The religion and belief system of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) people have received considerable attention, with many writers concerned with identifying precursors to the religious practices and deities of much later Indian religions. However, due to the sparsity of evidence, which is open to varying interpretations, and the fact that the Indus script remains undeciphered, the conclusions are partly speculative and many are largely based on a retrospective view from a Hindu perspective.

Indus Valley Civilisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from today's northeast Afghanistan, through much of what is now Pakistan, and into western and northwestern Indian Republic. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through modern-day republics of India and Pakistan along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers.

In these other civilisations, large temples were a central key element of cities, and religious imagery abounded. Once the scripts had been deciphered, the names of deities and the characteristics attributed to them became fairly clear. None of this is the case for the IVC.

Scholarly views on IVC-religion Early and influential work in the area that set the trend for Hindu interpretations of archaeological evidence from the Harappan sites was that of John Marshall, who in 1931 identified the following as prominent features of the Indus religion: a Great Male God and a Mother Goddess; deification or veneration of animals and plants; a symbolic representation of the phallus and vulva; and, use of baths and water in religious practice. Marshall's interpretations have been much debated, and sometimes disputed over the following decades. Geoffrey Samuel, writing in 2008, finds all attempts to make "positive assertions" about IVC religions as conjectural and intensely prone to personal biases — at the end of the day, scholars knew nothing about Indus Valley religions.

In contrast to contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations, the Indus Valley lacks any monumental palaces, even though excavated cities indicate that the society possessed the requisite engineering knowledge. This suggests that religious ceremonies, if any, may have been largely confined to individual homes, small temples, or the open air. Several sites have been proposed by Marshall and later scholars as possibly devoted to religious purposes, but at present only the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro is widely thought to have been so used, as a place for ritual purification. The funerary practices of the Harappan civilisation are marked by fractional burial (in which the body is reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements before final interment), and even cremation.

Contemporary scholars (most significantly Asko Parpola) continue to probe the roles of the IVC in the formation of Hinduism;others remain ambivalent about these results. In reviewing a book by Parpola in 2017, Wendy Doniger wrote: "I have supported the thesis that there is some form of continuity between the IVC and later Hinduism. I am now more than ever persuaded that IVC culture survived the destruction of its cities and that later Hindu imagery, having entered Hinduism after the Vedic period, may well be derived from the IVC. But I remain skeptical about Parpola's reconstruction of the IVC's religion."Doniger, Wendy, "Another Great Story", August 2017, review of The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization, by Asko Parpola, DOI: 10.37282/991819.17.40

Seals The imagery on the great majority of Indus seals centers on a single animal; generally, various attempts to attribute religious significance to these have not been widely accepted. But a minority are more complicated and prominently feature figures with a human form, and there has been much discussion of these.

Pashupati seal

Many discussions of religion in IVC center around the most famous of the Indus seals; though interpretations of it have varied greatly, almost all do accord it some religious significance. The broken seal given the find number 420 shows a large central figure, either horned or wearing a horned headdress and possibly ithyphallic as well as tricephalic,Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998. seated in a posture reminiscent of the Yogic Lotus position, surrounded by four wild animals – elephant, tiger, buffalo, and rhinoceros.For a drawing of the seal see Figure 1 in: Flood (1996), p. 29. Marshall concluded the figure to be Pashupati (Lord of Animals; epithet of the Hindu deity Shiva the Rudra) and it remained a piece of unassailable evidence in favor of IVC influencing Hinduism for a few decades. This identification (and terminology) is now rejected by modern scholars – Jonathan Mark Kenoyer notes that the figure cannot be linked to later icons without deciphering the script: even if they look apparently similar, conveyed meanings might have been radically different.

In 1976, Doris Meth Srinivasan mounted the first substantial critique of Marshall's identification. She accepted the figure to be indicative of cultic divinity, that people bowed towards such a posture (on other seals) but rejected the proto-Shiva identification: Pashupati of Vedic Corpus is the protector of domestic animals. On comparison to facial particulars from horned masks and painted vessels, Srinivasan went on to propose the central figure to be a Buffalo-man, who had a "humanized bucranium" and whose headdress imparted powers of fertility. Gavin Flood, about two decades later, noted that neither the Lotus position nor the anthropomorphic form of the central figure was deducible to any certainty. Alf Hiltebeitel rejects a proto-Shiva identification; he supports Srinivasan's thesis with additional arguments, and hypothesize the Buffalo-man to have formed the legend of Mahishasura. Gregory L. Possehl concluded that while it would be appropriate to recognise the figure as a deity, its association with the water buffalo, and its posture as one of ritual discipline, regarding it as a proto-Shiva would be going too far.

Some scholars of Yoga – Karel Werner, Thomas McEvilley et al – have since used it to trace back the roots of Yoga to IVC. However, Geoffrey Samuel, writing in 2008, rejects Marshall's theory as mere anachronistic speculation and goes on to reject that yoga has its roots in IVC, as does Andrea R. Jain (2016) in Selling Yoga. Paleontologist-cum-Indologist Alexandra Van Der Geer, in her 2008 survey of Indian mammals in art, comments the figure to remain "unknown" until the script is deciphered. Samuel as well as Wendy Doniger had taken a similar stance. Kenoyer (as well as Michael Witzel) now consider the image to be an instance of Lord of the Beasts found in Eurasian neolithic mythology or the widespread motif of the Master of Animals found in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean art, and the many other traditions of horned deities.

Procession seal

Another seal from Mohenjo-daro (Find no. 420, now Islamabad Museum, 50.295), also called the "sacrifice" seal, of a type with a few examples found, is generally agreed to show a religious ritual of some kind, though readings of the imagery and interpretations of the scene vary considerably. It shows signs of wear from heavy usage. At top right, a figure with large horns and bangles on both arms stands in a pipal tree; it is generally agreed this represents a deity. Another figure kneels on one knee in front of this, also shown as horned and perhaps with plumes in a headdress. This is interpreted as a worshipper, perhaps a priest. Beside this figure there is what may be "a human head with hair tied in a bun", resting on a stool. Behind this a large horned animal, usually agreed to be a ram, perhaps with a human head, completes the top tier of the images.Aruz, 403; Harappa.com, with good photo; Possehl (2002), 145-146

In a lower tier, seven more or less identical figures, shown in a line in right-facing profile (on the seal, so left-facing on impressions), wear plumed headdresses, bangles, and dresses falling to around knee-level. What seems to be their hair is tied in a braid and comes down to waist level. Their gender is unclear, though they are often thought to be female. Groups of seven figures are seen in other pieces,Aruz, 403; Possehl (2002), 145-146 and a number of IVC seals show a variety of trees, that may have a religious significance, and do so in later Hinduism – banyan, pipal, and acacia.

Swastika seals

The swastika is a symbol sacred to multiple Indian religions – Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Since the icon has been located in IVC artifacts, a continuum has been posited by a few scholars but it is a fringe view – Possehl finds such suppositions to be not "sound". Jonathan Mark Kenoyer notes that these artifacts were utilized by political and religious leaders of the subcontinent to claim ties of Hinduism with IVC.

IVC swastikas were primarily engraved in button (and square) seals. Manabu Koiso and other scholars classify the signs as "geometric motifs"; these types became extremely predominant at the end of the Mature Harappan Phase and the relative sizing of these seals might have reflected socio-economic, political, and religious hierarchy. E. C. L. During Caspers found the swastika seals to have served "mercantile purposes" in certain trade routes; Gregory Possehl has separately documented relevant trade-circulation. Kenoyer notes the IVC swastika to be an abstract "decorative motif" that might have reflected contemporary ideology; he also posits a possible usage in trade – the seals either denoted the owners involved in a commercial transaction or were proto-bureaucratic certifications.

Overall, the precise purpose of these seals in the IVC continues to remain inconclusive but it is unlikely that they served any religio-ritualistic purpose. Also, the swastika had developed in multiple cultures of the world contemporaneous to or even pre-dating the IVC. Since the swastika has been recorded in early Andronovo culture, the roots of the Hindu swastika might easily lie in the Indo-Aryan migrations.

Other peculiar seals

Most Indus seals depict a single animal, without obvious narrative meaning. Several are more complex, with possible symbolic designs, as well as human or semi-human figures in action.

A bull-man or bull-woman, equipped with hooves, a tail and large horns, can be seen fighting a fantastic horned beast. Men can be seen hiding in trees from tigers, another fighting two tigers at a time in a motif reminiscent of the Master of animals.

The Kalibangan cylinder seal also depicts a human-tiger (in this case graphically represented by a human with horns to whom the body of a tiger is adjoined), with two nude men fighting over a woman, reminiscent of Mesopotamian cylinder seals such as those depicting goddess Ishtar.

Sculptures Terracotta figurines