for students of BA III Sem BHU

1. Religion in Indus Valley Civilization
By: Prachi Virag Sontakke

2. Introduction
• First civilization of India.
• Script still undeciphered.
• Ritual aspect of religion may be reconstructed by material remains.
• But in absence of readable written sources, difficult to infer subtle
philosophical aspects of religion.
• Much of the interpretation relating to Indus religion is based on
assumptions made on the basis of archeological remains.

3. Sources
• Structural remains.
• Figurines
• Seals
• Painted depictions on pottery
• Burials
• Amulets

4. Aspects of Indus Religion
Indus
religion
Deities
Mother
goddess
Terracotta
figurines
Depiction
on seals
Pashupati Yoni &
phallus
worship
Plant
worship
Animal
worship
Rituals
Animal
sacrifice?
Fire
worship
water
worship
Burial
system

5. Terracotta Mother Goddess
• Made in terracotta
• Generally with headdress and two diyas on
either side
• Mackey: diyas used for pouring oil for
lighting
• Decked with necklaces, bangles, ear
ornaments.
• Kulli, Zhob, Mundigak: Standing/seated
naked terracotta figurines sometimes
holding a child.
• Chanhudaro: terracotta figurine of a
pregnant woman.
• Dholavira: terracotta figuring of a feeding
mother.

7. Mother goddess on seals
• Inscribed Seal from Harappa: woman standing on her head with a plant shoot
emerging from her yoni. Two tigers standing nearby
• Mohenjo-Daro seal: human wearing numerous bangles, standing between pipal tree
branch. A male sitting probably holding a sickle. seven worshippers below? A
composite animal, fish.marshal says it represents a sacrificial scene.
• Parpola: Male; Dhavlikar: Female
• Nature /fertility worship
• Difficult to ascertain if worshipped independently or as accessory to other deity.

9. • Showing a female deity battling two tigers & standing above an
elephant.
• A single Indus script depicting a spoked wheel is above the head of
the deity.
• On the reverse, an individual is spearing a water buffalo with one
foot pressing the head down and one arm holding the tip of a horn.
A gharial [crocodile] is depicted above the sacrifice scene and a
figure seated in yogic position, wearing a horned headdress, looks
on. The horned headdress has a branch with three prongs or leaves
emerging from the center.
Female deity on a Plano convex tablet Harappa

10. Sea Faring Goddess?
• The tradition of worshipping the sea-
goddess of Lothal
• S.K.Rao: Original seat of the goddess was
the warehouse-mound over-looking the
dock. She is invoked even now to protect
the sailors from the dangers of the sea.
• Another name for Vanuvatimata, the
Happy Mother, also known as the
Sindhoi Mata or Goddess of Sands

11. Pashupati
• Inscribed Seal from Mohenjo-Daro
• Male seated on a stool in Yogic posture
• Wearing a bull horn headdress
• Surrounded by animals: elephant, rhino, bull, tiger, deer.
• Lord of animals?
• Marshall: ‘Shiva-Pashupati’

12. Animal worship Animal
worship
Imaginary animals
Single animal
Composite
animals
Real
animals

13. Real animals
• Bull
• Tiger
• Elephant
• Rhino
• Deer

14. Imaginary animals Composite animals

15. Imaginary single animal: Unicorn

16. Plant worship
• Peepal, Neem, Babool
• Kenoyar: absence of temples
tree worship

17. Fire worship
Kalibanga fire altars in a row along with ash, terracotta cakes, a well on a platform and
remains of animal bones & deer horns

18. Fire altars
• From Kalibanga: fire altars in Citadel & Lower town.
• Banawali and Naushahro: fire altars inside the
room.
• Lothal: fire altars both from public space & houses.
• Content from fire altars: Ash, animal bones, deer
horns, terracotta cakes, beads

20. Binjor Fire Altar
• Discovery of a fire altar, with a yasti (a shaft) in
the middle.
• “The yasti is an indication that rituals were
performed at the altar,”.
• The yasti here is an octagonal, burnt brick.
Although bones were found in the upper level of
the deposits in this trench, it could not be
ascertained whether they were sacrificial bones.
• The ASI team traced mud and ash layers at the
lower level in the trench and also found a bead
inside the fire altar.
• Pandey said fire altars had been found in
Kalibangan and Rakhigarhi, and the yastis were
octagonal or cylindrical bricks.
• There were “signatures” indicating that worship
of some kind had taken place at the fire altar
here.

21. Fire worship
Rectangular Fire altar at Lothal U shaped fire altar at Banawali

22. Water worship
Great bath at Mohanjo daro

23. Water worship
• Water held sacred.
• Marshall: such elaborate arrangements for
bathing are seen no where else in world.
• Number of wells in Mohanjo daro far exceed
that required for a city of this size that too
when river was near the settlement.
• Why public wells when generally house had
their own wells
• Reasoning: religious merit?

24. Animal sacrifice

25. Plano convex molded tablet from
Mohenjo-Daro
• Showing an individual spearing a water
buffalo with one foot pressing the head
down & one arm holding the tip of a horn.
• A gharial is depicted above the sacrifice
scene and a figure seated in yogic position,
wearing a horned headdress, looks on.
• The horned headdress has a branch with
three prongs or leaves emerging from the
center.

26. Funerary rites
• Types: full burial, partial burial, symbolic
burial
• Sub types: Single and double burials
• Location of cemetery: outside the town.
• Burials with special grave goods and
pottery
• Special placement of grave goods.

27. Burials in different
Harappan sites.
(A) and (B) Burials at Mehrgarh site.
(A) Burial in clay box (B) Mehrgarh
burials, pit with side chamber closed
up with mud bricks. (C) and (D)
Burials found at Kalibangan site. (C)
Pot Burial without Skeleton. (D)
Kalibangan bricklined grave. (E) A
burial at Lothal site. A double burial
inside brick lined grave.

29. Farmana
Symbolic Burial from Farmana
Burial from Farmana
A cemetery with 70 burials, most of them with skeleton.
Spread over 3.5 hectares, it is the largest cemetery found in any of the Harappan sites in India,
Pakistan and Afghanistan.

30. Rakhigarhi burials
• The researchers subcategorised the primary burials into “typical” and “atypical” cases. Typical
cases — single bodies buried in supine position inside a plain pit — outnumber atypical ones,
which have brick-lined graves, multiple bodies, or prone-positioned burials.
• pit burials with multiple bodies, and prone (face down) burials as significant departures from other
Harappan necropolises. Most burials pits, however, had only set of remains, and the body was fully
extended in the supine (face up) position, with the head to the north. Some graves had pots in
them, others had none.

31. Funerary ritual at Rakhigarhi
• A lot of broken pottery and charred
animal bones were found outside the
burial pits at Rakhigarhi.
• This points to some rituals that had
taken place before a body was placed
inside the pit.
• The pots were perhaps broken after
the body was placed inside it. Evidence
of this kind of ritual was not available
at other Harappan sites.

32. Dholavira
Burials
• A cemetery to the
west of the city.
• The funerary
structures except one
were devoid of
skeletons

33. Burials at Harappa

34. Burial of an adult man, Harappa

35. This burial was disturbed in antiquity, possibly by ancient Harappan grave robbers. The
body is flipped & the pottery disturbed, the left arm of the woman is broken & shell
bangles that would normally be found on the left arm are missing. The infant was
buried in a small pit beneath the legs of the mother.
Burial of woman and infant
Harappa

36. Burial pottery
Harappa

37. Burial pottery, Harappa

38. Ritualistic/Sacred objects
• Counch ladle
• Miniature pots
• Terracotta Masks
• Terracotta phallus
• Unexplained

39. Libation vessels Mohenjo-Daro
• Made of conch shell.
• One of these is decorated with
vermilion filled incised lines. A
single spiraling design is carved
around the apex and a double
incised line frames the edge of the
orifice.
• This type of vessel was used in later
times for ritual libations and for
administering sacred water or
medicine to patients

40. Shell ladle
Harappa
• Large ladle found with burial pottery in a disturbed
burial of the Harappan cemetery.
• Shell ladles were probably used in special rituals for
dispensing sacred liquids such as water or oil.
• A hole in the bottom of the ladle has been repaired
with a lead rivet. Corrosion and expansion of the lead
has caused the shell to crack.
• The fact that this object was included with the burial
goods indicates that it must have had an important
role in the after life or perhaps it could not be passed
on to others due to its strong personal association
with the dead individual.

41. Priest ?

42. Mundigak: Period IV [2900-2400 BCE]
Casal: monumental structure at Mundigak called as "Temple"
Jim Shaffer & C.Petrie: Although there is nothing to indicate that this was a religious structure, it was certainly
not a habitation either. Whatever the function, it presents an interesting contrast with the rest of the site.

43. Festivals?
• Iravatham Mahadevan: The Harappans would have celebrated some
festivals. There are seals and sealings showing religious sacrifices,
processions etc. but there is no evidence to connect them with the South
Indian festival you mention. Asko Parpola
• Asko Parpola: I am quite sure the Harappans celebrated for instance the
beginning of the new year at vernal equinox, associating this with the myth
of the birth of Murugan (Skanda-Karttikeya)

44. Conclusion
• Difficult to reach definite conclusions in absence of readable written records.
• Validity of assumptions and interpretations can’t be fully ascertained.
• Three main aspects: nature worship, fertility/mother goddess worship & fire
rituals.
• Probably there was existence of a priestly class to perform rituals.
• Special tenets of funerary rites were laid down and were followed
accordingly.

45. • Huge expanse of Indus valley civilization: Apparent Regional variations
with regard to religion
a) Lothal, Dholavira, Banawali: more fire altars and less mother goddess
finds.
b) Harappa-Mohanjo Daro: No fire altars but mother goddess figurines.
c) Amri, Kalibanga, Rangpur, Ropad, Alamgirpur: less Mother goddess
figurines
d) Mohanjo daro: Pashupati more
e) Banawali : Unicorn more
f) Sinauli: Special use of ‘Dish on stand’in burials
• Wheelar & Marshal: Mother goddess worship was the most popular form
of religion.