Various aspects of Harappan Civilisation

Town Planning

Harappan civilisation features very impressive and very well-planned structures of the towns.

• Settlement pattern– The whole town was divided into two parts – Citadel and a lower town.
  • Citadel was built higher than the lower town and could have housed the important people in the city – wealthy traders, rulers and priests. In comparison, the lower town housed ordinary people.
  • Both parts of the town were built on a raised platform. The whole city was fortified with burnt brick walls.

(Source 12^th NCERT: Themes in World History)

• Roads-
  • Roads were in a grid-like pattern crisscrossing each other at 90 degrees.
  • There was often a provision of a street light at the crossings.
  • Houses were built in a grid pattern on either side of the roads.
  • The roads were wide, having a drain on their side.
• Houses –
  • People used burnt bricks to build houses with a fixed proportion of 4:2:1 (Length: width: Height).
  • Each house had a drawing room, bedroom, kitchen, a spacious veranda, a bathroom and a well nearby.
  • Houses were provided with doors & small windows, and a high compound wall.
  • Wastewater was drained out into the main drain of the town.
  • Evidence of more than one-storied building has been found.

A Typical house in Mohenjodaro

(Source 12^th NCERT: Themes in World History)

 

• Drainage pattern-
  • The kitchen and bathroom had drains leading out of each house which was connected to the big drain outside the house.
  • Drains were provided on either side of the roads, lined with burnt bricks and covered on the top. Inspection holes were provided for regular cleaning. These drains generally terminated in a big well outside the city.
• Granaries –
  • Cities generally had brick structures used for storing grains, built on a massive brick foundation and a raised platform to prevent it from flooding.
  • It generally was the largest building in the town. In Harappa, it consisted of two rows of six rooms with a central passageway. Lothal and Mohenjodaro, too, had large granaries.
  • Had platforms for the thrashing of crops and rooms for housing labour.

Society

Various discoveries from the sites throw light on the social structure of the Harappan society –

• No evidence of imperialism: The power gap between the oligarchs and the commoners cannot be too huge as we cannot find any evidence of dynastic politics or larger-than-life kings. Unlike the other ancient civilisations of the world, the Harappan civilisation showed remarkable equality.
• Two levels in towns – The discovery of the citadel and lower town suggest that there were two classes of people in Harappan society – the oligarchy (group of rulers, wealthy merchants or priests) and the working class. Important buildings like citadels and granaries existed in the upper part of the town.
• Joint Family: Multiple rooms suggest a Joint family being common.
• Different construction techniques for ‘elite’ Buildings – Harappans had three tiers of habitation — ‘common settlements’ with mud brick walls, ‘elite settlements’ with burnt brick walls alongside mud brick walls, and possible ‘middle-rung settlements.
• High level of standardisation – The presence of seals, standardisation of artefacts, and use of uniform weights hints toward the existence of a central authority regulating various economic activities.
• The difference in Burial pattern – Some burials had hollowed-out spaces within the burial chamber, lined with bricks and had luxury items buried along with them, while many burials were simple.
• Equality between men and women – Jewellery was found buried with the dead in the burials of both men and women, which indicated equality between men and women.
• The difference in artefacts – The discovery of rare and common artefacts suggests two class types of people were using them. 
  • Objects of daily use –
    • Made of ordinary materials, stone & clay, found distributed throughout the settlement.
    • It included querns, pottery, needles, flesh rubbers etc.
    • The copper and bronze ware included tools, weapons, ornaments and vessels.
  • Luxury Items – are either rare or made from costly, non-local materials or with complicated technologies.
    • Lapiz Lazuli(blue stone from Afghanistan) contributed to the social prestige of the ruling class.
    • Such items are distributed well in large sites such as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa but were rarely found in smaller settlements such as Kalibangan.
    • Gold was rare and was probably precious – all the gold jewellery found at Harappan sites was recovered from hoards.

Religion

• A predominantly secular society: Although we have found some religious symbols, such as the Pashupati seal and Mother Goddess, these don’t point to a predominantly religious society. This is because we have not found elaborate religious structures such as temples as those found in Egypt or Mesopotamia.  
• No temples: Not many buildings in the Indus valley can be attributed to temple worship or dedicated to ritualism. However, structures like ‘the Great bath’ of Mohenjo-Daro could have been used for religious purposes. Despite this, few theories on deity worship have been developed.
• The Proto Shiva theory: John Marshall put forward the first study of the religion of the Harappan civilisation.  
  • He tried to point out similarities between the Harappan religion and later-day Hinduism through the proto-Shiva seal.
  • In the ‘Pashupati Seal’, there is a man with two large horns. The animals surrounding him are similar to the Pashupati form of Shiva. John Marshall considered it as an early form of Shiva called mahayogi.
  • Some cylindrical stones similar to Shiva Linga were also found in Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

• Mother goddess:
  • Among several female figurines discovered at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, Marshall pointed out the One with a fan-shaped headdress, wearing a bead necklace and short skirt to be a mother goddess. She represents the mother or nature goddess.
  • There is a terracotta figure from Harappa; a plant is shown out of the womb representing the fertility power of the goddess.
  • This suggests that the mother-goddess cult was prevalent in a few areas.
• Phallus worship: There is evidence of phallus worship in the Indus valley civilisation as evident by the discovery of Male Yoni in several places like Harappa.
• Fire Altars: The discovery of fire altars in a few places suggests the existence of a sacrificial ritual in the Harappan cultures.
• The sacredness of Pipal trees: One seal depicts seven figures paying obeisance to the pipal tree. A horned figure stands on the tree. Some scholars argue that this scene is reminiscent of later-day Saptmatrikas (a group of seven mother-goddesses). Some even identify the figures as sapt-rishis.  

Source 

• Burials: Burials show a great deal of difference in different sites of the Harappa. The dead were buried with pottery, ornaments and other artefacts, indicating a belief in the existence of an after life.
• Mohenjo-Daro – has burials within the settlement.
• Harappa, Kalibangan, Lothal, Dholavira and Rakhigarhi had separate cemeteries.
• Dholavira – has some evidence of megaliths, but these are mostly symbolic burials.
• Rakhigarhi- in the cemetery, the female burials often had more burial goods than the male burials.