1. Harappa
Civilization
HARAPPA RELIGION,
SOCIETY AND DECLINE
RAI UNIVERSITY

2. Chapter – 2 (Part - IV)
SOCIETY AND RELIGION
Society
In the Indus Valley Civilization, the civilization was stratified into 3 separate social groups. One
cluster ruled and administered the city; the other cluster incorporated the merchants who were
linked with trade and additional business behaviors in the municipality. The third cluster was that
of the laborers who work in the municipality. They also incorporated the farmers who refined
wheat and barley as their main crops. For convey of men and goods double-ox carts must have
been in use.
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Excluding the camel, the usual beasts of burden were known. The horse was also known
by the opening of the 1st millennium BC. Terracotta cart surrounds and wheels with and
without cores have been found.
Jewellery was not merely the forte of women, still men liked such. The pieces of knickknacks saw the plentiful employ of gold, copper and silver. Necklaces, armlets and rings
were ordinary jewelleries for men. On the other hand women decorated themselves up
with ear rings, necklaces, anklets, bangles, girdles, bracelets and others. Ivory harvests
like combs were also well-liked with the people of this culture. As well these, community
enjoyed playing in dice and marble. Gambling was a favorite past time of the senior
members in the civilization.
Religion
Religion in Indus Valley Civilization is a topic matter which has not been obtainable in few
ancient texts or credentials but quite in the writings, seals, images and additional materials.
These have been exhumed by several archaeologists at the place. The Harappan faith was
polytheistic. Scholars are not capable to draw a conclusion concerning the religion of Indus
people. Though, few historians are of the view that Harappan people were Hindus. No temple,
though, has up till now been exposed at the excavated place. Proof for attendance of Hinduism is
whispered to have been present throughout the Harappan period. Phallic symbols, alike to that of
the Hindu Shiva Lingam, have been established in Harappa. Several figures of the Mother
Goddess, complete out of soil have been established. It was careful as a sign of fruitfulness and

3. was respected by the people. A figure of a male god in a placed stance was also established. It
was imprinted on a tiny stone seal.
As well, a stone figure has been established which is a white steatite head and not working. This
figure is clothed in a negligee which is approved over the left shoulder. This was measured a
blessed sign. The figure has a small beard and the upper lip is shaved. The hair is harvested and
parted in the center. The figure is decorated up with a necklace. The eyes are half-shut signifying
yogic thought.
Numerous pottery figurines propose that female gods were worshipped as well. Almost certainly
it represented the Mother-Goddess, which symbolizes fruitfulness. Terracotta figures look like
the horns of a goat or bulls were also establish suggesting that animal adoration was common.
The seal charms and talismans of stone and pottery do designate the religious approach of the
Harappan citizens.
A nude picture of a god with horns and 3 faces, settled on a bench with heals intimately pressed
jointly propose few ritualistic stance. The early archaeologists called him Pashupati, the lord of
cattle, as animals like deer, antelope, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger and buffalo enclose him. His
arms are decorated with bangles. Another seal-amulet demonstrates a horned goddess in the
middle of a Peepal or holy fig-tree before which one more horned god is stooping and doing
obeisance. A line of female deities inhabit the entire of the lower list of the seal-amulet, every
figure tiring a spring on the head, a lengthy pigtail behind. Stone objects suggest that worship
was salaried to phallic ciphers as well. Few of the phallic leftovers closely look like the Hindu
symbol of Shiva lingam. Tigers with a goddess settled on them have been established on seals.
Carved figure of a snake has been exposed. Several seals make known the sign of swastika
which is also establish in other religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, etc. Dove was
careful a sacred bird. Fiends and demigods are suggested from figures fighting with animals.
Sun was stared as one of the furthermost gods. People whispered in the supernatural and
superstitions also and wore amulets for several protections. A dancing-girl of Mohanjodaro, a
bronze figure, has also been established suggesting rite dancing in the temples. Proof shows that
the Harappan people not only covered their dead but them also mannered cremations and set
aside the ashes in urns. The detection of pottery substances and curios in the interment grounds
suggest that they might have supposed in life behind death. Temples or any type of religious
structures have not been exposed yet. However there are possibilities of a temple and Buddhist
memorial towards the eastern area of the Great Bath location.
Excavated proof seems to propose that a lot of the features of contemporary Indian sects are
derivative from very ancient sources. In the Indus civilization adoration of the Shakti, Lord Shiva
and his companions, worship of the animals like the tiger, the bull, the goat and the snake and
also the adoration of Peepul tree and the Neem tree. The unicorn God almost certainly
symbolized `Ma`, while the livestock God possibly represented Goddess Kali or Uma, the
mother goddess. It has been suggested that four-armed divinities are predictable to be Gods like
Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu, as the ranking deities propose Jain Yogis in the posture of Yoga
recognized as Kayot Sarga.

4. DIFFUSION AND DECLINE
Decline of the Indus Valley Civilization is motionless elusive. All excavations close to the
coastal division of the Indus though showed that the decline of this ancient culture occurred
unexpectedly between 1800 BC and 1700 BC. Earlier a few western historians denote the Vedic
people were barbarous and they confounded the earlier culture and built up their own. At the
present the contemporary research confirmed that Vedic society was reduced not by the outside
violence but by the recurrent flood and other natural tragedy at that period. It was confirmed by
Kenneth Kennedy in the year 1994. Behind this assessment the debate concerning the refuse of
Indus Valley society curtained and also proved incorrect of the previous research complete by Sir
Mortimer Wheeler who affirmed that Indus Valley culture ruined in the huge violence. He
affirmed it while he exposed a cluster of 37 skeletons establish in a variety of parts of
Mohanjodaro, and ways in the Vedas referring to battles and fortress. Such theories of an
aggressive end have been partially showed by the detection in Mohanjodaro of human leftovers
that designates a violent cause of death. Several of the scholars also denoted Mohenjodaro as a
"heaps of dead". The option of the Aryans being concerned in such war happy seems unlikely,
particularly as new excavations have revealed that the Aryans arrived almost 500 years after the
decline of the main Indus Valley Civilization‘s municipalities.
Effects on Urbanization in Indus Valley Civilization
The hypothesis of climatic issues reasoning the refuse has been fasting reliability, in the glow of
the recent research. Approximately 2000 BC main ecological transforms began taking lay in the
Indus Valley. As the tectonic change caused the creation of a dam in the lower Indus, that shaped
the recurrent floods and tragedy in the lush the plains of the coastal fraction of Indus. This
resulted in the rural and the urban life and existence of that area. Several Indus Valley culture
municipalities demonstrate signs of having been deserted and then rebuilt, representing they
were often flooded.
This led to the obliteration of the whole culture. The urban municipalities were no longer built
with the mind they were earlier, broken mud-bricks were used for creation and no concentration
was salaried to an appropriate sewage organization. Also the average rainfall in the region began
lessening as the area gradually began turning into the desert it is today.
Rural Decline in Indus Valley Civilization
The major livelihood of the populations of Indus valley is farming. They are mostly based on the
agricultural foodstuffs for livelihood. Such main climatic changes shaped the shocking result in
economy and in the social existence. The power the big municipalities had on the rest of the area
was based mostly on the amount of grain they stored in their granaries. Once agricultural
invention declined the power of the cities declined and finally the area went into a state of
disorder. It shaped the political nervousness in the interior life of the Indus Valley culture.