Shamanism

While terra-cotta and faience figurines include both wild and domestic animals of many sorts, those depicted on the seals are all large and powerful animals, the majority of which are wild. Frequently on the seals these animals are shown with a feeding trough in front of them, which may symbolize the making of real or symbolic offerings to them.

Ratnagar (2001) suggests that the emphasis on wild animals may reflect the practice of shamanism among the Harappans. Shamanism forms part of a belief system in which spirits are considered to be present in elements of the natural world, such as plants, animals, birds, and snakes and it is thought that they can be contacted by shamans, ritual practitioners who use various means to enter a trance in which they are believed to leave their bodies and enter the world of the spirits. By doing so, they are able to achieve certain results, such as curing the sick, counteracting natural disasters such as drought, or finding out the future. Assistants to the shaman from the spirit world are often visualized as animals or composite beasts. Such creatures occur in Harappan iconography, both on seals and on the copper tablets from Mohenjo-daro where they form part of a small repertoire of images that also includes a wild hairy man with horns, armed with a bow, the kind of form in which shamans crossing into the spirit world are often envisaged. Other images on these tablets are generally large wild animals, as on the seals, but also include the hare, rarely depicted elsewhere. It is possible that the perforated jars known from many Harappan sites were braziers used to burn incense or create smoke that would send a shaman into his trance (though there are other interpretations of these vessels, for example, as sieves or devices for catching fish); the brazier shown in front of the unicorn on seals might have served the same purpose. Drumming was another means used to induce a trance; a few figurines playing drums are known from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, and the script also includes a sign that may be interpreted as a drummer. The possible link between the Harappan religion and shamanism was already suggested by During Caspers (1993).