Understanding Harappa

While Shereen Ratnagar's book on Harappa, with maps, illustrations and photographs, is intended for the layman, it does manage to question the prevalent assumptions about the civilisation, says NAINA DAYAL.

OVER the years, Shereen Ratnagar's scholarship has enormously enriched the study of the Harappan civilisation. Her new book - Understanding Harappa - gathers in all her insights on the subject. It has been written for the layman - Ratnagar spells out what is meant by terms like "English bond". Masonry and pottery being given a "slip", she tells us how to understand archaeological data (patiently explaining, for instance, that "evidence for the manufacture of a particular item at a given site is not constituted by the number of such items found but by production facilities ... the quantity of waste in proportion to finished items, and the proportion of unfinished to complete items"); and there are maps, illustrations and photographs to assist the reader.

Ratnagar begins with some preliminaries. She discusses the chronology of the civilisation, explains why the label "Harappan civilisation" is more satisfactory than "sarasvati civilisation", spells out what she means by terms like "civilisation", "urban centre" and "Bronze Age", and tells her readers how the urbanisation of the Harappan period was substantially different from what followed it, as also from the next phase of urbanisation, for example. In chapter 2, she discusses the location of Harappan sites in relation to rainfall, river regimes, ground water, soils and mineral resources, an exercise that reveals some features of the Harappan economy.

In the chapter that follows, the author argues that Harappa was not an insular civilisation - indeed, they appear to have been in interaction with a range of cultures from those of hunter- gatherers to that of the urban Mesopotamians, and Ratnagar's exploration of the movement of different kinds of people, ideas and material items is fascinating. The portions on material culture deal with a range of subjects from modes of communication, to craftwork and urban architecture. As elsewhere in the book, the author does not just gather archaeological data, she suggests ways - often interesting and imaginative ways - of interpreting it. I particularly enjoyed her discussion of urban form and architecture.

In an important chapter on religion, Ratnagar argues that one must move beyond attempting to locate Hindu elements in Harappan culture, and considers other ways of looking at the available evidence. She asks, for instance, whether the horned personage seated on a stool and surrounded by animals depicted on the famous seal from Mohenjodaro need necessarily be regarded as a proto-Shiva. Can the image be interpreted somewhat differently, as a representation of a shaman, for example? In the next chapter (chapter 8), Ratnagar questions the persistent belief that Harappan society was "a realm of religious control" ruled by a priest king. She argues that while tribal institutions are likely to have survived into the Harappan period, it also appears to have witnessed the emergence of an early state with "rulers who would have initiated and cemented relationships" between various social groups. Could the unicorn - the most frequently portrayed animal on Harappan seals - have been a royal emblem, and can the other single animals depicted on seals be understood as "the totemic, honorific emblems of various social groups, previously organised on tribal lines", but now incorporated into Harappan society?

In exploring the origins of Harappan urbanism, Ratnagar takes into account the developmental stages that predate that culture at sites like Mehrgarh and the continuities between the pre- Harappan and Harappan periods. But she emphasises that there also seem to be important discontinuities and changes. She notes, for instance, that Mehrgarh has no Harappan occupation. And she rightly points out that simply tracing the development of material culture through the sequence of different strata at particular sites does not amount to an adequate explanation of the origins of a civilisation - civilisation involves the emergence of certain socio-political institutions, it is not reducible to changes in the remnants of material culture that archaeologists can uncover.

While discussing the end of the Harappan civilisation, Ratnagar looks at a range of possible "culprits" - from natural calamities to internal strife, movements of people with Central Asian connections into South Asia and the end of overseas trade. She makes a distinction between the desertion of Harappan settlements after about 1800 B.C. and civilisational collapse which involved "a reversion to rural, tribal cultures of ... the chalcolithic stage." She ends by asking a very important question: Did the Harappan civilisation carry the seeds of its own destruction? Did the crucial role of the elite in spheres like trade and crafts mean that the economy did not have a firm foundation? Since the elements that go into the making of bronze appear to have been procured through elite initiative from distant areas, did dislocations in a changing world affect this Bronze Age civilisation and bring about its end?

This is an invaluable little book that covers enormous ground. It is written with exemplary clarity, and has been elegantly and carefully produced. It is very reasonably priced, and will be of great use to anyone interested in early Indian history.

Understanding Harappa: Civilisation in the Greater Indus Valley, Shereen Ratnagar, New Delhi, Tulika, 2001. pp. x+165, Rs. 220.

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