Indus Valley Civilization: Its Origin, Demise & Connection with Today’s World

Long before India had a democratic government; before British ruled over this land; before the reign of most of the great kings, stories of which we read in our history books, existed; long before any of the civilizations surviving today existed; there thrived a civilization here which, if we believe our archaeologists, was almost perfect in every sense. They had technology and organization which was far more advanced than any other people who had set foot on this earth before and remained so for thousands of years. But despite the glorious mark which they etched in the history of mankind their existence was almost completely erased from our memories, until the later half of 19th century when its material achievements were rediscovered. Its new founders named it Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) after the river along which its major cities were first discovered. In terms of the number of town-centers and cities it covered, IVC was one of the largest ancient civilizations that ever existed. As of now more than 1500 sites have been marked clearly as settlements belonging to different phases of IVC. It has been found to have covered most of present day’s Pakistan and Punjab, extending towards Gujarat in east and Afghanistan in the west. Isolated colonies have also been discovered as far as Iran, Turkmenistan and Jammu region. But even after having such vast amounts of archaeological data, “The birth, life and death of Indus Civilization remain three enigmas”. [1] Everything about IVC has been wrapped in a shroud of mystery. Still a heated debate has been going on over the fundamental questions like: Who these people were? Where did they come from? What religion or belief system they followed? What type of governing system they had? What languages they spoke? Why they eventually withered away and ultimately how they are connected with the later civilizations which flourished in the Indian subcontinent?

The difficulty in solving these mysteries ultimately arises from different inferences you can draw from how you interpret the archaeological data. Many millennia from now if some people from future try to learn about our own time, they might face the same difficulties. Finding something like a TV set from our ruins they might conclude that this was a significant part of our life from the fact that every family had it. It was always placed in apparently the central part of our homes with couches and reclining chairs around it. And so it must be the central part of our daily lives. Seeing the antenna coming out of it, it might appear that maybe we tried to communicate with our God/s through this contraption. Perhaps this thing itself was our God. No matter how exaggerated this example might seem but it clearly highlights how we can reach to far-fetched conclusions if we look at the data from a different perspective. And so, even in case of IVC also there are a whole lot of theories about the identity of its inhabitants.

This mystery of IVC inhabitants’ identity has also fuelled heated debates in the political circles. Some of the old theories, which have been debunked by most of the researchers today, were also used as a part of propaganda by different organizations to gain or strengthen their influence over certain communities.

Thus, who really these people were? The answer to this question has much more far reaching consequences than one can imagine. In this report we have tried to highlight different theories related to the Indus Valley Civilization. None of the theories is complete as a result of some missing evidences,

and so in that sense we cannot agree with any of them. But to have a completely objective outlook towards our past is a task next to impossible. While interpreting the evidences we have to have certain assumptions in our mind, as a result of which eventually we end up with taking one side or another. As noted historian E. H. Carr puts it that historian is a ‘part of history’ with a particular ‘angle of vision over the past’. “Millions had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC is declared noteworthy by historians”.[2] Hence, to worry about the matter that which theory is absolutely objective will be a fallacy. What really is necessary is that none of the evidences be left ignored.

Discovery of IVC and excavated finds

Harappa was the first city of IVC discovered in modern times by an East India Company soldier and explorer James Lewis. In 1827, while stationed at Agra, he and a colleague deserted and travelled through parts of the Punjab that were not under British control at that time. He was the first European to see the ruins of Harappa, described and illustrated in his book “Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Panjab” under the pseudonym Charles Masson in 1842. Other significant city of IVC, Mohenjo-Daro, literally meaning “Mound of the dead” in Sindhi was discovered much later in 1922 by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, an officer of Archaeological Survey of India. Many other sites were discovered in times between these two and later also. Excavations on many sites are still going on.

The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan, extending from Baluchistan to Sindh, and extending into modern day Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, with an upward reach to Ropar on the upper Sutlej. The geography of the Indus Valley puts the civilizations that have arisen there in a highly similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru, with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. Indus sites have been discovered in Pakistan's northwestern Frontier Province as well. Other IVC colonies can be found in Afghanistan while smaller isolated colonies can be found as far away as Turkmenistan and in Gujarat. Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor [3] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal [4] in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan,[5] in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan,[6] at Manda on the Beas River near Jammu,[7] India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi.[8] Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but

also on the ancient seacoast,[9] for example, Balakot,[10] and on islands, for example, Dholavira.[11]

Masters of town-planning

The major urban centers of IVC show a high level of sophistication in terms of town-planning. Geometrically designed, the towns had fortifications (for protection against both intruders and floods), several distinct quarters, assembly halls, and manufacturing units of various types ; some bigger cities had furnaces for the production of copper tools, weapons or ornaments ; public baths (probably often part of temples) as well as private baths for most inhabitants, sewerage through underground drains built with precisely laid bricks, and an efficient water management with numerous reservoirs and wells, which show that the ordinary inhabitant was well taken care of. Mohenjo-Daro, for instance, is thought to have had over 700 wells, some of them fifteen meters deep, built with special trapezoid bricks (to prevent collapse by the pressure of the surrounding soil), and maintained for several centuries. Quite a few of those wells were found in private houses. Dholavira had separate drains to collect rain water (an early example of community-level rainwater harvesting) and six or seven dams built across nearby rivers. World leading expert on IVC, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer (who is still active in excavation works) remarks, “The fact that even smaller towns and villages had impressive drainage systems indicates that removing polluted water and sewage was an important part of the daily concerns of the Indus people”.[12] The well-known Indian archaeologist, B. B. Lal, wrote in a comprehensive study of this civilization, “Well-regulated streets were oriented almost invariably along the cardinal directions, thus forming a grid-iron pattern. At Kalibangan, even the widths of these streets were in a set ratio, i.e. if the narrowest lane was one unit in width, the other streets were twice, thrice and so on. [...] Such a town-planning was unknown in contemporary West Asia”. [13]

The houses were almost always built with mud bricks (sometimes fired in kilns), which followed a standard ratio of 4 :2 :1, though the actual sizes varied : bricks for houses, for instance, might be 28 x 14 x 7 cm, while for fortification walls they could be 36 x 18 x 9 cm or even bigger. Walls were on average seventy centimeters thick, and many houses were at least two storeys high. A few houses, perhaps those of rulers or wealthy traders, were particularly large, with up to seven rooms, but they might be found right next to a craftsman’s modest house. A number of big buildings, such as that around Mohenjo-Daro’s “Great Bath,” seem to have served a community purpose. Dholavira, in Kutch, even boasts of a huge maidan. It also has massive fortification walls, some of them as thick as eleven

meters, built in the earliest stage of the city; apart from standardized bricks, stones were also used there on a large scale, undressed as well as dressed (the stones were perfectly dressed even with just copper tools, as iron was not yet known).

Arts & Culture

The Harappans were expert craftsmen. They made beads of carnelian, agate, amethyst, turquoise, lapis lazuli, etc; they manufactured bangles out of shells, glazed faience (a material made of ground sand or silica mixed with gum & a colour and then fired in a kiln) and terracotta; [14] they carved ivory and worked shells into ornaments, bowls and ladles; they cast copper (which they mined themselves in Baluchistan and Rajasthan) and bronze for weapons, all types of tools, domestic objects and statues. They also worked silver and gold with great skill, especially for ornaments. We also know that the Harappans excelled at pottery, stone-carving, complex weaving & carpet-making, inlaid woodwork and decorative architecture. Dancing, painting, sculpture, and music (there is evidence of drums and of stringed instruments: A harp-like instrument has been depicted on an Indus seal) were all part of their culture. Possibly drama and puppet shows too, judging from a number of masks. Statues are not abundant, but refined, whether in stone, bronze or terracotta. The Harappans also made various toys and games, among them cubical dice (with one to six holes on the faces), which were found in sites like Mohenjo-Daro. [15] An ancestor of the game of chess has been unearthed at Lothal. Incidentally one of the pieces has clear resemblance with the head of a horse, an animal, presence of whose remains around most IVC sites has not been established with clarity according to many archaeologists.

A probable ancestor of the game of chess A Terracotta toy bullock cart. (in terracotta, from Lothal).

Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of comb, the use of collyrium (a liquid wash used as cleanser for eyes) and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that were found in Harappan contexts still have similar counterparts in modern India. Terracotta female figurines were found (ca. 2800-2600 BCE) which had red color applied to the "maang" (line of partition of the hair). [15]

Seals have been found at Mohenjo-daro depicting a figure standing on its head, and another sitting cross-legged in what some call a yoga-like pose (A famous example is the “Pashupati” seal).

Square seal depicting a nude male deity with The Pashupatinath Seal three faces, seated in yogic position on a throne, wearing bangles on both arms and an elaborate head-dress.

Lothal has yielded 213 seals, third in importance amongst all Indus sites, considered masterpieces of glyptic art and calligraphy. Lothal artists introduced a new form of painting closely linked to modern realism. Paintings depict animals in their natural surroundings. Indeed, upon one large vessel, the artist depicts birds—with fish in their beaks—resting in a tree, while a fox-like animal stands below. This scene bears resemblance to the story of the crow and cunning fox in Panchatantra. [16] The realistic portrayal of human beings and animals suggests a careful study of anatomical and natural features. Terra-cotta models also identify the differences between species of dogs and bulls, including those of horses. Animal figures with wheels and a movable head were used as toys.

Trade

The Harappans procured materials for craft production in various ways. For instance, they established settlements such as Nageshwar and Balakot in areas where shell was available. Other such sites were Shortughai, in far-off Afghanistan, near the best source of lapis lazuli, a blue stone that was apparently very highly valued, and Lothal which was near sources of carnelian (from Bharuch in Gujarat), steatite (from south Rajasthan and north Gujarat) and metal (from Rajasthan). Copper was also probably brought from Oman, on the south-eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Chemical analyses have shown that both the Omani copper and Harappan artifacts have traces of nickel, suggesting a common origin. There are other traces of contact as well. A distinctive type of vessel, a large Harappan jar coated with a thick layer of black clay has been found at Omani sites.

During 4300–3200 BCE of the chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus Valley Civilization area shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northern Iran which suggest considerable mobility and trade. During the Early Harappan period (about 3200–2600 BCE), similarities in pottery, seals,

figurines, ornaments, etc., document intensive caravan trade with Central Asia and the Iranian plateau.[ 17] There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilizations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf). [17] Mesopotamian texts datable to the third millennium BCE refer to copper coming from a region called Magan, perhaps a name for Oman. Mesopotamian texts mention contact with regions named Dilmun (probably the island of Bahrain), Magan and Meluhha, possibly the Harappan region. They mention the products from Meluhha: carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold, and varieties of wood. A Mesopotamian myth says of Meluhha: “May your bird be the haja-bird, may its call be heard in the royal palace.” Some archaeologists think the haja-bird was the peacock. Mesopotamian texts refer to Meluhha as a land of seafarers. Besides, we find depictions of ships and boats on seals.

Lothal's dock connected the city to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on the trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh and the peninsula of Saurashtra when the surrounding Kutch desert of today was a part of the Arabian Sea. It was a vital and thriving trade centre in ancient times, with its trade of beads, gems and valuable ornaments reaching the far corners of West Asia and Africa. Modern oceanographers have observed that the city’s inhabitants must have possessed great knowledge

relating to tides in order to build such a dock on the ever-shifting course of the Sabarmati, as well as exemplary hydrography and maritime engineering. This was the earliest known dock found in the world, equipped to berth and service ships. This shows that the Harappans had a flourishing overseas trade with Oman, Bahrain, and Sumer also; exchanges with the Sumerians went on for at least seven centuries, and merchant colonies were established in Bahrain and the Euphrates-Tigris valley. [18]

A highly standardized system of stone weights, unique in the ancient world, was found not only throughout the Harappan settlements, but also two thousand years later in the first kingdoms of the Ganga plains. (The weights were mostly cubes, but sometimes also truncated spheres.) The first seven weights in the system followed a geometrical progression, with ratios of 1 : 2 : 4 : 8 : 16 (by which time the weight had reached 13.7g) : 32 : 64, after which the increments switched to a decimal system and went 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000 and 12,800. The largest weight found in Mohenjo-daro is 10,865 grams. Now,

(12800/16)*13.7 = 10960

Thus, the actual largest standard weight (10,865) differs by only 95g with the corresponding theoretical standard weight (10,960 g), or less than 0.9%. Such an exemplary example of precision is unheard of in any other ancient civilization.

Science & Technology

As shown above, the inhabitants of IVC were highly skilled in measuring weights. They were equally efficient when it came to measuring time and length. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a

scale of the Bronze Age. They were also among the firsts to use decimal system. The width of the wall of the Lothal dock has been found to be 1.78 m (i.e. almost 1,000 times 1.704 mm). The length of the east-west wall of the dock is twenty times its width. [21] Inhabitants of Mohenjo-Daro had designed a ruler—the Mohenjo-daro ruler—whose unit of length (approximately 1.32 inches or 3.4 centimeters) was divided into ten equal parts. [21] Harappans also mass produced weights in regular geometrical shapes, which included hexahedra, barrels, cones, and cylinders, thereby demonstrating knowledge of basic geometry. The weights and measures later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (the unit angula, 4th century BCE) are the same as those used in Lothal. [22]

In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, made the discovery that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from the early Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates, from 7,500-9,000 years ago. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of that region. [21]

There is no true glass from the Indus Age, but there is much faience. Faience technology, which implies an ability to reach a controlled temperature of 1200 degrees Celsius, begins in the Early Harappan, as at Kalibangan. [23]

Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. They also invented new tools such as curved saws and twisted drills unknown to other civilizations at the time. [16] Specialized drills have been found at Chanhudharo (a settlement dedicated almost exclusively devoted to craft production, including bead-making, shell-cutting, metal-working, seal-making and weight-making), Lothal and most recently in Dholavira.

A tablet from Mohenjo-Daro depicting a flat-bottomed boat

Several representations of ships have been found on seals, while many massive stone anchors have come up at Lothal and other sites of Saurashtra. For navigation, compasses carved out of conch shells appear to have been used to measure angles between stars. A thick ring-like shell object has been found in Lothal with four slits each in two margins. This might have served as a compass to measure angles on plane surfaces or in the horizon in multiples of 40 degrees, up to 360 degrees. Such shell instruments were probably invented to measure 8–12 whole sections of the horizon and sky, explaining the slits on the lower and upper margins. Archaeologists consider this as evidence that the Lothal experts had achieved something 2,000 years before the Greeks: an 8–12 fold division of horizon and sky, as well as an instrument for measuring angles and perhaps the position of stars, and for navigation. [16] A voyage from Lothal to Mesopotamia to sell the prized Harappan carnelian beads, which the kings and queens of Ur were so fond of, meant at least 2,500 kilometers of seafaring, of course there would have been halts along the shore on the way, but still, 4,500 years ago this must have ranked among the best sailing abilities.

Subsistence

The other, perhaps the chief mainstay of Harappan prosperity was agriculture. It was practiced on a wide scale, with hundreds of rural settlements and extensive networks of canals for irrigation. Wheat, barley, rice, a number of vegetables, and cotton were some of the common crops. Mehrgarh shows a veritable agricultural economy solidly established on domestic wheat and barley as early as 6000 BC. [24][25] Kalibangan even yielded a field ploughed with two perpendicular networks of furrows, in which higher crops (such as mustard) were grown in the spaced-out north-south furrows, thus casting shorter shadows, while shorter crops (such as gram) filled the contiguous east-west furrows. As B. B. Lal has shown, this is a technique still used today in the same region. Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer says that the Mehrgarh site demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon and that the data support interpretation of the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organization in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments Others, such as Dorian Fuller, however, indicate that it took some 2000 years before Middle Eastern wheat was acclimatized to South Asian conditions.

Most Indus agricultural activities took place during the winter Rabi season. The active floodplains and the areas directly adjacent to them were most intensely cultivated during the Rabi season. They grew dates and grapes and collected the Indian jujube (ber). African millets appear in the Indus Civilization. The plants, with their Hindi-Urdu names, are sorghum or jowar, pearl millet or bajra, and finger millet or ragi. [23]

The Harappans were also great fish eaters, exploiting the rivers and lakes, especially in Sindh. Large fish vertebrae have been found at some Kutch Harappan sites. Salted and/or dried fish were traded over large distances during the Mature Harappan as documented by the presence of a marine species of catfish at Harappa. In the Suarashtra region, the people were cattle keepers par excellence who also raised goats, sheep, water buffalo, and a variety of crops. Cattle remains are consistently one-half or more of the faunal remains from Indus sites. Pigs may not have been domesticated, but pig remains and figurines document their use. The Indus peoples domesticated the chicken and kept several breeds of dogs and possibly house cats. Camels may also have been domesticated. Camel remains that have been found may be either the dromedary or Bactrian species. [23]

Governing System

All information presented as of now was based on clean unchallenged facts. But as we delve further into speculations related to the inner workings of their society and ultimately their true identity, IVC becomes a controversial subject. Some archaeologists believe IVC was an empire with its capital as Mohenjo-Daro, considering the grandeur of this great ancient city, with “governors” sitting in their respective regional capitals. One fact corroborating this idea is the extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artifacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks. Notably, bricks, though obviously not produced in any single centre, were of a uniform ratio throughout the region, from Jammu to Gujarat. But then to have a powerful authority over such a vast empire for such a long period (which is equivalent to an era) without any effective means of communication, as we have today, appears

doubtful. Besides there appear to be no evidences of glorification of any sorts or even representation of any ruler (as we have on the coins of most civilizations including those of present times) on the seals. Even the few sculptures of human figures found at Mohenjo-daro cannot be said to represent rulers with any great certainty. Thus, some other experts propose existence of different independent regional states, perhaps a kind of federation of monarchies or even republics. Those regional states would have had identities of their own (as evidenced from regional variations in arts and crafts), but they would all have been united by a common culture, and also by a common language (regardless of possible regional dialects). B. B. Lal, for instance, brings a parallel between the Harappan society and the Sixteen States or Mahajanapadas of later Buddhist times. [13]

Religion

The question of Harappan religious practices is intertwined with their true identity. Attempts have also been made to reconstruct religious beliefs and practices by examining seals some of which seem to depict ritual scenes. Others, with plant motifs, like peepal tree are thought to indicate nature worship. Some animals – such as the one-horned animal, often called the “unicorn” – depicted on seals seem to be mythical, composite creatures. In some seals, a figure shown seated cross-legged in a “yogic” posture, sometimes surrounded by animals, has been regarded as a depiction of “proto-Shiva”, that is, an early form of one of the major deities of Hinduism. Besides, conical stone objects have been classified as lingas. Some seals also depict Swastik. At Kalibangan, fire Vedic altars have been discovered (Similar site have been found at Lothal also which S.R. Rao thinks could have served no other purpose than a ritualistic one [16]). These altars suggest fire worship or worship of Agni, the Hindu god of fire. But it is the also only IVC site where there is no evidence to suggest the worship of the "mother goddess".

In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead. However, later they also cremated their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns, a transition notably also alluded to in the Rigveda, where the forefathers "both cremated (agnidagdhá-) and uncremated (ánagnidagdha-)" are invoked [26]. Therefore, there is a sense of heterogeneity in religious practices across the whole area as well as different phases of the civilization.

Script

Many claims have been made of the decipherment of Indus Valley Script. But because of absence of any bilingual inscription and acute lack of other corroborating evidences like Rosetta Stone, none of the claim has been totally accepted ever. Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols (some say 600)[27] have been found on seals, small tablets, or ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials. Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters in length, most of which are exquisitely tiny; the longest on a single surface, which is less than 1 inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs long; the longest on any object (found on three different faces of a mass-produced object) has a length of 26 symbols.

Some scientists have even doubted if these symbols represented any written language and are perhaps just non-linguistic signs. [28] One more problem in deciphering the script (assuming it represents a

written language system) is to take which language group as its basis. Attempts have been made taking Dravidian (e.g. - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malyalam etc) as well as Indo-European languages (Ex. – Sanskrit, Latin, Avestan etc.) as basis.

The Demise of the Glorious Civilization

There is evidence that by circa 1800 BCE most of the Mature Harappan sites in regions such as Cholistan had been abandoned. Simultaneously, there was an expansion of population into new settlements in Gujarat, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. In the few Harappan sites that continued to be occupied after 1900 BCE there appears to have been a transformation of material culture, marked by the disappearance of the distinctive artifacts of the civilization – weights, seals, special beads. However, the Indus Valley Civilization did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilization can be found in later cultures. A number of reasons have been sighted right from the start for this fading away – from an invasion from outer civilization (a theory cleared debunked), to internal political unrest, or most probably due to severe climate changes.

Connection with later civilizations

We have deferred to discuss about the religious beliefs, script and demise of IVC above in detail because of different theories surrounding these. These theories also differ in the explanations provided regarding the connection of IVC with later flourishing Vedic civilization in India. Broadly speaking there are basically two theories at present:

o Indo-Aryan Migration theory, according to which iron-age Vedic civilization was established by Indo-Aryans coming from Iran; this event happening only after already flourishing IVC had lost its sheen around 1700 to 1300 BCE, due to some reason/s most probably due to climatic severities. Rigveda, the earliest literature of Vedic civilization was written around this time only according to this theory. This theory is based mostly on linguistic evidence of remarkable similarity between Sanskrit and most significant European languages like Latin, Greek and so on.

o Indigenous Aryan theory, which states that Aryans are in reality original inhabitants of India and IVC was in reality a Vedic civilization based around the huge river, Saraswati. There was never large scale immigration from outside in India in ancient times. Rigveda was written long before 1700 BCE and Vedic civilization is atleast 5000 years old. But after Saraswati dried up, people shifted eastwards towards Gangetic plains thus giving rise iron-age Vedic civilization. The supporters of this theory mostly cite Vedic references (although Aryan Migration theory proponents also do the same). Besides that they mainly oppose migration theory, citing the lack of evidence of any large-scale west to east migration and also recent evidences showing existence of a large river ( perhaps Saraswati) in times before claimed advent of Indo-Aryans around which IVC was based as well as citing similarities between many rituals of IVC and Rigvedic civilization. However, there still loopholes in this theory too.

To understand the whole debate regarding IVC’s end and advent of Vedic civilization, we try to analyze how each theory was developed and how one theory tries to disprove other.

The theory of early Aryans being of outside origin is much older than the discovery of IVC itself. From the 16th century itself, Europeans had started taking interest in Sanskrit’s remarkable similarity with Greek, Latin, Old Persian, German, and even certain Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. Later many other languages were added and a common root of all these languages was suggested. This gave rise to Indo-European studies. From linguistic studies it was suggested that similarities between Indo-European languages require an original homeland for the Indo-Europeans somewhere in Europe or Central Asia - from which migrations and “invasions” occurred, which eventually reached India. This was the starting point of Aryan Invasion Theory (which has been widely rejected among archaeologists now). Eventually a Eurocentric view of Aryan origin was developed just based on linguistic evidences. This view also was given racial undertone by reinterpreting Vedic scriptures. Black “race” of Dravidians were deemed original inhabitants of India who were thought to have been conquered by superior white Aryan race. Wars between dark forces of evil and enlightened forces of good described in Rigveda (Note that such types of allegories of struggle between good and bad are common in all ancient religions) was reinterpreted as war between dark-skinned and light-skinned people. After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated with the indigenous Dasyu inimical to the Rigvedic tribes in numerous hymns of the Rigveda. Mortimer Wheeler, the then Director-General of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the top levels of Mohenjo-daro as the victims of a warlike conquest, and famously stated that "Indra stands accused" of the destruction of the IVC. The association of the IVC with the city-dwelling Dasyus remains alluring because the assumed timeframe of the first Indo-Aryan migration into India corresponds neatly with the period of decline of the IVC seen in the archaeological record. The discovery of the advanced, urban IVC however changed the 19th century view of early Indo-Aryan migration as an "invasion" of an advanced culture at the expense of a "primitive" aboriginal population to a gradual acculturation of nomadic "barbarians" on an advanced urban civilization.

Aryan Invasion theory was based mostly on linguistic evidence and archaeological finds from IVC sites was interpreted in such a as to favour the theory. In the 1960s, the evidence of a massacre in Mohenjo-daro was questioned by an archaeologist named George Dales. He demonstrated that the skeletons found at the site did not belong to the same period. As of now, no signs of any large-scale massacre or battle taking place around the last phases of IVC have been found. It has been proved that Aryan (North Indians) and Dravidians (South Indians) or Upper caste and Lower caste are not different races at all. The so-called Aryans and Dravidian races of India are members of the same Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian race. The Caucasian race is not simply white but also contains dark skinned types. A study conducted by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2009 (in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT) analyzed half a million genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 ethnic groups from 13 states in India across multiple caste groups. The study asserts, based on the impossibility of identifying any genetic indicators across caste lines that castes in South Asia grew out of traditional tribal organizations during the formation of Indian society and was not the product of any Aryan invasion and "subjugation" of Dravidian people. [29]

Today Aryan Invasion Theory holds no solid ground and has been disproved without any shred of doubt. Although it was used for a long time to create North-South divide in India. It was able to survive for many years by wrong interpretation of some facts and ignorance towards some others. As noted writer David Frawley puts it, “Linguistic evidence - which is an attempt to reconstruct a proto or original language from existent language fragments, locate cultures on the basis of certain words that exist in different languages, date history by supposed rates of language change, and so on - is all soft evidence…Without verification by other sources linguistic arguments cannot carry any weight at all. Such linguistic speculation should not be used to override more solid literary and archeological evidence.” [30]

Aryan migration theory which is again mostly based on linguistic evidence says the Vedic people came after the decline of the culture and merely took over the remnants of it. So they took up pieces of the culture of IVC (what was left of it) and added their own language Sanskrit to it to form the iron-age Vedic culture. The migrations appear to have been of pastoral cattle-herders who are prominent in the Avesta (the holy book of Zoroastrians) and the Rig Veda. These cattle-herders are though to come continuously in small numbers to the Indian sub-continent. But the David Frawley argues that “Central Asia is not a very favorable region for producing populations even today, as we have already noted. How could it produce the populations necessary to overrun India? Ancient India was not uninhabited. After the long urban Harappan age it was highly populated at the time of the proposed invasion. Such populations could not have easily been overwhelmed, forced to move or be assimilated. After all it was not an organized conquest but a random movement of tribal peoples which is postulated for the Aryans.” [30]

“We should note that Afghanistan is not an easy place to cross through even today. Even Alexander lost most of his army trying to cross this region by land. How could sufficient numbers of people have done it in ancient times so as to overwhelm the existent population of north India?”

Moreover, the decline of the IVC from about 1900 BCE is not universally accepted to be connected with Indo-Aryan immigration. A regional cultural discontinuity occurred during the second millennium BC and many Indus Valley cities were abandoned during this period, while many new settlements began to appear in Gujarat and East Punjab and other settlements such as in the western Bahawalpur region increased in size. Shaffer & Lichtenstein have been quoted [31] that: "This shift by Harappan and, perhaps, other Indus Valley cultural mosaic groups, is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium B.C.."

Perhaps the biggest evidence given by proponents of Indigenous Aryan Theory is the discovery of the existence of a huge river in India, which dried up around the same time as the demise of IVC. This river has been associated with the mythological Saraswati River. It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the greatest and the holiest of rivers was not the Ganga, but the now dry Saraswati. The Ganga is mentioned only once while the Saraswati is mentioned some 50 tomes. There is a whole hymn devoted to her. The latest satellite data from a French satellite combined with field archaeological studies have shown that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had stopped being a perennial river long before 3,000 BCE.

As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed,

"...we now know, thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition that when the proto-historic people settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a long time."

The proto-historic people he refers to are the early Harappans of 3,000 BCE. But satellite 'photos show that a great prehistoric river that was over 7 kilometers wide did indeed flow through the area at one time. Evidence from survey fieldwork and recent satellite imagery have been adduced to suggest that the Ghaggar-Hakra system in the undetermined past had the Sutlej and the Yamuna as tributaries, with the Rann of Kutch as the likely remains of its delta. In this scenario, geological changes diverted the Sutlej towards the Indus and the Yamuna towards the Ganga, following which the river did not have enough water to reach the sea any more and dried up in the Thar desert. It has been proposed that the Saraswati of the early Rigveda corresponds to the Ghaggar-Hakra before these changes took place (the "Old Ghaggar"), and the late Vedic end Epic Saraswati disappearing in the desert to the Ghaggar-Hakra following the diversion of Sutlej and Yamuna. According to the the Bramhanas and Mahabharata, the Saraswati dried up in a desert (at a place named Vinasana or Adarsana); after having disappeared in the desert, reappears in some places; and joins the sea "impetuously". The Sarasvati as a river is later replaced by the Ganges and is almost forgotten in Puranic literature. The stages of the drying up of the river can be traced in Vedic literature showing the Vedic people did not merely come at the last phase of the river's life.

Numerous archaeological sites have also been located along the course of this great prehistoric river. The 414 archeological sites along the bed of Saraswati dwarf the number of sites so far recorded along the entire stretch of the Indus River, which number only about three dozen. About 80 percent of the sites are datable to the fourth or third millennium BCE, suggesting that the river was in its prime during this period. [31] Major IVC cities like Kalibnagan, Rakhigarhi, Ganveriwala etc are also along its course. If this date were used for the composition of the hymns about Saraswati, then the Indo-Aryans would necessarily have been in India in the 4th millennium BC.

Aryan migration theory proponents however suggest the Helmand River in Afghanistan, separated from the watershed of the Indus by the Sanglakh Range as the early Rigvedic Saraswati River. The Helmand historically besides Avestan Haetumant bore the name Haraxvaiti, which is the Avestan form cognate to Sanskrit Saraswati. The Avesta extols the Helmand in similar terms to those used in the Rigveda with respect to the Saraswati: "the bountiful, glorious Haetumant swelling its white waves rolling down its copious flood". However, the identification of the Helmand with the early Rig Vedic Saraswati is not without difficulties. For example, the Helmand flowing into a swamp in the Iranian plateau (the extended wetland and lake system of Hamun-i-Helmand) would not match the Rigvedic description of samudra, which is generally taken to mean "ocean".

This seems to give an upper hand to Indigenous Aryan theory. Moreover the similarity in Avestan name of Helmund and Saraswati has been explained by an outward migration from India to Afghanistan. If rivers in Afghanistan have Vedic names it is more likely an overflow of populations out of India, not the

other way around, as no Afghani river has the size, location, or reaches the sea as did the Vedic Sarasvati. [30]

In fact using by using these evidences and reinterpreting linguistic evidences according to these an Indian Urheimat Theory for Indo-European languages has been proposed. According to it, the Indo-European language family originated in the Indian subcontinent and spread to the remainder of the Indo-European region through a series of migrations. Thus, here a reverse migration is suggested. A noted proponent of this theory is Koenraad Elst.

One fact which is against Indigenous Aryan theory is the almost complete absence of horse remains in IVC sites. Horses are represented extensively in the iconography of ancient Vedic civilization. Hence, Romila Thapar argues that the absence of horse in IVC shows that they were different from Vedic civilization. [32] However, Koenraad Elst tries to argue that “The seeming absence of archaeological evidence should not be treated as positive counter-evidence. For a striking example of the discrepancy between abundant reality and meagre archaeological testimony, let us not forget that the Harappan seal inscriptions have yielded only a few thousands of lines of text, though they are obviously the tip of an iceberg of a vast literary tradition…. That the presence of horses in Harappa may well be out of proportion to the meagre archeological testimony of horse bones, has unwittingly been confirmed by Romila Thapar. All while affirming that ‘the horse is an insignificant animal in the Indus cities’, apparently referring to the paucity (but not absence) of horse bones in Harappan ruins, she neutralizes this oft-used argument for the non-Aryan character of Harappa by also telling us: “Excavated animal bones from Hastinapur in the first millennium BC when the use of horses was more frequent, indicate that horse bones make up only a very small percentage of the bones.” [33]

Thus, the debate on the true identity of IVC inhabitants is still going on with arguments given by one side and then counter-arguments presented by other side. New finds also keep pouring in to this date.

Whatever be the case, we can’t stop ourselves from taking a step back and ponder at the fact how great this civilization was. Firstly, a remarkable civic organization, which allowed streets in big cities to be free from any encroachment for centuries altogether given the idea that Mohenjo-daro is thought to have sheltered at least 50,000 inhabitants — almost a megalopolis for those times. Secondly, a complete absence of any evidence of armies or warfare or slaughter or man-made destruction in any settlement and at any point of time, even during the early phases. Not a single seal depicts a battle or a captive or a victor. Although there were fortifications and weapons (the latter rather few), but those were probably to guard against local tribes or marauders rather than against people from other cities and villages. Fortifications were also often protections against floods, and weapons must have been used mostly for hunting. So far as the archaeological record shows, major disruptions in the cities’ life were caused by natural calamities. In no other ancient civilization is warfare so absent, and over such a long period of time. By contrast, other civilizations of the time consistently recorded and glorified war feats. All said and done, we should not forget to learn from IVC the great lesson of the cycles of birth, life, decay, and rebirth of Indian civilization, a lesson we need to keep in our minds especially at the present moment.

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