Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c16.s2.t5: Some General Observations on Malwa Culture
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c16.s2.t5
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Some General Observations on Malwa Culture
v1.c16.s2.t5.1
We have discussed the principal sites of Malwa culture viz., Navdatoli and Prakash. There are distinct evidences of few more sites of this type in Maharashtra. Let us make some general observations about those sites including the Malwa itself.
v1.c16.s2.t5.2
Now it is widely accepted that around 1600 BC, the Malwa Culture people, after establishing themselves in the Narmadā Valley, began to spread out from their habitat in Central India. After getting no opening in the north because of the Vindhyan barrier they began to move southwards in the northern Deccan, where they flourished for two to three centuries. Their occupations at Prakash, Dāimābād and Inamgaon were quite extensive, whereas in the Pravara-Godāvarī and Bhima Valleys their habitations were very thinly spread.
v1.c16.s2.t5.3
That the people of Malwa Culture lived in large rectangular houses is clear from the Inamgaon evidence. They also built pit houses. This Malwa Culture is characterised by a painted ceramic which is rather thick in section and has a coarse, gritty fabric. It is wheel-turned and is treated with a thick orange to pink slip, over which the painted ornament is executed in dark brown or black. Although the Malwa ware, so characteristic of the Central Indian sites, is present in the Deccan, we find that its fabric in the Deccan is somewhat different.
v1.c16.s2.t5.4
Generally the tools were of stone and copper. A majority of the tools are of stone of silicious variety such as chalcedony and agate and are made on blade flake. Copper was used for making tools such as knives, chisels, fish-hooks, axes etc. and also for making ornament like bangles and beads. Two copper objects, the knife blade and the pin from Daimabad need a special mention. The former has parallels from Harappan sites whereas the latter may be compared with a Harappan specimen from Chanhu-Daro. The mixed economy of the Chalcolithic farmers of the Malwa Culture was based on farming, hunting and fishing.
v1.c16.s2.t5.5
Evidence from Daimabad and Inamgaon throws a welcome light on the religious beliefs of the Malwa people. The evidence is furnished by the recent discovery of a copper bronze hoard from Daimabad which consists of a bull chariot driven by a man, an elephant, a rhino and a buffalo. Dhavalikar thinks that all the objects from the hoard were probably used in some ritual procession and the man driving the chariot may be identified as Paśupati. At first there was a controversy regarding these bronze objects, the main point being whether these materials were from Late-Harappan level or later than that. Dhavalikar and several other archaeologists from Deccan College, have confirmed that these were from Late-Harappan level. The chemical composition also confirms this view; there is the presence of arsenic in those objects as in Harappan bronze objects. The Malwa people in the Deccan had faith in life after death as is testified to by their burials at Dāimābād and Ināmgāon. At Ināmgāon two twin burials of children were exposed. One of them was in a pit dwelling. This tradition was adopted from the neighbouring Jorwe Culture. (Agarwal and Chakrabarti, 1979: 248-50)
v1.c16.s2.t5.6
It is generally admitted that the authors of the Kayatha Culture were the pioneering colonizers of Central India; their culture does not seem to have evolved on the soil of Malwa but had been earlier developed elsewhere. Their affinities with the Pre-Harappan Culture of Rajasthan has been suggested; the people of the Ahar Culture had settled at Kayatha and this indicates the link between the cultures of Kayatha and the Banas Valley in southeast Rajasthan.
v1.c16.s2.t5.7
The painted pottery of the Malwa Culture can be said to be derived from the red painted buff ware of the Kayatha Culture and the same holds good so far as the technology of copper and the specialized blade-flake industry are concerned.
v1.c16.s2.t5.8
Dhavalikar suggests that by the middle of the second millennium BC some influences from Western Asia began to infiltrate through the north-western regions of the sub-continent. It is probably these people who introduced the West Asian elements in the Malwa Culture and it was only by assimilating such influences that the culture was enriched. However, he admits that the pottery cultures of Central and Western India and the Deccan owe a great deal to the Harappans, at least for their painted black-on-red pottery. Chakrabarti however strongly disagrees with the views of Sankalia and Dhavalikar. The suggested West Asiatic analogies ‘are too general to be of any use in a valid and meaningful comparison’. (Chakrabarti, 1977: 25; Agarwal, 1984: 243-44)