Jérôme Seregni

The purpose of this research is founded upon trying to find out and explain, by assimilation and by comparison, the particular meaning of some images that appear on the so-called Indus seals from the Early-Harappan-Mature-Harappan Transition during second and third millennia B.C.

I will mainly concentrate on one image to then spread out. We understand that the meaning is interpretative, and thus, potential, that every effort that was made by different scholars in attempting a veritable description could be fallacious and purely speculative. And since we don’t possess (not yet at least) any Rossetta Stone for the deciphering of the Indus script, that it could show and demonstrate a bilingual approach to the language used, we need to focus on other methods of research.

In saying that, I am assuming that the interpretation of the images cannot be subordinate and independent from the script that is shown near the images, even though it is clear, that not necessarily the script is an explanation, or a clarification of the depicted scenes.

The former doubtful and unclear idea is just a hypothesis, and we can see some texts on seals without any images as we can also see that many pictograms are the same but with different scenes.

So, we have a dual approach in attempting to explain what those images and texts are and mean, and what their use was (supposing that their use was not merely aesthetic).

Difficult is, for the purpose and brevity of this writing to make an attempt to decipher the Indus script, even though some logograms and pictograms will have to be explained because of the close relation with some academic interpretation

Seals impressions or amulets?

First, we need to understand the usage of these small objects.

They are typically square and rectangular, 2 to 3 centimeters on a side, but with lots of exceptions available. The main theory is that they were stamp seals, since the common view is to associate them with the wide culture of seals found in Mesopotamia. We know that the earliest stamp seals (5500 B.C.) were discovered at Hassura, in Mesopotamia, and were used “for impressing the marks of identification or authority on wet clay and also for sealing the sales of goods.” (Sharma 2000)

But maybe “they may not have been as part of a sealed-based administration”, because the number of seals impressions is very small. “There are only four seals impressions from Mohenjo-daro, one from Harappa” and others in Lothal found in the warehouse.

But these are impressions on “lamps of clay that preserve the imprint of a package, jar or other material indicating that the intent was to seal something” (Possehl)

It is then to suppose that two kinds of seals were produced, the ones made for impressions and the ones made for other purposes.

But let’s have a clearer view. If they were impressions “on a piece of clay or other substance that had been attached to a jar or other article of merchandise, of the kind so well known at other ancient sites, where they were fastened to the object to be sealed by means of a chord, or else they bear traces on their backs of some fabric to which they were once attached” (Mackay 1931), why there were no founding of them at Mohenjo-daro, that is considered one of the largest, and thus main cities (together with Harappa) of the development of this civilization?

We have here that these seals were used with other intentions that could have been as amulets for religion purposes and believes; as marks for an identification of some kind, and as having to do with wear, because they were clearly “not used to make any impression” (Possehl), but they rather suggest they were “wrapped in cloth (or other material)”.

So, perhaps, their usage was for some kind of identification because “the seal itself, not the impression, was shown. It identified, or gave some form of legitimacy, to the bearer.” (Possehl)

Some seals were also found near fire-altars and supposed worshipped places (Kalibangan, Banawali) to specify their use for some rituals.

Scholars like Hrozny believed that the seals were amulets with the main aim to protect the owner from the dangerous animals, and the inscriptions contained names, not of the owner, but of the “deities to whom these amulets had been dedicated and whose protection the owner craved” (Hrozny, 1943).

Other people, like Punekar, states that they were objects of “desire”, used to obtain favors from the gods.

In general, their quality in proportion of their huge number, can suggest that there was “a widespread appreciation of art and high-quality craftsmanship” (Possehl). That there were maybe experienced people capable of producing them and so, a supposition that a school of artisans were moving and traveling from and to Mesopotamia and the Near East along the trade routs.

“Several different native Harappan-type seals have been discovered in several sites in the Near East and were probably transported there from the Indus Valley. Some other Indus seals, found in Ur, Susa, etc., were undoubtedly locally made, for although they bear Indus script and/or iconography motifs that are clearly of that inspiration.” (Parpola 1994)

In the relation with the Near East is very likely that merchants “saw how their western colleges used writing to draw up contract and to register the goods.” (Parpola 1994)

Several seals found in Mesopotamia show some typical Indus representation, like the rhinoceros, that is totally unknown in Mesopotamian iconography and geography. And also, style and techniques were proved to be alien to Sumerian seal-cutters, and therefore, some clear influence on the artistic production may well suggest the “existence of a local Indian industry in Mesopotamia, or, at least, in connection with Mesopotamia” (Chakrabarti quoting Corbiau 1990)

The Proto-Siva seal

The motif showing a sitting person with heels touching and facing each other, with two horns in the head as crown, and perhaps three faces, is one of the most famous Indus seals.

Sir John Marshall, one of the pioneer archaeologists in the area, interpreted the figure as a god sitting in position as a yoga practitioner, believed to be a forerunner representation of Siva. That’s why this image is also called Proto-Siva.

An iconographic analysis shows that his arms are covered by bangles, that he is surrounded by animals: rhinoceros, elephant, tiger and buffalo on his side, and two quadrupeds (antelopes?) beneath him, that the “lower limbs are bare and the phallus seemingly exposed, but is possible that what appear to be the phallus is in reality the end of the waistband”(Possehl), and that sometime he has star signs and fishes on his side, both as script and as animal image.

This figure is also called with other names of Siva, like Mahayogy, because sitting in a meditative yoga way, and like Pasupati, lord of the animals.

The central idea that this figure is assumed to be a god, and specially a male god, is not at all founded. In fact, the same meditative position, but with rather clearly female attributes, is seen in another image also found at Mohenjo-daro.

Perhaps, on Marshall assumptions, this representation is based on a religious Indian philosophy called Sankhya Darshan or Shaktism, where sexual dualism is primarily concerned as unity, and the main character, Shakti, or energy, acts as a manifestation of both god and his wife as dual demonstration of a divine unity.

And thus, the image is seen through dual aspect: phallus (“lingam”) and typical female bracelets (supposed to be “yoni-ring stones” associated with the vulva), as the one maybe resembled in the arms of “the dancing girl” statuette excavated at Mohenjo-daro.

This open interpretation leads to discussion of whether or not a Mother Goddess culture and worship was followed, and of why the evidence is not so clear in that seal or in any other seal, if this was the case.

The fact that many female terracotta figurines were found, immediately accept the assumption that a certain link with all the Mother Goddess cults of West Asia existed in the Indus valley too. And this is difficult to reject, especially for the iconic resemblance of the fan-shaped head-dress and the heavy jewelry around the belt and the neck that is seen in other female religious figures around the continent, like in the Syrio-Cretan ones. (Mode 1961) But, again, there are only few clear feminine images in the seals, and they seem to be associated with tree cults and worship or are half animal half human as Parpola believe. But on that, I will come later.

Anyway, Karmarkar (1945) suggests that this god and the cult practices related to “phallic worship and human sacrifice” are of pre-Aryan origin, and the Aryans adopted the already existent Dravidian religion.

What seen obvious though, is that we’re dealing with an anthropomorphic figure sitting on a simple throne with horns on the top of the head. And so, it is believed to be a god/goddess or a very important image or personality.

But who represents it? Is he really Siva? We have different hypotheses.

Marshall thought on a resemblance with Siva because of four main things:

– The three faces

– The horns of a bull

– The yoga position

– The fact that he is surrounded by animals

All these things are true, but only in regard of a Siva medieval representation.

The Vedic god that was later assimilated to Siva is Rudra.

The Rudra of the Rigveda is a fearful god and is associated with lightening and storms. He was malignant with men and animal by hitting them with his arrows. But then, through the pass of time his personality changed towards a benevolent god, as a god of “earth powers”, as a protector of men and animals. And this change of being is shown with consistent prayers appeals asking regard and care for the cattle, and thus his derivate name as “lord of the cattle”.

In the Shri Rudram Chamakam prayer from the Vedic text we can see the identification of Rudra with Siva.

And it is in the Mahabharata that Siva is perceived both in regard of his exposed and erect phallus and worshipped as Lord of the yonis, or “the commander of genital faculties of all living ones”, and in regard of his three faces or heads, as Trishira or Chaturmukha. The nude Siva cult was expressed in the Urddh-ling icons that dominated Shaivite sculptural art, and his cult as a multiple-headed divinity was at times conceived with four or five heads that symbolized many things: the passage of time from present to future all that is timeless and perishable, the four cardinal’s directions, etc.

So, we have the similarity of the two gods, both represented tricephalic and with the presence of beasts. There exists a little dispute on the difference between cattle and wild animals, and the Pasupati seal is clearly non-surrounded by cattle.

Another important factor of the iconography of the seal are the horns on the head.

Hiltebeitel and Parpola believe the horns are those of a water buffalo.

Horns were common zoomorphic symbols for anthropomorphic gods of ancient religions; they represented high hierarchical positions and warrior power. Just remember the Egyptians Isis and Hathor, the Celt Cernunnos and the Inca Pachacamac to have a few names that are related with strength, virility and fertility.

But the fact that these horns are of a water buffalo can also lean to another hypothesis. The one that is related to associate the Pasupati god with a proto tradition of the Demon-Buffalo God, Mahisha who was defeated by the Warrior-Goddess Durga in a symbolic battle between evil and good that is represented in early images of Kusana times around the first centuries AD.

Many seals of the Indus culture show evidence of humans fighting with buffalos, and so, a close relation that people of that region had with that particular animal is interesting. Even today the water buffalo is a very widespread domestic animal in South-East Asia and for many villages in India is considered the only vehicle of resource as transport of goods.

In Early Harappan pots, as the famous ones excavated from Kot Dijian and from Padri, we can see evidence where the buffalo horns are prefigured in detail. And even though it seems clear of its features, some scholars, like Sharma (2000), believe is a bull head-horn representation rather than a buffalo one. And from this dilemma we will recall Parpola interpretations.

Evidence of worship

Parpola draws a parallel between Harappan and Near Eastern art. The first comparison is that of a man, or a hero, fighting with a lion and a bull, so common in Mesopotamian imaginary (following perhaps a representation of the Gilgamesh epic).

Those two animals are opposed as “antithetical cosmic forces, such as heat and cold, fire and water, light and darkness, life and death (…) and represent the endless struggle between the forces of nature” (Parpola 1994).

Well, in some Harappan seals, the lion and the bull are converted in tiger and buffalo, and this may be due to the fact that they were more present in the local fauna of the Indus Valley.

The bull is perhaps one of the most sacred and represented animals of the entire iconography of the ancient religions of Asia and Near East, and its fame lasted until the first centuries of the Christian era with the spread of Mithraism in the Roman Empire.

So, it seems impossible to deny an influence over western Asiatic civilizations. A Proto-Elamite seal from Susa of a sitting bull with legs bent double together, was probably a model for the Proto-Siva yogic god, not only for his posture, but also because he “wears the horns of a water buffalo, a formidable beast which is the natural enemy of the tiger. Both tiger and bull are among the wild animals which are depicted actually opposing each other.” (Parpola 1994)

Another important commentary of this finish scholar is that the substitution of the water buffalo for the bull, starts to appear in Mesopotamia after Saragon’s time (2334-2279 BC), founder of the Akkadian dynasty, and that found cuneiform inscriptions relates of how boats from Meluhha travel to Akkad bringing “rare and exotic animal as royal gifts” (Parpola 1994). In fact, the association between water buffalo and the Mesopotamic Water-God Enki, is witness in Akkadian cylinder seals of the 2200 BC, and in literary texts from 2000 BC called “Enki and the world order”, where it is written: “He crossed to the land of Meluhha. Enki, the king of the Sweet-Water Ocean, decrees its fate…”

It is most likely thus, that sea trade merchants were influenced upon these myths and representations.

The star and the fish

To Parpola conclusions, there is a connection between the Water Buffalo horns and the Water-God Enki. Obviously, there is a continuity of symbols that are manifested through a close relation in between two cultures.

The discussion if whether the Indus script was Proto-Indo-European or Dravidian is for him resolved in the iconographic analysis of the Pasupati god. At first glance, it appears clear, that in every representation the sign of a fish, or what it seems to be a fish, is shown on the side of the god, both as an animal and as a logo inscription.

There is a tendency to doubt the reality of this fish. Perhaps it could be the evolution of a word, or the evolution of an ideogram that has a smashing coincidence with the image of a fish. But and I agree with Parpola, if the people who drew this sign wanted to mean something other than a fish, why they didn’t look for another representation? It cannot be a pure coincidence of realities.

A series of intuitions will give strength to the conclusion that image it is certainly a fish. But why? What is its meaning?

In Dravidian language the homophony of the word min, meaning both fish and star, is another matter of fact that it cannot reflect a mere coincidence.

The fish is a very popular motif in Harappa pottery and not surprisingly is shown many times surrounded by stars. This aquatic animal has connotations of fertility, and thus of divinity. This symbol, as the bull, was extremely spread over Asiatic religions and cults, and even if sometimes its origin is obscured to us, we cannot reject the theory that all myths have continuity in many different cultures. That mythology was a process of recognition for different religions as a way of communication. We can, in fact, see the fish as a symbol of Christ in the early Christian iconography, and depicted in many Mesoamericans pottery. It acts in many cases as a personification of a priest or a king as a divinity, like the anthropomorphic Enki, shown in a relief of Assurnasirpal II from Calah, as half-fish, half-man.

And it is through Enki as a Water-God, that Parpola creates a continuity of gods to interpret the Proto-Siva image.

He believes in Mesopotamian and Indian parallels. He can see through a comparative iconography a relation between stars, fishes and buffalos in both cultures.

Central is the image of an Indus-style cylinder seal of unknown Near Eastern origin now in the Louvre Museum, where all these elements are shown together in perfect harmony.

We can also notice that many figures have a star symbol on either side of their head as proof of their divinity, and the Proto-Siva makes no exception.

And even the connection of water with the fish makes believe that that god it can be associated with Varuna and Kama. (Parpola 1994)

Varuna is also a Water-god and was often called “lord of the aquatic creatures” in the Vedas, because he lived in the ocean and was riding a “sea monster”, a shark or a crocodile (and we have an Harappan seal showing a crocodile eating a fish and another with the yogic god flanked by crocodiles and fishes), the Makara.

And another deity, Kama, the god of love and desire, was equated with Varuna, because he was also riding a fish.

It is not to exclude, therefore, that all these suggestions of names could have been for recognition for astral divinities, for the association of gods with planets, having a cosmological vision of myths and heavenly bodies. Due to the wide subject that it could relate Harappan civilization with astronomy, we cannot, in this brief article, cover the interesting connection and the “irrefutable proof of this practice by the Indus people”. (Parpola 1994)

Tree spirits

Another famous seal image is the so-called “fig-deity” from Moenjho-daro.

The iconography of this seal is rather important to discover and understand Harappan religion.

We had clear evidence of fish, water buffalo and astral worship related to anthropomorphic gods. We have now also evidence of a female goddess cult to all the previous mentioned symbols.

Proceeding in a description, according to Parpola, we see one female figure with long hair bound at the back standing inside of what it seems to be a fig tree. An anthropomorphic goat-head person is prostrated in front of her with a buffalo, perhaps as donating the animal as a sacrifice.

On the bottom of the image, we have seven female figures with long hair also tied back and wearing skirts. Perhaps the fact that the female within the tree doesn’t have a skirt, suggest that she may be naked.

Leaving on the side the interpretation of who these figure are (Parpola suggest a proto cult of Durga and the seven mothers related to her, or the Pleiades/mothers/attendants of the birth of the War-God Rudra/Skanda), what interests us is the various links that we see through the image in relation to the previous conclusions.

First, we can see again bracelets on the arms of all the female figures, and that is clearly a sign of divinity. And bracelets and rings are also closely connected with fertility, pregnancy and reproduction.

The goddess within a tree has a “leafy branch worn in the horn crown”, and bangles and leaf crowns “suggests that the Harappan deities were, among other things, tree spirits worshipped for offspring” (Parpola 1994)

The tree, and specially the fig tree, is a very important symbol for Indian religion. There is a Harappan terracotta tablet showing a deity with bangles inside a tree with two stars on its sides.

We find it associated with many rites and with many gods (Yama/Varuna) and is also used in later Hindu imaginary and in Buddhist art of Mauyrian times. The yakshi spirits were standing on trees, and were manifested as female figures connected with fertility, and Maya, Buddha’s mother, was represented giving birth to his son in holding on a branch of a sacred tree.

So, we have a clear continuity of cults relationships, between symbols with same traditions. The trees, the star, the fish and the water buffalo were all important aspects for the Harappan people.

Conclusion

To conclude the research, I would like to briefly focus on the resemblance of the Pasupati image with a detail of the God Cernunnos in the Celtic Gundestrup Cauldron.

Obviously, this apparent amazing similarity was not unnoticed.

Many scholars tried to give an origin to the Celtic figure, but the truth is far unknown. Iconographical analysis considered many aspects, like the snake, to be purely of Thracian art. What is clear, though, is that different artists worked on the Cauldron and that a connection between some Celtic tribes, like the Scordiscans, and Thracian tribes, like the Triballians, existed when they once lived together and shared religious concepts.

Cernunnos was the Lord of the animals, and that’s why he is sourranded by beasts on the image, but probably the figure is a representation of the Thracian singer Orpheus whose voice enchanted animals.

Perhaps his horns could demonstrate an influence of the gods Hermes or Mercury with some Thracian equivalent.

Anyway, the fact is that same representations of images and gods are seen, that a continuity of myths and cults existed perhaps even between India and Denmark, the place where the Cauldron was found.

Bibliography

–        Atre Shubhangana, Harappan Religion: Myth and Polemics.

–    Coningham R.A.E., Deciphering the Indus Script.

–        Chakrabarti, The external trade of the Indus civilization. 1990.

–        Hrozny B., Ancient History of Western Asia and Crete.

–        Olmsted G.,The Gundestrup Cauldron. 1979.

–        Parpola A., Deciphering the Indus script. 1994.

–        Possehl, Ecological backgrounds of South Asian Prehistory.

–        Punekar, S.M., Mohenjodaro seals.1984.

–        Thracian tales on the Gundestrup Cauldron. Kaul, Marazov, Best and De Vries. 1991.

–        Tylor, T., The Gundestrup Cauldron.

–    Sharma, D. P., Harappan seals, sealings and copper tablets.  2000