Ancient India

Lecture Notes

Although Harappan civilization had much in common with other river valley civilizations, it nevertheless differed from them in two crucial ways. To begin, in its earliest development, Harappan religion was monotheistic. Although, as we will see, this changed dramatically over time, the earliest Dravidians believed in a single goddess, a goddess of fertility most easily understood along the lines of "Mother Earth". Although we do not know much about this goddess, her worship involved rituals of purification that required both bathing pools and people to lead the rituals. These people were court priests who lived in the citadels I mentioned previously. A second important difference between Harappa and other river valley civilizations is the role of their cultural production. Harappa was as sophisticated as Sumer or Egypt, if not more so, but their cultural emphasis lay in other areas. For example, their architecture was quite advanced, based on the making and usage of standard, durable bricks. However, their architecture was purely functional, technologically cutting-edge but without any decorative, extra elements. Thus, while architecture was the highpoint of Mesopotamian and Egyptian art, for Harappans it was not architecture but pottery and sculpture that were their most important artforms, in both of which they seem to have excelled. In cultural terms, we should also note that no Harappan literature survives, and that the only proof we have of their advanced linguistic system are a series of engraved seals. There seem to have been over 400 characters in their written language, which seems to have been mostly used by bureaucrats and merchants.