The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c21.4

c21.4

Such integrity itself, however, implies an isolation which raises the further and final question: How far did the Indus civilization contribute to the enduring sum-total of human achievement? It is not difficult to relate the civilization of Mesopotamia to the general development of civilization in the West. There the Harappans have at present small claim to partnership. Nor at first sight have they any great claim to their own sub-continent. Their cities decayed and were, it seems, obliterated in their decadence by an insurgent barbarism, instinct with the heroic qualities which barbarism is liable to assume but not sympathetic to the vestiges of urban discipline. Slaughtered Harappans lay unburied amidst their streets and drains. Did all that they represented perish with them? Their plumbing at least and their special artistry they failed to bequeath to later ages. What of their less tangible qualities, their philosophy and their beliefs? Here archaeology is of necessity an insensitive medium. But reason has been shown to suspect that the later Hinduism, in spite of its Āryan garb, did in fact retain not a little of the non-Āryan, Harappan mentality and relationships, perhaps to a far greater extent than can now be proved. The recurrent figures of a proto-Śiva, seated in sinister state or possibly dancing as triumphant Natarāja, the evidence of phallic worship, of reverence paid to animals, particularly of the cult of the bull, have nothing to do with Vedic faith but anticipate dominant elements of the historic Brahmanism. Paradoxically it would appear that the Indus civilization transmitted to its successors a metaphysics that endured, whilst it failed utterly to transmit the physical civilization which is its present monument. Our appreciation of its achievement must in the end depend upon a marshalling of values which lies outside the scope of this chapter.