupta, Padmini.
1957 Everyday Life in Ancient India. Oxford University Press, London.
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