Lecture I
Introduction:
The cultural heritage of India is not only one of the ancient cultures like Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, but it is most extensive and varied in its nature. Throughout India’s ancient history there were many peopleand races temporally visited the land, many times they permanently settled down within its boarder and mixed with the indigenous people of its land. In due course their intermixture made possible to evolve a distinct and unique culture. India embraced all cultures and let them strive and grow naturally in its own time and space. Different peoples came to India from pre historic times right down to recent centuries and have co-operated in building up a great culture which doesnot seek to exclude anything, but is all inclusive and doesnot take up an attitude which would deny to any people its right of self expression. As a matter of fact, the culture of India a synthesis- a synthesis of not only blood and race, but, also of speech and of ways of thinking as well as of culture-material, intellectual and spiritual-which give ideologies and determine attitudes and action. Thus the cultural heritage of India displays an important role in the history of humanity.
Prehistoric India
Northern India, like prehistoric Europe experienced ice ages, and it is after second of these, more than 10,000 years B.C. the man left surviving traces in India. These are the Stone Age pebble tools of the Soan Valley Culture, so called after the name of a little river Soan in the Punjab where they have been found in large numbers. No human remains were found in association with the tools.
The Stone Age man was a hunter and food gatherer. They lived in very small nomadic communities. Inthis stage he slowly learnt how to lit fire, to protect his body from rain, heat and cold with skin,bark or leaves. He also tamed the wild dogs that used to hang around their campfire. In India, people lived like this for many centuries as they did all over the world.
Then, perhaps between 10000 and 6000 B.C. man became more skillful in many ways than his Stone Age predecessors. He learnt how to grow food crops, to tame domestic animals, to make pots and to weave garments. Before discovering the use of metals, he taught himself to make well-polished stone implements much advanced than the Stone Age ones.
Developed agriculture and permanent villages probably began in the 7th millennium B.C. in the Middle East. In India the earliest remains of settled cultures are of little agricultural villages in Baluchistan and lower Sind, perhaps dating from the end of the 4thmillennium.
Geographical Influence:
One cannot overlook the influence of geography in the process of making a human culture. Geographical elements and features of a country can contribute a great deal in the making and shaping of its culture. Geography plays an important role in the lives and activities of the people, hence in their thoughts and literature. India is no exception to this rule. The Himalayan ranges of northern India, the extensivealluvial plain in the north, theplateauof the south, the two coasts of the peninsula and the warmth and rainfall all of which directly or indirectly connected with the evolution of Indian cultural heritage.
One might think the great Himalayan ranges extended from the east and the west are important as far as they separate India from the rest of the Asia and to certain extent from the world, and thus provide isolation and safety. The barrier was never been an obstacles for the settles, traders or invaders to find different routes to enter India. On the other hand Indians also carried their commerce and culture beyond her boundaries by the land or by sea.
The importance of the Himalayan ranges lieon the fact, as they are the source of two most vital rivers of the north India. These two rivers areSindhu and Ganga, the cradle of the two great civilizations of ancient India, the Indus Valley Civilization and the Aryan or Vedic Civilization.
Sindhu is the Sanskrit name of the river Indus. Whereas the Ganga is the Sanskrit name for Ganges. The name Sindhu was pronounced by the Persians as Hindu. From Persia it passed to Greece and the western world, as the whole of India came to know by this river. Again, the Muslims called the country “Hindustan” andthe people and who followed the old religion as“Hindus”. The river Indus now mainly in Pakistan gave its name to India.
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC)
The antecedents of the IVC were the village sites of the Baluchistan hills, the Makran coast to the west of the Indus delta and some rural areas along the rivers in Rajasthan and Punjab. The village sites of Baluchistan and Sindh have produced a large number of terracotta female figurines which are generally classified as the representations of goddesses. The IVC was marked by extraordinary cultural uniformity both in time and space.
According to the archaeological evidence, civilization appears in India about 3000 B.C. on the fertile plain of Punjab watered by the five tributaries of the Indus, namely, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. The slow cultural evolution in India flourished into the magnificent IVC also known as Harappa Culture, from the modern name of the site one of its two great cities, on the left bank of the river Ravi in the Punjab. Mohenjodaro, the second city, is on the bank of the Indus, some 250 miles from its mouth. Recently, excavations have been carried out in the old valley of the river Sarasvati (now almost dried out) in Kalibanganear the boarder of India and west Pakistan. The newly revealed third city is as big as the two earlier ones and has the same characteristics. The IVC includes these cities, a few smaller towns and a large number of village sites, from Rupar on the upper Sutlej to Lothal in Gujrat. The area covered by the Harappa culture therefore extended from north to south for some 950 miles. The pattern of its civilization was so remarkably uniform that even the bricks were same in size and shape from one end of it to the other.
We do not know a great deal about the IVC comparing to the likewise simultaneous civilizations on the valleys of Nile and Euphrates (Civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia), for they have left for us written records which have been satisfactorily deciphered. Many hundreds of inscriptions were found but unfortunately they were not yet satisfactorily deciphered. Hence our knowledge of IVC is inadequate.
Who were the authors of this civilization in terms of races is not yet identified and their language is not known. The Indo-European family,Indo-Iranian family or the Dravidians from the South of India were the originators of this civilization are some of the theories put forward which are open for discussion.We can certainly say, in a generally cultural sense that they were Indians living on the valley for several centuries. Equally we cannot ascribe a precise date for the beginning of this civilization. We can although say with certainty that IVC was much prior to the Vedic Civilization. The Vedic culture saw its culmination in the age of the Buddha. And the radio-carbon method conclusively provedthat the date of IVC from its early period 3200 to late Harappan period belongs to post 2100 B.C.
Excavations at Harappa and the discoveries at MohenjoDaro have shown that each city had a well-fortified citadel perhaps used for both governmental and religious purposes. Throughout the area of the Harappa culture the strict uniformity in such features as weights and measures, the size of the bricks, the planning of the streets and even the lay out of the cities, suggest rather a single centralized state than a number of loose communities.
The discovery of nine strata building at MohenjoDaroreveals theculture’s moststriking feature of conservatism. From periodic flooding of the Indus as the level of the earth rose, new houses were built exactly on the site of the old, keeping the same street plan, with only minor variations in the ground plan. And this method they carried out for nearly a millennium at least. The script of the Indus valley people also remained same throughout their history.
In neither of the two great cities any stone building was found. Standardized good burnt bricks were the building materials for both dwelling houses and public buildings. The houses had bathrooms with drains, which flows into sewers under the main street. The sewers were covered with large brick slabs. The sewer system was the most impressive achievements of the Indus valley people. No other ancient civilization until that of the Romans had so efficient a system of drains.
The Great Bath in the citadel area at MohenjoDaro is the most striking building. Constructed with beautiful brickwork this oblong bathing pool 39x23 feet in area and 8 feet deep. It could be drained by an opening in one corner and was surrounded by a cloister, on to which opened a number of small rooms. Probably it had a religious purpose like a “tank” of the Hindu temple and the cells may have been the homes of the priests. They had the notion of hygiene well advanced than other cultures and they might have also the strong belief in purification in connection with water like that of later Hindus.
The great granary is worth mentioning that has been discovered to the north of citadel of Harappa. Raised on a platform of some 150x200 fleet in area to protect it from floods, and divided into storage blocks which were used to store up corns that they collected as land tax from the peasants. The main food crops were wheat, barley, peas, and sesamum - the seeds of which provide edible oil. The Harappan people did not know cultivation of rice but they grew and used cotton. They tamed most of the domestic animals known to modern India. Humped and humpless cattle’s, buffaloes, goats, sheep’s, pigs, Asses, dogs and domestic fowl. The Harappan people may have known of the horse as in small amount horse teeth have been found, but they must have been very rare animals and their usage were not wide spread. The bullock was probably the usual beast of burden.
On the basis of this thriving agricultural economy the Harappa civilization was a comfortable one. The people had pleasant houses even the workmen used to enjoy the luxury of two room cottages. A well organized commerce made these things possible. The cities traded with the village cultures of those areas where outposts of the Harappa cultures have been found but their metals and semi precious stones came from much longer distances.
Religion of the IVC
With the discovery of IVC, the perspective of the religious history of India has changed. There has been suggestions that some of the fundamental religious ideas of Hinduism and some of the heterodox believes and observances can be trace back to this pre Aryan-pre Vedic culture. They were the worshippers of many gods both in anthropomorphic (ascribing human behavior to animals) and aniconic (not human or not animal) forms. There are questions about their pantheon whether it was female oriented or male?
The discoveries of many terracotta female figurines in many sites and the seals depicting various scenes related with the cult of mother goddesses, suggest that they were the worshippers of mother goddesses. In interesting oblong terracotta seal found at Harappa, depicting a nude female figure upside down with legs apart and a plant issuing from her womb. A probable depiction of a tree goddess on another seal is found. The tree has been identified as the Ashvattha, the tree of enlightenment, the most sacred tree of Buddhism. Scholars have suggested the famous bronze statue of a slender dancing girl as a prototype “yogini” of late Tantrism.Several seals with swastika signs have been found in the IVC sites.
On the other hand, the presence of a great male god is very much controversial. A great many seals have his representations. The famous seal from MohenjoDaro shows him seated on a low throne flanked by antelopes (deer throne) in a Yogic posture, eyes half closed, arms outstretched and resting on his knees. He is surrounded by many animals like elephant, tiger rhinoceros and buffalo. He has an elaborate headdress, which is decorated by two horns in a shape of a fan. He has been identified differently by different scholars as Pashupati, Agni(the fire god), a Jainaarahant, a proto-type Siddha (an esoteric adept) Rudra or a proto-type Shiva.
The discoveries of linga or phallic and many ring stones suggested to be the representations of yoni, the female organ of generation, the depiction of the birth of plant from the womb of the deity all these rightly suggest the Indus valley cults were related to regeneration and fertility. From other phenomenon like ablutions of the great birth, priesthood suggested by sculptures, use of horned head dresses, the icons of man-tiger, tree-goddess- all show the existing of a complexed myths and rites associated with IVC are still unknown to us.
Decline of the IVC
1.Theory of natural disaster and climate change
This theory suggests that the collapse of IVC due to severe flood. We have some evidences of IV cities suffered from flooding. Land became less fertile, shortage of food and resources, which caused people to migrate.
2. Invasion of the Aryans.
The Indus Valley Civilization perished through the violence of insurgent Aryans. The composers of the Rg Veda, the earliest Indian literary source, were invading people. The Rgvedic references of the destructions of “pur”s have been taken to be references to the wall- cities and forts of the Indus valley people. The fight of Indra with “dasyus”is interpreted as the battle between Aryans and the non Aryans. There is no doubt of the existence of a highly civilized non Aryan people in India at the time of the Aryan invasion but there is not enough evidence to prove the point. It is probable that the fall of this great civilization was an episode in the widespread migratory movements of charioteeringpeopleswhich changed the face of the whole civilized world in the 2nd millennium B.C.
Whatever may be the cause of the end of the Indus Valley cities, its religion and culture never died out completely. We find the traces of this religion in the later Vedic age and in the subsequent religious traditions of India. The contributions of Indus Valley religion to the Indian religious history is marked by the emergence of image or iconic worship which was not the practice of Vedic India. Similarly the gods and goddesses were worshipped in their symbolic representetions. The worship of gods in the form of “linga” or “yoni” common to Hinduism, also another contribution. In Vedic religion goddesses in no means had a dominant place. In later Indian religious history the female deities hold an equally important role like their male counter parts. The concept of Mother-Goddess in the post Vedic and even as late as Tantric India, perhaps were the impact of the Indus religion. There are suggestions that the system of Yoga and some of the heterodox schools of Indian religion were directly or indirectly associated with the Indus valley Culture. We will examine them in their right context.
Introduction:
The cultural heritage of India is not only one of the ancient cultures like Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, but it is most extensive and varied in its nature. Throughout India’s ancient history there were many peopleand races temporally visited the land, many times they permanently settled down within its boarder and mixed with the indigenous people of its land. In due course their intermixture made possible to evolve a distinct and unique culture. India embraced all cultures and let them strive and grow naturally in its own time and space. Different peoples came to India from pre historic times right down to recent centuries and have co-operated in building up a great culture which doesnot seek to exclude anything, but is all inclusive and doesnot take up an attitude which would deny to any people its right of self expression. As a matter of fact, the culture of India a synthesis- a synthesis of not only blood and race, but, also of speech and of ways of thinking as well as of culture-material, intellectual and spiritual-which give ideologies and determine attitudes and action. Thus the cultural heritage of India displays an important role in the history of humanity.
Prehistoric India
Northern India, like prehistoric Europe experienced ice ages, and it is after second of these, more than 10,000 years B.C. the man left surviving traces in India. These are the Stone Age pebble tools of the Soan Valley Culture, so called after the name of a little river Soan in the Punjab where they have been found in large numbers. No human remains were found in association with the tools.
The Stone Age man was a hunter and food gatherer. They lived in very small nomadic communities. Inthis stage he slowly learnt how to lit fire, to protect his body from rain, heat and cold with skin,bark or leaves. He also tamed the wild dogs that used to hang around their campfire. In India, people lived like this for many centuries as they did all over the world.
Then, perhaps between 10000 and 6000 B.C. man became more skillful in many ways than his Stone Age predecessors. He learnt how to grow food crops, to tame domestic animals, to make pots and to weave garments. Before discovering the use of metals, he taught himself to make well-polished stone implements much advanced than the Stone Age ones.
Developed agriculture and permanent villages probably began in the 7th millennium B.C. in the Middle East. In India the earliest remains of settled cultures are of little agricultural villages in Baluchistan and lower Sind, perhaps dating from the end of the 4thmillennium.
Geographical Influence:
One cannot overlook the influence of geography in the process of making a human culture. Geographical elements and features of a country can contribute a great deal in the making and shaping of its culture. Geography plays an important role in the lives and activities of the people, hence in their thoughts and literature. India is no exception to this rule. The Himalayan ranges of northern India, the extensivealluvial plain in the north, theplateauof the south, the two coasts of the peninsula and the warmth and rainfall all of which directly or indirectly connected with the evolution of Indian cultural heritage.
One might think the great Himalayan ranges extended from the east and the west are important as far as they separate India from the rest of the Asia and to certain extent from the world, and thus provide isolation and safety. The barrier was never been an obstacles for the settles, traders or invaders to find different routes to enter India. On the other hand Indians also carried their commerce and culture beyond her boundaries by the land or by sea.
The importance of the Himalayan ranges lieon the fact, as they are the source of two most vital rivers of the north India. These two rivers areSindhu and Ganga, the cradle of the two great civilizations of ancient India, the Indus Valley Civilization and the Aryan or Vedic Civilization.
Sindhu is the Sanskrit name of the river Indus. Whereas the Ganga is the Sanskrit name for Ganges. The name Sindhu was pronounced by the Persians as Hindu. From Persia it passed to Greece and the western world, as the whole of India came to know by this river. Again, the Muslims called the country “Hindustan” andthe people and who followed the old religion as“Hindus”. The river Indus now mainly in Pakistan gave its name to India.
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC)
The antecedents of the IVC were the village sites of the Baluchistan hills, the Makran coast to the west of the Indus delta and some rural areas along the rivers in Rajasthan and Punjab. The village sites of Baluchistan and Sindh have produced a large number of terracotta female figurines which are generally classified as the representations of goddesses. The IVC was marked by extraordinary cultural uniformity both in time and space.
According to the archaeological evidence, civilization appears in India about 3000 B.C. on the fertile plain of Punjab watered by the five tributaries of the Indus, namely, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. The slow cultural evolution in India flourished into the magnificent IVC also known as Harappa Culture, from the modern name of the site one of its two great cities, on the left bank of the river Ravi in the Punjab. Mohenjodaro, the second city, is on the bank of the Indus, some 250 miles from its mouth. Recently, excavations have been carried out in the old valley of the river Sarasvati (now almost dried out) in Kalibanganear the boarder of India and west Pakistan. The newly revealed third city is as big as the two earlier ones and has the same characteristics. The IVC includes these cities, a few smaller towns and a large number of village sites, from Rupar on the upper Sutlej to Lothal in Gujrat. The area covered by the Harappa culture therefore extended from north to south for some 950 miles. The pattern of its civilization was so remarkably uniform that even the bricks were same in size and shape from one end of it to the other.
We do not know a great deal about the IVC comparing to the likewise simultaneous civilizations on the valleys of Nile and Euphrates (Civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia), for they have left for us written records which have been satisfactorily deciphered. Many hundreds of inscriptions were found but unfortunately they were not yet satisfactorily deciphered. Hence our knowledge of IVC is inadequate.
Who were the authors of this civilization in terms of races is not yet identified and their language is not known. The Indo-European family,Indo-Iranian family or the Dravidians from the South of India were the originators of this civilization are some of the theories put forward which are open for discussion.We can certainly say, in a generally cultural sense that they were Indians living on the valley for several centuries. Equally we cannot ascribe a precise date for the beginning of this civilization. We can although say with certainty that IVC was much prior to the Vedic Civilization. The Vedic culture saw its culmination in the age of the Buddha. And the radio-carbon method conclusively provedthat the date of IVC from its early period 3200 to late Harappan period belongs to post 2100 B.C.
Excavations at Harappa and the discoveries at MohenjoDaro have shown that each city had a well-fortified citadel perhaps used for both governmental and religious purposes. Throughout the area of the Harappa culture the strict uniformity in such features as weights and measures, the size of the bricks, the planning of the streets and even the lay out of the cities, suggest rather a single centralized state than a number of loose communities.
The discovery of nine strata building at MohenjoDaroreveals theculture’s moststriking feature of conservatism. From periodic flooding of the Indus as the level of the earth rose, new houses were built exactly on the site of the old, keeping the same street plan, with only minor variations in the ground plan. And this method they carried out for nearly a millennium at least. The script of the Indus valley people also remained same throughout their history.
In neither of the two great cities any stone building was found. Standardized good burnt bricks were the building materials for both dwelling houses and public buildings. The houses had bathrooms with drains, which flows into sewers under the main street. The sewers were covered with large brick slabs. The sewer system was the most impressive achievements of the Indus valley people. No other ancient civilization until that of the Romans had so efficient a system of drains.
The Great Bath in the citadel area at MohenjoDaro is the most striking building. Constructed with beautiful brickwork this oblong bathing pool 39x23 feet in area and 8 feet deep. It could be drained by an opening in one corner and was surrounded by a cloister, on to which opened a number of small rooms. Probably it had a religious purpose like a “tank” of the Hindu temple and the cells may have been the homes of the priests. They had the notion of hygiene well advanced than other cultures and they might have also the strong belief in purification in connection with water like that of later Hindus.
The great granary is worth mentioning that has been discovered to the north of citadel of Harappa. Raised on a platform of some 150x200 fleet in area to protect it from floods, and divided into storage blocks which were used to store up corns that they collected as land tax from the peasants. The main food crops were wheat, barley, peas, and sesamum - the seeds of which provide edible oil. The Harappan people did not know cultivation of rice but they grew and used cotton. They tamed most of the domestic animals known to modern India. Humped and humpless cattle’s, buffaloes, goats, sheep’s, pigs, Asses, dogs and domestic fowl. The Harappan people may have known of the horse as in small amount horse teeth have been found, but they must have been very rare animals and their usage were not wide spread. The bullock was probably the usual beast of burden.
On the basis of this thriving agricultural economy the Harappa civilization was a comfortable one. The people had pleasant houses even the workmen used to enjoy the luxury of two room cottages. A well organized commerce made these things possible. The cities traded with the village cultures of those areas where outposts of the Harappa cultures have been found but their metals and semi precious stones came from much longer distances.
Religion of the IVC
With the discovery of IVC, the perspective of the religious history of India has changed. There has been suggestions that some of the fundamental religious ideas of Hinduism and some of the heterodox believes and observances can be trace back to this pre Aryan-pre Vedic culture. They were the worshippers of many gods both in anthropomorphic (ascribing human behavior to animals) and aniconic (not human or not animal) forms. There are questions about their pantheon whether it was female oriented or male?
The discoveries of many terracotta female figurines in many sites and the seals depicting various scenes related with the cult of mother goddesses, suggest that they were the worshippers of mother goddesses. In interesting oblong terracotta seal found at Harappa, depicting a nude female figure upside down with legs apart and a plant issuing from her womb. A probable depiction of a tree goddess on another seal is found. The tree has been identified as the Ashvattha, the tree of enlightenment, the most sacred tree of Buddhism. Scholars have suggested the famous bronze statue of a slender dancing girl as a prototype “yogini” of late Tantrism.Several seals with swastika signs have been found in the IVC sites.
On the other hand, the presence of a great male god is very much controversial. A great many seals have his representations. The famous seal from MohenjoDaro shows him seated on a low throne flanked by antelopes (deer throne) in a Yogic posture, eyes half closed, arms outstretched and resting on his knees. He is surrounded by many animals like elephant, tiger rhinoceros and buffalo. He has an elaborate headdress, which is decorated by two horns in a shape of a fan. He has been identified differently by different scholars as Pashupati, Agni(the fire god), a Jainaarahant, a proto-type Siddha (an esoteric adept) Rudra or a proto-type Shiva.
The discoveries of linga or phallic and many ring stones suggested to be the representations of yoni, the female organ of generation, the depiction of the birth of plant from the womb of the deity all these rightly suggest the Indus valley cults were related to regeneration and fertility. From other phenomenon like ablutions of the great birth, priesthood suggested by sculptures, use of horned head dresses, the icons of man-tiger, tree-goddess- all show the existing of a complexed myths and rites associated with IVC are still unknown to us.
Decline of the IVC
1.Theory of natural disaster and climate change
This theory suggests that the collapse of IVC due to severe flood. We have some evidences of IV cities suffered from flooding. Land became less fertile, shortage of food and resources, which caused people to migrate.
2. Invasion of the Aryans.
The Indus Valley Civilization perished through the violence of insurgent Aryans. The composers of the Rg Veda, the earliest Indian literary source, were invading people. The Rgvedic references of the destructions of “pur”s have been taken to be references to the wall- cities and forts of the Indus valley people. The fight of Indra with “dasyus”is interpreted as the battle between Aryans and the non Aryans. There is no doubt of the existence of a highly civilized non Aryan people in India at the time of the Aryan invasion but there is not enough evidence to prove the point. It is probable that the fall of this great civilization was an episode in the widespread migratory movements of charioteeringpeopleswhich changed the face of the whole civilized world in the 2nd millennium B.C.
Whatever may be the cause of the end of the Indus Valley cities, its religion and culture never died out completely. We find the traces of this religion in the later Vedic age and in the subsequent religious traditions of India. The contributions of Indus Valley religion to the Indian religious history is marked by the emergence of image or iconic worship which was not the practice of Vedic India. Similarly the gods and goddesses were worshipped in their symbolic representetions. The worship of gods in the form of “linga” or “yoni” common to Hinduism, also another contribution. In Vedic religion goddesses in no means had a dominant place. In later Indian religious history the female deities hold an equally important role like their male counter parts. The concept of Mother-Goddess in the post Vedic and even as late as Tantric India, perhaps were the impact of the Indus religion. There are suggestions that the system of Yoga and some of the heterodox schools of Indian religion were directly or indirectly associated with the Indus valley Culture. We will examine them in their right context.
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