Indus Valley Civilization: Its Origin,

Demise & Connection with Today’s

World
Long before India had a democratic government; before British ruled over this
land; before the reign of most of the great kings, stories of which we read in our
history books, existed; long before any of the civilizations surviving today existed;
there thrived a civilization here which, if we believe our archaeologists, was almost
perfect in every sense. They had technology and organization which was far more
advanced than any other people who had set foot on this earth before and
remained so for thousands of years. But despite the glorious mark which they
etched in the history of mankind their existence was almost completely erased
from our memories, until the later half of 19th century when its material
achievements were rediscovered. Its new founders named it Indus Valley
Civilization (IVC) after the river along which its major cities were first discovered. In
terms of the number of town-centers and cities it covered, IVC was one of the
largest ancient civilizations that ever existed. As of now more than 1500 sites have
been marked clearly as settlements belonging to different phases of IVC. It has
been found to have covered most of present day’s Pakistan and Punjab, extending
towards Gujarat in east and Afghanistan in the west. Isolated colonies have also
been discovered as far as Iran, Turkmenistan and Jammu region. But even after
having such vast amounts of archaeological data, “The birth, life and death of
Indus Civilization remain three enigmas”. [1] Everything about IVC has been
wrapped in a shroud of mystery. Still a heated debate has been going on over the
fundamental questions like: Who these people were? Where did they come from?
What religion or belief system they followed? What type of governing system they
had? What languages they spoke? Why they eventually withered away and
ultimately how they are connected with the later civilizations which flourished in
the Indian subcontinent?

The difficulty in solving these mysteries ultimately arises from different inferences
you can draw from how you interpret the archaeological data. Many millennia from
now if some people from future try to learn about our own time, they might face
the same difficulties. Finding something like a TV set from our ruins they might
conclude that this was a significant part of our life from the fact that every family
had it. It was always placed in apparently the central part of our homes with
couches and reclining chairs around it. And so it must be the central part of our
daily lives. Seeing the antenna coming out of it, it might appear that maybe we
tried to communicate with our God/s through this contraption. Perhaps this thing
itself was our God. No matter how exaggerated this example might seem but it
clearly highlights how we can reach to far-fetched conclusions if we look at the
data from a different perspective. And so, even in case of IVC also there are a
whole lot of theories about the identity of its inhabitants.

This mystery of IVC inhabitants’ identity has also fuelled heated debates in the
political circles. Some of the old theories, which have been debunked by most of
the researchers today, were also used as a part of propaganda by different
organizations to gain or strengthen their influence over certain communities.

Thus, who really these people were? The answer to this question has much more
far reaching consequences than one can imagine. In this report we have tried to
highlight different theories related to the Indus Valley Civilization. None of the
theories is complete as a result of some missing evidences, and so in that sense
we cannot agree with any of them. But to have a completely objective outlook
towards our past is a task next to impossible. While interpreting the evidences we
have to have certain assumptions in our mind, as a result of which eventually we
end up with taking one side or another. As noted historian E. H. Carr puts it that
historian is a ‘part of history’ with a particular ‘angle of vision over the past’.
“Millions had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC is
declared noteworthy by historians”.[2] Hence, to worry about the matter that which
theory is absolutely objective will be a fallacy. What really is necessary is that none
of the evidences be left ignored.

Discovery of IVC and excavated finds

Harappa was the first city of IVC discovered in modern times by an East India
Company soldier and explorer James Lewis. In 1827, while stationed at Agra, he
and a colleague deserted and travelled through parts of the Punjab that were not
under British control at that time. He was the first European to see the ruins of
Harappa, described and illustrated in his book “Narrative of Various Journeys in
Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Panjab” under the pseudonym Charles Masson in
1842. Other significant city of IVC, Mohenjo-Daro, literally meaning “Mound of the
dead” in Sindhi was discovered much later in 1922 by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay,
an officer of Archaeological Survey of India. Many other sites were discovered in
times between these two and later also. Excavations on many sites are still going
on.
The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan, extending from
Baluchistan to Sindh, and extending into modern day Indian states of Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, with an upward reach to Ropar on the upper
Sutlej. The geography of the Indus Valley puts the civilizations that have arisen
there in a highly similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural
lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. 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 Gujarat. Coastal settlements extended from
Sutkagan Dor [3] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal [4] in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site
has been found on the Oxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan,[5] in the
Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan,[6] at Manda on the Beas River near
Jammu,[7] India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi.[8]
Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient
seacoast,[9] for example, Balakot,[10] and on islands, for example, Dholavira.[11]

Masters of town-planning

The major urban centers of IVC show a high level of sophistication in terms of
town-planning. Geometrically designed, the towns had fortifications (for protection
against both intruders and floods), several distinct quarters, assembly halls, and
manufacturing units of various types ; some bigger cities had furnaces for the
production of copper tools, weapons or ornaments ; public baths (probably often
part of temples) as well as private baths for most inhabitants, sewerage through
underground drains built with precisely laid bricks, and an efficient water
management with numerous reservoirs and wells, which show that the ordinary
inhabitant was well taken care of. Mohenjo-Daro, for instance, is thought to have
had over 700 wells, some of them fifteen meters deep, built with special trapezoid
bricks (to prevent collapse by the pressure of the surrounding soil), and maintained
for several centuries. Quite a few of those wells were found in private houses.
Dholavira had separate drains to collect rain water (an early example of
community-level rainwater harvesting) and six or seven dams built across nearby
rivers. World leading expert on IVC, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer (who is still active in
excavation works) remarks, “The fact that even smaller towns and villages had
impressive drainage systems indicates that removing polluted water and sewage
was an important part of the daily concerns of the Indus people”.[12] The well-
known Indian archaeologist, B. B. Lal, wrote in a comprehensive study of this
civilization, “Well-regulated streets were oriented almost invariably along the
cardinal directions, thus forming a grid-iron pattern. At Kalibangan, even the
widths of these streets were in a set ratio, i.e. if the narrowest lane was one unit in
width, the other streets were twice, thrice and so on. [...] Such a town-planning
was unknown in contemporary West Asia”. [13]

The houses were almost always built with mud bricks (sometimes fired in kilns),
which followed a standard ratio of 4 :2 :1, though the actual sizes varied : bricks for
houses, for instance, might be 28 x 14 x 7 cm, while for fortification walls they
could be 36 x 18 x 9 cm or even bigger. Walls were on average seventy
centimeters thick, and many houses were at least two storeys high. A few houses,
perhaps those of rulers or wealthy traders, were particularly large, with up to
seven rooms, but they might be found right next to a craftsman’s modest house. A
number of big buildings, such as that around Mohenjo-Daro’s “Great Bath,” seem
to have served a community purpose. Dholavira, in Kutch, even boasts of a huge
maidan. It also has massive fortification walls, some of them as thick as eleven
meters, built in the earliest stage of the city; apart from standardized bricks,
stones were also used there on a large scale, undressed as well as dressed (the
stones were perfectly dressed even with just copper tools, as iron was not yet
known).

Arts & Culture

The Harappans were expert craftsmen. They made beads of carnelian, agate,
amethyst, turquoise, lapis lazuli, etc; they manufactured bangles out of shells,
glazed faience (a material made of ground sand or silica mixed with gum & a
colour and then fired in a kiln) and terracotta; [14] they carved ivory and worked
shells into ornaments, bowls and ladles; they cast copper (which they mined
themselves in Baluchistan and Rajasthan) and bronze for weapons, all types of
tools, domestic objects and statues. They also worked silver and gold with great
skill, especially for ornaments. We also know that the Harappans excelled at
pottery, stone-carving, complex weaving & carpet-making, inlaid woodwork and
decorative architecture. Dancing, painting, sculpture, and music (there is evidence
of drums and of stringed instruments: A harp-like instrument has been depicted on
an Indus seal) were all part of their culture. Possibly drama and puppet shows too,
judging from a number of masks. Statues are not abundant, but refined, whether in
stone, bronze or terracotta. 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. [15] An ancestor of the game of chess has been unearthed
at Lothal. Incidentally one of the pieces has clear resemblance with the head of a
horse, an animal, presence of whose remains around most IVC sites has not been
established with clarity according to many archaeologists.

A probable ancestor of the game of chess A Terracotta toy bullock cart.

(in terracotta, from Lothal).
Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of comb, the use of collyrium (a
liquid wash used as cleanser for eyes) and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget)
that were found in Harappan contexts still have similar counterparts in modern
India. Terracotta female figurines were found (ca. 2800-2600 BCE) which had red
color applied to the "maang" (line of partition of the hair). [15]

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 (A famous
example is the “Pashupati” seal).

Square seal depicting a nude male deity with The Pashupatinath

Seal three faces, seated in
yogic position on a throne,
wearing bangles on both arms and an elaborate
head-dress.

Lothal has yielded 213 seals, third in importance amongst all Indus sites,
considered masterpieces of glyptic art and calligraphy. Lothal artists introduced a
new form of painting closely linked to modern realism. Paintings depict animals in
their natural surroundings. Indeed, upon one large vessel, the artist depicts birds—
with fish in their beaks—resting in a tree, while a fox-like animal stands below. This
scene bears resemblance to the story of the crow and cunning fox in Panchatantra.
 The realistic portrayal of human beings and animals suggests a careful study of
[16]

anatomical and natural features. Terra-cotta models also identify the differences
between species of dogs and bulls, including those of horses. Animal figures with
wheels and a movable head were used as toys.

Trade

The Harappans procured materials for craft production in various ways. For
instance, they established settlements such as Nageshwar and Balakot in areas
where shell was available. Other such sites were Shortughai, in far-off Afghanistan,
near the best source of lapis lazuli, a blue stone that was apparently very highly
valued, and Lothal which was near sources of carnelian (from Bharuch in Gujarat),
steatite (from south Rajasthan and north Gujarat) and metal (from Rajasthan).
Copper was also probably brought from Oman, on the south-eastern tip of the
Arabian Peninsula. Chemical analyses have shown that both the Omani copper and
Harappan artifacts have traces of nickel, suggesting a common origin. There are
other traces of contact as well. A distinctive type of vessel, a large Harappan jar
coated with a thick layer of black clay has been found at Omani sites.

During 4300–3200 BCE of the chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus Valley
Civilization 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.[ 17] There was an extensive maritime trade network operating
between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilizations 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). [17]
Mesopotamian texts datable to the third millennium BCE refer to copper coming
from a region called Magan, perhaps a name for Oman. Mesopotamian texts
mention contact with regions named Dilmun (probably the island of Bahrain),
Magan and Meluhha, possibly the Harappan region. They mention the products
from Meluhha: carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold, and varieties of wood. A
Mesopotamian myth says of Meluhha: “May your bird be the haja-bird, may its call
be heard in the royal palace.” Some archaeologists think the haja-bird was the
peacock. Mesopotamian texts refer to Meluhha as a land of seafarers. Besides, we
find depictions of ships and boats on seals.
Lothal's dock connected the city to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on the
trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh and the peninsula of Saurashtra
when the surrounding Kutch desert of today was a part of the Arabian Sea. It was a
vital and thriving trade centre in ancient times, with its trade of beads, gems and
valuable ornaments reaching the far corners of West Asia and Africa. Modern
oceanographers have observed that the city’s inhabitants must have possessed
great knowledge relating to tides in order to build such a dock on the ever-shifting
course of the Sabarmati, as well as exemplary hydrography and maritime
engineering. This was the earliest known dock found in the world, equipped to
berth and service ships. This shows that the Harappans had a flourishing overseas
trade with Oman, Bahrain, and Sumer also; exchanges with the Sumerians went on
for at least seven centuries, and merchant colonies were established in Bahrain
and the Euphrates-Tigris valley. [18]

A highly standardized system of stone weights, unique in the ancient world, was
found not only throughout the Harappan settlements, but also two thousand years
later in the first kingdoms of the Ganga plains. (The weights were mostly cubes,
but sometimes also truncated spheres.) The first seven weights in the system
followed a geometrical progression, with ratios of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8 : 16 (by which time
the weight had reached 13.7g) : 32 : 64, after which the increments switched to a
decimal system and went 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000 and 12,800.
The largest weight found in Mohenjo-daro is 10,865 grams. Now,

(12800/16)*13.7 = 10960

Thus, the actual largest standard weight (10,865) differs by only 95g with the
corresponding theoretical standard weight (10,960 g), or less than 0.9%. Such an
exemplary example of precision is unheard of in any other ancient civilization.

Science & Technology

As shown above, the inhabitants of IVC were highly skilled in measuring weights.
They were equally efficient when it came to measuring time and length. Their
smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal, was
approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the
Bronze Age. They were also among the firsts to use decimal system. The width of
the wall of the Lothal dock has been found to be 1.78 m (i.e. almost 1,000 times
1.704 mm). The length of the east-west wall of the dock is twenty times its width.
[21]
Inhabitants of Mohenjo-Daro had designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler—
whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimeters) was divided
into ten equal parts. [21] Harappans also mass produced weights in regular
geometrical shapes, which included hexahedra, barrels, cones, and cylinders,
thereby demonstrating knowledge of basic geometry. The weights and measures
later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (the unit angula, 4th century BCE) are the
same as those used in Lothal. [22]

In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan,
made the discovery 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. [21]

There is no true glass from the Indus Age, but there is much faience. Faience
technology, which implies an ability to reach a controlled temperature of 1200
degrees Celsius, begins in the Early Harappan, as at Kalibangan. [23]

Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper,

bronze, lead and tin. They also invented new tools such as curved saws and
twisted drills unknown to other civilizations at the time. [16] Specialized drills have
been found at Chanhudharo (a settlement dedicated almost exclusively devoted to
craft production, including bead-making, shell-cutting, metal-working, seal-making
and weight-making), Lothal and most recently in Dholavira.

A tablet from Mohenjo-Daro depicting a flat-bottomed boat

Several representations of ships have been found on seals, while many massive
stone anchors have come up at Lothal and other sites of Saurashtra. For
navigation, compasses carved out of conch shells appear to have been used to
measure angles between stars. A thick ring-like shell object has been found in Lothal with four
slits each in two margins. This might have served as a compass to measure angles on
plane surfaces or in the horizon in multiples of 40 degrees, up to 360 degrees.
Such shell instruments were probably invented to measure 8–12 whole sections of
the horizon and sky, explaining the slits on the lower and upper margins.
Archaeologists consider this as evidence that the Lothal experts had achieved
something 2,000 years before the Greeks: an 8–12 fold division of horizon and sky,
as well as an instrument for measuring angles and perhaps the position of stars,
and for navigation. [16] A voyage from Lothal to Mesopotamia to sell the prized
Harappan carnelian beads, which the kings and queens of Ur were so fond of,
meant at least 2,500 kilometers of seafaring, of course there would have been
halts along the shore on the way, but still, 4,500 years ago this must have ranked
among the best sailing abilities.

Subsistence

The other, perhaps the chief mainstay of Harappan prosperity was agriculture. It
was practiced on a wide scale, with hundreds of rural settlements and extensive
networks of canals for irrigation. Wheat, barley, rice, a number of vegetables, and
cotton were some of the common crops. Mehrgarh shows a veritable agricultural
economy solidly established on domestic wheat and barley as early as 6000 BC. [24]
[25]
Kalibangan even yielded a field ploughed with two perpendicular networks of
furrows, in which higher crops (such as mustard) were grown in the spaced-out
north-south furrows, thus casting shorter shadows, while shorter crops (such as
gram) filled the contiguous east-west furrows. As B. B. Lal has shown, this is a
technique still used today in the same region. Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer says
that the Mehrgarh site demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South
Asian phenomenon and that the data support interpretation of the prehistoric
urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia as based on
indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments Others, such as Dorian Fuller,
however, indicate that it took some 2000 years before Middle Eastern wheat was
acclimatized to South Asian conditions.

Most Indus agricultural activities took place during the winter Rabi season. The
active floodplains and the areas directly adjacent to them were most intensely
cultivated during the Rabi season. They grew dates and grapes and collected the
Indian jujube (ber). African millets appear in the Indus Civilization. The plants, with
their Hindi-Urdu names, are sorghum or jowar, pearl millet or bajra, and finger
millet or ragi. [23]

The Harappans were also great fish eaters, exploiting the rivers and lakes,
especially in Sindh. Large fish vertebrae have been found at some Kutch Harappan
sites. Salted and/or dried fish were traded over large distances during the Mature
Harappan as documented by the presence of a marine species of catfish at
Harappa. In the Suarashtra region, the people were cattle keepers par excellence
who also raised goats, sheep, water buffalo, and a variety of crops. Cattle remains
are consistently one-half or more of the faunal remains from Indus sites. Pigs may
not have been domesticated, but pig remains and figurines document their use.
The Indus peoples domesticated the chicken and kept several breeds of dogs and
possibly house cats. Camels may also have been domesticated. Camel remains
that have been found may be either the dromedary or Bactrian species. [23]

Governing System

All information presented as of now was based on clean unchallenged facts. But as
we delve further into speculations related to the inner workings of their society and
ultimately their true identity, IVC becomes a controversial subject. Some
archaeologists believe IVC was an empire with its capital as Mohenjo-Daro,
considering the grandeur of this great ancient city, with “governors” sitting in their
respective regional capitals. One fact corroborating this idea is the extraordinary
uniformity of Harappan artifacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks.
Notably, bricks, though obviously not produced in any single centre, were of a
uniform ratio throughout the region, from Jammu to Gujarat. But then to have a
powerful authority over such a vast empire for such a long period (which is
equivalent to an era) without any effective means of communication, as we have
today, appears doubtful. Besides there appear to be no evidences of glorification of
any sorts or even representation of any ruler (as we have on the coins of most
civilizations including those of present times) on the seals. Even the few sculptures
of human figures found at Mohenjo-daro cannot be said to represent rulers with
any great certainty. Thus, some other experts propose existence of different
independent regional states, perhaps a kind of federation of monarchies or even
republics. Those regional states would have had identities of their own (as
evidenced from regional variations in arts and crafts), but they would all have been
united by a common culture, and also by a common language (regardless of
possible regional dialects). B. B. Lal, for instance, brings a parallel between the
Harappan society and the Sixteen States or Mahajanapadas of later Buddhist
times. [13]

Religion

The question of Harappan religious practices is intertwined with their true identity.
Attempts have also been made to reconstruct religious beliefs and practices by
examining seals some of which seem to depict ritual scenes. Others, with plant
motifs, like peepal tree are thought to indicate nature worship. Some animals –
such as the one-horned animal, often called the “unicorn” – depicted on seals
seem to be mythical, composite creatures. In some seals, a figure shown seated
cross-legged in a “yogic” posture, sometimes surrounded by animals, has been
regarded as a depiction of “proto-Shiva”, that is, an early form of one of the major
deities of Hinduism. Besides, conical stone objects have been classified as lingas.
Some seals also depict Swastik. At Kalibangan, fire Vedic altars have been
discovered (Similar site have been found at Lothal also which S.R. Rao thinks could
have served no other purpose than a ritualistic one [16]). These altars suggest fire
worship or worship of Agni, the Hindu god of fire. But it is the also only IVC site
where there is no evidence to suggest the worship of the "mother goddess".

In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead. However,
later they also cremated their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns, a transition
notably also alluded to in the Rigveda, where the forefathers "both cremated
(agnidagdhá-) and uncremated (ánagnidagdha-)" are invoked [26]. Therefore, there
is a sense of heterogeneity in religious practices across the whole area as well as
different phases of the civilization.

Script

Many claims have been made of the decipherment of Indus Valley Script. But
because of absence of any bilingual inscription and acute lack of other
corroborating evidences like Rosetta Stone, none of the claim has been totally
accepted ever. Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols (some say 600)[27] have been
found on seals, small tablets, or ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials.
Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters in length, most
of which are exquisitely 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.

Some scientists have even doubted if these symbols represented any written
language and are perhaps just non-linguistic signs. [28] One more problem in
deciphering the script (assuming it represents a written language system) is to
take which language group as its basis. Attempts have been made taking
Dravidian (e.g. - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malyalam etc) as well as Indo-European
languages (Ex. – Sanskrit, Latin, Avestan etc.) as basis.

The Demise of the Glorious Civilization

There is evidence that by circa 1800 BCE most of the Mature Harappan sites in
regions such as Cholistan had been abandoned. Simultaneously, there was an
expansion of population into new settlements in Gujarat, Haryana and western
Uttar Pradesh. In the few Harappan sites that continued to be occupied after 1900
BCE there appears to have been a transformation of material culture, marked by
the disappearance of the distinctive artifacts of the civilization – weights, seals,
special beads. However, the Indus Valley Civilization did not disappear suddenly,
and many elements of the Indus Civilization can be found in later cultures. A
number of reasons have been sighted right from the start for this fading away –
from an invasion from outer civilization (a theory cleared debunked), to internal
political unrest, or most probably due to severe climate changes.

Connection with later civilizations

We have deferred to discuss about the religious beliefs, script and demise of IVC
above in detail because of different theories surrounding these. These theories
also differ in the explanations provided regarding the connection of IVC with later
flourishing Vedic civilization in India. Broadly speaking there are basically two
theories at present:

o Indo-Aryan Migration theory, according to which iron-age Vedic civilization

was established by Indo-Aryans coming from Iran; this event happening only
after already flourishing IVC had lost its sheen around 1700 to 1300 BCE, due
to some reason/s most probably due to climatic severities. Rigveda, the
earliest literature of Vedic civilization was written around this time only
according to this theory. This theory is based mostly on linguistic evidence of
remarkable similarity between Sanskrit and most significant European
languages like Latin, Greek and so on.
 o Indigenous Aryan theory, which states that Aryans are in reality original
inhabitants of India and IVC was in reality a Vedic civilization based around
the huge river, Saraswati. There was never large scale immigration from
outside in India in ancient times. Rigveda was written long before 1700 BCE
and Vedic civilization is atleast 5000 years old. But after Saraswati dried up,
people shifted eastwards towards Gangetic plains thus giving rise iron-age
Vedic civilization. The supporters of this theory mostly cite Vedic references
(although Aryan Migration theory proponents also do the same). Besides that
they mainly oppose migration theory, citing the lack of evidence of any
large-scale west to east migration and also recent evidences showing
existence of a large river ( perhaps Saraswati) in times before claimed
advent of Indo-Aryans around which IVC was based as well as citing
similarities between many rituals of IVC and Rigvedic civilization. However,
there still loopholes in this theory too.

To understand the whole debate regarding IVC’s end and advent of Vedic
civilization, we try to analyze how each theory was developed and how one theory
tries to disprove other.

The theory of early Aryans being of outside origin is much older than the discovery
of IVC itself. From the 16th century itself, Europeans had started taking interest in
Sanskrit’s remarkable similarity with Greek, Latin, Old Persian, German, and even
certain Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. Later many other languages were
added and a common root of all these languages was suggested. This gave rise to
Indo-European studies. From linguistic studies it was suggested that similarities
between Indo-European languages require an original homeland for the Indo-
Europeans somewhere in Europe or Central Asia - from which migrations and
“invasions” occurred, which eventually reached India. This was the starting point of
Aryan Invasion Theory (which has been widely rejected among archaeologists
now). Eventually a Eurocentric view of Aryan origin was developed just based on
linguistic evidences. This view also was given racial undertone by reinterpreting
Vedic scriptures. Black “race” of Dravidians were deemed original inhabitants of
India who were thought to have been conquered by superior white Aryan race.
Wars between dark forces of evil and enlightened forces of good described in
Rigveda (Note that such types of allegories of struggle between good and bad are
common in all ancient religions) was reinterpreted as war between dark-skinned
and light-skinned people. 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, the then Director-General
of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), 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 civilization.

Aryan Invasion theory was based mostly on linguistic evidence and archaeological
finds from IVC sites was interpreted in such a as to favour the theory. In the 1960s,
the evidence of a massacre in Mohenjo-daro was questioned by an archaeologist
named George Dales. He demonstrated that the skeletons found at the site did not
belong to the same period. As of now, no signs of any large-scale massacre or
battle taking place around the last phases of IVC have been found. It has been
proved that Aryan (North Indians) and Dravidians (South Indians) or Upper caste
and Lower caste are not different races at all. The so-called Aryans and Dravidian
races of India are members of the same Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian
race. The Caucasian race is not simply white but also contains dark skinned types.
A study conducted by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2009 (in
collaboration with Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health and the
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT) analyzed half a million genetic markers across
the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 ethnic groups from 13 states in India
across multiple caste groups. The study asserts, based on the impossibility of
identifying any genetic indicators across caste lines that castes in South Asia grew
out of traditional tribal organizations during the formation of Indian society and
was not the product of any Aryan invasion and "subjugation" of Dravidian people.
[29]

Today Aryan Invasion Theory holds no solid ground and has been disproved
without any shred of doubt. Although it was used for a long time to create North-
South divide in India. It was able to survive for many years by wrong interpretation
of some facts and ignorance towards some others. As noted writer David Frawley
puts it, “Linguistic evidence - which is an attempt to reconstruct a proto or original
language from existent language fragments, locate cultures on the basis of certain
words that exist in different languages, date history by supposed rates of language
change, and so on - is all soft evidence…Without verification by other sources
linguistic arguments cannot carry any weight at all. Such linguistic speculation
should not be used to override more solid literary and archeological evidence.” [30]

Aryan migration theory which is again mostly based on linguistic evidence says the
Vedic people came after the decline of the culture and merely took over the
remnants of it. So they took up pieces of the culture of IVC (what was left of it) and
added their own language Sanskrit to it to form the iron-age Vedic culture. The
migrations appear to have been of pastoral cattle-herders who are prominent in
the Avesta (the holy book of Zoroastrians) and the Rig Veda. These cattle-herders
are though to come continuously in small numbers to the Indian sub-continent. But
the David Frawley argues that “Central Asia is not a very favorable region for
producing populations even today, as we have already noted. How could it produce
the populations necessary to overrun India? Ancient India was not uninhabited.
After the long urban Harappan age it was highly populated at the time of the
proposed invasion. Such populations could not have easily been overwhelmed,
forced to move or be assimilated. After all it was not an organized conquest but a
random movement of tribal peoples which is postulated for the Aryans.” [30]

“We should note that Afghanistan is not an easy place to cross through even
today. Even Alexander lost most of his army trying to cross this region by land.
How could sufficient numbers of people have done it in ancient times so as to
overwhelm the existent population of north India?”

Moreover, the decline of the IVC from about 1900 BCE is not universally accepted
to be connected with Indo-Aryan immigration. A regional cultural discontinuity
occurred during the second millennium BC and many Indus Valley cities were
abandoned during this period, while many new settlements began to appear in
Gujarat and East Punjab and other settlements such as in the western Bahawalpur
region increased in size. Shaffer & Lichtenstein have been quoted [31] that: "This
shift by Harappan and, perhaps, other Indus Valley cultural mosaic groups, is the
only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in
South Asia before the first half of the first millennium B.C.."

Perhaps the biggest evidence given by proponents of Indigenous Aryan Theory is

the discovery of the existence of a huge river in India, which dried up around the
same time as the demise of IVC. This river has been associated with the
mythological Saraswati River. It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the greatest
and the holiest of rivers was not the Ganga, but the now dry Saraswati. The Ganga
is mentioned only once while the Saraswati is mentioned some 50 tomes. There is
a whole hymn devoted to her. The latest satellite data from a French satellite
combined with field archaeological studies have shown that the Rig Vedic
Saraswati had stopped being a perennial river long before 3,000 BCE.

As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed,

"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition that when
the proto-historic people settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a
long time."

The proto-historic people he refers to are the early Harappans of 3,000 BCE. But
satellite 'photos show that a great prehistoric river that was over 7 kilometers wide
did indeed flow through the area at one time. Evidence from survey fieldwork and
recent satellite imagery have been adduced to suggest that the Ghaggar-Hakra
system in the undetermined past had the Sutlej and the Yamuna as tributaries,
with the Rann of Kutch as the likely remains of its delta. In this scenario, geological
changes diverted the Sutlej towards the Indus and the Yamuna towards the Ganga,
following which the river did not have enough water to reach the sea any more and
dried up in the Thar desert. It has been proposed that the Saraswati of the early
Rigveda corresponds to the Ghaggar-Hakra before these changes took place (the
"Old Ghaggar"), and the late Vedic end Epic Saraswati disappearing in the desert
to the Ghaggar-Hakra following the diversion of Sutlej and Yamuna. According to
the the Bramhanas and Mahabharata, the Saraswati dried up in a desert (at a
place named Vinasana or Adarsana); after having disappeared in the desert,
reappears in some places; and joins the sea "impetuously". The Sarasvati as a river
is later replaced by the Ganges and is almost forgotten in Puranic literature. The
stages of the drying up of the river can be traced in Vedic literature showing the
Vedic people did not merely come at the last phase of the river's life.

Numerous archaeological sites have also been located along the course of this
great prehistoric river. The 414 archeological sites along the bed of Saraswati
dwarf the number of sites so far recorded along the entire stretch of the Indus
River, which number only about three dozen. About 80 percent of the sites are
datable to the fourth or third millennium BCE, suggesting that the river was in its
prime during this period. [31] Major IVC cities like Kalibnagan, Rakhigarhi,
Ganveriwala etc are also along its course. If this date were used for the
composition of the hymns about Saraswati, then the Indo-Aryans would necessarily
have been in India in the 4th millennium BC.

Aryan migration theory proponents however suggest the Helmand River in

Afghanistan, separated from the watershed of the Indus by the Sanglakh Range as
the early Rigvedic Saraswati River. The Helmand historically besides Avestan
Haetumant bore the name Haraxvaiti, which is the Avestan form cognate to
Sanskrit Saraswati. The Avesta extols the Helmand in similar terms to those used
in the Rigveda with respect to the Saraswati: "the bountiful, glorious Haetumant
swelling its white waves rolling down its copious flood". However, the identification
of the Helmand with the early Rig Vedic Saraswati is not without difficulties. For
example, the Helmand flowing into a swamp in the Iranian plateau (the extended
wetland and lake system of Hamun-i-Helmand) would not match the Rigvedic
description of samudra, which is generally taken to mean "ocean".

This seems to give an upper hand to Indigenous Aryan theory. Moreover the
similarity in Avestan name of Helmund and Saraswati has been explained by an
outward migration from India to Afghanistan. If rivers in Afghanistan have Vedic
names it is more likely an overflow of populations out of India, not the other way
around, as no Afghani river has the size, location, or reaches the sea as did the
Vedic Sarasvati. [30]

In fact using by using these evidences and reinterpreting linguistic evidences

according to these an Indian Urheimat Theory for Indo-European languages has
been proposed. According to it, the Indo-European language family originated in
the Indian subcontinent and spread to the remainder of the Indo-European region
through a series of migrations. Thus, here a reverse migration is suggested. A
noted proponent of this theory is Koenraad Elst.

One fact which is against Indigenous Aryan theory is the almost complete absence
of horse remains in IVC sites. Horses are represented extensively in the
iconography of ancient Vedic civilization. Hence, Romila Thapar argues that the
absence of horse in IVC shows that they were different from Vedic civilization. [32]
However, Koenraad Elst tries to argue that “The seeming absence of
archaeological evidence should not be treated as positive counter-evidence. For a
striking example of the discrepancy between abundant reality and meagre
archaeological testimony, let us not forget that the Harappan seal inscriptions
have yielded only a few thousands of lines of text, though they are obviously the
tip of an iceberg of a vast literary tradition…. That the presence of horses in
Harappa may well be out of proportion to the meagre archeological testimony of
horse bones, has unwittingly been confirmed by Romila Thapar. All while affirming
that ‘the horse is an insignificant animal in the Indus cities’, apparently referring to
the paucity (but not absence) of horse bones in Harappan ruins, she neutralizes
this oft-used argument for the non-Aryan character of Harappa by also telling
us: “Excavated animal bones from Hastinapur in the first millennium BC when the
use of horses was more frequent, indicate that horse bones make up only a very
small percentage of the bones.” [33]

Thus, the debate on the true identity of IVC inhabitants is still going on with
arguments given by one side and then counter-arguments presented by other side.
New finds also keep pouring in to this date.

Whatever be the case, we can’t stop ourselves from taking a step back and ponder
at the fact how great this civilization was. Firstly, a remarkable civic organization,
which allowed streets in big cities to be free from any encroachment for centuries
altogether given the idea that Mohenjo-daro is thought to have sheltered at least
50,000 inhabitants — almost a megalopolis for those times. Secondly, a complete
absence of any evidence of armies or warfare or slaughter or man-made
destruction in any settlement and at any point of time, even during the early
phases. Not a single seal depicts a battle or a captive or a victor. Although there
were fortifications and weapons (the latter rather few), but those were probably to
guard against local tribes or marauders rather than against people from other
cities and villages. Fortifications were also often protections against floods, and
weapons must have been used mostly for hunting. So far as the archaeological
record shows, major disruptions in the cities’ life were caused by natural
calamities. In no other ancient civilization is warfare so absent, and over such a
long period of time. By contrast, other civilizations of the time consistently
recorded and glorified war feats. All said and done, we should not forget to learn
from IVC the great lesson of the cycles of birth, life, decay, and rebirth of Indian
civilization, a lesson we need to keep in our minds especially at the present
moment.
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