Religion of the Indus Valley Civilization

The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley Civilisation people have received considerable attention, with many writers concerned with identifying precursors to the religious practices and deities of much later Indian religions.

Quotes

• Taken as a whole, their [the Indus Valley people’s] religion is so characteristically Indian as hardly to be distinguished from still living Hinduism.
  • John Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization(London, 1931, 3 Vols.), vol. I, p.vi.
  • quoted in Danino, M. (2009). A BRIEF NOTE ON THE ARYAN INVASION THEORY. PRAGATI| April-June 2009

• It is strange but true that the type and style of bangles that women wear in Rajasthan today, or the vermilion that they apply on the parting of the hair on the head, the practice of Yoga, the binary system of weights and measures, the basic architecture of the houses etc can all be traced back to the Indus Civilisation. The cultural and religious traditions of the Harappans provide the substratum for the latter-day Indian Civilisation.”
  • D. P. Agrawal, “An Indocentric Corrective to History of Science” (2002) p.5,
  • quoted in Danino, M. (2009). A BRIEF NOTE ON THE ARYAN INVASION THEORY. PRAGATI| April-June 2009

• It is difficult to see what is particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley Civilization.
  • Renfrew 1988:188-190. Archaeology and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 190 also quoted at [1]
  • Colin Renfrew, Archaeology and Language, p. 190.
  • quoted in Danino, M. (2009). A BRIEF NOTE ON THE ARYAN INVASION THEORY. PRAGATI| April-June 2009

• [More recently, Kenoyer found between those two civilizations] “… no significant break or hiatus.”
  • Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, p.180.
  • as quoted in Danino, M. (2009). A BRIEF NOTE ON THE ARYAN INVASION THEORY. PRAGATI| April-June 2009

• This leads us to the question of the Indus religion. Many scholars ,both foreign and Indian, are very reluctant to find any trace of modern Hindu rituals and beliefs in the finds which have been interpreted as evidence of Indus religion. Two facts, however, cannot be wished away – regrettably from the point of view of this group of people. One is the indubitable presence of Siva in the form of linga-like stones found both at Mohenjodaro and Harappa, a distinctively phallic stone column at Dholavira, a seated ithyphallic stone figure from the same site, the famous ‘Siva-Pasupati’ figure on a seal, and the terracotta representation of a Siva-linga set in ‘Yoni-patta’ at Kalibangan. The second such evidence is the widespread presence of sacrificial pits at Lothal, Kalibangan , Banawali , Rakhigarhi and possibly a few other sites. These pits possibly have variations of their own. Their shapes and contents may also vary from site to site. However, their generic similarity with the ‘havan kundas’ which many devout people still dig up every day, light fire in, and pour offerings on, them is undeniable.
  • Chakrabarti, D. K. (2009). Who Owns the Indian Past?: The Case of the Indus Civilization.

• We do not suggest that Hinduism, as we find it today, was there in the Indus civilization. All that we would say is that some later features of Hinduism have been echoed by ‘Indus’ finds, and thus this civilization is likely to have contributed to the stream of ‘sanatana dharma’ or traditional religion of the modern Hindus.
  • Dilip K. Chakrabarti - India_ An Archaeological History_ Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations (2010, Oxford University Press)