The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c4: List of Illustrations

The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c4

Language: English

List of Illustrations

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XVIII A. Mohenjo-daro: stone head B. Mohenjo-daro: terracotta figurine

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XX Mohenjo-daro: terracotta ox and buffalo

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XXI A. Mohenjo-daro: terracotta “cakes” B. Harappā: bronze mirror

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XXII Mohenjo-daro: gold and steatite necklaces

XXIV A. Mohenjo-daro: the last massacre B. Mohenjo-daro: chert implements C. Mohenjo-daro: sherd with graffito representing a knife the *Gesta Romanorum*, the *Legenda Aurea* of Jacobus de Voragine, and the *Speculum Historiale* of Vincent of Beauvais. These were the books that fed the imagination of the Middle Ages, and they were the books that the Church, in its wisdom, provided for the instruction and edification of the faithful.

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But the Church did not merely provide books; it also provided the means of their dissemination. The monastic scriptoria, where monks labored in silence to copy the sacred texts, were the precursors of the printing press. And when the press finally arrived, it was the Church that first harnessed its power, using it to spread the word of God to the corners of the earth. The Gutenberg Bible, the first major book printed in Europe, was a testament to the Church's commitment to the written word.

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Yet, even as the Church championed the spread of knowledge, it also sought to control it. The *Index Librorum Prohibitorum*, or List of Prohibited Books, was a tool used by the Church to suppress ideas it deemed dangerous or heretical. This tension between the desire to educate and the need to control would define the Church's relationship with literature for centuries to come.

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It is a complex history, one that is marked by both enlightenment and suppression. But it is a history that cannot be ignored, for it is the history of the very foundation of Western civilization. The Church, in its role as the guardian of knowledge, has shaped the way we think, the way we write, and the way we understand the world around us.

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IN volume I of the *Cambridge History of India*, published in 1922, Sir John Marshall introduced his chapter on the monuments of ancient India with the observation that "before the rise of the Maurya Empire a well-developed and flourishing civilization had existed in India for at least a thousand years; yet, of the structural monuments erected during those ages not one example has survived save the Cyclopean walls of Rajagriha" (of the sixth century B.C.). Too late to modify this established view, in the previous year a member of Sir John's own Indian staff, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, had already in fact nullified it. Sealstones bearing animal-designs in intaglio and inscribed in an undeciphered pictographic script had long been known from ancient city-mounds at Harappā, a small town in the Montgomery district of the Punjab, and a trial excavation in 1921 had quickly established their chalcolithic context. What that implied in terms of absolute chronology was still undetermined, but it was clear enough that an urban culture appreciably earlier than the Maurya Empire, or indeed than Rajagriha, had now been identified. And in 1922 another member of Sir John's staff, Mr R. D. Banerji, was already finding similar remains beneath a Buddhist stūpa which crowned the highest of a large group of mounds known as *Mohenjo-daro* (possibly = "the hill of the dead") nearly 400 miles away in the Lārkanā district of Sind. Within a few weeks of publication, it was abundantly clear that a new chapter would have to be added to the prehistory of India and to the record of civilization.

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Now, a generation later, the time has come to attempt the missing chapter. Much that is essential to an understanding of this ancient Indian civilization, both in detail and in general context, still eludes us. We do not know the processes of its early growth and but vaguely understand its evolution and its decay. Certain possibilities as to the circumstances of its end have begun to crystallize under recent reviews of the evidence, but here too conjecture is still preponderant. On the other hand, the first active phase of exploration has now been completed and it is unlikely that large-scale excavation will be resumed in the near future. The pause is an appropriate moment for a synthesis of our present knowledge.