India

The Indus Valley culture, also known in India as the 'Sindhu Civilisation', prospered along the banks of the Indus (the River Sindhu). Another name by which it is also known is the Harappan civilisation, thanks to this site being the first location of discovery for any artefacts from this period (now in Pakistan).

Historians have tried to provide a chronology for the Harappan period by dividing it into sections: 'Pre-Harappan' (7000-3000 BC), 'Early Harappan' (3000-2600 BC), 'Mature Harappan' (2600-1900 BC), and 'Late Harappan' (1900-1300 BC).

The 'Early Harappan' period occupies the Bronze Age. It was first discovered and reported by a British East India Company army man by the name of Charles Masson in 1842. Rakhaldas Bandopadhyay, an archaeologist who was connected to the ASI, excavated another city in 1922, that of Mohenjo-Daro in the vicinity of Harappa.

Between 1922-1923 the explorers Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Dayaram Sahni, and Madho Swarup Vats conducted digs at Harappa and unearthed a fairly sophisticated urban civilisation. Objects which were discovered in these towns included ornaments, personal grooming items such as cosmetics, combs, mirrors, and lipstick, plus utensils, tools, beads, statuettes, seals with animal figurines carved on them, toys, furniture, and weapons, all made using clay, terracotta, ceramics, bronze, or copper.

The township was well planned with a grid-like structure which consisted of roads, lampposts every few metres, multi-storey brick houses, a drainage system, dustbins, granaries, tanks, public baths (such as the great bath discovered at Mohenjo-Daro which is 54.8 x 33 metres square), and a lot more.

In due course many such excavations were made in and around the region including those at Chanhudaro in 1931, Sindh, Hyderabad, Jacobabad, and the Narmada valley, leading to a great deal of information being amassed about this culture. Today, both Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro lie in the Punjab region of Pakistan.

The civilisation had its own illegible script (pictorial) which remains undeciphered to this day.

The cities seemed to have been home to people of various ethnic stock (something which has been deduced on the basis of skeletal remains), although a section of scholars believe that the majority were of Elamo-Dravidian stock.

Indo-Aryan migration

There are a good many theories about the original inhabitants of the Indus civilisation, and many more about why it may have collapsed. The most widely -accepted theory involves climate change and the loss of crop production which would cripple any ancient city.

The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) or Oxus civilisation was brought to its knees in the same way at approximately the same time, and the great Sumerian civilisation had already crumbled away (by about 2000 BC).

Apparently making the most of that collapse (and perhaps speeding up its final end), the Indo-Aryan invasion theory describes Indo-European groups migrating into the region from the north and driving out the inhabitants, supposedly Dravidians, forcing them towards the southernmost parts of India.

These people were known to themselves as 'Arya' or, in effect, 'lords', although the term 'Aryan' was devalued by misuse during the Second World War.

Amongst the earliest proponents of this theory was Max Mueller, a German Orientalist and author who was based in Britain. He proposed that the origins of the 'Aryans' lay in Central Asia, from where branches migrated to Europe and Iran. From Iran, branches further diverged towards Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. There they pushed local inhabitants into forests and towards the south.

In part he was correct, although the Indo-Aryan wave of migrants appears to have preceded the Indo-Iranian wave rather than being part of it in Iran.

Harappan expansion around 2600 BC into the harsh environment of Rajasthan's Thar Desert reveals previously unknown resilience and ingenuity (External Link: Creative Commons Licence 2.0 Generic)

Of course, today many have concluded that it was not an 'invasion' at all in the typical sense as there are no traces of any mass killings (something which was put forward by Sir Mortimer Wheeler on the basis of discovered skeletons).

Hence it is assumed that the Indo-Aryan tribes migrated in smaller numbers over a length of time and gradually mingled with the local inhabitants (although certainly as a new cultural elite to dominate the natives). This version is known as the Indo-Aryan migration theory.

Discredited: 'Out of India'

These widely-accepted and substantiated theories are decreasingly contrasted by another, the largely-discredited 'Out of India' theory.

This suggested that the Indus region was in fact the cradle of civilisation for the 'Aryan' or Vedic civilisation, whereas the Dravidians were mainly people who dominated the southern parts of India. It was from the Indus region that 'Aryans' further branched out, into Bactria, Central Asia, Europe, and Iran (and from there onwards to Mesopotamia).

The main concentration of 'Aryans' would have been around the River Saraswati, according to this theory. After the river dried up, those Indo-Aryans who remained in India began to migrate southwards. Many settled in the Gangetic basin, while some proceeded towards the east and the south. In the south they came into contact with the Dravidians who already occupied the region.

This theory ignores more recent findings which suggest that Elamites and Dravidians shared a common language base as a linguistic (and perhaps ethnic) Elamo-Dravidian group which was only divided in two by the arrival of Indo-Iranians in first millennium BC Iran.

Amongst the early proponents of the 'Out of India' theory were Voltaire, the French writer philosopher, German philosopher Immanuel Kant, German poet Karl Wilheim Friedrich Schlegel, and theosophists such as Colonel Olcott, the retired American army officer and first president of the Theosophical Society.

The theory has generally been discredited by archaeological finds and linguistic analysis which firmly places the Indo-European/Indo-Aryan homeland to the north of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.

Third theory

A third theory proposes that Indo-Europeans (Indo-Aryans) had coexisted and intermingled with the other inhabitants of the Indus civilisation and were one of its active contributors.

In some ways this carries with it some possibility of truth - Indo-Europeans certainly infiltrated into the BMAC in its later years and, although this culture probably served as a temporary barrier to further southwards expansion, there is still the possibility of Indo-European involvement in the last century or two of the existence of the Indus civilisation.

The ruins of Harappa were rediscovered in the 1920s, almost four thousand years after India's first true civilisation disappeared amid a general collapse of ancient civilisations that was due to climate change

Whatever the origins of its people, the religion of the Indus people was probably one of the earliest forms of modern Hinduism. [1]

Gods of the Indus civilisation

The discovery of seals and statuettes leads us to believe that the people of the Indus worshipped a (Trimukha) three-faced god which has been identified as Pashupati, the god of cattle - a figurine was discovered during excavations which depicted the image of a god seated in the lotus position and surrounded by animals.

Similarities have been drawn between Pashupati and gods such as Shiva and Rudra. Objects which have looked very similar to the linga or the phallic symbol of Shiva were also discovered, which leads one to believe that the inhabitants were followers of the Shiva/Shaivite cult.

The worship of female energy took place here (Shakti), the yoni (womb) in the form of the mother goddess, and the worship of the sun god was also prevalent, characterised by the swastika symbols which were found in the dig. There were also the Naga (serpent) worshippers, evident thanks to a figurine with a snake wrapped over the head. Animals such as the bull, one resembling a unicorn, birds such as the dove, and vegetation such as the Pipal tree were also venerated in the Indus region.

Indus dress

Both men and women wore two-piece clothing and, at times, a headdress. They kept their hair long. The women used necklaces, armlets, rings, bangles, hairpins, earrings, and anklets made of gold, silver, copper, and semi-precious stones according to their status.

The Indus Valley culture was focussed on its many cities, the first of which appeared in the fourth millennium BC

Customs

The people buried their dead. However in the later period, cremation took over as the most popular form of service for the dead - probably due to latter Vedic influence. The ashes were placed in urns which were in turn buried in tombs. [2]

Diet and trade

The Indus people enjoyed a fulfilling diet of wheat, barley, rice, vegetables, fruits, milk, fish and meat (including beef, mutton, pork, and so on).

Indus men were mainly traders and agriculturists. They were also well versed in crafts such as carpentry, pottery, weaving, medicine. They were aware of measurement systems and possessed advanced medical practices which included dentistry. Foreign trade existed with Central Asia, the Near East (the city states of Mesopotamia), and the Mediterranean coast (Egypt). The favoured mode of travel was the bullock-hauled cart (open or covered).

The end of the Indus civilisation

The Indus civilisation gradually came to an end, seemingly due to famine, possible flooding, and perhaps invasion (or rather, mass inwards migration - there is no conclusive evidence pointing towards an invasion as such).

The prevailing view has of course been the 'Aryan Invasion' theory, but this has been challenged by other theories which claim flood or climatic change as the more likely reason. In fact it seems all of the above were involved. The majority of the inhabitants then seem to have migrated southwards.

Ancient Merv, the capital of Persian and Greek Merv/Margiana (now in Turkmenistan), was eventually abandoned just like its even more ancient forebear shown here, Gonur Tepe (Gonordepe), which was a major city of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex until the River Murghab changed its course to leave it high and dry (click or tap on image to view full sized)

Dravidians in the south had long since displaced the proto-Australoids and were the dominant ethnic group in India. The term 'Dravidian' however is a western term for the word 'Dravida', which refers to the people of southern India. It is assumed that this group came to be known as Dravida after it had moved into the south. The name Dravida as such has been derived from the word 'drava' or water, probably symbolising people who were living near the sea.

Sumerian texts have mentioned the people living around the Indus (read 'Dravida'), calling them the Meluha. Some scholars categorise them as non-Vedic people, those who did not follow the Vedas but rather had their own customs and rituals.

When Indo-Aryans arrived on the scene they came into contact with the Dravidians and generally seem to have pushed them southwards. However, a Dravidian group which has been identified from its language still exists in the north in the form of the Brahui tribe in Balochistan (in present-day Pakistan).

The proponents of the 'Aryan Invasion' theory maintain that this group may be remnants of the Dravidian population which may have been driven out, while the discredited 'Out of India' theory proponents maintain that a small Dravidian group probably migrated from the south and made a home in the fertile Indus Valley, coexisting with the Indo-Aryan population.

Elamite cities on the plain to the east of Sumer benefited from direct contact, but cities with more easterly locations also swiftly caught up, connected into a network of trading routes which stretched east to the Indus and north to Hissar and the BMAC (click or tap on map to view at an intermediate size)

The modern Dravidian stock is found mainly in the south, in places such as Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Andhra, Kerala, Lakshadweep (and to some extent the west, east Kurukh in Bangladesh, and central parts of India).

According to the the 'Aryan Invasion' theory, the Dravidians themselves intermingled with the inhabitants of southern India: ancient proto-Australoids, and ancient Negroid groups. [3]

Main Sources

Majumdar, R C - Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Ltd, 1987

Prasad, L - Studies in Indian History, Cosmos Bookhive, Gurgaon, 2000

Thapar, Romila - Penguin History of India, Volume 1, Penguin Books, London, 1990

Text copyright © Abhijit Rajadhyaksha. An original feature for the History Files.