Pakistan for most of its length. The
Indus is traditionally considered one of
the seven sacred rivers of India—the
others are the Ganges, Yamuna,
Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, and
Cauvery—although in modern times
this has diminished, especially since the
creation of Pakistan in 1947 rendered it
inaccessible to most Hindus.
Despite its diminished religious sig-
nificance, the Indus remains important
from a historical perspective, since
many archeological sites from the Indus
Valley civilizationhave been discovered
on its banks.
Indus Valley Art
Despite the plethora of artifacts that
have been recovered from the cities of
the Indus Valley civilization, objects
that could be interpreted as works of
art are surprisingly sparse. No traces of
decoration have been found inside or
outside the buildings, nor has any mon-
umental architecturebeen discovered.
The art objects that have been found
in Harappa, a city on the Ravi River in
Pakistan, have all been on a smaller
scale: several stone statues of male tor-
sos, the head and torso of a bearded
man, a copper statue of a young woman
naked except for bangles and jewelry
(said to be a “dancer,” because her arms
and legs are lifted), statues of women
with elaborate headdresses believed to
be icons for a Mother Goddesscult, and
the images of plants, animals, and
humans carved on the Indus Valley
Seals. The latter show delicate and quite
realistic work, indicating a great deal of
skill in working the stone, as well as the
ability to make realistic figural images.
Indus Valley Civilization
(3000–2000 B.C.E.) An ancient and highly
developed urban culture, so named
because the first two sites discovered,
Mohenjo-Daroand Harappa, both lie
on the Indus River in what is now
Pakistan. Further searching has
uncovered other sites along much of the
Indus, as well as a web of settlements
stretching east to the upper Ganges
basin, south through the modern state
of Gujarat and into modern
Maharashtra, and along the coast of
modern Pakistan. The greatest concen-
tration of these settlements has been
found along the banks of the Ghaggar
River, a small and seasonal watercourse
that runs through the state of
Rajasthan. Some historians claim that it
is the bed of the ancient Saraswati
River. Evidence from the sites seems to
indicate that the sites further to the
south developed later, but remained
vital after the cities in the Indus River
Valley, particularly Harappa and
Mohenjo-Daro, had fallen into oblivion.
The discovery of these sites in the early
twentieth century prompted significant
historical revision, since before then it
had been generally assumed that the
people known as the Aryanswere the
earliest developed culture in India.
The most striking feature of these
cities is their uniformity—their general
city plan was nearly identical from place
to place (although they differed in
scale), the bricks used throughout all the
cities were exactly the same size, and
there was a standardized set of weights
and measures. Each of the cities also
had a large central granary, which stored
the grain necessary to feed such a siz-
able urban population. Such evident
uniformity over such long distances
bears clear witness to a strong and
centralized government, which some
analysts have speculated was religious
in nature.
Another striking feature of all the
cities was an advanced sanitation sys-
tem. All the houses had channels for
water, and an elaborate network of
drains and sewers ran throughout the
city, even in those sections where the
houses were the smallest, and people
presumably the poorest. Mohenjo-Daro
also has a great tank built of brick and
sealed with pitch, which the archaeolo-
gists have dubbed the “Great Bath.” Why
were the people who built these cities so
concerned with sanitation and bathing?Indus Valley Art