An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c38.256

v2.c38.256

It seems that the religious beliefs of the Harappans differed from region to region. While bathing, perhaps ritualistic, formed an important practice in many, if not all, regions, including Lothal, the cult of the mother goddess [12.6] seems to have been unknown at Lothal, as at KALIBANGAN, while it was so popular at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. There are however terracotta female figurines with well-proportioned limbs and applied breasts, but they do not seem to have any cultic value; so also composite figures of animal heads on human bodies and the bulls and unicorns on the Lothal seals. Phallus worship, said to have been practised at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, is unknown at Lothal: the terracotta phallus-like objects may not be anything more than gamesmen, which may be their true identification at the Indus valley sites as well. On the other hand the practice of fire worship seems to have been a prevailing cult at Lothal, where a large number of houses in the lower town had rectangular or circular mud enclosures built into the floor or raised over low mud-brick platforms, some of them containing ash and terracotta cakes [6.27], a comparable cult having been identified at KALIBANGAN.