Hindus later did. Many historians have suggested religious and ritual
continuities between the Indus Civilization and later Indian culture.
One of the most elaborate seals (FIG. 6-5) depicts a male figure
with a horned headdress and, perhaps, three faces, seated (with
erect penis) among the profile animals that regularly appear alone
on other seals. The figure’s folded legs with heels pressed together
and his arms resting on the knees suggest a yogic posture (compare
FIG. 6-12).Yo g ais a method for controlling the body and relaxing
the mind used in later Indian religions to yoke, or unite, the practi-
tioner to the divine. Although most scholars reject the identifica-
tion of this figure as a prototype of the multiheaded Hindu god
Shiva (FIG. 6-18) as Lord of Beasts, the yogic posture argues that this
important Indian meditative practice began as early as the Indus
Civilization.Vedic and Upanishadic Period
By 1700 BCE, the urban phase of the Indus Civilization had ended in
most areas. The production of sculptures, seals, and script gradually
ceased, and village life replaced urban culture. Very little art survives
from the next thousand years, but the religious foundations laid
during this period helped define most later South and Southeast
Asian art.VEDAS The basis for the new religious ideas were the oral hymns
of the Aryans, a mobile herding people from Central Asia who occu-
pied the Punjab, an area of northwestern India, in the second mil-
lennium BCE. The Aryans (“Noble Ones”) spoke Sanskrit, the earliestlanguage yet identified in South Asia. Around 1500 BCE, they com-
posed the first of four Vedas.These Sanskrit compilations of reli-
gious learning (Veda means “knowledge”) included hymns intended
for priests (called Brahmins) to chant or sing. The Brahmins headed
a social hierarchy, perhaps of pre-Aryan origin, that became known
as the caste system, which still forms the basis of Indian society to-
day. Below the priests were the warriors, traders, and manual labor-
ers (including artists and architects), respectively. The Aryan religion
centered on sacrifice, the ritual enactment of often highly intricate
and lengthy ceremonies in which the priests placed materials, such
as milk and soma (an intoxicating drink), into a fire that took the
sacrifices to the gods in the heavens. If the Brahmins performed
these rituals accurately, the gods would fulfill the prayers of those
who sponsored the sacrifices. These gods, primarily male, included
Indra, Varuna, Surya, and Agni, gods associated, respectively, with
the rains, the ocean, the sun, and fire. There is no evidence to indi-
cate the Aryans made images of these deities.UPANISHADS The next phase of South Asian urban civiliza-
tion developed east of the Indus heartland, in the Ganges River Val-
ley. Here, from 800 to 500 BCE, religious thinkers composed a variety
of texts called the Upanishads.Among the innovative ideas of the
Upanishads were samsara, karma,and moksha (or nirvana). Sam-
sara is the belief that individuals are born again after death in an
almost endless round of rebirths. The type of rebirth can vary. One
can be reborn as a human being, an animal, or even a god. An indi-
vidual’s past actions (karma), either good or bad, determine the
nature of future rebirths. The ultimate goal of a person’s religious
life is to escape from the cycle of birth and death by merging the
individual self into the vital force of the universe. This escape is
called either moksha (liberation, for Hindus) or nirvana (cessation,
for Buddhists).HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM Hinduism and Buddhism,
the two major modern religions originating in Asia, developed in the
late centuries BCEand the early centuries CE. Hinduism, the dominant
religion in India today, discussed in more detail later, has its origins in
Aryan religion. The founder of Buddhism was the Buddha, a histori-
cal figure who advocated the path ofasceticism,or self-discipline and
self-denial, as the means to free oneself from attachments to people
and possessions, thus ending rebirth (see “Buddhism and Buddhist
Iconography,” page 161). Unlike their predecessors in South Asia,
both Hindus and Buddhists use images of gods and holy persons in
religious rituals. To judge from surviving works, Buddhism has the
older artistic tradition. The earliest Buddhist monuments date to the
Maurya period.Maurya Dynasty
When Alexander the Great reached the Indus River in 326 BCE, his
troops refused to go forward. Reluctantly, Alexander abandoned his
dream of conquering India and headed home. After Alexander’s
death three years later, his generals divided his empire among them-
selves. One of them, Seleucus Nicator, reinvaded India, but Chan-
dragupta Maurya (r. 323–298 BCE), founder of the Maurya dynasty,
defeated him in 305 BCEand eventually consolidated almost all of
present-day India under his domain. Chandragupta’s capital was
Pataliputra (modern Patna) in northeastern India, far from the cen-
ter of the Indus Civilization. Megasthenes, Seleucus’s ambassador to
the Maurya court, described Pataliputra in his book on India as a
large and wealthy city enclosed within mighty wooden walls so ex-
tensive that the circuit had 64 gates and 570 towers.160 Chapter 6 SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA BEFORE 12006-5Seal with seated figure in yogic posture, from Mohenjo-daro,
Pakistan, ca. 2300–1750 bce.Steatite coated with alkali and baked,
1 – 83 13 – 8 . National Museum, New Delhi.
This seal depicting a figure (with three faces?) wearing a horned
headdress and seated in a posture used in yoga is evidence that this
important Indian meditative practice began as early as the Indus
Civilization.1 in.