The Indus Civilization c5.70

c5.70

As we have seen before, the presence of the great bath and the smaller bathrooms strongly suggests that bathing was a ritual of the people of Mohenjo-daro and that both priests and laymen had regular ablutions to perform at stated times of the day. The great bath, capacious as it is, could not have been used every day by the whole population; and since many of the houses had their own bathrooms and wells, it is far more likely that it was used only on certain ceremonial occasions, a suggestion which seems to be borne out by the close proximity of what is probably a sacred building beneath the stupa. Alternatively, the bath may have been used for sacred fish or crocodiles, but there is no evidence to support this idea, and, indeed, the whole design of the bath and its surrounding cloister, rooms, and corridors is against it. The two stairways, for example, would not have been needed for a crocodile-tank or sacred fish-pool, nor would it have been necessary to case the steps with wood.