Indus Valley Civilisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from today's northeast Afghanistan, through much of Pakistan, and into western and northwestern India. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.

Indus Civilization is by far the most egalitarian of any of the pristine Old or New World civilizations, and that by a long way and by any measure. ~ Charles Keith Maisels

Indians have always been justly proud of their age-old civilization and believing that this civilization was as ancient as any in Asia, they have long been hoping that archaeology would discover definite monumental evidence to justify their belief. This hope has now been fulfilled. ~ J. Marshall

The Indus civilization has challenged scholars’ understanding since its discovery some eighty years ago, and in recent years the application of systematic and problem-orientated research, coupled with much new and unexpected data, has overturned many previous interpretations. ~ Jane McIntosh

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E

• The ethos of the ancient Indian Civilization is shaped during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods.
  • Eltsov, Piotr Andreevich, From Harappa to Hastinapura, quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

M

• The Indus civilization (…) is doubly remarkable: first, because it was the only complex society of either Antiquity or the modern world, that operated without social stratification and the state; and, second, in what must be a related phenomenon, because it was an agrarian society in which the villages were not oppressed by the towns (…) In sum, Indus Civilization is by far the most egalitarian of any of the pristine Old or New World civilizations, and that by a long way and by any measure.
  • Charles Keith Maisels (Early Civilizations of the Old World, Routledge, London & New York, 1999, p.252-254)[1] , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.

K

• There appear to be many continuities [between the Indus and later historical cultures]. Agricultural and pastoral subsistence strategies continue, pottery manufacture does not change radically, many ornaments and luxury items continue to be produced using the same technology and styles . . . There is really no Dark Age isolating the protohistoric period from the historic period.
  • Kenoyer, J.M., ‘The Indus Civilization’, Wisconsin Academy Review, Madison, March 1987, p. 26. Quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Although the overall socioeconomic organization changed, continuities in technology, subsistence practices, settlement organization, and some regional symbols show that the indigenous population was not displaced by invading hordes of Indo-Aryan speaking people. For many years, the ‘invasions’ or ‘migrations’ of these Indo-Aryan-speaking Vedic/Aryan tribes explained the decline of the Indus civilization and the sudden rise of urbanization in the Ganga-Yamuna valley. This was based on simplistic models of culture change and an uncritical reading of Vedic texts. Current evidence does not support a pre- or proto-historic Indo-Aryan invasion of southern Asia. Instead, there was an overlap between Late Harappan and post-Harappan communities, with no biological evidence for major new populations.
  • J.M. Kenoyer: “The Indus Valley Tradition of Pakistan and Western India”, Journal of World Prehistory, 1991/4. , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

M

• Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given to Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae, or to [Aurel] Stein in the deserts of Turkestan, to light upon the remains of a long-forgotten civilization. It looks, however, at this moment, as if we were on the threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus.
  • Marshall, John in Lahiri, Nayanjot, Finding Forgotten Cities, quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Indians have always been justly proud of their age-old civilization and believing that this civilization was as ancient as any in Asia, they have long been hoping that archaeology would discover definite monumental evidence to justify their belief. This hope has now been fulfilled.
  • Marshall, John, quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Taken as a whole, [the Indus Valley people’s] religion is so characteristically Indian as hardly to be distinguished from still living Hinduism.
  • Marshall, John, (ed.), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization,, vol. 1, p. vi. in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• These discoveries establish the existence in Sind (the northernmost province of the Bombay Presidency) and the Punjab, during the fourth and third millennium B.C., of a highly developed city life; and the presence, in many of the houses, of wells and bathrooms as well as an elaborate drainage-system, betoken a social condition of the citizens at least equal to that found in Sumer, and superior to that prevailing in contemporary Babylonia and Egypt. . . . Even at Ur the houses are by no means equal in point of construction to those of Mohenjo-daro.
  • Marshall, Sir John, The Prehistoric Civilization of the Indus, Illustrated London News, Jan. 7, 1928, 1. quoted in Durant, Will (1963). Our Oriental heritage. New York: Simon & Schuster.

• Hitherto it has commonly been supposed that the pre-Aryan peoples of India were... black skinned, flat nosed barbarians. . . . Never for a moment was it imagined that five thousand years ago, before the Aryans were heard of, Panjab and Sind . . . were enjoying an advanced and singularly uniform civilization of their own . . . even superior to that of contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. . . . there is nothing that we know of in prehis- toric Egypt or Mesopotamia or anywhere else in western Asia to compare with the well- built baths and commodious houses of the citizens of Mohenjodara. . . . nothing that we know of in other countries at this period bears any resemblance, in point of style, to the miniature faience models . . . which . . . are distinguished by a breadth of treatment and a feeling for line and plastic form that has rarely been surpassed in glyptic art.
  • Sir John Marshall (1931) in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9

• There is one curious fact in regard to the beginnings of Indian history. For the Indus Valley culture, we have abundant archaeological data, but no written evidence. For the early Vedic culture we have abundant written evidence but no archaeological data.
  • Dr. Majumdar 1959, 1959. "Rgvedic Civilization in the Light of Archaeology." Annals of the Bhandarfcar Orien- tal Research Institute 40:1-15. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9

• The Indus civilization has challenged scholars’ understanding since its discovery some eighty years ago, and in recent years the application of systematic and problem-orientated research, coupled with much new and unexpected data, has overturned many previous interpretations.
  • Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley, 2008

R

• It is difficult to see what is particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley civilization.
  • Colin Renfrew, Archaeology and Language, pp 188 ff. also quoted in The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History ed. Bryant E., L Patton

S

• A continuous series of cultural developments links the so-called two major phases of urbanization in South Asia . . . The essential of Harappan identity persisted.
  • Shaffer Jim G., ‘Reurbanization: The Eastern Panjab and Beyond’, , pp. 60, 58 & 63. in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

W

• The great rivers, for all their beneficence, were at the same time treacherous and formidable enemies. If not constrained and directed by wise, largescale and sustained effort, they were destroyers no less than fertilizers.
  • Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond (1966), p. 61