the Shiva of Indus Valley?

PUBLISHED
March 05, 2023

KARACHI/
MOHENJO DARO:

Among the many hundreds of seals belonging to the Indus Valley civilisation, the Pasupathi seal continues to generate debate amongst students. On show on the Nationwide Museum in New Delhi, the place it was relocated with different Mohenjo Daro artefacts earlier than Partition in 1947, the seal is without doubt one of the oldest portrayals of the Hindu god Shiva, with “Pasupathi” (lord of animals) being one among his epithets or a “proto-Shiva” deity.

The seal was found at Mohenjo Daro in 1928-1929, at a depth of three.9 metres under the floor. Ernest J. H. Mackay, a famend British archaeologist who oversaw excavations at Mohenjo Daro, dated the seal to the Intermediate I Interval (about 2350–2000 BCE). In his 1937–1938 report, the seal is numbered 420 and given its various title. The steatite seal measures 3.56 cm by 3.53 cm and has a thickness of 0.76 cm. It encompasses a central human determine seated on a platform and gazing ahead.

Because the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation (ca. 2300-1750 BC) within the Nineteen Twenties, the Pasupathi seal has been the topic of appreciable dialogue and disagreement. It was Sir John Marshall, the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928 and the pioneer excavator of this vital web site of the Harappan civilisation, who ascribed the seal its contested which means.

The excavator interpreted the numerous distinguishing traits of the determine on the seal as being indicative of the prototype of Shiva: the determine seems to be tricephalic (having three heads) and Marshall compares this to mediaeval depictions of Shiva; the determine sits in a yoga-like posture and in Hindu mythology, Shiva is the yogi par excellence; the determine’s headdress, composed of two horns and a tall central portion, is harking back to the form of Shiva’s emblem. This interpretation postulates that Shiva worship originated in a non-Aryan society earlier than the arrival of Aryans in the course of the Vedic interval.

In 1939, famend Indian historian Bhaskar Anand Saletore (1900–1963) was among the many first to level out the issue of attributing later Hindu ideas to a primordial seal. In his work Identification of a Mohenjo Daro Determine, he concluded that the determine on the seal has three faces and a headdress with not two however three horns. He in contrast these traits to these of the Vedic god Agni, who’s depicted as having “three heads” whose flames are his “horns”.

This strategy was disputed virtually instantly by a succession of papers reverting to options of Marshall’s unique place. Then, in 1951, N. Chaudhuri reviewed the Pasupathi seal’s iconography in his research on the Indus civilisation Indus Folks and the Indus Faith I and raised vital doubts concerning the proto-Shiva attribution by noting that the options Marshall isolates are usually not related to Shiva till the epics and the Puranas, and apart from the trident, these options are unusual within the iconography of Shiva. In any occasion, Chaudhuri was sceptical of Marshall’s trident concept, which includes admitting not solely that the type of the headdress might evolve into that of the trident but additionally {that a} headdress might be the origin of a hand-held image.

One other eminent historian Nilakanta Sastri questioned the tricephalic attribute in his e book Mild on the Indus Civilisation. He claimed that “the god neither has three nor human faces;” regardless of showing to be human, his whole physique is a intelligent amalgamation of a number of creatures.

Male or feminine deity?

H. P. Sullivan proposed in his research A Re-examination of the Faith of the Indus Civilisation that the determine is seen as feminine for the next causes:

• The absence of a phallus.
• The presence of a waistband (an decoration related to feminine collectible figurines, whereas males, in accordance with the creator, are all the time bare).
• A pigtail worn by one other so-called proto-Shiva matches that of a tree goddess.

As well as, the hairdo of the Pasupathi seal and the design of bangles and necklaces are corresponding to that of feminine collectible figurines. Nevertheless, it could be argued that the Pasupathi seal determine lacks female and male intercourse traits, as males weren’t all the time depicted bare, and had been made carrying a waistband. A ponytail corresponding to the one on the Pasupathi seal might be in comparison with the same coiffure worn by a person.

These counterarguments reveal that the determine could be both male or feminine primarily based on the abovementioned standards. The horns and head are corresponding to Mohenjo Daro’s depictions of humanised bulls. Therefore, the determine is assumed to be male primarily based on its look. In accordance with Sullivan, the Indus faith possible had a mom goddess worship whose twin nature was that of a vegetation-fertility deity and mistress of animals. He argues that the picture on the seal portrays the goddess in her second perform (a pasupathin).

The first problem with this place derives from Sullivan’s use of equivocal standards to determine the determine as feminine. Buddha Prakash finds in his work Rigveda and the Indus Valley Civilization that the three-headed determine often is the Vedic ‘Visvarupa Tvastr’ primarily based on a assessment of a mid-Sixties seal. His analysis is supported by a collection of analogies primarily based on the implicit assumption of quite a few students that there’s cultural continuity between the Indus civilisation and the Rig Vedic tradition.

Illustration of iconography and Vedic script

The seal represents a seated, upright and frontal determine, harking back to the yoga posture padmasana. The legs are folded on the knees, with the heels touching and the soles pointing downward. A group of bangles fully covers the determine’s arms. The palms loosely lay on the knees. A sequence of graduated 5 inverted triangular striations covers an open chest. Usually, these are seen as a set of necklaces or torques or as a triangle pectoral. A double-banded ribbon, terminating in dangling tassels, defines the waist. The determine’s decrease limbs are uncovered.

A posh headpiece adorns the determine’s lengthy, quite rectangular face. The headdress includes two curved horns, the ideas of which level upward towards the central fan-shaped construction. This type has branch-like patterns emanating from its decrease half. The headgear is firmly affixed to the lowered forehead of a face with distinguishing traits. The little eyes are positioned excessive and downwardly slanted. The nostril is elongated and outstanding. A double-line form, resembling a pores and skin fold, spreads from the eyes across the face, which seems to originate immediately from the shoulders. These protrusions on both aspect of the face are what Marshall considered the profiles of a god with three heads.

The determine is seated on a dais. Two deer are positioned with their heads and antlers going through the center. 4 creatures within the subject encompass the determine: an elephant, a tiger, a rhinoceros and a buffalo. Marshall’s 4 elements of iconography, particularly the headdress, the face, the stance and the encompassing animals, are re-evaluated utilizing comparative information from prehistoric artefacts and Vedic texts.

Maybe the usage of the latter requires clarification. Pasupathi and three-headedness, two notions related by Marshall with the seal, seem within the Vedic ‘Samhitis,’ the earliest literature of the traditional Hindu religion. Rudra, the Vedic predecessor of Shiva, can also be talked about in these scriptures. Considerably, these concepts seem within the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda, as the previous is the oldest ‘Samhita’ and the latter is the ‘Samhita’ more than likely to characterize sure people — maybe non-Vedic — beliefs.

The aim of increasing the investigation of those writings is to find out whether or not there’s a connection between the iconography of the seal and the Vedic conceptions of Rudra, Pasupathi and three-headedness. Actually, there’s a vital hole in time and tradition between the Vedic references and the Indus seal. Nonetheless, the Vedic proof should be thought-about, if solely to see whether or not it helps or refutes the proto-Shiva concept.

Motifs: spiritual and mythological

There may be convincing analysis on the importance of faith within the improvement of the Mesoamerican, Aztec and Inca civilisations. The empirical info from the Harappan civilisation should be investigated from the attitude of scientific drawback conceptualisation. The 2 most up-to-date research on the Harappan faith both don’t increase the problems in any respect or contradict a few of the judgements given in quite a few research on Hinduism. In her analysis titled Society and Faith within the Indus Valley Civilization, Ildiko Puskas’s description of the “Empire part” of Harappan society is inconsistent with the distribution of financial sources and the tactic for his or her harnessing.

The famed Indian archaeologist and historian Shubhangana Atre’s doctoral thesis on the Harappan Mom Goddess provides provocative rethinking on the seal being considered proto-Shiva. In her research titled Woman of Beasts — The Harappan Goddess, Atre argues that the Pasupathi seal, which had beforehand been seen as proto-Shiva, is definitely the Woman of Beasts and that fireplace and water had been the first parts of her worship.

Atre believes that the worship of the primaeval goddess who dominated the realm of untamed animals was reworked to accommodate a flourishing society, primarily supported by agriculture, animal husbandry and commerce. The query of faith as a social scientist ideology stays unsolved. Nevertheless, it is a helpful and interesting rationalisation of the important elements of Harappan faith when it comes to their materials basis.

In distinction, her references to “regional variations” of Harappan cults merely solid doubt on the hypotheses of Paul Wheatley, a geographer who grew to become an skilled on the historic geography of Southeast Asia and East Asia. Even Gregory Louis Possehl, an emeritus professor of anthropology on the College of Pennsylvania, was lively in excavations of the Indus Valley civilisation in India and Pakistan since 1964 and was the creator of quite a few publications and essays on the Indus Civilization and associated points, mentioned in his research on Kulli solely within the context of Mesopotamian commerce with the Indus, with no point out of faith’s so-called “catalytic” position. As well as, a extra thorough integration of the Harappan financial subsistence base with the spiritual phenomenon can be required. This has turn into extra vital in mild of the difficult functioning of financial exercise within the area, as evidenced by latest publications.

Like all different Harappan seals, the Pasupathi seal should have imprinted their utmost significance on the fabric life and the spiritual world of the Harappans. Remarkably, even at the moment, this explicit class of Harappan artefacts holds nice attract and a outstanding place within the minds of these engaged in uncovering that civilisation’s historical past.

The frustration of many archaeologists after they fail to uncover a seal whereas excavating a Harappan web site, and the fun that follows the invention of even a single seal, testifies to the pretty entrenched view {that a} Mature Harappan web site is all the time related to seals. Few teachers, nevertheless, have endeavoured to analyse the seals as objects of non secular artwork prone to conceptual and aesthetic transformations that introduce chronological and regional variations. It’s broadly recognized that Harappan seals had been primarily used to mark parcels to be exchanged.

Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a level in rejecting the motifs’ spiritual and legendary significance and creative worth on these seals. The most important group of seals includes sq. seals with an emboss on the reverse and usually a single intaglio-carved motif on the obverse. As a rule, it’s both a sensible or implausible animal. Such seals are the main focus of quite a few scientific research. Initially, it was broadly assumed that the looks of Mature Harappan artefacts was static, however because the research progressed, the existence of cultural dynamism throughout the Mature Harappan grew to become obvious.

Points equivalent to cultural synthesis, the artist’s inventive creativeness, and so forth., wouldn’t have been explored up to now, nor are they even briefly examined at the moment. The comparative evaluation of seals from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, from which the best variety of seals have been recovered up to now, reveals the method of inner improvement and standardisation, in addition to the truth that the motifs, whether or not theriopic, anthropic, therianthropic, or narrative, fashioned a part of a single, steady chain of, more than likely, mythological occasions. Every motif was extracted as nonetheless establishing essential connections in that chain. It’s also attainable that a few of the motifs developed as typical of a small variety of websites, however there may be ample proof to discover this principle.

The recurrence sample of those seal designs within the two main cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, might superficially resemble each other. Nonetheless, a deeper investigation reveals that each places have displayed their distinctive traits from the earliest strata.

Herein lays the important thing to comprehending the elemental ideological distinction between female and male deities concerning their interplay with the animal kingdom. Consultants have detected this distinction by iconography fairly precisely. The arguments will be summarised as follows: whereas the male deity in delusion, just like the male hero, usually seems in opposition to the animal that he fights and conquers, the good goddess as, ‘Woman of the Beasts’, controls however not often engages in battle with them. There isn’t a animosity or hate between her and the animal kingdom, regardless that she interacts with wild, light, and domesticated animals. Whether it is understood that the animal themes on Harappan seals persistently replicate these basic relationships, then most of the components of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place with relative ease.”

Arshad Awan is a Lahore primarily based educationist, model strategist, historian and journalist. He will be reached at: [email protected] All info and data are the only real duty of the author.