How Harappan Art Whispers To Hindu Gods

The Harappan civilisation, first unearthed in the 1920s, continues to pose significant questions for researchers of ancient Indian history.

While conventionally categorised as pre-Vedic, a notable body of scholarship has explored the Vedic texts as a potential lens to interpret key facets of Harappan society.

Despite the politicisation of the term, some prominent archaeologists have employed the designation ‘Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation’ to describe the Harappan culture.  Indeed, understanding Vedic and post-Vedic Hindu traditions may offer valuable insights into the enigmatic symbolism embedded within Harappan seals.

Here is one such instance.

Harappan seal H1951, on its reverse side (‘side B’), depicts an anthropomorphic figure adorned with a distinctive headdress. This headdress features a prominent tuft of hair and an ornament with three projections emanating from a horn-like structure.

The presence of the tuft, a characteristic still associated with orthodox Brahmins and prevalent among many communities until recently, suggests a potential continuity of cultural practices from the Harappan era.

However, the most striking aspect of this depiction is the cylindrical enclosure surrounding the figure, likely a deity. This structure, with its curved ends and a semi-elliptical top, is further embellished with small projections.

Interestingly, a similar motif appears on tablet H-179, also from Harappa, where a deity with a three-horned headdress is depicted within an analogous cylindrical enclosure.

Asko Parpola, a Finnish Indologist focusing on Harappa, identifies H-179 as ‘a deity inside a fig tree and a star on either side of the tree.’ Concerning fig tree and star association, Parpola, providing supposedly a ‘Dravidian solution,’ writes:

There are some brilliant insights and questionable assumptions here. Reducing even a late hymn of Rig Veda to 1000 BCE is questionable. Equally questionable is the labelling of the word ‘vaTa’ as Dravidian.

In Tamil, the term ‘vāTai’ denotes the north wind and the related term ‘vāthai’ carries connotations of distress and malevolent spirits. The equivalent Sanskrit word is of course ‘vāta.’ It possesses a well-established Proto-Indo-European etymology, deriving from the root "h-wéh-nt-os", meaning ‘wind.’

Further if one notes the association of ‘ropes of wind’ with stars in the ancient worldview mentioned by Parpola himself, the connection between ‘vāta’ as wind and the stars becomes even more significant. Then the term ‘vaTa-miin’ as pole star becomes the celestial fish held strong by the wind rope. Then this becomes the term for direction in Dravidian.

Nevertheless, the identification of both the seals as showing a deity within the fig tree also needs closer scrutiny.

Michel Danino, an independent researcher and writer has pointed out the similarity between the enclosure in the Harappan seal and the Prabhavali or Thiruvachi that surrounds the sculptures of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. 

A closer look at the Harappan seals shows that the projections considered as fig leaves look more humanoid and in both the seals, they are thirteen in number.

Thirteen is a number that has significance in Rig Veda. Varuna knows the twelve months of the year and additionally ‘that which is supplementarily engendered’ (I.25.8) which as Sayana observes is an allusion to the thirteenth month.

In Shatapatha Brahmana, this aspect of 13 becomes a crucial part of the Vedic ritual: "There are six seasons and twelve or thirteen months. Agni enters them. Thus, there are twelve or thirteen syllables. (I.2.3.23) The altar becomes a womb for Agni. The altar bricks are eight for Gayatri and five times the Yajna doer settles it. Five represent the five seasons. ‘Eight bricks he settles five times that makes thirteen and thirteen forms the year’. (8.6.3.12) As the year has thirteen months the layers for the Vedic altar become thirteen. Also, the utterances (vyahritis) are thirteen. (9.1.3.8)." 

Here we have Agni surrounded by thirteen in a ritualistic structure. In both the seals the structure within which the deity is enclosed has also a striking resemblance to an oval-cylindrical Linga form than a plain tree. In Indian tradition, there is a sustained innovation of Shiva forms emerging from enclosed Linga structures.

Given the fact that Harappan seals also explicitly depict deities arising from the tree, the enclosed deity imagery is thus markedly different.

In later Hindu texts, the thirteen ganas or groups of merry-making bhutas are part of the entourage of Shiva. Srimad Devi Bhagavata also speaks of the thirteen ganas. Thirteen ganas are often represented in the temple architectures of various Shiva and Shakti temples in different parts of India.

Meanwhile, in both Vishnu and Surya iconography, the prabhavali (the arch surrounding the deity) was inscribed with various emanations or companions of the deity, such as the Adityas in the case of Surya.

It should be remembered that the number of Adityas used to vary and fluctuated from eleven to twelve and thirteen. But later it got standardised into twelve. So, both the concept of thirteen ganas and the prabhavali incorporating divine humanoid forms could have evolved in diverse ways from the Harappan symbolism. 

In Mahabharata’s Vana Parva the following significant attributes of thirteen emerge from the debate between Ashtavakra and Vandin:

Vandin the son of Varuna speaks of the thirteenth lunar day as the most auspicious and thirteen islands existing on earth. With this, he stops. Ashtavakra continues and completes the verse stating that Kesi presided over thirteen sacrifices. Thirteen are devoured by atichchandas of the Vedas.

'Atichchandas' means longer metres of the Vedas. It here becomes symbolic, according to Ashtavakra, that the self becomes subjected to happiness and misery because of the thirteen (five organs of cognition, five organs of action and the mind, ego and intellect), but through the knowing of the self, one liberates from the bonds woven by the thirteen.

By encircling the central deity within the radiant halo of the prabhavali, the temple's iconography transforms the deity into the divine fire that burns brightly on the altar.

As art historian Stella Kramrisch insightfully observed when discussing a later Nepalese painting of Shiva, the prabhavali becomes ‘a pillared arch of scrollwork, which evokes a cave.’ This cave, then, becomes the symbol of the sacred space within the human heart, the innermost sanctum of the Self.

While the Agni nurtured in the Vedic altar is considered as Agni being in the womb, the sanctum sanctorum of the temple is called garbhagriha - the house of the womb. Thus, the Vedic altar, the cyclic year, and the womb as well as the cave merge into one in a liminal space where ritualism and mysticism interconnect.

The evidence presented leads us to a compelling juncture. While the Harappan seals, as miniature depictions, may not directly symbolise the profound spiritual contemplations of later periods, they undoubtedly contain nascent forms of imagery that would later flourish in Puranic and Hindu iconography.

These early visual elements, like the enigmatic enclosures surrounding figures, may have evolved into features such as the prabhavali (arch-halo) seen in later representations of divine beings.

The debate between Ashtavakra and Vandin provides a useful parallel.  Ashtavakra's shift from Vandin's externalised ritualism towards an internalised symbolism of the power of Atman and Atma-Bodha mirrors a potential trajectory within Harappan spirituality.

While it would be speculative to claim a direct correspondence, the Harappan seals hint at an inherent potential for contemplative, internalised and symbolic interpretation.

Therefore, beyond linguistic identity debates, the continuity between the Harappan civilisation and Hindu traditions can be observed in the Vedic worldview, the role of rituals, and their symbolic internalisation.

This continuity extends to later Puranic narratives and the development of iconographic elements across India's diverse geography and cultural mosaic, suggesting a complex and evolving spiritual landscape with roots in the Indus Valley, or more accurately, the Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation.