In a new book, Devdutt Pattanaik argues that the Harappan civilisation persists in our memories

Culture is eventually about people: their cravings and insecurities. Bound by rules of credit and debit, Harappans did not hoard. They shunned conflict, resisted new ideas, feeling safe within walls, gates and courtyards, with their seals. Clan rivalries festered – with status demonstrated using beads and bangles. Not everything was about economics (artha) and politics (dharma) though. There was the pleasure (kama) of spicy food, of colourful clothes, maybe song and dance, even if consumption meant more debt – a warning given by sages meditating under the peepul tree.

Mothers or goddesses

In the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, many clay figurines of bejewelled women have been found. The images are rather crude, perhaps part of a domestic ritual ceremony, like the present-day vrata. Most clay images are female, in direct contrast to the virile male animals found on seals.

The head and trunk are amplified more than the hands and feet. But you get a sense of how the women adorned themselves. The women have elaborate headdresses, beaded chokers and necklaces, bangles, beaded girdles. Was this fashion or ritualistic, like “shringar” of Hinduism – meant to be auspicious and attract good luck and fortune? In Harappan graves, copper mirrors were found with women only.

The earliest such images have been found in Mehrgarh. There too the women have elaborate hairstyles and headdresses, accentuated breasts, feet together. Emphasis on a woman’s role in reproduction using jewellery (attracting the male) and enhanced breasts (nourishing the child) does suggest importance placed on fertility in an age of high maternal and infant mortality rates.

Apart from being mother figures, could these also be goddesses? In the Helmand basin of Afghanistan-Iran, burial sites reveal women with button seals, designs of which are different from button seals buried with men. They clearly had roles related to the manufacture of goods, beyond domestic responsibilities.

Why a dancer

A 10 cm tall bronze statue of a young girl made using the lost wax technique was found in Mohenjo-daro. She wears no clothes, but has many bangles around her left arm, a few around the right, three beads around her neck, an elaborate hairstyle, and a confident stance.

Her stance reminded British archaeologists of nautch girls they had encountered in India, so they described her as a “dancing-girl” though there is nothing about her posture that suggests dance. This is how the male gaze, the colonial male gaze, works. The name has stuck.

Her features seem Afrocentric and so her roots could be the First Indians, the earliest migrants into India 50,000 years ago from Africa. It must be kept in mind that the Rakhigarhi skeleton’s DNA indicated a connection with India’s tribal population.

A second figure, now in Karachi, was also discovered in Mohenjo-daro, but is of inferior craftsmanship, does not have the same relaxed pose, but does have one arm folded at the hip. The same stance is seen in a potsherd recovered from Birhanna. Clearly there is a deeper meaning to the woman’s stance that escapes us. The other hand holds a vessel – is it an offering for a deity, food for her family, or food for herself?

Not a king or priest

A 17 cm tall steatite image of a bearded man, with no moustache, half-closed eyes, and a shawl over his left shoulder, was found in Mohenjo-daro. He has a round medallion tied to his forehead and his arm, revealing the fish-eye inlay motif. The shawl has a trifoliate pattern. It was probably painted with a blue-green base and red flower patterns, like the palash (flame of the forest) tree. The hollow socket had inlay eyes. It is conventionally identified as “priest-king”.

We do not have the lower half of his image, but a 65 cm tall headless bust of a man with a shawl on his left shoulder has been found in Dholavira. He sits in the typical Harappan posture: with left knee up and right knee on the ground. Similar images of a head and of a headless torso have been found in Helmand culture. They look similar to bearded images found in Oxus culture. All these images come from the final phase of Harappan cities, and seem to have been vandalized.

Was this a foreign ruler? Why is the same image found in these faraway places that were important trade routes? That the “priest-king” appears around the time that “falcon” seals from Oxus appear indicates a shift in the balance of power, a waning of old Harappan systems.

Excerpted with permission from Ahimsa: 100 Reflections on the Harappan Civilization, Devdutt Pattanaik, HarperCollins India.