Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.175

c12.175

The dead hand of conservatism in design, rather than in technique, lies heavy on all the Harappā products. Complex technical processes were known, well understood, and admirably organized for production, but the output suffered from standardization and an almost puritanical utilitarianism. Working within such narrow limits of traditional forms, fossilized over the centuries into a rigid, inescapable mental prison, the artist or craftsman could have found little outlet save in developing technical virtuosity. The pattern of Harappā civilization seems to have precluded great monuments such as temples, palaces, or tombs, wherein an outburst of artistic achievement could redound to the glory of the gods or the pride of a splendid spendthrift monarch. The secrecy of those blank brick walls, the unadorned architecture of even the citadel buildings, the monotonous regularity of the streets, the stifling weight of dead tradition all combine to make the Harappā civilization one of the least attractive phases of ancient Oriental history. One can grudgingly admire the outcome of its ruthless authoritarian regime rather as one admires the civil engineering of the Roman army in the Provinces, but with as little real enthusiasm. I can only say that there is something in the Harappā civilization that I find repellent.