Indus Valley Civilisation: Origin
The origin of the Indus Valley Civilisation has been a matter of intense debate among historians. John Marshall asserted that the Indus civilisation must have had a long antecedent history on the soil of India — a claim that set off decades of research into what came before the mature Harappan cities.
The first comprehensive analysis of the evidence from pre-Harappan sites in the greater Indus valley and north Baluchistan was made by M.R. Mughal (1977). Mughal compared the whole range of evidence — pottery, stone tools, metal artefacts, architecture, and more — from pre-Harappan and mature Harappan levels, and explored the relationship between the two stages. Since then, three broad schools of thought have emerged on the origin of the civilisation: the Aryan theory, the diffusionist (or foreign origin) theory, and the indigenous origin (or cultural evolution) theory.
View I: The Aryan Theory
- Representative historians: S.R. Roy, T.R. Ramachandran, and K.V. Shastri.
- According to this view, the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was developed by the Aryans — the same Aryans associated with the Vedic culture.
- This theory has been largely refuted, owing to the great contrast between the IVC and Vedic culture — for instance, in their respective settlement patterns, material remains, and modes of life.
View II: The Diffusionist Theory (Migration / Colonisation / Foreign Origin Theory)
- Representative historians: Mortimer Wheeler, D.H. Gordon, and E.J.H. Mackay.
- In a diffusionist argument, the first task is to identify the part of the world in which a change first occurred. This is identified as the point of origin, from which the change is presented as having diffused, or spread, to other areas.
- The process of diffusion is variously explained as the result of a migration of people, some other form of contact (such as trade or invasion), or a more abstract cultural stimulus.
- Diffusionist historians argue that people came from outside — from Mesopotamia or Sumeria — and developed the IVC; that is, the city dwellers of a civilisation like Mesopotamia came and developed it.
- Wheeler, however, suggested that there was a migration of ideas, and not of people, from these outside regions — the idea of civilisation was “in the air” of West Asia in the 3rd millennium BCE, and the founders of the Harappan civilisation had a model of civilisation before them.
- Criticism:
- The fact that city life emerged in Mesopotamia a few centuries before it appeared in the Egyptian and Harappan contexts does not mean that the latter were derived from the former, whether directly or indirectly.
- There are difficulties in accepting this view, since there are several fundamental differences between the Mesopotamian civilisation and the IVC — even though both were urban civilisations, and both show a similar kind of development in technology, writing, and agricultural know-how:
- There were differences in scripts: the script of Mesopotamia has been read, but this is not so for the IVC.
- Town planning: the IVC’s characteristic grid pattern was absent in Mesopotamia.
- Canal system: the large-scale canal system of Mesopotamia was absent in the IVC.
- There was a much greater use of bronze in Mesopotamia.
- There were differences in the shape and size of seals.
- The religious structures typical of Mesopotamia were absent in the IVC.
View III: The Indigenous Origin Theory (Cultural Evolution Theory)
- Representative historians: A. Ghosh, M.R. Mughal, and Fairservis.
- According to this theory, the IVC had precedence — there were settled farming cultures which gradually evolved and finally resulted in the rise of the civilisation.
- The story of the origins of the Harappan civilisation can be traced to the emergence of settled farming communities in Baluchistan in the 7th millennium BCE.
- Its more immediate prelude was the cultural phase that used to be known as the “pre-Harappan” or “early Harappan” phase.
- Pre-Harappan sites (e.g., Mehrgarh, Kili Gul Muhammad) show fewer settlements, mud houses, and the cultivation of crops such as wheat, barley, and cotton.
- Amalananda Ghosh was the first archaeologist to identify similarities between a pre-Harappan culture and the mature Harappan culture.
- He focused on the pre-Harappan Sothi culture of Rajasthan, and asserted that there were similarities between Sothi pottery and the pottery of Harappa.
- In view of these similarities, he argued that the Sothi culture should be described as “proto-Harappan.”
- A limitation of this hypothesis: it was based exclusively on a comparison of pottery, and did not consider other material traits. In emphasising ceramic similarities, Ghosh had ignored the many differences between the Sothi and Harappan cultures — the result was an overemphasis on the Sothi element in the account of the emergence of the Harappan civilisation.
- This theory is the most widely accepted among historians today, though it too carries certain limitations:
- There are several mature Harappan sites where there is no early Harappan level, e.g., Lothal, Desalpur, Chanhudaro, Mitathal, Alamgirpur, and Ropar.
- There are several early Harappan sites in the Potwar plateau that do not have mature Harappan levels; further, there are no early Harappan sites in the active Indus plain.
- At sites where both early Harappan and mature Harappan levels exist, the transition from one to the other is not always smooth:
- At Kot Diji and Gumla, a burnt deposit between the two suggests a major fire.
- Evidence of burning was also found at Amri and Nausharo.
- At Kalibangan, the break in occupation may have been due to an earthquake.
The Evolution of Pre-Harappan Sites into Mature Harappan Sites
The Pre-Harappan/Early Harappan Phase
- The pre-Harappan phase shows:
- Large, fortified settlements.
- A fairly high level of expertise in specialised crafts, such as stone working, metal crafting, and bead making.
- The use of wheeled transport.
- The existence of trade networks.
- The range of raw materials used by the pre-Harappans was more or less the same as that used in the mature Harappan phase — except for jade, which is absent in the early Harappan context.
- The two things lacking in this phase were large cities and increased levels of craft specialisation.
- Mughal argued that the “pre-Harappan” phase in fact represented the early, formative phase of the Harappan culture, and that the term “pre-Harappan” should therefore be replaced by “early Harappan.”
- Early Harappan levels have been identified at a large number of sites, including: Balakot, Nal, Amri, Kot Diji, Mehrgarh, Nausharo, Gumla, Rehman Dheri, Sarai Khola, Lewan, Tarakai Qila, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Bhirrana, Dholavira, Padri, and Kuntasi.
Cultural Convergence
- Apart from the fact that some features of the mature Harappan culture were already in place during the early Harappan phase, what is also visible is a gradual transition from a variety of regional traditions towards a level of cultural uniformity cutting across regions — a process called “cultural convergence.”
- Some inferences can also be made about the social and political processes that were underway during this phase:
- Seals have been found at Kunal and Nausharo, and may have been connected with traders or elite groups.
- The discovery of hoards of jewellery at Kunal, including a silver piece, suggests a fairly high level of concentration of wealth, and may also have political implications.
- The discovery of symbols similar to Harappan writing at early Harappan levels — at Padri in Gujarat, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Dholavira in Kutch, and Harappa in west Punjab — shows that the roots of the Harappan script go back to this phase.
- Another notable feature is the appearance of the “horned deity” at a number of places:
- He is painted on a jar found at Kot Diji, and on several jars found at early Harappan Rehman Dheri.
- At Kalibangan, his figure was incised on a terracotta cake.
- This suggests that the process of “cultural convergence” was also operating in the religious and symbolic spheres.
Factors Behind the Transition to Mature Harappan City Life
Several factors have been proposed for the transition from the proto-urban, early Harappan phase to the full-fledged city life of the mature Harappan phase:
- Trade with Mesopotamia has been suggested as a factor, but the importance of this trade has been exaggerated, even in the context of the mature Harappan phase itself.
- According to Chakrabarti:
- The catalyst for the transition may have been an increasing level of craft specialisation, instigated especially by the development of copper metallurgy in Rajasthan.
- He suggests that another crucial factor for the spread of settlements in the active floodplain of the Indus may have been agricultural growth, based on an organised irrigation system — though direct evidence of this is lacking.
- The answer may also lie in the emergence of a new, decisive political leadership, significant changes in social organisation, or a new ideology — though such changes are difficult to deduce from the archaeological data alone.
- Other contributing factors include:
- Favourable environmental factors (fertility, fertile plains, rainfall, availability of water).
- The growth of technology and know-how.
- The gradual build-up of population, and its speed.
- The expansion of settlement.
- The emergence of regional cultural patterns, such as the Kulli culture, Nal culture, and Kot Diji culture.
- The eventual integration and unification of these regional cultural patterns into a single, cohesive civilisation.
Conclusion
The debate over the origin of the Indus Valley Civilisation has moved decisively away from theories of an Aryan or purely diffusionist origin, towards a broadly indigenous, evolutionary model — one in which settled farming communities in Baluchistan, and a well-documented “early Harappan” phase across sites like Mehrgarh, Kot Diji, Kalibangan, and Rehman Dheri, gradually converged, through craft specialisation, trade, script development, and shared religious symbolism, into the full urban civilisation of the mature Harappan phase. While this cultural evolution theory remains the most widely accepted explanation, the uneven and sometimes abrupt nature of the transition at individual sites — marked by fires, earthquakes, and gaps in occupation — reminds us that the rise of the Harappan civilisation was not a single, uniform process, but the outcome of complex, still only partially understood, regional and environmental factors working together over many centuries.
