Gandhara

Gandhāra was an ancient Indo-Aryan Mahajanapada (Great Realm) situated in modern day
northern Pakistan, in the Peshawar valley and Potohar plateau. It encompassed the Peshawar
valley and Potohar plateau and extended to Jalalabad district of modern-day
Afghanistan. During the Achaemenid
period and Hellenistic period, its capital city
was Charsadda but later the capital city was moved to
Peshawar by the Kushan emperor Kanishka the Great in
about 127 CE.
Gandhara existed since the time of the Rigveda (c. 1500–
1200 BC), as well as the Zoroastrian Avesta, which
mentions it as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place
on earth, created by Ahura Mazda. Gandhara was
conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century
BC. Conquered by Alexander the Great in 327 BC, it
subsequently became part of the Maurya Empire and
then the Indo-Greek Kingdom. As a center of Bactrian Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and
later, Greco-Buddhism, and famed for its local tradition of Gandhara (Greco-Buddhist) Art,
Gandhara attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century under the Kushan Empire.
Gandhara "flourished at the crossroads of Asia," connecting trade routes and absorbing cultural
influences from diverse civilizations; Buddhism thrived until 8th or 9th centuries CE,
when Islam first began to gain sway in the region.
The Persian term Shahi is used by historian Al-Biruni to refer to the ruling dynasty that took
over from the Kabul Shah and ruled the region during the period prior to Muslim conquests of
the 10th and 11th centuries. After it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1001 AD, the
name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered
from Lahore or from Kabul. During Mughal times, it was an independent district which included
the Kabul province.
NAME
Gandhara was known in Sanskrit as गन्धार gandhāra, in Avestan as Vaēkərəta, in Old
Persian as Para-upari-sena, in Chinese as 犍陀罗, and
in Greek as Παροπαμισάδαι Paropamisadae.
The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, and later Vedic
texts.[8] They are recorded in the Avestan-language of Zoroastrianism under the
name Vaēkərəta. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics. One
proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word gandha, meaning "perfume" and
"referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they [the inhabitants] traded and with which
they anointed themselves."
GEOGRAPHY
The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history. Sometimes the Peshawar Valley
and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara; sometimes the Swat
Valley (Sanskrit: Suvāstu) was also included. The heart of Gandhara, however, was always
the Peshawar Valley. The kingdom was ruled
fromcapitalsat Kapisa (Bagram).Pushkalavati (Charsadda), Taxila, Puruṣapura (Peshawar) and
in its final days from Udabhandapura(Hund) on the River Indus.
HISTORY
Stone age
Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools and burnt
bones, was discovered at Sanghao near Mardan in area caves. The artifacts are approximately
15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present.
Vedic Gandhara
Gandhara was an ancient kingdom of the Peshawar Valley, extending between the Swat valley
and Potohar plateau regions of Pakistan as well as the Jalalabad district of
northeastern Afghanistan. In an archaeological context, the Vedic period in Gandhara
corresponds to the Gandhara grave culture.
The name of the Gandhāris is attested in the Rigveda (RV 1.126.7) and in ancient inscriptions
dating back to Achaemenid Persia. The Behistun inscription listing the 23 territories of King
Darius I (519 BC) includes Gandāra along with Bactria and Sattagydia (Θataguš). In the
book Histories by Herodotus, Gandhara is named as a source of tax collections for King Darius.
The Gandhāris, along with the Balhika (Bactrians), Mūjavants, Angas, and the Magadhas, are
also mentioned in the Atharvaveda (AV 5.22.14), as distant people. Gandharas are included in
the Uttarapatha division of Puranic and Buddhistic traditions. The Aitareya Brahmana refers to
King Sailusha of Gandhara who was a contemporary of Janaka, king of Videha.
The primary cities of Gandhara were Puruṣapura (Peshawar), Takṣaśilā (Taxila),
and Pushkalavati (Charsadda). The latter remained the capital of Gandhara down to the 2nd
century AD, when the capital was moved to Peshawar. An important Buddhist shrine helped to
make the city a centre of pilgrimage until the 7th century. Pushkalavati, in the Peshawar Valley,
is situated at the confluence of the Swat and Kabul rivers, where three different branches of the
River Kabul meet. That specific place is still called Prang (from Prayāga) and considered sacred;
local people still bring their dead there for burial. Similar geographical characteristics are found
at site of Prang in Kashmir and at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna, where the sacred
city of Prayag is situated, west of Benares. There are some legends in which the two rivers are
said to be joined here by the underground Sarasvati River, forming a triveṇī, a confluence of
three rivers. However, Rigvedic texts, and modern research, suggest that the path of the
Sarasvati River was very different. It ended in the ocean at Kachchh in modern Gujrat and not at
Prayag. The Gandharan city of Taxila was an important Buddhist and Hindu centre of learning
from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century.
Gandhara is mentioned in the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, as a western
kingdom. Gandhara prince Shakuni was the root of all the conspiracies of Duryodhana against
the Pandavas, which finally resulted in the Kurukshetra War. Shakuni's sister was the wife of
the Kuru king Dhritarashtra and was known as Gandhari. Gandhara was in modern
Pakistan. Puskalavati, Takshasila (Taxila) and Purushapura (Peshawar) were cities in this
Gandhara kingdom. Takshasila was founded by Raghava Rama's brother Bharata. Bharata's
descendants ruled this kingdom afterwards. During epic period it was ruled by Shakuni's
father Suvala, Shakuni and Shakuni's son. Arjuna defeated Shakuni's son during his post-war
military campaign for Yudhishthira's Aswamedha Yagna.
Achaemenid Gandhara
The main Vedic tribes remaining in the Indus Valley by 550 BC were
the Kamboja, Sindhu, Taksas of Gandhara, the Madras and Kathas of the River
Chenab, Mallas of the River Ravi and Tugras of the River Sutlej. These several tribes and
principalities fought against one another to such an extent that the Indus Valley no longer had
one powerful Vedic tribal kingdom to defend against outsiders and to wield the warring tribes
into one organized kingdom. The area was wealthy and fertile, yet infighting led misery and
despair. King Pushkarasakti of Gandhara was engaged in power struggles against his local rivals
and as such the Khyber Pass remained poorly defended. King Darius I of the Achaemenid
Empiretook advantage of the opportunity and planned for an invasion. The Indus Valley was
fabled in Persia for its gold and fertile soil and conquering it had been a major objective of his
predecessor Cyrus The GreatIn 542 BC, Cyrus had led his army and conquered the Makran coast
in southern Balochistan. However, he is known to have campaigned beyond Makran (in the
regions of Kalat, Khuzdar, Panjgur) and lost most of his army in the Gedrosian
Desert (speculated today as the Kharan Desert).
In 518 BC, Darius led his army through the Khyber Pass and southwards in stages, eventually
reaching the Arabian Sea coast in Sindh by 516 BC. Under Persian rule, a system of centralized
administration, with a bureaucratic system, was introduced into the Indus Valley for the first
time. Provinces or "satrapy" were established with provincial capitals:
Gandhara satrapy, established 518 BC with its capital at Pushkalavati (Charsadda).
Gandhara Satrapy was established in the general region of the old Gandhara grave culture, in
what is today Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. During Achaemenid rule, the Kharosthi alphabet, derived
from the one used for Aramaic (the official language of Achaemenids), developed here and
remained the national script of Gandhara until 200 AD.
The inscription on Darius' (521–486 BC) tomb at Naqsh-i-Rustam near Persepolis records
Gadāra (Gandāra) along with Hindush (Hənduš, Sindh) in the list of satrapies. By about 380 BC
the Persian hold on the region had weakened. Many small kingdoms sprang up in Gandhara. In
327 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Gandhara as well as the Indian satrapies of the Persian
Empire. The expeditions of Alexander were recorded by his court historians and
by Arrian (around AD 175) in his Anabasis Alexandri and by other chroniclers many centuries
after the event.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler conducted some excavations there in 1962, and identified
various Achaemenid remains.
Macedonian Gandhara
In the winter of 327 BC, Alexander invited all the chieftains in the remaining five Achaemenid
satraps to submit to his authority. Ambhi, then ruler of Taxila in the former Hindush satrapy
complied, but the remaining tribes and clans in the former satraps of Gandhara, Arachosia,
Sattagydia and Gedrosia rejected Alexander's offer.
The first tribe they encountered were the Aspasioi tribe of the Kunar Valley, who initiated a
fierce battle against Alexander, in which he himself was wounded in the shoulder by a dart.
However, the Aspasioi eventually lost and 40,000 people were enslaved. Alexander then
continued in a southwestern direction where he encountered the Assakenoi tribe of
the Swat & Buner valleys in April 326 BC. The Assakenoi fought bravely and offered stubborn
resistance to Alexander and his army in the cities of Ora, Bazira (Barikot) and Massaga. So
enraged was Alexander about the resistance put up by the Assakenoi that he killed the entire
population of Massaga and reduced its buildings to rubble – similar slaughters followed in Ora.
A similar slaughter then followed at Ora, another stronghold of the Assakenoi. The stories of
these slaughters reached numerous Assakenians, who began fleeing to Aornos, a hill-fort
located between Shangla and Kohistan. Alexander followed close behind their heels and
besieged the strategic hill-fort, eventually capturing and destroying the fort and killing everyone
inside. The remaining smaller tribes either surrendered or like the Astanenoi tribe
of Pushkalavati (Charsadda) were quickly neutralized where 38,000 soldiers and 230,000 oxen
were captured by Alexander. Eventually Alexander's smaller force would meet with the larger
force which had come through the Khyber Pass met at Attock. With the conquest of Gandhara
complete, Alexander switched to strengthening his military supply line, which by now stretched
dangerously vulnerable over the Hindu Kush back to Balkh in Bactria.
After conquering Gandhara and solidifying his supply line back to Bactria, Alexander combined
his forces with the King Ambhi of Taxila and crossed the River Indus in July 326 BC to begin the
Archosia (Punjab) campaign. Alexander founded several new settlements in
Gandhara, Punjab and Sindh.[21] and nominated officers as Satraps of the new provinces:
In Gandhara, Oxyartes was nominated to the position of Satrap by Alexander in 326 BC.
Maurya arrival to Gandhara
Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, is said to have lived in Taxila when
Alexander captured the city. According to tradition, he trained under Kautilya, who remained
his chief adviser throughout his reign. Supposedly using Gandhara and Vahika as his base,
Chandragupta led a rebellion against the Magadha Empire and ascended the throne
at Pataliputra in 321 BC. However, there are no contemporary Indian records of Chandragupta
Maurya and almost all that is known is based on the diaries of Megasthenes, the ambassador of
Seleucus at Pataliputra, as recorded by Arrian in his Indika. Ambhi hastened to relieve
Alexander of his apprehension and met him with valuable presents, placing himself and all of
his forces at his disposal. Alexander not only returned Ambhi his title, and the gifts, but he also
presented him with a wardrobe of: "Persian robes, gold and silver ornaments, 30 horses and
1000 talents in gold". Alexander was emboldened to divide his forces, and Ambhi
assisted Hephaestion and Perdiccas in constructing a bridge over the Indus where it bends at
Hund (Fox 1973), supplied their troops with provisions, and received Alexander himself, and his
whole army, in his capital city of Taxila, with every demonstration of friendship and the most
liberal hospitality.
On the subsequent advance of the Macedonian king, Taxiles accompanied him with a force of
5000 men and took part in the battle of the Hydaspes River. After that victory he was sent by
Alexander in pursuit of Porus, to whom he was charged to offer favourable terms, but narrowly
escaped losing his life at the hands of his old enemy. Subsequently, however, the two rivals
were reconciled by the personal mediation of Alexander; and Taxiles, after having contributed
zealously to the equipment of the fleet on the Hydaspes, was entrusted by the king with the
government of the whole territory between that river and the Indus. A considerable accession
of power was granted him after the death of Philip (son of Machatas); and he was allowed to
retain his authority at the death of Alexander himself (323 BC), as well as in the subsequent
partition of the provinces at Triparadisus, 321 BC. Later Ambhi was deposed and killed
by Chandragupta Maurya, emperor of the Mauryan Empire. Gandhara was acquired from
the Greeks by Chandragupta Maurya.
After a battle with Seleucus Nicator (Alexander's successor in Asia) in 305 BC,
the Mauryan Emperor extended his domain up to and including present Southern Afghanistan.
With the completion of the Empire's Grand Trunk Road, the region prospered as a center of
trade. Gandhara remained a part of the Mauryan Empire for about a century and a half.
Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, was one of the greatest Indian rulers. Like his
grandfather, Ashoka also started his career in Gandhara as a governor. Later he supposedly
became a Buddhist and promoted this religion in his empire. He built many stupas in Gandhara.
Mauryan control over the northwestern frontier, including the Yonas, Kambojas, and the
Gandharas, is attested from the Rock Edicts left by Ashoka. According to one school of scholars,
the Gandharas and Kambojas were cognate people. It is also contended that
the Kurus, Kambojas, Gandharas and Bahlikas were cognate people and all had Iranian
affinities, or that the Gandhara and Kamboja were nothing but two provinces of one empire
and hence influencing each other's language. However, the local language of Gandhara is
represented by Panini's conservative bhāṣā ("language"), which is entirely different from the
Iranian (Late Avestan) language of the Kamboja that is indicated by Patanjali's quote of
Kambojan śavati 'to go' (= Late Avestan šava(i)ti).
Graeco-Bactrians, Sakas, and Indo-Parthians
The decline of the Empire left the sub-continent open to Greco-Bactrian invasions. Present-day
southern Afghanistan was absorbed by Demetrius I of Bactria in 180 BC. Around about 185 BC,
Demetrius invaded and conquered Gandhara and the Punjab. Later, wars between different
groups of Bactrian Greeks resulted in the independence of Gandhara from Bactria and the
formation of the Indo-Greek kingdom. Menander I was its most famous king. He ruled from
Taxila and later from Sagala (Sialkot). He rebuilt Taxila (Sirkap) and Pushkalavati. He became a
Buddhist and is remembered in Buddhist records for his discussions with the great Buddhist
philosopher, Nāgasena, in the book Milinda Panha.
Around the time of Menander's death in 140 BC, the Central Asian Kushans overran Bactria and
ended Greek rule there. Around 80 BC, the Sakas, diverted by their Parthian cousins from Iran,
moved into Gandhara and other parts of Pakistan and Western India. The most famous king of
the Sakas, Maues, established himself in Gandhara.
By 90 BC the Parthians had taken control of eastern Iran and, around 50 BC, they put an end to
the last remnants of Greek rule in today's Afghanistan. Eventually an Indo-Parthian dynasty
succeeded in taking control of Gandhara. The Parthians continued to support Greek artistic
traditions. The start of the Gandharan Greco-Buddhist art is dated to about 75–50 BC. Links
between Rome and the Indo-Parthian kingdoms existed.
There is archaeological evidence that building techniques were transmitted between the two
realms. Christian records claim that around AD 40 Thomas the Apostle visited the Indian
subcontinent and encountered the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares.
Kushan Gandhara
The Parthian dynasty fell about 75 to another group from Central Asia. The Kushans, known
as Yuezhi in China . to be ethnically Asii) moved from Central Asia to Bactria, where they stayed
for a century. Around 75, one of their tribes, the Kushan (Kuṣāṇa), under the leadership of
Kujula Kadphises gained control of Gandhara and other parts of what is now Pakistan.
The Kushan period is considered the Golden Period of Gandhara. Peshawar Valley and Taxila
are littered with ruins of stupas and monasteries of this period. Gandharan art flourished and
produced some of the best pieces of sculpture from the Indian subcontinent. Many monuments
were created to commemorate the Jatakas.
Gandhara's culture peaked during the reign of the great Kushan king Kanishka the Great (128–
151). The cities of Taxila (Takṣaśilā) at Sirsukh and Peshawar were built. Peshawar became the
capital of a great empire stretching from Gandhara to Central Asia. Kanishka was a great patron
of the Buddhist faith; Buddhism spread to Central Asia and the Far East across Bactria
and Sogdia, where his empire met the Han Empire of China. Buddhist art spread from Gandhara
to other parts of Asia. Under Kanishka, Gandhara became a holy land of Buddhism and
attracted Chinese pilgrims eager to view the monuments associated with many Jatakas.
In Gandhara, Mahayana Buddhism flourished and Buddha was represented in human form.
Under the Kushans new Buddhists stupas were built and old ones were enlarged. Huge statues
of the Buddha were erected in monasteries and carved into the hillsides. Kanishka also built a
great 400-foot tower at Peshawar. This tower was reported by Chinese monks Faxian, Song
Yun, and Xuanzang who visited the country. This structure was destroyed and rebuilt many
times until it was finally destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century.
Hepthalite Invasion
The Hephthalite Huns captured Gandhara around 451, and did not adopt Buddhism, but in fact
"perpetrated frightful massacres." Mihirakula became a "terrible persecutor" of the religion.
During their rule, Hinduism revived itself and the Buddhist Gandharan civilization declined.
The travel records of many Chinese Buddhist pilgrims record that Gandhara was going through
a transformation during these centuries. Buddhism was declining, and Hinduism was
rising. Faxian traveled around 400, when Prakrit was the language of the people, and Buddhism
was flourishing. 100 years later, when Song Yun visited in 520, a different situation was
described: the area had been destroyed by the White Huns and was ruled by Lae-Lih, who did
not practice the laws of the Buddha. Xuanzang visited India around 644 and found Buddhism on
the wane in Gandhara and Hinduism in the ascendant. Gandhara was ruled by a king from
Kabul, who respected Buddha's law, but Taxila was in ruins, and Buddhist monasteries were
deserted.
Kabul Shahi
After the fall of the Sassanid Empire to the Arabs in 644, today's Afghanistan region and
Gandhara came under pressure from Muslims. But they failed to extend their empire to
Gandhara. Gandhara was first ruled by local kings who later expanded their kingdom onto an
empire.
Gandhara was ruled from Kabul by Kabulshahi for next 200 years. Sometime in the 9th century
the Kabul Shahi replaced the Shahi. Based on various Muslim records it is estimated this
occurred in 870. According to Al-Biruni (973–1048), Kallar, a Brahmin minister of the
Kabulshahi, founded the Shahi dynasty in 843. The dynasty ruled from Kabul, later moved their
capital to Udabhandapura. They built great temples all over their kingdoms. Some of these
buildings are still in good condition in the Salt Range of the Punjab.
Decline
Jayapala was the last great king of this dynasty. His empire extended from west of Kabul to the
river Sutlej. However, this expansion of Gandhara kingdom coincided with the rise of the
powerful Ghaznavid Empire under Sabuktigin. Defeated twice by Sabuktigin and then
by Mahmud of Ghazni in the Kabul valley, Jayapala gave his life on a funeral pyre. Anandapala, a
son of Jayapala, moved his capital near Nandana in the Salt Range. In 1021 the last king of this
dynasty, Trilochanapala, was assassinated by his own troops which spelled the end of
Gandhara. Subsequently, some Shahi princes moved to Kashmir and became active in local
politics.
The city of Kandahar in Afghanistan is said to have been named after Gandhara. According to
H.W. Bellow, an emigrant from Gandhara in the 5th century brought this name to modern
Kandahar. Faxian reported that the Buddha's alms-bowl existed in Peshawar Valley when he
visited around 400 (chapter XII). In 1872 Bellow saw this huge begging bowl (seven feet in
diameter) preserved in the shrine of Sultan Wais outside Kandahar. When Olaf Caroe wrote his
book in 1958 (Caroe, pp. 170–171), this relic was reported to be at Kabul Museum. The present
status of this bowl is unknown.
Al Biruni writing c. 1030 CE, reported on the devastation caused during the conquest of
Gandhara and much of northwest India by Mahmud of Ghazni following his defeat of Jayapala
in the Battle of Peshawar at Peshawar in 1001:
Now in the following times no Muslim conqueror passed beyond the frontier of Kâbul and the
river Sindh until the days of the Turks, when they seized the power in Ghazna under the Sâmânî
dynasty, and the supreme power fell to the lot of Nâṣir-addaula Sabuktagin. This prince chose
the holy war as his calling, and therefore called himself al-Ghâzî ("the warrior/invader"). In the
interest of his successors he constructed, in order to weaken the Indian frontier, those roads on
which afterwards his son Yamin-addaula Maḥmûd marched into India during a period of thirty
years and more. God be merciful to both father and son ! Maḥmûd utterly ruined the prosperity
of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like
atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their
scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims. This is
the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far away from those parts of the country
conquered by us, and have fled to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir,
Benares, and other places. And there the antagonism between them and all foreigners receives
more and more nourishment both from political and religious sources
During the closing years of the tenth and the early years of the succeeding century of our
era, Mahmud the first Sultan and Musalman of the Turk dynasty of kings who ruled at Ghazni,
made a succession of inroads twelve or fourteen in number, into Gandhar – the
present Peshwar valley – in the course of his proselytizing invasions of Hindustan.
Fire and sword, havoc and destruction, marked his course everywhere. Gandhar which was
styled the Garden of the North was left at his death a weird and desolate waste. Its rich fields
and fruitful gardens, together with the canal which watered them (the course of which is still
partially traceable in the western part of the plain), had all disappeared. Its numerous stone
built cities, monasteries, and topes with their valuable and revered monuments and sculptures,
were sacked, fired, razed to the ground, and utterly destroyed as habitations.
Rediscovery
By the time Gandhara had been absorbed into the empire of Mahmud of Ghazni, Buddhist
buildings were already in ruins and Gandhara art had been forgotten. After Al-Biruni, the
Kashmiri writer Kalhaṇa wrote his book Rajatarangini in 1151. He recorded some events that
took place in Gandhara, and provided details about its last royal dynasty and
capital Udabhandapura.
In the 19th century, British soldiers and administrators started taking an interest in the ancient
history of the Indian Subcontinent. In the 1830s coins of the post-Ashoka period were
discovered, and in the same period Chinese travelogues were translated. Charles
Masson, James Prinsep, and Alexander Cunningham deciphered the Kharosthi script in 1838.
Chinese records provided locations and site plans for Buddhist shrines. Along with the discovery
of coins, these records provided clues necessary to piece together the history of Gandhara. In
1848 Cunningham found Gandhara sculptures north of Peshawar. He also identified the site of
Taxila in the 1860s. From then on a large number of Buddhist statues were discovered in the
Peshawar valley.
Archaeologist John Marshall excavated at Taxila between 1912 and 1934. He discovered
separate Greek, Parthian, and Kushan cities and a large number of stupas and monasteries.
These discoveries helped to piece together much more of the chronology of the history of
Gandhara and its art.
After 1947 Ahmed Hassan Dani and the Archaeology Department at the University of
Peshawar made a number of discoveries in the Peshawar and Swat Valley. Excavation of many
of the sites of Gandhara Civilization are being done by researchers from Peshawar and several
universities around the world
LANGUAGE
The Gandharan Buddhist texts are both the earliest Buddhist as well as Asian manuscripts
discovered so far. Most are written on birch bark and were found in labelled clay
pots. Panini has mentioned both the Vedic form of Sanskrit as well as what seems to
be Gandhari, a later form of Sanskrit, in his Ashtadhyayi.
Gandhara's language was a Prakrit or "Middle Indo-Aryan" dialect, usually called Gāndhārī. The
language used the Kharosthi script, which died out about the 4th century.
However, Punjabi, Hindko, and Kohistani, are derived from the Indo-Aryan Prakrits that were
spoken in Gandhara and surrounding areas. However, a language shift occurred as the ancient
Gandharan culture gave way to Iranian invaders from Central Asia
BUDDHISM
Mahāyāna Buddhism
Mahāyāna Pure Land sūtras were brought from the Gandhāra region to China as early as 147
CE, when the Kushan monk Lokakṣemabegan translating some of the first Buddhist sūtras into
Chinese. The earliest of these translations show evidence of having been translated from the
Gāndhārī language. Lokakṣema translated important Mahāyāna sūtras such as
the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, as well as rare, early Mahāyāna sūtras on topics such
as samādhi, and meditation on the buddha Akṣobhya. Lokaksema's translations continue to
provide insight into the early period of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This corpus of texts often includes
and emphasizes ascetic practices and forest dwelling, and absorption in states of meditative
concentration:
Paul Harrison has worked on some of the texts that are arguably the earliest versions we have
of the Mahāyāna sūtras, those translated into Chinese in the last half of the second century CE
by the Indo-Scythian translator Lokakṣema. Harrison points to the enthusiasm in the Lokakṣema
sūtra corpus for the extra ascetic practices, for dwelling in the forest, and above all for states of
meditative absorption (samādhi). Meditation and meditative states seem to have occupied a
central place in early Mahāyāna, certainly because of their spiritual efficacy but also because
they may have given access to fresh revelations and inspiration.
Some scholars believe that the Mahāyāna Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra was compiled in the
age of the Kushan Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, by an order
of Mahīśāsaka bhikṣus which flourished in the Gandhāra region. However, it is likely that the
longer Sukhāvatīvyūha owes greatly to the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda sect as well for its
compilation, and in this sūtra there are many elements in common with the
Lokottaravādin Mahāvastu. There are also images of Amitābha Buddha with
the bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta which were made in Gandhāra during
the Kushan era.
The Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa records that Kaniṣka of the Kushan Empire presided over the
establishment of the Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitāteachings in the northwest. Tāranātha wrote
that in this region, 500 bodhisattvas attended the council at Jālandhra monastery during the
time of Kaniṣka, suggesting some institutional strength for Mahāyāna in the northwest during
this period. Edward Conze goes further to say that Prajñāpāramitā had great success in the
northwest during the Kushan period, and may have been the "fortress and hearth" of early
Mahāyāna, but not its origin, which he associates with the Mahāsāṃghika branch of Buddhism.
Textual Finds
The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited a Lokottaravāda monastery in the 7th century CE,
at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The site of this monastery has since been rediscovered by
archaeologists. Birchbark and palm leaf manuscripts of texts in this monastery's collection,
including Mahāyāna sūtras, have been discovered at the site, and these are now located in
the Schøyen Collection. Some manuscripts are in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script,
while others are in Sanskrit and written in forms of the Gupta script. Manuscripts and
fragments that have survived from this monastery's collection include the following source
texts:

 Pratimokṣa Vibhaṅga of the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda (MS 2382/269)

 Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, a sūtra from the Āgamas (MS 2179/44)
 Caṃgī Sūtra, a sūtra from the Āgamas (MS 2376)
 Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2385)
 Bhaiṣajyaguru Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2385)
 Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
 Pravāraṇa Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
 Sarvadharmapravṛttinirdeśa Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
 Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
 Śāriputra Abhidharma Śāstra (MS 2375/08)
A Sanskrit manuscript of the Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabhārāja Sūtra was among the textual
finds at Gilgit, Pakistan, attesting to the popularity of the Medicine Buddha in Gandhāra. The
manuscripts in this find are dated before the 7th century, and are written in the upright Gupta
script.
ART:
Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which developed from a
merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influences. This development began during
the Parthian Period (50 BC – AD 75). The Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak
during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th centuries. It declined and was destroyed after
the invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century.
Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of
monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity,
enabling a high degree of expressiveness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was
popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara – Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Central Asia,
and China.
Buddhism
and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based
on original teachings attributed to the Buddha and resulting interpreted philosophies. Buddhism
originated in Ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread
through much of Asia, whereafter it declined in Indiaduring the Middle Ages. Two major extant
branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars: Theravada (Pali: "The School of the
Elders") and Mahayana (Sanskrit: "The Great Vehicle"). Buddhism is the world's fourth-largest
religion, with over 520 million followers or over 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists.
Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of
various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices.[5][6] Practices of Buddhism
include taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, study of scriptures, observance
of moral precepts, renunciation of craving and attachment, the practice
of meditation (including calm and insight), the cultivation of wisdom, loving-
kindness and compassion, the Mahayana practice of bodhicitta and the Vajrayana practices
of generation stage and completion stage.
In Theravada the ultimate goal is the cessation of the mental defilements and the attainment of the
sublime state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path (also known as the Middle
Way), thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirth.[7]Theravada has a widespread
following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.
Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren
Buddhism, Shingon and Tiantai (Tendai), is found throughout East Asia. Rather than Nirvana,
Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path,[note 2] a state wherein one remains
in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening.
Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a third branch or
merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth
century India,[9] is practiced in regions surrounding
the Himalayas, Mongolia[10] and Kalmykia.[11] Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow
body

Teachings of Buddha
After attaining nirvana , Lord Buddha started teaching the way of life to people. Near the city of Benares, he shared
his first teachings to five holy men and they immediately understood his teachings and agreed to follow Lord
Buddha . For forty-five years, Buddha along with his disciples started spreading Buddha’s wisdom and teachings in
India. The teachings of Lord Buddha are also known as Dhamma . Let’s see some of the important teachings Lord
Buddha has left behind for the sake of humanity.

During his enlightenment , Buddha found answer to three universal questions and he explained these answers and
truth in a simple way for his disciple.

These Three Universal truths some basic teachings of The Buddha

1. Nothing is lost in the Universe :

The first universal truth of Buddha found was nothing is lost in this universe. Old solar systems disintegrate into
cosmic rays. We are the child of our parents and we will be the parents of our children.
If we destroy something around us, we destroy ourselves. If we lie to another, we lie to ourselves. Learning and
understanding these truths, Lord Buddha and his disciples never killed any animal.
2. Everything changes :
The second universal truth is everything changes and keeps on changing continuously . Dinosaurs, mammoth
used to rule this planet but now we humans rule the planet. Life is like a river, it keeps on flowing, ever-changing.

3. Law of Cause and effect:

" The kind of seed sown

will produce that kind of fruit.
Those who do good will reap good results.
Those who do evil will reap evil results.
If you carefully plant a good seed,
You will joyfully gather good fruit. "
~ Dhammapada
It is mentioned in Dhammapada too, if we do some good things, then good things will come to us. If we do something
evil, then evil things will happen to us. It is all due to cause and effect. This law of Cause and effect is known Karma .
Most religion strongly believes in Karma, so do Buddhism . Good karma results to good results and evil karma leads
to bad results.

The Four Noble Truths

The Noble Truth of Suffering

"There is happiness in life,

happiness in friendship,
happiness of a family,
happiness in a healthy body and mind,
but when one loses them, there is suffering."
~ Dhammapada

What are suffering ?

Suffering is everywhere. When people are born, they cry. When they are sick, they have pain. When they are old,
they have sufferings with their body. When people die, someone dear feel sorrow for their death.

 The Noble Truth of Cause of Suffering:

What are the cause of these suffering? Why do we feel pain? Why do people suffer?
These are the result of greed or wanting more, ignorance, wrong idea of pleasure.

 The Noble Truth of End of suffering

In order to end these suffering, one must be able to cut off their greed, idea of having pleasure. One must learn and
have knowledge to cut off their ignorance.
The first way to end these suffering is changing one’s views and must try to live in a natural way and must possess
peaceful mind. The state when one ends their suffering and live a peaceful way is known as Nirvana. This is the
highest goal and aim of Buddhism and Buddha tries to spread his knowledge to people so that they can end their
suffering.

 The Noble Truth of Path to end suffering:

The path to end the suffering, is called Noble Eightfold path or Middle way.

Noble Eight Fold Path or Middle Way

The path to ending the suffering of people is known as Noble Eightfold Path or Middle Way. Noble Eightfold Path is
one of the principal teachings of Buddha. These teachings of Buddha described the way leading to a acessation
of dukkha and the state of self-awakening. The Noble Eightfold path is described below:

1. Right View:
What is right view?
Knowledge about the cause of suffering, knowledge to end the cause of suffering, knowledge to way of path to end
the suffering. This is called right view.

2. Right Intention:
Right intention can also be called as “right thought”. Understanding the right view, one should be able to differentiate
between right intention and wrong intention. One should be resolved to be free from ill will is what right intention will
teach you.

3. Right Speech:
One should always keep themselves from lying and ill speech. One should make best use of their speech and
abandon false speech and always speak truth.

4. Right Conduct:
Never hurting others, criticizing others, well behaving, are the right conduct. One should never conduct any actions
that may harm others.

5. Right Livelihood
"Do not earn your living by harming others. Do not seek happiness by making others unhappy."
The Buddha.
One should never choose living where his way of living may directly or indirectly harm others.

6. Right Effort
Right effort can also be called “right endeavor”. One should always try to take any action on the goodwill of people.

7. Right Mindfulness
People must constantly keep their mind to phenomena that may affect the body and mind. This means one must be
aware of their thoughts, words, and action.

8. Right Concentration
Also known as “right meditation”, Right concentration teach people to concentrate and focus one thing or object at a
time. Thus leading quiet and peaceful mind.

Following these 8 Noble Eightfold Path, one can cultivate their wisdom and thus leading to the path to attain
“nirvana”.

The Triple Jewel

Lord Buddha establishes the three refuges for people to follow his teachings. A refuge is the place where people can
rely on and go to for the purpose of safety. The three refuges that Lord Buddha establishes are as follows:

1. The Buddha is the guide

2. The Dhamma is the path
3. The Sangha is the teachers and companions along the way.

The Five Percepts

In Buddhism , Lord Buddha himself establishes five most important rules and called them Five Percepts.

 Avoid Killing
 Avoid taking anything which is not yours
 Avoid sexual misconduct
 Avoid lying
 Avoid any false drinks

These are some of the teachings; Lord Buddha himself has passed down for the sake of humanity and for their well
beings. Every Buddhists have studied these teachings and practice them and swore never to make any mistakes and
blunder.
The Triple Gem
1. The Buddha — The self awakened one. The original nature of the Heart;
2. The Dhamma — The Teaching. The nature of reality;
3. The Sangha — a. The Awakened Community. b. Any harmonious assembly. c. All Beings.

The Four Noble Truths

1. The Noble Truth of Dukkha - stress, unsatisfactoriness, suffering;
2. The Noble Truth of the causal arising of Dukkha, which is grasping, clinging and wanting;
3. The Noble Truth of Nirvana, The ending of Dukkha. Awakening, Enlightenment. "Mind like fire
unbound";
4. The Noble Truth of the Path leading to Nirvana or Awakening.

All Buddhist teachings flow from the Four Noble Truths. Particularly emphasised in the Theravada.

The Four Bodhisattva Vows

1. I vow to rescue the boundless living beings from suffering; (Link to 1st Truth)
2. I vow to put an end to the infinite afflictions of living beings; (Link to 2nd Truth)
3. I vow to learn the measureless Dharma-doors; (Link to 4th Truth)
4. I vow to realise the unsurpassed path of the Buddha. (Link to 3th Truth)

Foundation of the Mahayana Path, these vows say. 'Whatever the highest perfection of the human heart-
mind may I realise it for the benefit of all that lives!'

The Eight Fold-Path

Right, Integral, Complete, Perfected.

1. Right View, Understanding;

2. Right Attitude, Thought or Emotion;
3. Right Speech;
4. Right Action;
5. Right livelihood;
6. Right Effort, Energy, and Vitality;
7. Right Mindfulness or Awareness;
8. Right Samadhi "concentration", one-pointedness. Integration of, or establishment in, various levels of
consciousness.

Alternate meanings are given as the original Pali has shades of meaning not available in one English
word.

The Five Precepts

I undertake to:

1. Abstain from killing living beings;

2. Abstain from taking that which not given;
3. Abstain from sexual misconduct;
4. Abstain from false speech;
5. Abstain from distilled substances that confuse the mind. (Alcohol and Drugs)
The underlying principle is non-exploitation of yourself or others. The precepts are the foundation of all
Buddhist training. With a developed ethical base, much of the emotional conflict and stress that we
experience is resolved, allowing commitment and more conscious choice. Free choice and intention is
important. It is "I undertake" not 'Thou Shalt". Choice, not command.

The Five Precepts in positive terms

I undertake the training precept to:

1. Act with Loving-kindness;

2. Be open hearted and generous;
3. Practice stillness, simplicity and contentment;
4. Speak with truth, clarity and peace;
5. Live with mindfulness.

The Ten Paramita

Paramita means gone to the other shore, it is the highest development of each of these qualities.

1. Giving or Generosity; *
2. Virtue, Ethics, Morality; *
3. Renunciation, letting go, not grasping;
4. Panna or Prajna "Wisdom" insight into the nature of reality; *
5. Energy, vigour, vitality, diligence; *
6. Patience or forbearance; *
7. Truthfulness;
8. Resolution, determination, intention;
9. Kindness, love, friendliness;
10. Equanimity.

* In Mahayana Buddhism, 6 are emphasised, they are, numbers l., 2., 4., 5., 6., Samadhi (see Path) & 4.

The Four Sublime or Uplifted States

1. Metta — Friendliness, Loving-kindness;

2. Karuna — Compassion;
3. Mudita — Joy, Gladness. Appreciation of good qualities in people;
4. Upekkha — Equanimity, the peaceful unshaken mind.

Full development of these four states develops all of the Ten Paramita.

The Five Powers or Spiritual Faculties

1.Faith, Confidence;
2. Energy, Effort;
3. Mindfulness;
4. Samadhi;
5. Wisdom.

The Five Hindrances

1. Sense craving;
2. Ill-will;
3. Sloth and Torpor;
4, Restlessness and Worry;
5. Toxic doubt and the ruthless inner critic.

The Four bases or Frames of Reference of Mindfulness

1. Mindfulness of the Body — breath, postures, parts;

2. Mindfulness of Feelings, Sensations — pleasant, unpleasant and neutral;
3. Mindfulness of States of Consciousness;
4. Mindfulness of all Phenomena or Objects of Consciousness.

The Three Signs of Existence or Universal Properties

1. Anicca — Impermanent;
2. Dukkha — Unsatisfactory, stress inducing;
3. Anatta — Insubstantial or Not-self.

All compounded and conditioned things, all phenomena are impermanent. Because of this they give rise
to Stress and Affliction and because of this they are Not-self What we call "self " is a process not a 'thing".

INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) or Harappan Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation (3300–
1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) mainly in the northwestern regions of South Asia,
extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Along
with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early cradles of civilisations of the Old
World, and of the three, the most widespread.
It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and
along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the
seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. Aridification of this
region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for
the urbanisationassociated with the civilisation, but eventually also reduced the water supply
enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward.
At its peak, the Indus Civilisation may have had a population of over five million. Inhabitants of
the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal
carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The Indus cities are noted for their
urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, and
clusters of large non-residential buildings. Children's toys were found in the cities, with few
weapons of war, suggesting peace and prosperity. Their trade seals, decorated with animals
and mythical beings, indicate they conducted thriving trade with lands as far away as Sumerin
southern Mesopotamia.
The Indus Valley Civilisation is also named the Harappan civilisation after Harappa, the first of
its sites to be excavated in the 1920s in what was then the Punjab province of British India and
now Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa, and soon afterwards, Mohenjo-daro, was the
culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of
India in the British Raj. Excavation of Harappan sites has been ongoing since 1920, with
important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999. This Harappan civilisation is sometimes
called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from the cultures immediately preceding
and following it. Of these, the earlier is often called the Early Harappan culture, while the later
one may be referred to as the Late Harappan, both of which existed in the same area as the
Mature Harappan Civilisation. The early Harappan cultures were preceded by
local Neolithic agricultural villages, from where the river plains were populated. As of 1999,
over 1,056 cities and settlements had been found, of which 96 have been excavated, mainly in
the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries. Among the
settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage
Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwalaand Rakhigarhi.
The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus
script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language
family is favoured by a section of scholars.
EXTENT
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) encompassed much of Pakistan, western India, and
northeastern Afghanistan; extending from Pakistani Balochistan in the west to Uttar Pradesh in
the east, northeastern Afghanistan to the north and Maharashtra to the south.[21] Shortugai to
the north is on the Oxus River, the Afghan border with Tajikistan, and in the west Sutkagan
Dor is close to the Iranian border. The Kulli culture of Balochistan, of which more than 100
settlement sites are known, can be regarded as a local variant of the IVC, or a related culture.
The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilisations that arose there in a highly similar
situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands,
desert, and ocean. Recently, Indus sites have been discovered in Pakistan's northwestern
Frontier Province as well. Other IVC colonies can be found in Afghanistan while smaller isolated
colonies can be found as far away as Turkmenistan and in Maharashtra. The largest number of
colonies are in the Punjab, Sindh, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Gujrat belt Coastal settlements
extended from Sutkagan Dor[22] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal[23] in Gujarat. An Indus Valley
site has been found on the OxusRiver at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan,[24] in the Gomal
River valley in northwestern Pakistan,[25] at Manda, Jammu on the Beas
Rivernear Jammu,[26] India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km
from Delhi.[27] Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient
seacoast,[28] for example, Balakot,[29] and on islands, for example, Dholavira.[30]
It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and
along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the
seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.[3][4][5][note 2] There is
evidence of dry river beds overlapping with the Hakra channel in Pakistan and the seasonal
Ghaggar River in India. Many Indus Valley sites have been discovered along the Ghaggar-Hakra
beds.[31] Among them are: Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Sothi, Kalibangan, and Ganwariwala.[32]
According to some archaeologists, more than 500 Harappan sites have been discovered along
the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries,[33] in contrast to only
about 100 along the Indus and its tributaries;[34] consequently, in their opinion, the
appellation Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilisation is justified. However, these arguments are
disputed by other archaeologists who state that the Ghaggar-Hakra desert area has been left
untouched by settlements and agriculture since the end of the Indus period and hence shows
more sites than those found in the alluvium of the Indus Valley; second, that the number of
Harappan sites along the Ghaggar-Hakra river beds has been exaggerated.[35] "Harappan
Civilisation" may be gaining favour as a name, following the archaeological norm of naming a
civilisation after its first findspot.
DISCOVERY AND HISTORY OF EXCAVATION
The ruins of Harappa were described in 1842 by Charles Masson in his Narrative of Various
Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab, where locals talked of an ancient city
extending "thirteen cosses" (about 25 miles or 41 km).[note 4]
In 1856, Alexander Cunningham, later director-general of the archaeological survey of northern
India, visited Harappa where the British engineers John and William Brunton were laying
the East Indian Railway Company line connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore. John wrote,
"I was much exercised in my mind how we were to get ballast for the line of the railway". They
were told of an ancient ruined city near the lines, called Harappa. Visiting the city, he found it
full of hard well-burnt bricks, and, "convinced that there was a grand quarry for the ballast I
wanted", the city of Harappa was reduced to ballast.[37] A few months later, further north,
John's brother William Brunton's "section of the line ran near another ruined city, bricks from
which had already been used by villagers in the nearby village of Harappa at the same site.
These bricks now provided ballast along 93 miles (150 km) of the railroad track running from
Karachi to Lahore".[37]
In 1872–75, Cunningham published the first Harappan seal (with an erroneous identification
as Brahmi letters).[38] More Harappan seals were discovered in 1912 by John Faithfull Fleet,
prompting an archaeological campaign under Sir John Hubert Marshall. Marshall, Rai
Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni and Madho Sarup Vats began excavating Harappa in 1921, finding
buildings and artefacts indicative of an ancient civilisation. These were soon complemented by
discoveries at Mohenjo-daro by Rakhal Das Banerjee, Ernest J. H. Mackay, and Marshall. By
1931, much of Mohenjo-daro had been excavated, but excavations continued, such as that led
by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, director of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1944. Among other
archaeologists who worked on IVC sites before the independence in 1947 were Ahmad Hasan
Dani, Brij Basi Lal, Nani Gopal Majumdar, and Sir Marc Aurel Stein.[39]
Following independence, the bulk of the archaeological finds were inherited by Pakistan where
most of the IVC was based, and excavations from this time include those led by Wheeler in
1949, archaeological adviser to the Government of Pakistan. Outposts of the Indus Valley
civilisation were excavated as far west as Sutkagan Dor in Pakistani Balochistan, as far north as
at Shortugai on the Amu Darya (the river's ancient name was Oxus) in current Afghanistan, as
far east as at Alamgirpur, Uttar Pradesh, India and as far south as at Malwan, in modern-
day Surat, Gujarat, India.[40]
In 2010, heavy floods hit Haryana in India and damaged the archaeological site of Jognakhera,
where ancient copper smelting furnaces were found dating back almost 5,000 years. The Indus
Valley Civilisation site was hit by almost 10 feet of water as the Sutlej Yamuna link
canaloverflowed.
CHRONOLOGY
The cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation had "social hierarchies, their writing system, their large
planned cities and their long-distance trade [which] mark them to archaeologists as a full-
fledged 'civilisation.'"[42] The mature phase of the Harappan civilisation lasted from c. 2600 to
1900 BCE. With the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures — Early Harappan and
Late Harappan, respectively — the entire Indus Valley Civilisation may be taken to have lasted
from the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. It is part of the Indus Valley Tradition, which also
includes the pre-Harappan occupation of Mehrgarh, the earliest farming site of the Indus
Valley.[16][43]
Several periodisations are employed for the periodisation of the IVC.[16][43] The most commonly
used classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase.[44] An
alternative approach by Shaffer divides the broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the
pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era," and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation
eras, which correspond roughly with the Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan
phases.[15][45]
According to Rao, Hakra Ware has been found at Bhirrana, and is pre-Harappan, dating to the
8th-7th millennium BCE.[46][47][48] Hakra Ware culture is a material culture which is
contemporaneous with the early Harappan Ravi phase culture (3300-2800 BCE) of the Indus
Valley.[49][50] According to Dikshit and Rami, the estimation for the antiquity of Bhirranaas pre-
Harappan is based on two calculations of charcoal samples, giving two dates of respectively
7570-7180 BCE, and 6689-6201 BCE
PRE-HARAPPAN MEHRGARH
Mehrgarh is a Neolithic (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE) site to the west of the Indus River valley, near
the capital of the Kachi District in Pakistan, on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, near the Bolan
Pass.[60] According to Ahmad Hasan Dani, professor emeritus at Quaid-e-Azam
University, Islamabad, the discovery of Mehrgarh "changed the entire concept of the Indus
civilisation […] There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of settled village
life."[42] Mehrgarh is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South
Asia.[61][62][note 6] According to Parpola, the culture migrated into the Indus Valley and became
the Indus Valley Civilisation.[72]
Mehrgarh was influenced by the Near Eastern Neolithic,[73] with similarities between
"domesticated wheat varieties, early phases of farming, pottery, other archaeological artefacts,
some domesticated plants and herd animals."[74] Gallego Romero et al. (2011) notice that "[t]he
earliest evidence of cattle herding in south Asia comes from the Indus River Valley site of
Mehrgarh and is dated to 7,000 YBP."[75][note 7]
Lukacs and Hemphill suggest an initial local development of Mehrgarh, with a continuity in
cultural development but a change in population. According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while
there is a strong continuity between the neolithic and chalcolithic (Copper Age) cultures of
Mehrgarh, dental evidence shows that the chalcolithic population did not descend from the
neolithic population of Mehrgarh,[77] which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow."[77][note
8] Masacernhas et al. (2015) note that "new, possibly West Asian, body types are reported from

the graves of Mehrgarh beginning in the Togau phase (3800 BCE)."

EARLY HARAPPAN
The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River, lasted from c. 3300 BCE until
2800 BCE. It is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in the Ghaggar-Hakra River Valley to the
west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase (2800–2600 BCE, Harappan 2), named after a site in
northern Sindh, Pakistan, near Mohenjo-daro. The earliest examples of the Indus script date to
the 3rd millennium BCE.[79][80]
The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri in
Pakistan.[81] Kot Diji represents the phase leading up to Mature Harappan, with the citadel
representing centralised authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Another town of this
stage was found at Kalibangan in India on the Hakra River.[82]
Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw
materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. By this time, villagers had
domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, as well as
animals, including the water buffalo. Early Harappan communities turned to large urban centres
by 2600 BCE, from where the mature Harappan phase started. The latest research shows that
Indus Valley people migrated from villages to cities.[83][84]
The final stages of the Early Harappan period are characterised by the building of large walled
settlements, the expansion of trade networks, and the increasing integration of regional
communities into a "relatively uniform" material culture in terms of pottery styles, ornaments,
and stamp seals with Indus script, leading into the transition to the Mature Harappan phase.
MATURE HARRAPAN
According to Giosan et al. (2012), the slow southward migration of the monsoons across Asia
initially allowed the Indus Valley villages to develop by taming the floods of the Indus and its
tributaries. Flood-supported farming led to large agricultural surpluses, which in turn supported
the development of cities. The IVC residents did not develop irrigation capabilities, relying
mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer floods.[5] Brooke further notes that the
development of advanced cities coincides with a reduction in rainfall, which may have triggered
a reorganisation into larger urban centers.[8][note 3]
According to J. G. Shaffer and D. A. Lichtenstein,[86] the Mature Harappan Civilisation was "a
fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, and Kot Diji traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley
on the borders of India and Pakistan".[31]
By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities turned into large urban centres. Such urban
centres include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan,
and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern-day India.[87] In total, more
than 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus
Rivers and their tributaries
CITIES
A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley
Civilisation making them the first urban centre in the region. The quality of municipal town
planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which
placed a high priority on hygiene, or, alternatively, accessibility to the means of religious
ritual.[citation needed]
As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi, this urban
plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems: see hydraulic engineering of the
Indus Valley Civilisation. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water
from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was
directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to
inner courtyards and smaller lanes. The house-building in some villages in the region still
resembles in some respects the house-building of the Harappans.[88]
The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed and used in cities
throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban
sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India
today. The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their impressive
dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls of
Indus cities most likely protected the Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military
conflicts.[89]
The purpose of the citadel remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilisation's
contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, no large monumental structures were built.
There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or temples—or of kings, armies, or priests. Some
structures are thought to have been granaries. Found at one city is an enormous well-built bath
(the "Great Bath"), which may have been a public bath. Although the citadels were walled, it is
far from clear that these structures were defensive. They may have been built to divert flood
waters.[citation needed]
Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the
same occupation in well-defined neighbourhoods. Materials from distant regions were used in
the cities for constructing seals, beads and other objects. Among the artefactsdiscovered were
beautiful glazed faïence beads. Steatite seals have images of animals, people (perhaps gods),
and other types of inscriptions, including the yet un-deciphered writing system of the Indus
Valley Civilisation. Some of the seals were used to stamp clay on trade goods and most
probably had other uses as well.[citation needed]
Although some houses were larger than others, Indus Civilisation cities were remarkable for
their apparent, if relative, egalitarianism. All the houses had access to water and drainage
facilities. This gives the impression of a society with relatively low wealth concentration, though
clear social levelling is seen in personal adornments. [clarification needed]
Toilets that used water were used in the Indus Valley Civilisation. The cities
of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had a flush toilet in almost every house, attached to a
sophisticated sewage system.
AUTHORITY AND GOVERNANCE
Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for a centre of power or for depictions of
people in power in Harappan society. But, there are indications of complex decisions being
taken and implemented. For instance, the majority of the cities were constructed in a highly
uniform and well-planned grid pattern, suggesting they were planned by a central authority;
extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artefacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks;
presence of public facilities and monumental architecture; heterogeneity in the mortuary
symbolism and in grave goods (items included in burials).[citation needed]
These are the major theories:[citation needed]

 There was a single state, given the similarity in artefacts, the evidence for planned
settlements, the standardised ratio of brick size, and the establishment of settlements near
sources of raw material.
 There was no single ruler but several cities like Mohenjo-daro had a separate ruler, Harappa
another, and so forth.
 Harappan society had no rulers, and everybody enjoyed equal status.

TECHNOLOGY
The people of the Indus Civilisation achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and
time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. A
comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories. Their
smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal in Gujarat, was
approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age.
Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes,
including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights.[91]
These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50,
100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams, similar to the
English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with
the units of 0.871. However, as in other cultures, actual weights were not uniform throughout
the area. The weights and measures later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are
the same as those used in Lothal.[92]
Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead,
and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in building docks.[93]
In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, discovered
that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from the early Harappan periods, had
knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was announced in the scientific
journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human
teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from
nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates from 7,500–9,000
years ago. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in
the early farming cultures of that region.[94]
A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably used for testing
the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India).

ARTS AND CRAFTS

Various sculptures, seals, bronze vessels pottery, gold jewellery, and anatomically detailed
figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites.[96]
A number of gold, terracotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of
some dance form. These terracotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. The
animal depicted on a majority of seals at sites of the mature period has not been clearly
identified. Part bull, part zebra, with a majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet,
there is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims that the image had religious or cultic
significance, but the prevalence of the image raises the question of whether or not the animals
in images of the IVC are religious symbols.[97]
Sir John Marshall reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze statuette of a
slender-limbed dancing girl in Mohenjo-daro:
"When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to
completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture. Modeling such as this was
unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that
some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels
some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged .... Now, in these statuettes,
it is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-
important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-
off age on the banks of the Indus".[98]
Many crafts including, "shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite bead making"
were practised and the pieces were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other
ornaments from all phases of Harappan culture. Some of these crafts are still practised in the
subcontinent today.[99] Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of combs (kakai), the
use of collyrium and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that were found in Harappan
contexts still have similar counterparts in modern India.[100] Terracotta female figurines were
found (ca. 2800–2600 BCE) which had red colour applied to the "manga" (line of partition of the
hair).[100]
Seals have been found at Mohenjo-daro depicting a figure standing on its head, and another
sitting cross-legged in what some call a yoga-like pose (see image, the so-called Pashupati,
below).[citation needed] This figure, sometimes known as a Pashupati, has been variously identified.
Sir John Marshall identified a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva.[101] If this can be validated, it
would be evidence that some aspects of Hinduism predate the earliest texts, the Veda.[citation
needed]
A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothal indicate
the use of stringed musical instruments. The Harappans also made various toys and games,
among them cubical dice (with one to six holes on the faces), which were found in sites like
Mohenjo-Daro.[102]

TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION

The Indus civilisation's economy appears to have depended significantly on trade, which was
facilitated by major advances in transport technology. The IVC may have been the first
civilisation to use wheeled transport.[103] These advances may have included bullock carts that
are identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as well as boats. Most of these boats
were probably small, flat-bottomed craft, perhaps driven by sail, similar to those one can see on
the Indus River today; however, there is secondary evidence of sea-going craft. Archaeologists
have discovered a massive, dredged canal and what they regard as a docking facility at the
coastal city of Lothal in western India (Gujarat state). An extensive canal network, used for
irrigation, has however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort.[104]
During 4300–3200 BCE of the chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus Valley Civilisation area
shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran which suggest
considerable mobility and trade. During the Early Harappan period (about 3200–2600 BCE),
similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments, etc. document intensive caravan trade
with Central Asia and the Iranian plateau.[105]
Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilisation artefacts, the trade networks, economically,
integrated a huge area, including portions of Afghanistan, the coastal regions of Persia,
northern and western India, and Mesopotamia. Studies of tooth enamel from individuals buried
at Harappa suggest that some residents had migrated to the city from beyond the Indus
Valley.[106] There is some evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to
Egypt.[107]
There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and
Mesopotamian civilisations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being
handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain and Failaka located in
the Persian Gulf).[108] Such long-distance sea trade became feasible with the development of
plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or
cloth.[109]
Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani), Sokhta
Koh (astride Shadi River, north of Pasni), and Balakot (near Sonmiani) in Pakistan along with
Lothal in western India, testify to their role as Harappan trading outposts. Shallow harbours
located at the estuaries of rivers opening into the sea allowed brisk maritime trade with
Mesopotamian cities.
"It is generally assumed that most trade between the Indus Valley (ancient Meluhha?) and
western neighbors proceeded up the Persian Gulf rather than overland. Although there is no
incontrovertible proof that this was indeed the case, the distribution of Indus-type artifacts on
the Oman peninsula, on Bahrain and in southern Mesopotamia makes it plausible that a series
of maritime stages linked the Indus Valley and the Gulf region."[110]
In the 1980s, important archaeological discoveries have been made at Ras al-Jinz (Oman),
demonstrating maritime Indus Valley connections with the Arabian Peninsula.

AGRICULTURE
According to Gangal et al. (2014), there is strong archeological and geographical evidence that
neolithic farming spread from the Near East into north-west India, but there is also "good
evidence for the local domestication of barley and the zebucattle at Mehrgarh."[73][note 9]
According to Jean-Francois Jarrige, farming had an independent origin at Mehrgarh, despite the
similarities which he notes between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western
Indus valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. Nevertheless,
Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background," and is not a "'backwater' of
the Neolithic culture of the Near East."[113] Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer writes that the
Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian
phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanisation and
complex social organisation in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural
developments".[114]
Jarrige notes that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and barley,[115] while
Shaffer and Liechtenstein note that the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a
crop derived from two-row barley.[116] Gangal agrees that "Neolithic domesticated crops in
Mehrgarh include more than 90% barley," noting that "there is good evidence for the local
domestication of barley." Yet, Gangal also notes that the crop also included "a small amount of
wheat," which "are suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild
varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey.

The cattle that is often portrayed on Indus seals are humped Indian aurochs, that is similar
to Zebu cattle. Zebu cattle is still common in India, and in Africa. It is different from the
European cattle, and had been originally domesticated on the Indian subcontinent, probably in
the Baluchistan region of Pakistan

LANGUAGE
It has often been suggested that the bearers of the IVC corresponded to proto-
Dravidians linguistically, the break-up of proto-Dravidian corresponding to the break-up of
the Late Harappan culture.[118] Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola concludes that the uniformity of
the Indus inscriptions precludes any possibility of widely different languages being used, and
that an early form of Dravidian language must have been the language of the Indus
people.[119] Today, the Dravidian language family is concentrated mostly in southern India and
northern and eastern Sri Lanka, but pockets of it still remain throughout the rest of India and
Pakistan (the Brahui language), which lends credence to the theory.
According to Heggarty and Renfrew, Dravidian languages may have spread into
the Indian subcontinent with the spread of farming.[120]According to David McAlpin, the
Dravidian languages were brought to India by immigration into India from Elam.[note 11] In earlier
publications, Renfrew also stated that proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from
the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent,[121][122][123][note 12] but more recently Heggarty and
Renfrew note that "a great deal remains to be done in elucidating the prehistory of Dravidian."
They also note that "McAlpin's analysis of the language data, and thus his claims, remain far
from orthodoxy."[120] Heggarty and Renfrew conclude that several scenarios are compatible
with the data, and that "the linguistic jury is still very much out."

POSSIBLE WRITING SYSTEM

Between 400 and as many as 600 distinct Indus symbols[128] have been found on seals, small
tablets, ceramic pots and more than a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that
apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira.
Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters in length, most of which
(aside from the Dholavira "signboard") are tiny; the longest on a single surface, which is less
than 1 inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs long; the longest on any object (found on three
different faces of a mass-produced object) has a length of 26 symbols.
While the Indus Valley Civilisation is generally characterised as a literate society on the
evidence of these inscriptions, this description has been challenged by Farmer, Sproat, and
Witzel (2004)[129] who argue that the Indus system did not encode language, but was instead
similar to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems used extensively in the Near East and other
societies, to symbolise families, clans, gods, and religious concepts. Others have claimed on
occasion that the symbols were exclusively used for economic transactions, but this claim
leaves unexplained the appearance of Indus symbols on many ritual objects, many of which
were mass-produced in moulds. No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions are known in
any other early ancient civilisations.[130]
In a 2009 study by P. N. Rao et al. published in Science, computer scientists, comparing the
pattern of symbols to various linguistic scripts and non-linguistic systems, including DNA and a
computer programming language, found that the Indus script's pattern is closer to that of
spoken words, supporting the hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language.[131][132]
Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel have disputed this finding, pointing out that Rao et al. did not
actually compare the Indus signs with "real-world non-linguistic systems" but rather with "two
wholly artificial systems invented by the authors, one consisting of 200,000 randomly ordered
signs and another of 200,000 fully ordered signs, that they spuriously claim represent the
structures of all real-world non-linguistic sign systems".[133] Farmer et al. have also
demonstrated that a comparison of a non-linguistic system like medieval heraldic
signs with natural languages yields results similar to those that Rao et al. obtained with Indus
signs. They conclude that the method used by Rao et al. cannot distinguish linguistic systems
from non-linguistic ones.[134]
The messages on the seals have proved to be too short to be decoded by a computer. Each seal
has a distinctive combination of symbols and there are too few examples of each sequence to
provide a sufficient context. The symbols that accompany the images vary from seal to seal,
making it impossible to derive a meaning for the symbols from the images. There have,
nonetheless, been a number of interpretations offered for the meaning of the seals. These
interpretations have been marked by ambiguity and subjectivity.[134]:69
Photos of many of the thousands of extant inscriptions are published in the Corpus of Indus
Seals and Inscriptions (1987, 1991, 2010), edited by Asko Parpola and his colleagues. The final,
third, volume, republished photos taken in the 1920s and 1930s of hundreds of lost or stolen
inscriptions, along with many discovered in the last few decades. Formerly, researchers had to
supplement the materials in the Corpus by study of the tiny photos in the excavation reports of
Marshall (1931), MacKay (1938, 1943), Wheeler (1947), or reproductions in more recent
scattered sources.
Edakkal caves in Wayanad district of Kerala contain drawings that range over periods from as
early as 5000 BCE to 1000 BCE. The youngest group of paintings have been in the news for a
possible connection to the Indus Valley Civilisation.

RELIGION
The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley people have received considerable attention,
especially from the view of identifying precursors to deities and religious practices of Indian
religions that later developed in the area. However, due to the sparsity of evidence, which is
open to varying interpretations, and the fact that the Indus script remains undeciphered, the
conclusions are partly speculative and largely based on a retrospective view from a much later
Hindu perspective.[135][136] An early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu
interpretations of archaeological evidence from the Harappan sites[137] was that of John
Marshall, who in 1931 identified the following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a
Great Male God and a Mother Goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants;
symbolic representation of the phallus (linga) and vulva (yoni); and, use of baths and water in
religious practice. Marshall's interpretations have been much debated, and sometimes disputed
over the following decades.
One Indus Valley seal shows a seated figure with a horned headdress, possibly tricephalic and
possibly ithyphallic, surrounded by animals. Marshall identified the figure as an early form of
the Hindu god Shiva (or Rudra), who is associated with asceticism, yoga, and linga; regarded as
a lord of animals; and often depicted as having three eyes. The seal has hence come to be
known as the Pashupati Seal, after Pashupati (lord of all animals), an epithet of
Shiva.[138][140] While Marshall's work has earned some support, many critics and even supporters
have raised several objections. Doris Srinivasan has argued that the figure does not have three
faces, or yogic posture, and that in Vedic literature Rudra was not a protector of wild
animals.[141][142] Herbert Sullivan and Alf Hiltebeitel also rejected Marshall's conclusions, with
the former claiming that the figure was female, while the latter associated the figure
with Mahisha, the Buffalo God and the surrounding animals with vahanas (vehicles) of deities
for the four cardinal directions.[143][144] Writing in 2002, Gregory L. Possehl concluded that while
it would be appropriate to recognise the figure as a deity, its association with the water buffalo,
and its posture as one of ritual discipline, regarding it as a proto-Shiva would be going too
far.[140] Despite the criticisms of Marshall's association of the seal with a proto-Shiva icon, it has
been interpreted as the Tirthankara Rishabhanatha by Jains and Vilas Sangave[145] or an
early Buddha by Buddhists.[137] Historians such as Heinrich Zimmer and Thomas
McEvilley believe that there is a connection between first Jain Tirthankara Rishabhanatha and
the Indus Valley civilisation.[146][147]
Marshall hypothesised the existence of a cult of Mother Goddess worship based upon
excavation of several female figurines, and thought that this was a precursor of the Hindu sect
of Shaktism. However the function of the female figurines in the life of Indus Valley people
remains unclear, and Possehl does not regard the evidence for Marshall's hypothesis to be
"terribly robust".[148] Some of the baetyls interpreted by Marshall to be sacred phallic
representations are now thought to have been used as pestles or game counters instead, while
the ring stones that were thought to symbolise yoni were determined to be architectural
features used to stand pillars, although the possibility of their religious symbolism cannot be
eliminated.[149] Many Indus Valley seals show animals, with some depicting them being carried
in processions, while others show chimeric creations. One seal from Mohenjo-daro shows a
half-human, half-buffalo monster attacking a tiger, which may be a reference to the Sumerian
myth of such a monster created by goddess Aruru to fight Gilgamesh.[150]
In contrast to contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations, Indus Valley lacks any
monumental palaces, even though excavated cities indicate that the society possessed the
requisite engineering knowledge.[151][152] This may suggest that religious ceremonies, if any, may
have been largely confined to individual homes, small temples, or the open air. Several sites
have been proposed by Marshall and later scholars as possibly devoted to religious purpose,
but at present only the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is widely thought to have been so used, as
a place for ritual purification.[148][153] The funerary practices of the Harappan civilisation are
marked by their diversity, with evidence of supine burial, fractional burial (in which the body is
reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements before final interment), and even
cremation

LATE HARAPPAN
Around 1900 BCE signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE most of
the cities had been abandoned. Recent examination of human skeletons from the site of
Harappa has demonstrated that the end of the Indus civilisation saw an increase in inter-
personal violence and in infectious diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis.[156][157]
According to historian Upinder Singh, "the general picture presented by the late Harappan
phase is one of a breakdown of urban networks and an expansion of rural ones." [158]
During the period of approximately 1900 to 1700 BCE, multiple regional cultures emerged
within the area of the Indus civilisation. The Cemetery H culture was in Punjab, Haryana,
and Western Uttar Pradesh, the Jhukar culture was in Sindh, and the Rangpur
culture(characterised by Lustrous Red Ware pottery) was in Gujarat.[159][160][161] Other sites
associated with the Late phase of the Harappan culture are Pirak in Balochistan, Pakistan,
and Daimabad in Maharashtra, India.[85]
The largest Late Harappan sites are Kudwala in Cholistan, Bet Dwarka in Gujarat,
and Daimabad in Maharashtra, which can be considered as urban, but they are smaller and few
in number compared with the Mature Harappan cities. Bet Dwarka was fortified and continued
to have contacts with the Persian Gulf region, but there was a general decrease of long-distance
trade.[162] On the other hand, the period also saw a diversification of the agricultural base, with
a diversity of crops and the advent of double-cropping, as well as a shift of rural settlement
towards the east and the south.[163]
The pottery of the Late Harappan period is described as "showing some continuity with mature
Harappan pottery traditions," but also distinctive differences.[164] Many sites continued to be
occupied for some centuries, although their urban features declined and disappeared. Formerly
typical artifacts such as stone weights and female figurines became rare. There are some
circular stamp seals with geometric designs, but lacking the Indus script which characterized the
mature phase of the civilisation. Script is rare and confined to potsherd inscriptions.[164] There
was also a decline in long-distance trade, although the local cultures show new innovations
in faience and glass making, and carving of stone beads.[165] Urban amenities such as drains and
the public bath were no longer maintained, and newer buildings were "poorly constructed".
Stone sculptures were deliberately vandalised, valuables were sometimes concealed in hoards,
suggesting unrest, and the corpses of animals and even humans were left unburied in the
streets and in abandoned buildings.[166]
During the later half of the 2nd millennium BCE, most of the post-urban Late Harappan
settlements were abandoned altogether. Subsequent material culture was typically
characterised by temporary occupation, "the campsites of a population which was nomadic and
mainly pastoralist" and which used "crude handmade pottery."[167] However, there is greater
continuity and overlap between Late Harappan and subsequent cultural phases at sites
in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, primarily small rural settlements.

ARYAN INVASION

In 1953 Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from
Central Asia, the "Aryans", caused the decline of the Indus Civilisation. As evidence, he cited a
group of 37 skeletons found in various parts of Mohenjo-daro, and passages in the Vedas
referring to battles and forts. However, scholars soon started to reject Wheeler's theory, since
the skeletons belonged to a period after the city's abandonment and none were found near the
citadel. Subsequent examinations of the skeletons by Kenneth Kennedy in 1994 showed that
the marks on the skulls were caused by erosion, and not by violence.

In the Cemetery H culture (the late Harappan phase in the Punjab region), some of the designs
painted on the funerary urns have been interpreted through the lens of Vedic mythology: for
instance, peacocks with hollow bodies and a small human form inside, which has been
interpreted as the souls of the dead, and a hound that can be seen as the hound of Yama, the
god of death.[170][171] This may indicate the introduction of new religious beliefs during this
period, but the archaeological evidence does not support the hypothesis that the Cemetery H
people were the destroyers of the Harappan cities.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND DROUGHT

Suggested contributory causes for the localisation of the IVC include changes in the course of
the river,[173] and climate change that is also signalled for the neighbouring areas of the Middle
East.[174][175] As of 2016 many scholars believe that drought and a decline in trade with Egypt
and Mesopotamia caused the collapse of the Indus Civilisation.[176]
The Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed,[5][note 2][177][note 15][178][note 16] and water-supply depended
on the monsoons. The Indus Valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800
BCE, linked to a general weakening of the monsoon at that time.[5] The Indian monsoon
declined and aridity increased, with the Ghaggar-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills
of the Himalaya,[5][179][180] leading to erratic and less extensive floods that made inundation
agriculture less sustainable.
Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter
its population eastward.[6][7][8][note 3] According to Giosan et al. (2012), the IVC residents did not
develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer
floods. As the monsoons kept shifting south, the floods grew too erratic for sustainable
agricultural activities. The residents then migrated towards the Ganges basin in the east, where
they established smaller villages and isolated farms. The small surplus produced in these small
communities did not allow development of trade, and the cities died out.

CONTINUITY
Archaeological excavations indicate that the decline of Harappa drove people
eastward.[182] According to Possehl, after 1900 BCE the number of sites in today's India
increased from 218 to 853. According to Andrew Lawler, "excavations along the Gangetic plain
show that cities began to arise there starting about 1200 BCE, just a few centuries after
Harappa was deserted and much earlier than once suspected."[176][note 17] According to Jim
Shaffer there was a continuous series of cultural developments, just as in most areas of the
world. These link "the so-called two major phases of urbanisation in South Asia".[184]
At sites such as Bhagwanpura (in Haryana), archaeological excavations have discovered an
overlap between the final phase of Late Harappan pottery and the earliest phase of Painted
Grey Ware pottery, the latter being associated with the Vedic Culture and dating from around
1200 BCE. This site provides evidence of multiple social groups occupying the same village but
using different pottery and living in different types of houses: "over time the Late Harappan
pottery was gradually replaced by Painted Grey ware pottery," and other cultural changes
indicated by archaeology include the introduction of the horse, iron tools, and new religious
practices.[85]
There is also a Harappan site called Rojdi in Rajkot district of Saurashtra. Its excavation started
under an archaeological team from Gujarat State Department of Archaeology and the Museum
of the University of Pennsylvania in 1982–83. In their report on archaeological excavations at
Rojdi, Gregory Possehl and M.H. Raval write that although there are "obvious signs of cultural
continuity" between the Harappan Civilisation and later South Asian cultures, many aspects of
the Harappan "sociocultural system" and "integrated civilization" were "lost forever," while the
Second Urbanisation of India (beginning with the Northern Black Polished Ware culture, c. 600
BCE) "lies well outside this sociocultural environment"

POST-HARAPPAN
Previously, scholars believed that the decline of the Harappan civilisation led to an interruption
of urban life in the Indian subcontinent. However, the Indus Valley Civilisation did not disappear
suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilisation appear in later cultures. The Cemetery H
culture may be the manifestation of the Late Harappan over a large area in the region
of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, and the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture its
successor. David Gordon White cites three other mainstream scholars who "have emphatically
demonstrated" that Vedic religion derives partially from the Indus Valley Civilisations.[186]
As of 2016, archaeological data suggests that the material culture classified as Late Harappan
may have persisted until at least c. 1000–900 BCE and was partially contemporaneous with
the Painted Grey Ware culture.[184] Harvard archaeologist Richard Meadow points to the late
Harappan settlement of Pirak, which thrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the
invasion of Alexander the Great in 325 BCE.[176]
In the aftermath of the Indus Civilisation's localisation, regional cultures emerged, to varying
degrees showing the influence of the Indus Civilisation. In the formerly great city of Harappa,
burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called the Cemetery H culture. At
the same time, the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture expanded from Rajasthan into the Gangetic
Plain. The Cemetery H culture has the earliest evidence for cremation; a practice dominant
in Hinduism today.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Near East
The mature (Harappan) phase of the IVC is contemporary to the Early and Middle Bronze Age in
the Ancient Near East, in particular the Old Elamite period, Early Dynastic to Ur IIIMesopotamia,
Prepalatial Minoan Crete and Old Kingdom to First Intermediate Period Egypt.
The IVC has been compared in particular with the civilisations of Elam (also in the context of
the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis) and with Minoan Crete (because of isolated cultural parallels
such as the ubiquitous goddess worship and depictions of bull-leaping).[187] The IVC has been
tentatively identified with the toponym Meluhha known from Sumerian records; the Sumerians
called them Meluhhaites.[188]
Shahr-i-Sokhta, located in southeastern Iran shows trade route with Mesopotamia.[189][190] A
number of seals with Indus script have been also found in Mesopotamian sites.

Dasyu
After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated with the
indigenous Dasyu inimical to the Rigvedic tribes in numerous hymns of the Rigveda. Mortimer
Wheeler interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the top levels of
Mohenjo-daro as the victims of a warlike conquest, and famously stated that "Indra stands
accused" of the destruction of the IVC. The association of the IVC with the city-dwelling Dasyus
remains alluring because the assumed timeframe of the first Indo-Aryan migration into India
corresponds neatly with the period of decline of the IVC seen in the archaeological record. The
discovery of the advanced, urban IVC however changed the 19th-century view of early Indo-
Aryan migration as an "invasion" of an advanced culture at the expense of a "primitive"
aboriginal population to a gradual acculturation of nomadic "barbarians" on an advanced urban
civilisation, comparable to the Germanic migrations after the Fall of Rome, or
the Kassite invasion of Babylonia. This move away from simplistic "invasionist" scenarios
parallels similar developments in thinking about language transfer and population movement in
general, such as in the case of the migration of the proto-Greek speakers into Greece, or the
Indo-Europeanisation of Western Europe.

Munda

Proto-Munda (or Para-Munda) and a "lost phylum" (perhaps related or ancestral to the Nihali
language)[193] have been proposed as other candidates for the language of the IVC. Michael
Witzel suggests an underlying, prefixing language that is similar to Austroasiatic, notably Khasi;
he argues that the Rigveda shows signs of this hypothetical Harappan influence in the earliest
historic level, and Dravidian only in later levels, suggesting that speakers of Austroasiatic were
the original inhabitants of Punjab and that the Indo-Aryans encountered speakers of Dravidian
only in later times.