Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c7.s6.26

c7.s6.26

With the determination of this focus of chronology from the West, it is relevant to examine the bearings of the Indus Valley institutions with those of the Vedic age. Although the script has not been read, there are many similarities as pointed out in the previous pages between the life in the Indus Valley and that depicted in Vedic literature. This is a subject too wide to be discussed in the limited space here, but the conclusion is forced that the Aryans did not appear all of a sudden to collide with and uproot the Harappans, but that for some centuries, may be even a millenium, the two peoples co-existed, being inter-locked in cultural and religious exchanges, resulting in a free mutual give and take. The entangled strands of this skein await to be unravelled. But indications are available that the Aryans have preserved in the Vedic literature much of what existed in the Indus Valley both in material and religious fields until the final clash came in the form of two major battles, one at Hariyūpiyā (most probably Harappa) on the Paruṣṇī (Ravi) and the second westward in the valley of the river Yavyāvatī (modern Zhob) in North Baluchistan (RV. VI. 27. 5-6). The mutual exchanges and borrowings between the two peoples whom we may tentatively identify as the Asuras and the Devas, could not be effaced, but continued in volume amongst the peoples of subsequent generations. This continuity or transmission of both institutions and material life from the Indus Valley to the Vedic Age and historical times appears to be the most outstanding fact in the evolution of human civilisation on the Indian soil. The predominant motif is ‘Synthesis’ which has been operative through the ages in India’s history. The author of the Atharva Veda speaks of the Motherland as being peopled by many races (*Bahudhā jana*), speaking different languages (*Vivācasaḥ*) and following different religions (*Nānā-dharma* A.V. XII. 1.). The Indus Valley culture, therefore, is not an exotic or disturbing factor but a basic yarn in the varied texture of Indian culture through the ages.