This sense that the Indus peoples were part of a well-integrated, well-organized society has been noted before, beginning with Wheeler and his comments on the well-ordered nature of the Mature Harappan settlements, the sameness of it all, the lack of evidence for conflict, let alone warfare.28 After all, Sir John Marshall’s Harappans were peaceful, urban merchant burghers whose beliefs were harbingers of later Indian ideologies. I believe that these observers of the ancient Mature Harappan world were seeing the outcome of the successful Harappan ideology: a well-integrated, harmonic sociocultural system. But it might have been too well adapted for its own good.
One can argue, as J. C. Heesterman has,29 that sociocultural systems with great time depth, those that have survived for millennia, rather than centuries, are characterized from their inception by an inner conflict, a lack of resolution of important sociocultural issues. It is these unresolved conflicts that provide the motive force for survival over protracted periods of time, since the peoples are in a constant state of negotiating, resolving, dealing with the mal-adaptation or lack of harmony in their lives. If the world stood still, the well-integrated, tightly organized sociocultural systems like the Indus Civilization would work pretty well. But the world does not stand still and sociocultural systems of this highly integrated type, which does not require constant negotiation, are vulnerable to changing conditions, both external and internal. It might take 600 years for the system to fail, but eventually the changing world catches up with them. On the other hand, sociocultural systems that lack perfect harmony, that are endowed with Heesterman’s “inner conflict,” where the peoples find themselves in a constant state of negotiation and the resolution of inconsistencies, even contradictions, are less vulnerable since they are continually dealing with their problems, and a constantly changing world is just one of them.
Robert McC. Adams has dealt with this same sort of sociocultural/historical issue.30 He thinks of stability as a propensity for systems generally to return to equilibrium after a temporary disturbance. The behavioral qualities that characterize such systems are consistency, integration, and the optimization of performance. Systems of this sort tend toward rigidity and brittleness. Resilience, on the other hand, reflects a primary concern with long-term survival. Behavioral qualities that can be associated with resilient sociocultural systems are an ability to deal effectively with contingencies of many sorts and sufficient lack of integration that a certain level of disequilibrium is always present. Such sociocultural systems survive because they are able to successfully negotiate within a dynamic historical setting, a world that is constantly in flux.
Some perspective is called for at this point. First, no sociocultural system, not even the Indus Civilization, could be perfectly integrated and free of conflict, so I am using this notion in a comparative way. Second, one does not want to live in a world where there is no sociocultural integration, where there is no harmony, where there is only inconsistency and contradiction. But some lack of fit, some internal contradictions, some of Heesterman’s “conflict” would seem to be good in the sense that it contributes to long-term survival; however, “too much of a good thing” of this sort can itself be counterproductive, even destructive.
We might begin to think of the Indus ideology as being their “too much of a good thing,” too perfect, brought into day-to-day sociocultural reality by true believers who had the answers, at least from their point of view. There was only one good, legitimate way of doing things and that was according to the Indus ideology. This would account for the “tightness” and “sameness” that many researchers on the Indus Civilization have seen. In the end their ideology made the Indus peoples who they were, but it may have proved to be their undoing as well.
NOTES
1 Lahiri 2000 is a book where a number of papers related to this topic have been republished.
2 Wheeler 1947: 78—83.
3 Wheeler 1947: 82.
4 Allchin 1980, 1990.
5 Dales 1964; Kennedy 1982, 1994.
6 Wheeler 1959: 112.
7 Raikes and Dyson 1961: 276; Fairservis 1967: 39.
8 Lambrick 1967; Mughal 1990a.
9 Mackay 1948: 16; Dorothy Mackay 1945.
10 Sahni 1956.
11 Raikes 1964; Raikes and Dales 1986; see Possehl 1997c: 441 for additional bibliography.
12 Lambrick 1967; Possehl 1967; Agrawal 1982: 188—90; Wasson 1984, 1987.
13 Sahni 1956.
14 Stein 1942; Ghosh 1952, 1953a, and 1953b; Mughal 1997.
15 Joshi 1993.
16 Possehl 1997c: figs. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
17 Agrawal and Sood 1982.
18 Francfort 1986: 98, original emphasis.
19 Singh 1971; Singh et al. 1974.
20 Allchin and Allchin 1997: 206—22.
21 Allchin and Allchin 1997: 211.
22 Possehl 1996c: 139—44.
23 Allchin and Allchin 1997: 212.
24 Wheeler 1947: 70—74.
25 Possehl 1996b: 450—57.
26 Vidale and Miller 2000: 124—25.
27 Possehl 1967.
28 Wheeler 1950: 29.
29 Heesterman 1985.
30 Adams 1978.
CHAPTER 14
The Indus Civilization: An Overview
INTRODUCTION
This concluding chapter offers an opportunity to bring together some of the disparate threads of ancient India’s earliest urbanization, but I am going to begin with an observation not yet made. The Indus Civilization represents the easternmost manifestation of an interregional pattern of third millennium urbanization that encompasses the Nile Valley and the lands from the Mediterranean Sea east across the Iranian Plateau to the Greater Indus region. In today’s nomenclature this would be called the “Near East and northwestern South Asia.” Beyond the Indus to the east, across the Thar Desert, or south into peninsular India, one enters what can be thought of as “India proper.” The peoples of the Indus Civilization had contact with peoples living in these latter regions, but they are not of the Indus Age.
There are a number of themes that were developed in this book. Some of these have to do with the “myths” that have grown up around the Indus Civilization.
MYTHS ABOUT THE INDUS CIVILIZATION THAT NEED TO BE SET ASIDE IF WE ARE TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THESE ANCIENT PEOPLES AND THEIR WAYS OF LIFE
Our interpretation of the remains of the Indus Civilization has gone through two paradigms. The first of these was constructed by Sir John Marshall; the second, by Sir Mortimer Wheeler and his colleague Stuart Piggott. The current generation of archaeologists is in the midst of constructing another paradigm, or possibly several competing paradigms. This book is an effort in that direction.
The parts of the older paradigms are still found in contemporary writing on the Indus Civilization, especially in textbooks, the popular press, and works edited or written by nonexperts. Much in the older paradigms is still valid, but some of this thinking has been replaced.
The Indus Civilization Was Not Ruled by Priest-Kings
We are not certain who ruled the peoples of the Indus Civilization, but there is no reason for us to believe that it was despotic, in the oriental fashion, or that priest-kings held the balance of power. Moreover, the famous image called the priest-king (figure 6.6) is not necessary an accurate appellation for this piece of art.
The Cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa Were Not Twin Capitals of a Vast Empire
Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were important places in the Indus Civilization, and it is not unreasonable to think of them as capitals. Whether there was an “Indus Empire” with an emperor, as in a king of kings, is less certain. Archaeologists are not sure what the political form of the Indus Civilization was, but a corporate form, without kings or emperors, seems reasonable.
Whatever the case, we know that they were not literally twin capitals since Dr. M. R. Mughal has found a third Indus city called Ganweriwala in Cholistan, exactly halfway between Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.1 We also c
onsider Dholavira and Rakhigarhi Indus cities. There are not just two Indus cities, but five, at least.
The High Mounds at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, as Well as Other Places, Were Not Citadels
Indus sites often have elevated areas in them: a sort of ancient Indian acropolis. This is true for Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Kalibangan, Dholavira, and to an extent, Lothal. At some places the entire site is an elevation (e.g., Surkotada). These elevations are not necessarily to the west as at Mohenjo-daro. At Lothal it is in the southeastern quadrant of the site. There is no consistency in the Indus town planner’s use of elevation as a part of civic design.
Citadels are places of defense and refuge in times of conflict. The elevated area at Mohenjo-daro was not fortified so much as it was constructed with a retaining wall to contain the earth used to create an elevated symbolic landscape to raise the Great Bath, Warehouse, and other large buildings built atop it.
The Indus Cities Did Not Have Civic Granaries
Whatever the buildings often called “granaries” at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa may have been, there is no evidence that they were actually grain-storage facilities. The building on the Mound of the Great Bath at Mohenjodaro seems to have been a Warehouse. The use of the one at Harappa is more obscure, but it, too, could have been a warehouse.
The Indus Cities Were Not Planned with a Grid Layout
Close inspection of the Mohenjo-daro grid town plan is presented in chapter 5 of this book. It demonstrates that there is so much missing and contradictory information about this feature of the city that it is impossible to say for sure that it was laid out in a grid fashion. There is no evidence for a grid town plan at Harappa, Chanhu-daro, Banawali, and almost all other Indus sites.
The Indus Was Not a Civilization of Brick Cities
In fact, Mohenjo-daro is the only city of baked brick within the Indus Civilization. There is a fair amount of baked brick at Harappa, but it may not be the predominant building material. Chanhu-daro, too, has much baked brick, but it is much smaller than Mohenjo-daro. There is literally no baked brick at many sites, and trivial amounts at others. Some of the sites that would fit this description are prominent places such as Dholavira, Lothal, Surkotada, Allahdino, Bala Kot, Sutkagen-dor, Rojdi, Amri, Banawali.
The Remains of the Indus Peoples Are Not Boring and Monotonous
One of the most successful and important successes of the “new archaeology” of the Indus Civilization has been putting to rest that notion that the remains of the Indus peoples were monotonous and boring, the same wherever they are found. In fact, there is a rich variety of Indus material and a diversity of peoples who made them. The notion of domains is a result of the efforts to document the diversity of the Indus Civilization.
The Peoples of the Indus Civilization Were Not Necessarily All Dark-Skinned Dravidians
We do not know the skin color of the Indus peoples, or the Vedic Aryans, for that matter. That some of them may have been dark skinned is possible, given the hot tropical environment and the protection that dark skin offers from the sun. But there was probably a mix of skin colors, along with head shape, hair texture, and other phenotypic features of human biology.
The Indus Peoples Did Not Necessarily Speak a Proto-Dravidian Language, and That Is Not Necessarily the Language of Its Writing System
We do not know which language families were represented among the Indus peoples, let alone the specific languages that they spoke. Archaeology unaided by texts makes an assessment of this issue very difficult. The inference concerning the ethnic complexity of the Indus peoples is supported by the diversity of archaeological remains and indicators from physical anthropology. That many peoples would have spoken many languages is a reasonable inference.
One or more of the languages spoken by the peoples of the Indus Age may have been some early form of a Dravidian language. This makes good sense since the modern Dravidian languages are so close to the Greater Indus region. Brahui, in fact, is within it.
There are other choices for languages as well. One or more of the languages of the peoples of the Indus Age could have been from a very ancient language family called “Proto-Elamo-Dravidian.”2 Early forms of languages like Munda or the Altaic group might also fit as possible languages spoken by the peoples of the Indus Age. Of course, we have to also admit that one or more of the languages of the peoples of the Indus Age are long lost to the modern world, dead as the individuals who would have spoken them.
The real point is that we just do not know the languages of the peoples of the Indus Age. And equally important, it is, in my opinion, a virtual impossibility that there was only one language; surely there were many, and probably from different language families. And given the historical dynamics of the Indus Age, the languages spoken within the Greater Indus region changed, from season to season, year to year, century to century. There was much movement of peoples and ideas during the Indus Age and that would have meant that the language dimension of history was dynamic as well.
There may have been a lingua franca for the peoples of the Indus Age to give common ground to daily life, commerce, politics, and the like. If the script of the Indus peoples turns out to render one language into written form, this language would be a good candidate for the lingua franca, a tongue that was common among the diversity of Indus peoples, helping to unite their diverse cultures on at least this dimension.
The Indus Writing System Has Not Been Deciphered
In spite of many claims to the contrary, the Indus writing system has not yet been proved to be deciphered.3 While one should be hopeful about eventually reading the Indus script, there are many problems to be surmounted, and the job will not be easy. The three most significant of these problems are (1) we do not know the language, or even the language family of the script; (2) the inscriptions are very short, about five characters on the average. Such short messages make decipherment inherently difficult; (3) there is no agreed-upon sign list, so the task of deciding just what should be deciphered has not yet been settled.
Invading Indo-Europeans Did Not Destroy the Indus Civilization
I believe from linguistic evidence that the homeland of the Indo-European peoples was somewhere in the temperate forest regions of Eurasia, so they came to the Subcontinent from somewhere else. When the speakers of an Indo-European language(s) first came to the Subcontinent is not known. They first appear in the Near East just after 2000 B.C., but this is from linguistic evidence and they could have been there much before this, as would be the case for the Subcontinent. I am in agreement with F. Allchin that there could have been Indo-European-speaking peoples in the Greater Indus region at the time of the Indus Civilization. It is unlikely that they were speakers of Vedic Sanskrit, and it is therefore also doubtful that they were Aryans, since that is what the speakers of Vedic Sanskrit called themselves. When the speakers of Vedic Sanskrit came to the Subcontinent is also obscure, but their great book, the Rgveda, dates to about 1000 B.C.
The sometimes vivid description of life in the Punjab given in the Rgveda at about 1000 B.C. informs us of people who were organized in lineages (tribes), with leaders, ritual specialists, and the common people. They were cattle pastoralists who undertook some cultivation, mostly of barley. The Rgveda includes many battles. Early interpreters of these events thought that they could be taken as evidence for a military invasion of the Subcontinent, using the bodies in the upper strata of Mohenjo-daro as archaeological evidence that they sacked the Indus Civilization. But this is incorrect. The battles were simply a part of life in the ancient Punjab during the Early Iron Age, almost a millennium after the transformation of the Indus Civilization. Moreover, Sindh is a distant land in Rgveda, not the central region it was in Indus times.
In fact, the Rgveda does not contain the story (or even a hint) of the Aryan journey to the Punjab. No one knows for sure when the Indo-Europeans who spoke Vedic Sanskrit came to the Subcontinent, or how they got there. Speakers of other Indo-European languages were in the Near East early
in the second millennium, and this may approximate the date of the Aryans into the Subcontinent. But there is no evidence for an invasion, and most contemporary scholars who deal with this issue think more in terms of the movement that characterizes cattle pastoralists because of their need for pastureland, than military conquest. Moreover, the Aryans may have come to the Punjab over a long period of time (a matter of centuries), not in a great rush, as an invasion would suggest.
DEEP HISTORY OF “INDEPENDENT” FOOD PRODUCTION
The Indus Civilization rests on a deep history of food production, now well documented at Mehrgarh. The old idea about the food production “revolution” held that diffusion across the Iranian Plateau was the mechanism that brought farming and pastoralism to the Subcontinent. The new ideas on the beginning of food production there rest on the observations that all of the early domesticates found at Mehrgarh, except for wheat, are found in their wild state in Pakistani Baluchistan and adjacent uplands. Costantini and Biasini make the important point that this environment shares important features with the old “Neolithic nuclear zone” of the Near East.4 While wild wheat has not been documented there, there has been a good deal of environmental degradation over the past 10,000 years, and there is good, if speculative, thought that this missing plant was a part of the ancient environment. This position is bolstered by quite certain observations that domestication of animals took place in the Indus region.
The Indus Civilization Page 43