The unity of the Indus civilization and the shared acceptance of an ideological system is demonstrated by the uniformity and standardization of many aspects of the Harappan material world. This is seen particularly in the layout of the towns and cities, which seem to have been conceived and built to a regular plan, following an accepted canon with variations as locally required.
Weights and Measures. The Harappans used a standardized system of weights and measures throughout their state; while only a few measuring rules have been found, weights are ubiquitous. Their conformity to a standard is highly significant. In Mesopotamia the early city-states used various systems, and it was not until the political unification of southern Mesopotamia under the Akkadian kings that a single standardized system came into use. With the collapse of the Akkadian empire, this system broke down and had to be reintroduced when southern Mesopotamia was reunified under the Ur III dynasty. In the Indus realms, however, standardized weights were present from the beginning of the Mature Harappan period, providing a strong suggestion that by the start of this period there was political unity. The use of standardized weights throughout the Harappan realms amply demonstrates the existence of a statewide system of organization that could dictate, monitor, and guarantee such uniformity. Regular checks must have been carried out by officials to ensure that these weights remained accurate: Very little deviation from the standard has been detected in the weights found.
The weights were found in all the settlements of the Harappan realms, but the full range of sizes was known only from the large urban centers while rural settlements had a limited range. The existence of standardized weights implies official control, centrally managed, over transactions involving the state, such as taxation; the issuing of materials for officially sponsored trade and receipt of materials resulting from such trade; the issuing or receipt of goods moving within the internal distribution network; the issuing of materials to artisans for the manufacture of goods and the checking of the resulting products; or the issuing of food rations for those engaged in state-sponsored activities.
At Harappa, a large number of weights were found immediately inside the city gates, which were designed to control and monitor traffic. This suggests that a toll was taken there on goods and materials entering or leaving the city.
Artifacts. The uniformity of Harappan artifacts must reflect an underlying ideology that dictated the "right" form for them to take, which was adhered to throughout the Harappan realms. Though some objects, such as shell bangles, could have been manufactured in relatively few workshops and widely distributed from these, the same was not true of pottery, required by every household, whose fragility made it impractical to transport in large quantities over long distances and which was probably manufactured in every town. Artisans therefore were manufacturing goods to a known template. This did not, however, mean that the repertoire of Harappan objects was unvarying: For example, scored goblets, used to contain liquids, were made with round bases for much of the Mature Harappan period but were eventually superseded by a pointed-based form, produced in huge quantities. The wider repertoire of forms (for example, in pottery) and of varieties of particular artifacts (for example, inscribed objects) that were found in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa may in some cases reflect the presence there of individuals or groups of people tasked with roles not required outside the cities, such as the senior positions in the bureaucracy. In other cases they may have been luxury products manufactured for the city-dwelling elite; to a considerable extent, the two groups are likely to have been the same people.
Warfare
Harappan Warfare? Wheeler's interpretation of his excavations at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in the 1940s reflected a mind-set conditioned by active military service in two world wars and much archaeological experience with the Roman era. He therefore looked for, and believed he had found, evidence of Harappan militarism. The massive walls around the citadels were clearly defensive to Wheeler's eyes. Many Harappan artifacts could have been weapons, such as arrowheads, spearheads, and daggers, though to Wheeler's credit he admitted that these could have been used for other purposes such as hunting. In the streets of Mohenjo-daro, Wheeler reported evidence of a massacre: the last-ditch stand of the unfortunate inhabitants, slain in defense of the city.
In the years since Wheeler's investigations, this evidence has all fallen away. Wheeler's massacre victims seem more likely to have fallen to disease. None of the (admittedly few) excavated burials show signs of death by violence, except for a man from Kalibangan who suffered a fatal knee injury, quite possibly accidental. It has been shown that the city walls cannot have been constructed for defense. In particular, the gateways are not designed to impede the entrance of enemies or give military advantage to defenders. Instead the walls were often revetments for the platforms that provided defense against the constant threat of flooding, as well as demarcation for the principal areas of settlements, while the gateways enabled access to be controlled and probably tithes collected. The walls were probably also designed to impress.
The one area where town walls seem more convincingly defensive is on the west coast. Towns strongly fortified with stone walls, including Surkotada, Sutkagen-dor, and Kuntasi, may have been places of particular security, located where considerable quantities of valuables were stored when they entered or left the Harappan realms. Clay slingshot have been reported in the guardrooms flanking the gateway at Kuntasi (though they were also found in the village of Kanewal where they were probably used against animals that threatened the domestic herds). That it was property rather than people being defended by the stone walls is shown by the presence at all these sites of extramural settlement.
The Ubiquity of Warfare. That the Harappan civilization might have been a land without conflict is one of its most surprising aspects. A comparison with other civilizations shows how unusual and unexpected this is: For example, the texts of contemporary southern Mesopotamia are full of references to warfare, and there are numerous depictions of soldiers and battles. These civilizations often had periods of peace and strong government, but these were usually interspersed with fighting between rival groups.
Written sources attest to these struggles: Could they still be detected in the absence of literary evidence? This is a crucial question when considering the apparent absence of warfare in the Harappan state.
Social Control. The potential use of force as a sanction was one of the means by which rulers in the early civilizations could control their realms and their people. In its absence, what could have held together the Indus civilization and ensured cooperation among the members of society? In most civilizations, religion was a powerful force, and rule by religious authorities backed by religious sanctions often preceded that of secular rulers backed by force. It may be suggested that the ideological basis of Harappan society made the need for physical deterrents unnecessary and that order was maintained by consent and the fear of offending against social and religious norms.
The Need for Warfare. The Harappans enjoyed an unusual situation when compared with other contemporary and later civilizations in that they lacked a natural enemy. The inhabitants of prosperous Mesopotamia were perpetually on the defensive against the mobile peoples of the desert and mountain regions that bordered their lands; the control of vital canal water for irrigation was a common source of friction between cities within Sumer and Akkad; and they were often competing with powerful neighbors, the state of Elam, and later others. Comparable problems were experienced by the Chinese, beset by Central Asian nomads; by the Greek city-states competing for control of limited land and other resources; and similarly by others. The Harappans, in contrast, were descended from the pastoral nomads of the mountain massif on their west and maintained good, probably kin-based, relations with them, even though the inhabitants of the northern part of the Indo-Iranian borderlands were not under Harappan political control and those of the Kulli culture in southern Baluchistan only loosely so. The presence of these well-disposed highland cultures on their border provided a buffer between the Harappans and their nearest civilized neighbors, the Helmand culture, and the mountains themselves were probably a sufficient deterrent to an armed invasion from the Iranian plateau. Within the Harappan realm, the diversity of resources and economic potential of the different regions and the great productivity of its lands and relatively low population meant that there was no spur to conflict and considerable benefits to be gained from cooperation among the inhabitants of the different regions. Population density in neighboring regions, such as the Aravallis, was even lower, and the benefits of peaceful cooperation even greater, given the relative technological levels of the Harappans and their neighbors. To the south was the sea, the only potentially hostile border, though Harappan shipping probably commanded the sea lanes, and the people of the nearest landfall, Magan, were in friendly collaboration with the Harappans. Nevertheless, pirates, acknowledging no political masters, the guerilla fighters of the seas, have always been a danger to shipping, which had to be countered by physical force and superior seamanship, and if the Harappans had any need to defend themselves against armed attack, it would have been here. It may be in this context that the strongly fortified towns of the coastal regions should be viewed.
Historical Clues
Given the strength of tradition within the subcontinent, later social and political systems may shed light on the Indus system, from which they may have sprung.
The caste system, fundamental to the structure of Indian society in later times, has its basis in the concept of ritual purity. Contact with many elements of organic life introduces ritual pollution, and bathing can remove this in many cases. As different activities convey different degrees of pollution, a hierarchy is created by the activities that individual groups can perform and by other related practices: For instance, vegetarianism is more pure than meat eating, and various types of meat, such as game, are less polluting than others. While the caste system is the product of millennia of evolution, its origins may well lie in the religious beliefs of the Harappans.
Kenoyer (1989, 188) singles out a number of features relating to a hierarchy based on ritual purity that would be visible in the material record: segregation of living areas; private water sources, drainage, and waste disposal; and distinct types of vessels for preparing, cooking, and serving food. He points to the existence of separate sectors in the Harappan settlements, such as the walled citadel (though he notes the absence of such divisions in some small sites such as Allahdino) and the emphasis on privacy in the home, exemplified by the arrangement of the entrance to prevent the direct viewing of or access to the interior courtyard; to this one can add the restrictions on access within areas of the settlements and even within some structures. There were private wells and well developed systems of drainage and waste disposal in many Harappan settlements.
While in other societies, the quality and material of artifacts may provide an indication of the wealth of different groups and their ability to command access to restricted resources, it is possible that hierarchy among the Harappans may have been organized along different lines. If ritual purity were the key factor in determining status, as it may well have been, those higher up the status scale would be identifiable by their possession of artifacts and materials
Jars for rubbish were a common feature of Harappan towns and cities:this example is from Dholavira. They formed part of a complex system of water supply and waste disposal; while this system obviously had a practical value, it may also reflect concern with ritual purity, a fundamental principle underlying later Indian religion, which may have its roots in the Harappan period. (Namit Arora)
Thought to be more pure. In traditional South Asia, materials such as metal that can be purified after use are more pure than those that cannot, such as unglazed terra-cotta. Different styles of particular objects may also be associated with people in different ritual status groups, usable among themselves but liable to be polluted if used by individuals of lower ritual status: For example, at Mohenjo-daro Dales and Kenoyer (1986) identified five different varieties of cooking vessel that might have been used by different status groups.
Allied to the social structure dictated by caste is a redistributive mechanism known as the jajmani system. In this system, all members of the community have reciprocal obligations to provide the products of their labors and certain services to others with whom they have a formalized relationship that to some extent resembles kinship. Payment for these goods and services is made in kind and fixed by tradition. The payments take place at regulated intervals and often in the context of religious festivals or other special occasions. Underlying the system is the notion of ritual purity: Some activities are pure, others not, and the caste hierarchy, based on degrees of ritual purity, is reflected in the division of labor. Ritually pure individuals require the services of impure individuals to perform tasks that would pollute them.
Crosscutting this system, which operates at the level of the community, is a wider network that links all members of a particular caste (jati), wherever they live. All members of a caste group (often organized in historical times into guilds) would look after each others' needs while exercising considerable control over the activities of each individual within it.
Something akin to these two systems may have underpinned the organization of the Harappan state. Local officials and local priests, supplied by the official distribution system, may have provided goods that people required for social, economic, and ritual purposes, in exchange for subsistence products and various types of labor such as craft activities or public building works. Kinship ties could also have resulted in the movement of goods and the supply of foodstuffs between town and country through the medium of pastoral members of the extended family during their seasonal movements, and a tithe of these could have been extracted by the state upon their entering or leaving the town or city.
World History
