Arts and Crafts
The Harappans were expert craftsmen. They made beads of carnelian, agate, amethyst, turquoise, lapis lazuli, etc. ; they manufactured bangles out of shells, glazed faience and terracotta ; they carved ivory and worked shells into ornaments, bowls and ladles ; they cast copper (which they mined themselves in Baluchistan and Rajasthan) and bronze for weapons, all types of tools, domestic objects and statues (such as the famous “dancing girl”) ; they also worked silver and gold with great skill, specially for ornaments. Of course, they baked pottery in large quantity — to the delight of archaeologists, since the different shapes, styles, and painted motifs are among the best guides in the evolution of any civilization (let us remember that most objects made of cloth, wood, reed, palm leaves etc., usually vanish without a trace, especially in hot climates). We also know that the Harappans excelled at stone-carving, complex weaving and carpet-making, inlaid woodwork and decorative architecture. And, of course, they engraved with remarkable artistry their famous seals, mostly in steatite (or soapstone) ; those seals, over 3,000 of which have been found, seem to have served various purposes : some commercial, to identify consignments to be shipped, and some ritual or spiritual, to invoke deities.
Dancing, painting, sculpture, and music (there is evidence of drums and of stringed instruments) were all part of their culture. Possibly drama and puppet shows too, judging from a number of masks. Statues are not abundant, but refined, whether in stone, bronze or terracotta. An ancestor of the game of chess has been unearthed at Lothal. Children too were not forgotten, judging from the exquisite care with which toys were fashioned.
A probable ancestor of the game of chess (in terracotta, from Lothal).
Trade, Shipping, Agriculture & Technology
In addition to a considerable internal trade in metals, stones and all kinds of goods, the Harappans had a flourishing overseas trade with Oman, Bahrain, and Sumer ; exchanges with the Sumerians went on for at least seven centuries, and merchant colonies were established in Bahrain and the Euphrates-Tigris valley. Of course, none of this would have been possible without high skills in ship-making and sailing, and several representations of ships have been found on seals, while many massive stone anchors have come up at Lothal and other sites of Saurashtra. For navigation, compasses carved out of conch shells appear to have been used to measure angles between stars. A voyage from Lothal to Mesopotamia to sell the prized Harappan carnelian beads, which the kings and queens of Ur were so fond of, meant at least 2,500 kilometres of seafaring ; of course there would have been halts along the shore on the way, but still, 4,500 years ago this must have ranked among the best sailing abilities.
The other, perhaps the chief mainstay of Harappan prosperity was agriculture. It was practised on a wide scale, with hundreds of rural settlements and extensive networks of canals for irrigation ; wheat, barley, rice, a number of vegetables, and cotton were some of the common crops. Mehrgarh, for instance, shows “a veritable agricultural economy solidly established as early as 6000 BC.”[10] Kalibangan even yielded a field ploughed with two perpendicular networks of furrows, in which higher crops (such as mustard) were grown in the spaced-out north-south furrows, thus casting shorter shadows, while shorter crops (such as gram) filled the contiguous east-west furrows. As B. B. Lal has shown, this is a technique still used today in the same region.
Any society capable of town-planning, shipping, refined arts and crafts, writing, sustained trading, necessarily has to master a good deal of technology. This was also the case here. Craftsmen often used standardized tools and techniques, especially for the more complex productions. A highly standardized system of stone weights, unique in the ancient world, was found not only throughout the Harappan settlements, but also two thousand years later in the first kingdoms of the Ganga plains. (The weights were mostly cubes, but sometimes also truncated spheres.) The first seven weights in the system followed a geometrical progression, with ratios of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8 : 16 (by which time the weight had reached 13.7g) : 32 : 64, after which the increments switched to a decimal system and went 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000 and 12,800. The largest weight found in Mohenjo-daro is 10,865 grams. Now, if you divide its corresponding ratio of 12,800 by the ratio 16, you get 800 ; multiply this figure by the weight of 13.7 g found for the 16th ratio, and you get a theoretical weight of 10,960g — a difference of only 95g with the actual weight, or less than 0.9% ! I don’t think the weights used today in our markets reach such precision, not to speak of those traders who get their weights tailor-made !
In fact, the Harappans very much seem to be the inventors of the first decimal system for measurement. Their town-planning, which makes much use of geometry, partly relied on this decimal system. Let me quote from S. R. Rao, an Indian archaeologist famous for his excavations at Lothal and his undersea discoveries at Dwaraka and Poompuhar ; he comments here on an ivory scale found at Lothal, engraved with nearly thirty divisions regularly spaced every 1.704 mm :
But however impressive those technological achievements may be (and there are many others), we should remember that they were not separate activities, but always blended with the cultural life of the Harappan world. As Kenoyer remarks,
Symbols of Indus religion and culture were incorporated into pottery, ornaments and everyday tools in a way that helped to unite people within the urban centers and link them with distant rural communities.[12]
Government and Social Evolution
What we have seen so far, and very briefly, is only the most visible features of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. The internal and external mechanics of such a society are infinitely complex, and will no doubt keep archaeologists racking their brains for some more time. For example, while a few of them see the Harappan political organization as an empire, with Mohenjo-daro as the seat of the emperor and a number of “governors” in the regional capitals, others are in favour of regional states, in view of the difficulty posed by a single central authority over such vast distances without our modern communications. Those regional states would have had identities of their own (as evidenced from regional variations in arts and crafts), but they would all have been united by a common culture, and also by a common language (regardless of possible regional dialects). B. B. Lal, for instance, brings a parallel between the Harappan society and the Sixteen States or Mahajanapadas of later Buddhist times. This hypothesis is strengthened by the lack of any glorification or even representation of rulers on the seals ; even the few sculptures of human figures found at Mohenjo-daro cannot be said to represent rulers with any great certainty.
Whatever the truth may be, a few clear points stand out and meet with general agreement :
Thirdly, archaeologists now agree that the origins of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization are to be found on the subcontinent itself. It no doubt had extensive cultural and commercial contacts with other civilizations, but its identity was distinct. In the words of Jim G. Shaffer, a U.S. archaeologist who has worked on many Indus sites :
But let us not forget that no society can survive long without a culture to cement its members together and make their lives meaningful. The very fact that the Indus-Valley civilization was able to hold together for three millennia (if we include its early phase), over an immense stretch of land, and with all the signs of social harmony and stability, shows that it must have had a deep and strong culture as its foundation. Let us now try to catch a glimpse of it.
The Aryan Problem
The relationship of the Indus-Saraswati civilization with the later Indian civilization remains a subject of debate. Most of you probably learned at school that the Harappan towns were destroyed by semi-barbarian Aryans rushing down from Central Asia on their horse chariots, and that the survivors among their inhabitants, assumed to have been Dravidians, were driven to South India by the invaders. Passages from the Rig-Veda were twisted and sometimes mistranslated to show a record of such a physical and cultural clash. In many respects, this is still the “official” theory, although, since the 1960s, when the U.S. archaeologist G. F. Dales demolished all supposed evidence of such attacks and slaughter, the theory has limited itself to saying that the supposed Aryans, or Indo-Aryans or Indo-Europeans, to use the present terminology, entered North India after the collapse of the Harappan civilization.
But you may be surprised to learn that most archaeologists now reject this invasion or migration theory, as they cannot find the slightest trace of it on the ground, and it is unthinkable that the supposed Aryans could have conquered most of India and imposed on it their Vedic culture without leaving any physical evidence of any sort. Even respected archaeologists of the old school of thought, such as Raymond and Bridget Allchin, now admit that the arrival of Indo-Aryans in Northwest India is “scarcely attested in the archaeological record, presumably because their material culture and life-style were already virtually indistinguishable from those of the existing population.”[14] We are very far from the bloody invasion and cultural war envisaged by Max Müller and other nineteenth-century scholars.
But even this tempered view is no longer acceptable to the “new school,” whose foundation can be said to have been laid in 1984 by Jim Shaffer. He wrote :
I could quote similar opinions from many respected Indian archaeologists such as B. B. Lal, S. R. Rao, S. P. Gupta, Dilip K. Chakrabarty, K. M. Srivastava, M. K. Dhavalikar, R. S. Bisht and others. The point is that the theory of an Aryan invasion or even migration into India finds no evidence on the ground and has no scientific basis whatsoever.
The biological evidence Kenoyer refers to relies on the detailed examination of skeletons found in Harappan settlements. Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, a U.S. expert who has extensively studied such skeletal remains, observes :
In simple terms, this means that, for science, there is no such thing as an Aryan race, or a Dravidian race for that matter. Nor is there for Indian tradition, in which the word “Arya” never meant a race, but a quality of true nobility, culture and refinement. And so, if no Aryan people invaded or entered into India, it stands to reason that the Vedic culture was also native to the subcontinent, and not an import. In fact, quite a few scholars and archaeologists today see a number of clear Vedic traits in the Harappan culture. To cite a few : the presence of fire-altars, an essential element of Vedic rituals ; the symbol of a bull engraved on hundreds of seals, a Vedic symbol par excellence ; the cult of a mother-goddess, of a Shiva-like deity, the depiction of yogic postures, and of yogis or sages (judging from his deeply contemplative appearance, the so-called “priest-king” was more likely a yogi or a rishi than a priest). The famous Unicorn and the three-headed creature, both depicted on many Indus seals, are mentioned in the Mahabharata as aspects of Krishna, as N. Jha, an Indian epigraphist, has shown. Indeed, quite a few symbols used in later Indian culture, such as the trishul or the swastika, the pipal tree or the endless-knot design, are found in the Indus-Saraswati cities. Even its town-planning with three main distinct areas is consistent with Rig-Vedic descriptions, as the Indian archaeologist R. S. Bisht has argued.[19] So are trade and shipping, also extensively mentioned in the Rig-Veda.
Moreover, let us remember the hundreds of settlements along the Sarasvati, a river praised in the Rig-Veda, which confirms again the identification between Harappans and Vedic people.
The decipherment of the Indus script would of course be the ultimate test. I will just mention here that while attempts to read some proto-Dravidian language into it have failed and are now abandoned, there has been progress among those who see the language thus written to be related to Sanskrit. N. Jha’s decipherment, proposed recently, appears to be the most promising, simple and consistent, and once a major study of it is published shortly,[20] we can expect a lively debate among scholars to decide its value.
I am not touching here on a number of related issues, such as the linguistic problem posed by a deep similarity between Sanskrit and most European languages, since the verdict of archaeological evidence is, to my mind, quite sufficient. Let me recommend to those interested a brilliant study by a young Belgian scholar and expert on India, Koenraad Elst, just published in India under the title Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate. In it, he discusses most of those issues threadbare and shows in particular that this linguistic affinity can very well be explained without any sort of Aryan invasion.
One more remark before I conclude : Archaeological evidence in no way contradicts Indian tradition, rather it broadly agrees with it (except for its chronology). Whether from North or South India, tradition never mentioned anything remotely resembling an Aryan invasion into India. Sanskrit scriptures make it clear that they regard the Vedic homeland to be the Saptasindhu, which is precisely the core of the Harappan territory. As for the Sangam tradition, it is equally silent about any northern origin of the Tamil people ; its only reference is to a now submerged island to the south of India, Kumari Kandam, and initial findings at Poompuhar show that, without our having to accept this legend literally, we may indeed find a few submerged cities along Tamil Nadu’s coast ; only more systematic explorations, especially at Poompuhar and Kanyakumari, where fishermen have long reported submerged structures, can throw more light on this tradition.
Not only Indian tradition, but a number of Indians with a far better understanding of Vedic texts than that of Western scholars, for example Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo, B. R. Ambedkar and many others, have vigorously dismissed the Aryan invasion as a groundless conjecture intended to divide Indians for colonial motives. They have correctly argued that the Indian people have no memory or record of any such outside origin, and archaeology is now increasingly confirming their insights.
Conclusion
I will end where I began. Would it be “chauvinistic” (to use a word our modern Indian intellectuals are so fond of) to attribute the greatness of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization to the Indian genius ? I do not think so. Apart from its striking cultural continuity with subsequent developments of Indian civilization, which makes up a total thread of 9,000 years, it exhibits traits typical of the Indian temperament : a bold enterprising spirit, a remarkable adaptability to changing conditions, a cultural and spiritual content in the smallest everyday activities, and, most importantly, a capacity for a broader view, without which this huge area could not have had such a cultural homogeneity free from major conflicts. Even its remarkable civic sense, so lacking in today’s India, is yet part of the Indian character ; I have observed that Indians are quite capable of it, but contrary to well-disciplined Western peoples (the British or the Germans, for instance), Indians will accept collective discipline only once their hearts have been conquered ; mere authority and rules cannot get it out of them.
All said and done, the people of the Indian subcontinent can justifiably claim this ancient civilization as a central and inspiring part of their heritage. But they should not forget to learn from it the great lesson of the cycles of birth, life, decay, and rebirth of Indian civilization, a lesson we need to keep in our minds especially at the present moment.
The Harappans were expert craftsmen. They made beads of carnelian, agate, amethyst, turquoise, lapis lazuli, etc. ; they manufactured bangles out of shells, glazed faience and terracotta ; they carved ivory and worked shells into ornaments, bowls and ladles ; they cast copper (which they mined themselves in Baluchistan and Rajasthan) and bronze for weapons, all types of tools, domestic objects and statues (such as the famous “dancing girl”) ; they also worked silver and gold with great skill, specially for ornaments. Of course, they baked pottery in large quantity — to the delight of archaeologists, since the different shapes, styles, and painted motifs are among the best guides in the evolution of any civilization (let us remember that most objects made of cloth, wood, reed, palm leaves etc., usually vanish without a trace, especially in hot climates). We also know that the Harappans excelled at stone-carving, complex weaving and carpet-making, inlaid woodwork and decorative architecture. And, of course, they engraved with remarkable artistry their famous seals, mostly in steatite (or soapstone) ; those seals, over 3,000 of which have been found, seem to have served various purposes : some commercial, to identify consignments to be shipped, and some ritual or spiritual, to invoke deities.
Dancing, painting, sculpture, and music (there is evidence of drums and of stringed instruments) were all part of their culture. Possibly drama and puppet shows too, judging from a number of masks. Statues are not abundant, but refined, whether in stone, bronze or terracotta. An ancestor of the game of chess has been unearthed at Lothal. Children too were not forgotten, judging from the exquisite care with which toys were fashioned.
A probable ancestor of the game of chess (in terracotta, from Lothal).
Trade, Shipping, Agriculture & Technology
In addition to a considerable internal trade in metals, stones and all kinds of goods, the Harappans had a flourishing overseas trade with Oman, Bahrain, and Sumer ; exchanges with the Sumerians went on for at least seven centuries, and merchant colonies were established in Bahrain and the Euphrates-Tigris valley. Of course, none of this would have been possible without high skills in ship-making and sailing, and several representations of ships have been found on seals, while many massive stone anchors have come up at Lothal and other sites of Saurashtra. For navigation, compasses carved out of conch shells appear to have been used to measure angles between stars. A voyage from Lothal to Mesopotamia to sell the prized Harappan carnelian beads, which the kings and queens of Ur were so fond of, meant at least 2,500 kilometres of seafaring ; of course there would have been halts along the shore on the way, but still, 4,500 years ago this must have ranked among the best sailing abilities.
The other, perhaps the chief mainstay of Harappan prosperity was agriculture. It was practised on a wide scale, with hundreds of rural settlements and extensive networks of canals for irrigation ; wheat, barley, rice, a number of vegetables, and cotton were some of the common crops. Mehrgarh, for instance, shows “a veritable agricultural economy solidly established as early as 6000 BC.”[10] Kalibangan even yielded a field ploughed with two perpendicular networks of furrows, in which higher crops (such as mustard) were grown in the spaced-out north-south furrows, thus casting shorter shadows, while shorter crops (such as gram) filled the contiguous east-west furrows. As B. B. Lal has shown, this is a technique still used today in the same region.
Any society capable of town-planning, shipping, refined arts and crafts, writing, sustained trading, necessarily has to master a good deal of technology. This was also the case here. Craftsmen often used standardized tools and techniques, especially for the more complex productions. A highly standardized system of stone weights, unique in the ancient world, was found not only throughout the Harappan settlements, but also two thousand years later in the first kingdoms of the Ganga plains. (The weights were mostly cubes, but sometimes also truncated spheres.) The first seven weights in the system followed a geometrical progression, with ratios of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8 : 16 (by which time the weight had reached 13.7g) : 32 : 64, after which the increments switched to a decimal system and went 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000 and 12,800. The largest weight found in Mohenjo-daro is 10,865 grams. Now, if you divide its corresponding ratio of 12,800 by the ratio 16, you get 800 ; multiply this figure by the weight of 13.7 g found for the 16th ratio, and you get a theoretical weight of 10,960g — a difference of only 95g with the actual weight, or less than 0.9% ! I don’t think the weights used today in our markets reach such precision, not to speak of those traders who get their weights tailor-made !
In fact, the Harappans very much seem to be the inventors of the first decimal system for measurement. Their town-planning, which makes much use of geometry, partly relied on this decimal system. Let me quote from S. R. Rao, an Indian archaeologist famous for his excavations at Lothal and his undersea discoveries at Dwaraka and Poompuhar ; he comments here on an ivory scale found at Lothal, engraved with nearly thirty divisions regularly spaced every 1.704 mm :
I should point out that apart from the continuance of the Indus weight system or agricultural methods into the historic period, archaeologists have often highlighted how traditional craftsmen today in Sindh, Punjab, Rajasthan or Gujarat still use techniques — in bead-making or shell-working, for instance — very similar to those evolved in Harappan times more than 4,500 years ago. Even some buildings techniques are still in use, as B. B. Lal has pointed out.
But however impressive those technological achievements may be (and there are many others), we should remember that they were not separate activities, but always blended with the cultural life of the Harappan world. As Kenoyer remarks,
Symbols of Indus religion and culture were incorporated into pottery, ornaments and everyday tools in a way that helped to unite people within the urban centers and link them with distant rural communities.[12]
Government and Social Evolution
What we have seen so far, and very briefly, is only the most visible features of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. The internal and external mechanics of such a society are infinitely complex, and will no doubt keep archaeologists racking their brains for some more time. For example, while a few of them see the Harappan political organization as an empire, with Mohenjo-daro as the seat of the emperor and a number of “governors” in the regional capitals, others are in favour of regional states, in view of the difficulty posed by a single central authority over such vast distances without our modern communications. Those regional states would have had identities of their own (as evidenced from regional variations in arts and crafts), but they would all have been united by a common culture, and also by a common language (regardless of possible regional dialects). B. B. Lal, for instance, brings a parallel between the Harappan society and the Sixteen States or Mahajanapadas of later Buddhist times. This hypothesis is strengthened by the lack of any glorification or even representation of rulers on the seals ; even the few sculptures of human figures found at Mohenjo-daro cannot be said to represent rulers with any great certainty.
Whatever the truth may be, a few clear points stand out and meet with general agreement :
Secondly, a complete absence of any evidence of armies or warfare or slaughter or man-made destruction in any settlement and at any point of time, even as regards the early phase. Not a single seal depicts a battle or a captive or a victor. True, there were fortifications and weapons (the latter rather few), but those were probably to guard against local tribes or marauders rather than against people from other cities and villages. Fortifications were also often protections against floods, and weapons must have been used mostly for hunting. So far as the archaeological record shows, major disruptions in the cities’ life were caused by natural calamities. In no other ancient civilization is warfare so absent, and over such a long period of time ; by contrast, other civilizations of the time consistently recorded and glorified war feats. And our own modern “civilization,” I need not remind you, is the bloodiest ever : a few days ago, a United Nations report lamented the existence of more than 500 million small arms in circulation — that means one gun or semi-automatic weapon for every ten of us....
Thirdly, archaeologists now agree that the origins of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization are to be found on the subcontinent itself. It no doubt had extensive cultural and commercial contacts with other civilizations, but its identity was distinct. In the words of Jim G. Shaffer, a U.S. archaeologist who has worked on many Indus sites :
The Indus-Sarasvati civilization thus represented a long indigenous evolution, spanning almost 6,000 years, and with no visible break or disruption from outside. By any standard, this is a unique achievement in human history.
But let us not forget that no society can survive long without a culture to cement its members together and make their lives meaningful. The very fact that the Indus-Valley civilization was able to hold together for three millennia (if we include its early phase), over an immense stretch of land, and with all the signs of social harmony and stability, shows that it must have had a deep and strong culture as its foundation. Let us now try to catch a glimpse of it.
The Aryan Problem
The relationship of the Indus-Saraswati civilization with the later Indian civilization remains a subject of debate. Most of you probably learned at school that the Harappan towns were destroyed by semi-barbarian Aryans rushing down from Central Asia on their horse chariots, and that the survivors among their inhabitants, assumed to have been Dravidians, were driven to South India by the invaders. Passages from the Rig-Veda were twisted and sometimes mistranslated to show a record of such a physical and cultural clash. In many respects, this is still the “official” theory, although, since the 1960s, when the U.S. archaeologist G. F. Dales demolished all supposed evidence of such attacks and slaughter, the theory has limited itself to saying that the supposed Aryans, or Indo-Aryans or Indo-Europeans, to use the present terminology, entered North India after the collapse of the Harappan civilization.
But you may be surprised to learn that most archaeologists now reject this invasion or migration theory, as they cannot find the slightest trace of it on the ground, and it is unthinkable that the supposed Aryans could have conquered most of India and imposed on it their Vedic culture without leaving any physical evidence of any sort. Even respected archaeologists of the old school of thought, such as Raymond and Bridget Allchin, now admit that the arrival of Indo-Aryans in Northwest India is “scarcely attested in the archaeological record, presumably because their material culture and life-style were already virtually indistinguishable from those of the existing population.”[14] We are very far from the bloody invasion and cultural war envisaged by Max Müller and other nineteenth-century scholars.
But even this tempered view is no longer acceptable to the “new school,” whose foundation can be said to have been laid in 1984 by Jim Shaffer. He wrote :
Kenoyer, whom I quoted earlier, concludes in his recent beautiful book :
[...] But there is no archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappan Phase, about 1900 BC and the beginning of the Early Historic period around 600 BC.[16]
I could quote similar opinions from many respected Indian archaeologists such as B. B. Lal, S. R. Rao, S. P. Gupta, Dilip K. Chakrabarty, K. M. Srivastava, M. K. Dhavalikar, R. S. Bisht and others. The point is that the theory of an Aryan invasion or even migration into India finds no evidence on the ground and has no scientific basis whatsoever.
The biological evidence Kenoyer refers to relies on the detailed examination of skeletons found in Harappan settlements. Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, a U.S. expert who has extensively studied such skeletal remains, observes :
I hope you understand the implication : No invasion or migration caused or followed the collapse of the urban phase of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization around 1900 BC. What is still taught in our textbooks about so-called Aryans is no more than imagination. The Harappans were just Northwestern Indians of the time and continued to live there even after the end of the urban phase (with some of them migrating towards the Ganga plains in search of greener pastures). In fact, archaeologists and anthropologists now reject the old notion of race altogether. To quote from Possehl’s recent book which I mentioned earlier :
(Clockwise from top left 
A terracotta figurine from Harappa, in a yoga posture;
seals depicting a Shiva-like deity, a unicorn, and a bull.
A terracotta figurine from Harappa, in a yoga posture;seals depicting a Shiva-like deity, a unicorn, and a bull.
Moreover, let us remember the hundreds of settlements along the Sarasvati, a river praised in the Rig-Veda, which confirms again the identification between Harappans and Vedic people.
The decipherment of the Indus script would of course be the ultimate test. I will just mention here that while attempts to read some proto-Dravidian language into it have failed and are now abandoned, there has been progress among those who see the language thus written to be related to Sanskrit. N. Jha’s decipherment, proposed recently, appears to be the most promising, simple and consistent, and once a major study of it is published shortly,[20] we can expect a lively debate among scholars to decide its value.
I am not touching here on a number of related issues, such as the linguistic problem posed by a deep similarity between Sanskrit and most European languages, since the verdict of archaeological evidence is, to my mind, quite sufficient. Let me recommend to those interested a brilliant study by a young Belgian scholar and expert on India, Koenraad Elst, just published in India under the title Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate. In it, he discusses most of those issues threadbare and shows in particular that this linguistic affinity can very well be explained without any sort of Aryan invasion.
One more remark before I conclude : Archaeological evidence in no way contradicts Indian tradition, rather it broadly agrees with it (except for its chronology). Whether from North or South India, tradition never mentioned anything remotely resembling an Aryan invasion into India. Sanskrit scriptures make it clear that they regard the Vedic homeland to be the Saptasindhu, which is precisely the core of the Harappan territory. As for the Sangam tradition, it is equally silent about any northern origin of the Tamil people ; its only reference is to a now submerged island to the south of India, Kumari Kandam, and initial findings at Poompuhar show that, without our having to accept this legend literally, we may indeed find a few submerged cities along Tamil Nadu’s coast ; only more systematic explorations, especially at Poompuhar and Kanyakumari, where fishermen have long reported submerged structures, can throw more light on this tradition.
Not only Indian tradition, but a number of Indians with a far better understanding of Vedic texts than that of Western scholars, for example Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo, B. R. Ambedkar and many others, have vigorously dismissed the Aryan invasion as a groundless conjecture intended to divide Indians for colonial motives. They have correctly argued that the Indian people have no memory or record of any such outside origin, and archaeology is now increasingly confirming their insights.
Conclusion
I will end where I began. Would it be “chauvinistic” (to use a word our modern Indian intellectuals are so fond of) to attribute the greatness of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization to the Indian genius ? I do not think so. Apart from its striking cultural continuity with subsequent developments of Indian civilization, which makes up a total thread of 9,000 years, it exhibits traits typical of the Indian temperament : a bold enterprising spirit, a remarkable adaptability to changing conditions, a cultural and spiritual content in the smallest everyday activities, and, most importantly, a capacity for a broader view, without which this huge area could not have had such a cultural homogeneity free from major conflicts. Even its remarkable civic sense, so lacking in today’s India, is yet part of the Indian character ; I have observed that Indians are quite capable of it, but contrary to well-disciplined Western peoples (the British or the Germans, for instance), Indians will accept collective discipline only once their hearts have been conquered ; mere authority and rules cannot get it out of them.
All said and done, the people of the Indian subcontinent can justifiably claim this ancient civilization as a central and inspiring part of their heritage. But they should not forget to learn from it the great lesson of the cycles of birth, life, decay, and rebirth of Indian civilization, a lesson we need to keep in our minds especially at the present moment.
