INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION ( IVC ) AND A FEW CULTURAL ADULTERANTS.
The term 'CIVILIZATION ' indicates a concentration of ' human excellence ' and ' intellectual prowess ' at a particular time in the ebbing tides of history, its a starting of new age and doing things in a slightly better ways, although the labour behind the creation of many civilizations was simply of 'GODLY ' stature and there is no debate about it, but the question arises about the nature of such civilizations, which according to many archeologists and historians were significantly diverse in its outlook and we might not have all the pieces of the puzzle to answer some mysteries wrapped in an enigma. From the tombs of pharaohs like ' MENES ', ' AKHENATEN ', 'IMHOTEP ' and many others belonging to the ' EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION ' to the mysterious demise of the ' INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION ', one thing that is common to all the civilizations that ever existed in this world is that ' IT ENDS ', the time consumes them all, but the mysteries remain and if they persists for long, they will get adulterated with cultural adulterants.
' Cultural adulteration ' is the next stage of ' cultural appropriation ', when the resistance to the latter is futile, we end up with the former. These cultural adulterants are foreign, incohesive and distortive in nature, they will result in misrepresentation of historical facts and will analyse history based on emotive and doctrinaire basis rather than on rational or scientific approach. In this article, i will make an effort to present to you 'three cultural adulterants' embedded in the ' INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION ' and have not been given any critical analysis till now. The three cultural adulterants are as following:
1) THE BRONZE IDOL OF DANCING GIRL IN TRIBHANGA POSTURE (MOHENJO - DARO)
2) THE PRIEST KING SCULPTURE (MOHENJO - DARO)
3) A STEATITE PASHUPATHI SEAL (MOHENJO - DARO)
Before analysing these cultural adulterants, it becomes important to provide sufficient empirical evidences and theories using logic and rationale to compel the readers and critics to consider these as cultural adulterants and this should be my first priority, but before that we need to have a sound knowledge about the geographical location, historical time period and different phases in which the ' Indus Valley Civilization ' evolved over time.
Firstly, the 'Indus valley civilization' had a vast geographical expansion with sites spanning over many countries like Afghanistan (Shortugai and mundigak), Pakistan (Harappa and Mohenjo-daro), India (kalibangan, rakhigarhi, lothal, etc.) which highlights the firm stability of the civilization in all spheres be it social, economic and political. Secondly, the time period for the civilization has been fixed at 3300 BCE - 1300 BCE. Thirdly, within this time period different phases of the civilization evolved, which were, THE EARLY PHASE, marked with the development of settled communities (3300 BCE - 2600 BCE), THE MATURE PHASE, with well developed and planned cities (2600 BCE - 1900 BCE), THE LATE PHASE, which was the declining phase (1900 BCE - 1300 BCE) and an important piece of puzzle is the time period of, the advent of people who called themselves as 'ARYAS ' (noble) into the indian subcontinent, which was fixed at around 1800 BCE, this information will significantly help us in our endeavour.
Having said that, now we will analyse each cultural adulterant in an unbiased and critical way, so that, the end goal of doing so is not to satisfy some machination or self interest, but to arrive at 'TRUTH ', that which gives us proper and objective knowledge about history.
1) THE FIRST CULTURAL ADULTERANT - THE BRONZE IDOL OF DANCING GIRL
Ostensibly, it seems that this cultural adulterant is intertwined with art and culture, art in the sense that it relates to a dance form and culturally it aims at appropriation. The bronze girl of Mohenjo - Daro is not simply a girl, but a dancing girl and that too showcasing a popular posture known as ' TRIBHANGA ' (Triple - bend) of classical dance forms like Bharatanatyam, odissi and others, but the question arises is that, whether the bronze idol of a girl found at mohenjo - daro is indeed an idol related to dancing or is it simply an idol of a girl just posing. To answer this question we need to have some concrete evidences at our disposal.
Moreover, it is prudent to understand clearly, what ' TRIBHANGA ' posture actually entails ? before going further into our task of analysis. The term ' TRIBHANGA ' is derived from sanskrit language, where ' TRI ' means ' Three ' and ' BHANGA ' means ' POSTURE ' (it also means ' Breaking ', ' Destruction ' depending on the context). The ' TRIBHANGA ' posture as the name indicates is a posture where there contains three bends at three different parts of the body namely: 1) Neck 2) Waist 3) Knee. This creates a gentle ' S ' shape highlighting ' Elegance ' and ' Sensuality '. (Image. 1)
Image. 1: Tribhanga posture (source: google images)
My contention is that the bronze idol of girl found at Mohenjo - Daro is neither a dancing girl nor she is performing a ' TRIBHANGA ' pose, to this the critics might raise the following questions like, what are the evidences for such a claim ? if the girl is not dancing then what is she doing ? how certain am i to stake such a claim ?
I will try to answer these questions by resorting to reason and logic, because of presence of an 'INTELLECTUAL LACUNA ' acknowledged by linguistic experts, historians, anthropologists and others, which is that the ' INDUS SCRIPT ' is yet to be deciphered and this is a significant piece of puzzle as well as a hurdle to our task.
Now i would like to draw your attention to the following images (Image. 2 and Image.3).
Image.2: Bronze idol found at mohenjo - daro Image.3: Natya sundari in tribhanga pose
It is evident that any discernable person would say that both the images are different and devoid of any similarities. If you look at image 2, the bend (Bhanga) can only be observed at the knee part and neither the waist nor the neck part exhibits any tilt or bend, on the other hand, if you carefully observe Image 3, we can find the bend (Bhanga) at all the designated places, namely at knee, waist and neck. Critics argue that the the tribhanga pose of bronze idol found at mohenjo - daro was a weak exhibition of the posture, but, i contend that its neither a dance pose nor a dance form but simply a bronze idol of girl posing. This proposition that its a ' POSING GIRL ' further strengthens when you carefully compare Image 1,2 and 3. Now, to say with certainty that the girl was indeed ' POSING ' will require various evidences but as i said earlier that we are suffering from an ' INTELLECTUAL LACUNA ' which is preventing us from genuine investigation but, where evidence fails, logic and reason prevails.
Image.4: Hands on hips pose by a model (souce: google images)
A careful comparision of Image.2 and Image.4 will answer a lot of our questions and might convince some that the ' POSING GIRL ' found at mohenjo - daro was indeed nearer to truth than that of ' DANCING GIRL ', the argument holds weight when you become aware of the fact that the classical dance forms of India draws extensively from Bharata muni's ' NATYASHASTRA ' which was compiled around 200 BCE - 200 CE, although the time period is still in debate but, the consensus is that it could not have been before 500 BCE. This shows that ' TRIBHANGA ' pose which developed in its perfect form after the compilation of ' NATYASHASTRA ' could not have been performed by anyone before that and some forms of tribal dancing might have existed which i am certain that no tribal dance will have a ' TRIBHANGA ' pose which is very elegant and slow paced, while, the tribal dances are more ' ENERGETIC ' and ' HARMONIOUS '. Moreover, the ' INDUS SCRIPT ' is not yet deciphered and we should remember this before making any assumptions. Given the tendency of human beings to pose while painting or making a rough sketch for creating a sculpture, it would be natural to assume that the ' dancing girl ' could be a ' Posing girl ' and the latter satisfies logic and reason while the former fails.
2) THE SECOND CULTURAL ADULTERANT - THE PRIEST KING
The term ' PRIEST KING ' indicates the overlapping of politico-religious functions in a common individual, which also implies ' concentration of powers ' which, in the current period is against democratic principles and hints at authoritarian tendencies. Many examples were already recorded of the existence of ' PRIEST KINGS ' throughout the history, they are:1) High priests of Amun (1080 - 948 BCE ) in Egyptian civilization
2) Melchizedek (King of salem (Jerusalem) and priest of God most high)
3) High priests in ancient israel (First temple period)
4) Rex Nemorensis (Priest king of Diana at Nemi, Rome)
This highlights that ' separation of powers ' was not observed during ancient times, often resulting in ' PRIEST KINGS ' exercising arbitrary use of powers, for example, Rex Nemorensis was involved in ritual combat and human sacrifices. However, our concern should be about the ostensible ' PRIEST KING ' of IVC, and lets have a look at him (Image 5).
Image.5: PRIEST KING of IVC (image source: Harappa.com)
The main contention is, what concrete evidence do we have to say with certainty that its a bust of priest king, because the biggest road block to any conclusion seems to be the ' INTELLECTUAL LACUNA ' as stated earlier, and without filling that lacuna, this bust could be of anyone, it could be of a ' rich trader ', ' minister ', ' official ', ' priest ', ' king ', ' priest king ' or even a ' diety ', the very reason that artists of IVC made this bust is a sign that this person, whoever or whatever he might be was very important and held significant influence in the harappan society. But, to outright say that this was indeed a bust of ' priest king ' betrays ' empiricism ' and is a cultural adulterant. Now, attention should be paid to Image.6 (Source: Harappa.com).
The male torso found in Harappa highlights the ' artistic advancement ' and ' sculptural prowess ' of artists at that time, however, the question is, why the torso was made particularly from red sandstone, when other sculptures were made from steatite, terracotta, stone, bronze, limestone etc ? did red colour have any symbolic significance in IVC ?. To answer these questions, we require a considerable amount of ' evidences of use ' and with ' intellectual lacuna ' impeding our investigation it is better to resort to ' intuition ' and ' reason '. My hypothesis is that, firstly, the motive behind the use of red sandstone might have been related to ' ritual human sacrifices ' which was common during ancient times, for example, it was common in ancient aztec, maya, inca, egypt, celtic, germanic and norse cultures etc. Secondly, red colour, if we apply some commons sense, indicates the colour of blood, thereby connecting the symbolicism behind red colour to a plausible ' ritual human sacrifices ' in IVC, remember the priest king rex nemorensis was involved in ritual human sacrifices. These arguments do appear to be in favour of priest king of IVC who could be indeed a priest king, but, more evidences need to be collected and till then, it will remain as a cultural adulterant.
3) A STEATITE PASHUPATHI SEAL ( MOHENJO - DARO )
The steatite pashupathi seal is the most ignored ' cultural adulterant ' in the IVC, the popularization of this seal as a form of ' PROTO SHIVA ' is also concerning from academic perspective, because of the sheer absence of empirical evidences to draw that conclusion. The seal is one of the many seals unearthed from the site of Mohenjo - daro, but, this draws a lot of attention because of its religious and cultural importance along with great political implications if this seal were to be anything other than what has been mentioned till now. Lets look at two images (Image.7 and Image.8 ( source; google images) ).
Comparison of the above two images will yield us many differences that are helpful for obtaining a reasonable and logical conclusion as opposed to the popular opinions, they are:
1) Absence of clothing can be seen in the first seal while the second one appears to be having some kind of attire.
2) Absence of animals in the first seal, while, the second seal contains animals (Buffalo, Elephant, Rhinocerous, Tiger, Deer)
3) Different headgears are also clearly visible as the figure in the first seal appears to have a deer antler headgear while the second figure is wearing a buffalo headgear (observe the horns of the buffalo and the headgear in the second seal)
4) The titles of the seals of undeciphered indus script also looks different, thereby implying that the two figures were different.
The only similarity is that the two figures were sitting in a certain posture and are wearing numerous bangles on their entire arms, various Indian and western scholars are of the opinion that it is a ' YOGIC POSTURE ', but, difficulty arises from ' INTELLECTUAL LACUNA ' and from a simple fact that PATANJALI' S YOGA SUTRAS were compiled at around 4th - 5th century CE and patanjali's time period was fixed at around 2nd century BCE - 5th century CE (date is still contested ), but, we all can agree that patanjali could not have been existed before 2nd century BCE so, the logical answer is that the figures in the seal were simply sitting just like any other tribal people do when they are in tribal meetings.
The second proposition that the figure in the second seal was of ' PROTO SHIVA ' betrays logic, because of the following difficulties:
1) The seal does not contain the image of ' BULL ', the mount of shiva (Nandi) and also the snake which shiva wears aound his neck.
2) The seal does not contain the weapon of shiva, the trident (Trishul).
3) If the seal of proto shiva has been found in IVC then why the seals of proto vishnu, proto brahma, proto indra have not been found ?.
4) If the seal is indeed of proto shiva then why no idol or sculpture of proto shiva has been found in IVC, instead we have found a bust of mother goddess.
Critics might argue that the proto - shiva seal lacked the weapon and mount, because, as the name indicates, it is a depiction of ancient shiva or rudra, but, my hypothesis is that, it is neither a seal of pashupathi nor a depiction of proto - shiva but of a ' TRIBAL CHIEF ' and to prove this we have to resort to logic and reason, firstly, the IVC was not an advanced civilization but became advanced gradually, in its primitive stage they might have relied on hunting for food and animals indicated both wealth and food in a tribal society, hence the tribal chief was looked as the provider with some divinity attached to him because of worship of ancestors therefore, the seal which was made when the IVC became advanced might be depicting the tribal chief with animals surrounding him indicating wealth and food, this might be a case of an ' APOTHEOSIS ' in IVC and also throws some light into the dietary habits of ancient harappans. Secondly, historian suvira jaiswal in her work ' The Origin and Development of Vaishnavism (200 BC - 500 AD ) ' says that " tribal republics flourishing in the early centuries of the Christian era, the Yaudheyas, Audumbaras, Kunindas, Kada or Kadravas, Malavas and Uddehikas, appear to have had pronounced Saivite leanings. The figures of
Karttikeya and shiva with a bull appear on the reverse side of the
Yaudheya coins; A recumbent bull is shown on the coins of the Malavas; and the Uddehika coins also show the figure
of a bull with a tree in railing, similar to that on Ujjayani coins
which have the representation of shiva on the reverse. According to
J.N. Banerjea, the bull was recognised as the mount of Siva as early
as the first century B.C. or the first century A.D. These
republican states were wiped off by Samudra-gupta and absorbed into the Gupta
empire ", this clearly highlights the appropriation of some ancient deity or cult into the vedic pantheon by identifying it with vedic god ' RUDRA ' just like how ' Vasudeva - Krsna ' and ' Sesa - Sankarsana ' was appropriated by identifying with ' Narayana - visnu ' and ' Baladeva ' respectively, hence, the claim that the seal was of proto - shiva is void and eventhough the seal was of a deity, we do not know with certainty about ' the name of the deity ' because again the indus script is not deciphered, but, the proposition of the seal being of a tribal chief and his elevation to divine status, shows some affinity to logic. And the first seal might be depicting a ' SHAMAN ' who claims the ability to interact with spirit world. Surprisingly, the ' MARIA GOND TRIBE ' of chattisgarh wears a bison horn headgear which has striking similarities to the headgear depicted in indus seal (Image. 9 (source: google images))
Image.9 : Bison Horn Maria Tribe, the tribal icon of chattisgarh
This gives us the plausible proof of remnants of, the ancient religious practices in the IVC and also widens the gap between the vedic aryan society and IVC as the former's life revolved around the cow (go), its products (gavya) and horse (asva) which was a symbol of vedic or aryan culture but there are no evidences of horse being domesticated in the latter let alone worshipping it.
To conclude, the aim of this article is to arrive at objective truth and nothing more,but, the entire IVC is covered in a ' veil of ignorance ' simply because, we cannot decipher what their words actually means and how they conversed with each other ? what they ate ? what they drank ? to which god they bowed ? untill then, cultural adulteration will persist because, as Aristotle observed that " Man is a Political Animal ", a sentiment which echoed in Machiavellian Philosophy.
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