Introduction:
The Indus or Harappa civilization is called Harappan because the civilization was discovered first in 1921, at the modern site of Harappa situated in the province of West Punjab on die banks of river Ravi, in Pakistan.
The Harappa civilization came to light in 1826 when a railway track was laid across Harappan site. Cunningham visited Harappa site in 1853 and 1873. The Archaeological Survey of India, under the leadership of Pandit M.S. Vats, excavated the site between 1920- 1934. Rao Bahadur Dayaram Sahani excavated the site in 1921 .
The excavation story of Mohenjodaro site is different. Mohenjodaro in Sind province of Pakistan. It is on the banks of river Sind, located 640 Kms to the South-West of Harappan and 320 Kms North to Karachi. The Archaeological Survey of India under the leadership of Sir John Marshall and Mackay excavated Mohenjodaro between 1922 and 1931. Further
work was earned out by R.D Banerjee and Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1935-1940) and recently by George Dales of Pennsylvania University.
The excavation works at other sites were carried out by several Scientists:
- Archaeological Survey of India (since 1960) excavated Kalibangan on the banks of river Ghaggar in Ganganagar District Rajasthan;
- S.R. Rao (since1954) of Archaeological Survey of India excavated that lying between the Sabarmati and Bhanrava Rivers
- M.S. Vats (1935) and Archaeological Survey of India (1953-56) excavated Rangapur in the Surendra Nagar
District, Gujarat (1953) excavated Ropar in Ambala District of Punjab; - YD. Sharma(1958) excavated Alamgirpur on the banks of Hindon, a tributary of Yamuna in Meerut District of Uttar Pradesh. Several others excavated the other sites like Rajoli (Saurashlra), Desalpur (Kutch), Amri, Kol District, Chanhu-Daro, Sandhanawala, of Indeirjo-Daro in Sind Dabakot in Baluchistan, Sutkajendor on the Makron coast.
A) According to Service Fair:
According to Fair Service (1950, 1961) there could be certain links between the Indus and the Kulli-Nal and Zhob culture. South Central Baluchistan and Las Bela witnessed the Nal and early Kulli cultures. Zhob was to the West of Suleiman Hills. They were in existence in the fourth or third millennium B.C.
According to this view:
- First the late emergence of agriculture in Sind reveals that certain tribes from Baluchistan and Southern Afghanistan had penetrated that far.
- Secondly in the North-Eastern Sind there is evidence that the local style of the early Harappan civilization was derived from the northern and central Baluchistan.
- Thirdly, all thee cultures were established in reverine environment and depended on farming. There is also evidence indicating that the early Harappan settlements maintained contact with tire cultures of Baluchistan and Zhob for a long period of time.
- Fourthly the symbol of Swastika appears in the painted potteries of South-West Iran and South-eastern Iran. The pottery and some artefacts of South-Western Iran and the Kulli civilization are similar. Both. The Iranian type and the Kulli variety of artefacts have been found at Surkotada. The metallurgical skill shown in making spear points, knives, axes, etc., is similar to that of the people of Kulli and the Harappan cultures. Some of the Harappan seal writings like cross-flags and eyebrow varieties have a striking resemblance to the potters’ mark of north Baluchistan. The similarities between the pottery designs and artefacts of the Kulli and Harappan cultures are a Handful: peacock, ornaments, pigeon, folded hands, and geometrical lines.
- Fifthly, the Zhob culture showed Mother Goddess figures and also phallic emblems.
- Finally bull figurines, which appear in the Indus culture, too from favourite motif cultures of the Zhob culture.
There is criticism against -the views of Fair Service. The similarities between the cultures of Baluchistan and Harappa, do not prove that the latter grew out of the foremer . The early pottery from Kot-Diji shows similarities with the pottery of the farming community of Baluchistan as well as the Harappan pottery; whereas, the later day pottery of Kot-Diji resembles the Harappan variety. In the same manner, the excavations at Kalibangan reveal that there were some settlements prior to the Harappans and their pottery was similar to that found at Amri and Kot-Diji; whereas, the later buildings at Kalibangan clearly show that they all belong to the Harappan culture. Such being thee facts, it is difficult to subscribe to the view that the Harappan civilization and evolved from local pre-FIarappan and early Harappan cultures.
B) Casal’s view:
J.M. Casal proposes that the Harappan culture was superimposed on the Amri culture.
According to this view:
- a) Amri settlement witnessed urban culture first and from there men gradually moved out to find settlements farther away.
- b) Casal established a stratigraphy extending from the pre-Harappan period to the late Harappan period. Firstly, the Amri settlement reveals drat to begin with, pottery was hand-made without the wheel, and metals were rare; but later die settlement reveals decorated pottery and durable buildings of unburnt bricks. Secondly, the excavations reveal that the traditions typical to the agriculture coexisted with Harappan traditions. The later strata of the pre-Harappan period reveals similarities with the early cultures based on agriculture of Baluchistan and also pottery dating from the early Harappan settlements of the Indus Valley.
There is criticism against this view. Despite these findings there is no unanimity among historians on the links between the Harappan culture and the early Amri culture. Although pottery of die Amri culture has been found around the town fortifications of Harappa, the influence of Baluchistan culture, but not of Amri, is found in the lower strata of Mohenjodaro.
Tills particular point suggests that Amri culture did not logically lead to the Harappan culture.
C) Muhammed Rafique’s view:
Rafique’s view (1964) is based on the analogy drawn between the structures of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and those of Huyuk in Anatolia and Jericho in Jordan in about 7th millennium B.C as well as the example of Sumerians.
- The Anatolian town was barred to intruders by putting up a series of ladders. The people of this town knew pottery and they worshipped stone images.
- In Jericho there existed a remarkable fortified town made of stone blocks.
- What is contended here is that although the people of Catal Huyuk and Jericho were early farming communities they had evolved certain features of urbanism revealing that the growth of urbanism is relevant in the human struggle during the days of food production after leaving the food-gathering stage.
- The Sumerians built temples and mud -brick platforms called Ziggurats, which were like Artificial Mountains. The Indus Valley sites, too, had two parts: one, the citadel at a slightly elevated level and the other, and township at a lower level.
The criticism levelled against this view is that the analogical argument does not necessarily establish that the Harappans were influenced by and specific urban civilization. Even if we suppose that Sumerians came from some mountainous area, it does not logically follow that the Indus Valley people also come from some such region. Even if they had come from such a region, we do not know which mountainous region or culture influenced the Harappan civilization.
D) Wheeler’s view:
Mortimer Wheeler (1960) is of the view that the Indus Valley civilization owed a debt to the Sumerians. The links between the Sumerians and the Indus Valley are well known; the Gilgameslr figure Enkidu, the bull man and companion of Gilgainesh in Mesopotamian exploits, dockyard and terracotta imprints on ships and seals, segmented beads at Lothal resembling those of the sea-faring Crcton community in the Mediterranean, reference to the Indian basin as Meiuha by the Mesopotamians, and so on.
This view was criticized on several grounds. Despite these links, the Indus people never learnt anything crucial for their development and survival from the Sumerians, as for example the irrigation system and the superior artefacts of the Sumerians. More important is the fact that the Indus script has no likeness to any of the scripts of West Asia including
Sumeria. The only thing that is proved is the West Asian contact of Indus Valley people, but not the West Asian contact being at the root of the Indus Valley civilization is primarily a steatite civilization, whereas only a few beads of steatite are found in Sumeria.
E) View of Ghosh and others:
Ghosh and others (1965) view that the emergence of the Harappari civilization was a local development within the Indus Valley.
- Many traits of the Harappans have their prototypes in the earlier village cultures known as pre-Harappan. The evidence of the lower Indus Valley explicitly indicates a long indigenous agricultural and technological preamble to the Harappan civilization.
- The grid pattern of town planning was not present at that time in West Asia. .The development of sophisticated trade with West Asia implies that the Harappan urban areas had also developed very high quality manufactured goods, which must have taken a very long time. Recent archaeological evidence shows continuity of the several pre-Harappan features into the mature Harappan phase.
- Furthermore, the continues occupation such as the Chanhu-Daro, which is the beadmakers colony, shows the continuity of the civilization .In other words, the Harappan civilization can be seen as the transformation of the indigenous folk and peasant societies into a primary civilization.
- More important is the spread of this civilization the major cities with facilities for storage, trade, exchange, etc,, cannot be remain static in their needs and population. This logically leads to tire need for spreading out. Such a spread out must have called for means for organization. In other words, tire spread of Harappan system to the neighbouring areas could neither colonization nor political expansion as the permeation of the socio-economic and socio-cultural systems of Harappan society into other areas. As the Harappan cultural system spread, tire peasant areas became a part of the redistributional urban economy. Even after the disappearance of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, the Harappan socio-cultural .traditions and style of life remained preserved in tire villages and small towns, and many features of the Harappan society came to the preserved through later India .
Summary:
There are diverse views about the origins of Harappan civilization. The earlier views that the Harappan civilization originated from West Asia cannot be accepted now in view of its individualistic features.
- Fair Service and Wheeler argue that Harappan civilization had drawn its features from the city life in West Africa through had contacts.
- Casal viewed that the source of Harappan culture is the Amri culture.
- Muhammed Rafique viewed that Harappan civilization originated from Sumer.
- But Ghosh and others explained that Harappan civilization had its local origins.