Did Harappan mythology invent 'ahimsa'?

Devdutt Pattanaik

A woman whose lower half is that of a tiger. An Indian sphinx! That’s a supernatural image found in Harappan seals, indicating that the cities that thrived 4,500 years ago in the northwestern part of India had mythic imagination. Contemporary civilisations like Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt had many more such supernatural images.

So I have always wondered how the Harappans imagined the world. What gods and goddesses did they worship? Or was their world-view, like Buddhist and Jain mythology, devoid of a great creator figure who fashioned the world? Instead, did they believe that nature is eternal? Did they venerate celibate sages who helped them cope with existential angst?

Mythology can generally be divided into three types: polytheism, monotheism and atheism. When the British began ruling India after 18th century, they believed that history followed a linear trajectory: from primitive polytheism to refined monotheism, culminating in ultra-refined atheism. Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire after 300 CE was seen as the end of paganism. The 17th century Enlightenment was seen as the end of religion and the birth of reason and rationality.

In the 19th century, the British translated ancient Indian texts and excavated ancient Indian historical sites. They tried to give India a history based on their framework. They argued Veda was the polytheistic phase and Gita was the monotheistic phase. Buddhism was the atheistic phase but it was crushed by the Brahmins. Now, the British were completing what Buddha began―introducing rationality. The British also were introducing something new―science.

When archaeologists discovered Harappa 100 years ago, they assumed it represented the polytheistic phase of Indian civilisation. But was it populated by the Vedic people? Brahmins said yes. They still say yes. The British, however, merged the excavations with the newly emerging Aryan race theory and argued Aryans invaded India, wiping out Harappan cities, enslaving the dark people, thus establishing the caste system. And so the seal showing a man meditating with animals around him was identified as ‘Pashupati-Shiva’ who opposed the Vedic yagna. This was all very convenient. Harappa was identified as the Dravidian Shiva-worshipping civilisation destroyed by the Indra-and-Vishnu-worshipping Aryans leading to the rise of the caste system. This thesis is popular even today.

Those who ‘debunk’ Aryan invasion theory forget to clarify that the Aryans did immigrate to India, with horses and chariots, 500 years after the Harappan cities collapsed. They did marry local women, adopted their language and culture, and eventually compiled the Veda between the Indus and the Gangetic basins.

We need to step away from the colonial toolkit and the postcolonial push back of nationalists. We need to ignore the popular mythological fictions found in Pakistan and India. The Muslims explanation for Harappa (ancient cities wiped out by Allah for practising idolatry) is as fanciful as the sanatani explanation (ancient city of Daksha and Shiva, a Tibetan migrant who brought horses). We need to look at Harappa with a fresh pair of eyes. The Harappans had no horses. Their mythology was vastly different from that of the Aryans. It was an urban mythology, a mercantile mythology, a world-view that shunned military solutions, a mythology that sought to create collaboration between communities living over 1,000km apart. Mythology is a mobilisation tool, binding people with beliefs. It needs to explain why Harappan cities were highly organised and functional, featuring trading hubs, gated communities, walls and regulated by administrative seals indicating financial transactions. There were more secular seals than those suggesting supernatural themes, indicating a mythology with minimal overt religious elements.

Another seal showing a woman separating two tigers | Illustrations: Devdutt Pattanaik

Most people are familiar with the Pashupati seal and assume Shiva was worshipped in the Harappan cities. However, Shiva is a deity associated with the wilderness and the protection of domesticated cattle, and there is no Shiva without Shakti. The Pashupati seal belongs to an urban ecosystem, and the animals depicted on it are not domesticated cattle but wild animals. These same animals appear on seals seemingly tied to financial activities. It is likely that these animals were totems of mercantile clans trading with the Middle East. The seal might represent a gathering of rival clans mediated by a priest-king figure adorned with buffalo horns and bangles, suggesting a form of androgyny. The pose is undeniably yogic, but does that make him Shiva?

In one seal there are images of seven people dancing near a tree from which a goddess appears. Is it a goddess? Or just a priestess, like a Buddhist yakshi clinging to a tree? The tree was sacred―the pipal, the neem, the shami. Trees that are sacred even today. There are tigers on the seals, not lions, which appear much later in the Ashokan age (300 BCE). The famous unicorn finds mention in Buddhist poetry, where its solitary horn is linked to the solitary monk.

Women in front: Seal showing a woman with the lower body of a tiger | Illustrations: Devdutt Pattanaik

Curiously, Harappa has no romantic images of couples, like those found in later Buddhist and Hindu shrines. The animals are all male and each of them can be traced to a Jain Tirthankara. There are images of a woman separating a pair of tigers. Such images are found in Mesopotamia. They are also found on the western coast of India, in Ratnagiri, indicating Stone Age ideas. Is the woman controlling wild territorial beasts? Or arguing a case for collaboration over competition, trading over raiding? Why do we assume earlier civilisations were savages? Why could Harappan cities not be followers of a monastic-mercantile model, that we later find in India. Oldest Buddhist and Jain sites, nearly 2,000 years old, are all on trade routes.

Harappa was part of the Bronze Age trading network. It thrived for 500 years, engaging in trade with the Middle East. Cities in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Sindh and Gujarat exported cotton from India, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and tin from Central Asia to Mesopotamia over river and sea. Its cities had gated communities, much like the ‘pols’ built in 17th century Gujarati trading cities.

This trade diminished as demand fell when the Sumerian cities were overtaken by the Akkadian empire, and new trade routes bypassed the Indus River, connecting Central Asia directly with Mesopotamia. Climate change may also have contributed to the decline of Harappan cities, alongside shifting trade routes and falling demand in Mesopotamia, as well as the migration of horse-domesticating tribes from Russia. It is now accepted that the Aryans arrived much later, about 20 generations after the Harappan cities had declined.

What stands out about Harappa is its highly organised culture, which lacked monumental architecture intended to intimidate. Its modular, utilitarian design and consistent seals found across cities over 1,000km apart suggest a unified world-view or at least an overarching philosophy that integrated smaller communities with diverse practices and beliefs. Sounds so much like contemporary India.

The scarcity of weapons, armies and indicators of monarchs or dictators suggests a culture that minimised violence, using trade as a tool to avoid conflict. Notably, the only seals depicting violence show women separating two fighting men. Earlier archaeologists assumed these depicted men fighting over a woman. But now we need to challenge this patriarchal gaze that views male as ‘priest-king’ and female images as ‘dancing-girls’. We need to ask ourselves why the earliest images in the ancient world depicting an anti-violence stance should not be considered the ‘Ahimsa’ seal. The obsession with Veda means even today there are American Hindu computer engineers trying hard to link Harappan script with Sanskrit. But in all probability the images are emojis, not letters. This does not stop a rival group from seeking Tamil in those very same symbols, since we find Sumerian words for sesame and ivory very similar to Tamil words for sesame and ivory.

Overemphasis on Vedas, which appeared in their current form 1,000 years after the Harappan cities declined, has led to indifference towards Sangam poetry, written in Tamil 1,500 years later and 1,500km away in South India. Sangam poetry describes five landscapes―deserts, fertile river valleys, forests, mountains and sea coasts―all found in Harappan regions. Each landscape is associated with a deity and mood. Sangam poetry also references North Indian animals like the yak and the double-humped camel, which are mentioned in the Vedas as well.

Colonial and post-colonial historians, obsessed with kings, wars and conflicts, missed the mercantile-monastic lens through which India’s history can be re-examined. In the 21st century, Harappa offers a remarkable starting point for Indian culture. These cities gifted us masala, sesame oil, gold touchstone, measuring systems, conch shell bangles, sindhur and colourful beads―artifacts that continue to define Indian culture today. Not everything India needs Vedic, masculine or military roots.

Pattanaik is a mythologist, author and speaker. His books include Ahimsa: 100 Reflections on the Harappan Civilization.

Ahimsa: 100 Reflections on the Harappan Civilization

By Devdutt Pattanaik

Published by HarperCollins India

Pages 272

Price 1315