Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.41

c12.41

The archaeological evidence of continuous occupation of the city-sites over centuries, with at Mohenjo-daro at least the preservation of the initial street-plan from first to last, with practically no encroachment on the building-lines of houses where they faced upon main streets or subsidiary lanes, shows that continuity of government was somehow assured throughout this long time, and that whatever the changes of dynasty or of individuals in power, the tradition was transmitted unimpaired and of constant validity. While it is dangerous to make deductions from the evidence with any confidence, one can nevertheless suggest that such a continuity over generations is likely to have been enforced by religious sanctions, and that, in its remarkable conservatism and scrupulous preservation of even the details of everyday life intact for centuries, the texture of the Harappā civilization has a strongly theocratic tinge, and surely implies a social system wherein the unchanging traditions of the temple were of more account than the ambitions of an individual ruler or the secular instability of the court, and in which the form of land tenure was dictated by the priestly hierarchy.