Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.133

c7.133

Now what is the historical meaning of all this? We do not know but I have made a guess. The Indus Civilization is commonly and, I think, rightly regarded as non-Aryan in character.³⁸ There is some material evidence that it was still in action within the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C.; and it is widely accepted that somewhere about the middle of that millennium occurred the Aryan invasion which is reflected in the earliest literature of India, the hymns of the Rigveda. In these hymns the invasion constantly assumes the form of an onslaught upon the walled cities of the aborigines, and the only fortifications of approximate date known to us are those of the citadels of Harappā and Mohenjo-daro and at certain of the smaller contemporary towns. It is tempting to relate the two circumstances to one another and to recognize in the destroyers of Mohenjo-daro, indifferent to the city which they had sacked, some of these heroic but barbarian nomads, to whom city-life was alien. It is not indeed impossible that the name of Harappā itself is concealed in the Hari-Yūpiyā which is mentioned in the Rigveda as the scene of a battle. But at present these thoughts are no more than conjectures; picturesque, perhaps probable, but not proven. It must not be forgotten that Mohenjo-daro is the only place where clear material evidence of final massacre is at present forthcoming.