eyes to justify his common Vedic epithet “thou-
sand-eyed one.”
Further reading: Jan Gonda, trans., The Indra Hymns
of the Rig Veda (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990); Alfred Hil-
lebrandt, Vedic Mythology. Translated from the German
by Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma, Vol. I (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1990); W. J. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology,
Vedic and Puranic. 2d ed. (Bombay: Rupa, 1973).
Indus
The Indus River is the longest river in Pakistan.
It flows south from its sources in the HIMALAYAS.
Its original Sanskrit name was Sindhu. This river
became Indos in Greek and eventually gave its
name to the country of India. The ancient Per-
sians pronounced the name as Hindu, so that the
people living there came to be called Hindus. The
Indus was one of the two largest rivers mentioned
in the VEDAS; it was included in the ancient list of
the “seven rivers” praised by the Vedic sages.
It was along the Indus River in 1924 that
Sir John Marshall, director general of the British
Archaeological Survey, unearthed a previously
unknown culture, which was dubbed the INDUS
VALLEY CIVILIZATION. Later work by Sir R. E. Mor-
timer Wheeler at Harappa and others at Mohenjo-
Daro showed it to be an extensive and elaborate
city-centered culture dating from as far back as
3600 B.C.E.
Further reading: Shane Mountjoy, The Indus River
(Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005).
Indus Valley civilization
The Indus Valley civilization (c. 3600 B.C.E. to
1900 B.C.E.) was one of the largest civilization
complexes in the ancient world. Excavations at
the primary sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
show that the civilization stretched at least from
the lower to the middle reaches of the Indus River,
now almost entirely in Pakistan. First excavated
by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1921, the remains
show a highly developed city culture with grana-
ries, bath houses, city planning, sculpture, and a
form of writing.
Most important for the history of Hinduism,
there are elements that foreshadow later develop-
ments in the religion. Several artifacts seem to
indicate goddess-oriented worship. These godlike
forms, interestingly, closely resemble those exca-
vated in Neolithic Europe.
Among the Indus Valley artifacts are numer-
ous seals, possibly used for commercial purposes,
which depict animals, humans, and possibly gods
and goddesses. One of these seals seems to show a
female divinity being worshipped in a tree, resem-
bling very much the later worship of YAKSHAS, or
tree beings.
One artifact that has garnered a lot of attention
is a depiction of a seated figure with an erect penis
and a buffalo style headdress. This figure has been
called Proto-SHIVA and linked to the later concept
of Shiva as Pashupati or lord of the animals.
The relationship between the Indus Valley
remains, later VEDIC culture, and the ARYANS
has been the subject of much controversy. Most
modern Western scholarship dates the Rig Veda,
India’s oldest extant text, to around 1500 B.C.E.,
comfortably after the fall of the Indus Valley civili-
zation. Some, particularly in India, however, seek
to find in the Indus Valley the earliest Aryan and
Vedic culture.
Two facts complicate this claim of a Vedic
Indus Valley civilization. First, the Rig Veda barely
mentions city life. Most Vedic hymns dwell on
horses and herds of cows; none of them even men-
tions a large building, let alone any feature that
might be associated with advanced city life. More
importantly, the Vedas frequently mention large
horses pulling men in chariots. Archaeological
research indicates that large horses are not indig-
enous to India, but are of Middle Eastern genetic
stock. Large horse remains have been found in
the northern Punjab, where the Vedic people are
believed to have lived, but not a single verifiableK 196 Indus