Pashupati seal
The Pashupati seal (also Mahayogi seal,
It has one of the more complicated designs in the thousands of seals found from the Indus Valley civilization, and is unusual in having a human figure as the main and largest element; in most seals this is an animal.[10] It had been claimed to be one of the earliest depictions of the Hindu god Shiva—"Pashupati" (Lord of animals) being one of his epithets, or a "proto-Shiva" deity.[9][11]
Though the combination of elements in the Pashupati seal is unique, there are a group of other Indus seals that have some of them. One, also from Mohenjo-daro (find number DK 12050) and now in Islamabad, has a nude three-faced horned deity seated on a throne in a yogic position, wearing bangles on its arms. In this case no animals are depicted, and there is some dispute as to the gender of the figure, despite it seeming to have a beard.[12]
The Pashupati seal is in the
Discovery and description
The seal was uncovered in 1928–29, in Block 1, Southern Portion of the DK-G Area of Mohenjo-daro, at a depth of 3.9 meters below the surface.[15] Ernest J. H. Mackay, who directed the excavations at Mohenjo-daro, dated the seal to the Intermediate I Period (now considered to fall around 2350–2000 BCE) in his 1937–38 report in which the seal is numbered 420, giving it its alternate name.[16]
The seal is carved in
Post-excavation history
The finds from Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the
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Mohenjo-daro, Seated figure 222
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Mohenjo-daro, Seated figure 235
Interpretations
Marshall's identification with proto-Shiva
The first description and analysis of the seal's iconography was that of the archaeologist
My reasons for the identification are four. In the first place the figure has three faces and that Siva was portrayed with three as well as with more usual five faces, there are abundant examples to prove. Secondly, the head is crowned with the horns of a bull and the
trisula are characteristic emblems of Siva. Thirdly, the figure is in a typical yoga attitude, and Siva [sic] was and still is, regarded as a mahayogi—the prince of Yogis. Fourthly, he is surrounded by animals, and Siva is par excellence the "Lord of Animals" (Pasupati)—of the wild animals of the jungle, according to the Vedic meaning of the word pashu, no less than that of domesticated cattle.[15]
Later, in 1931, he expanded his reasons to include the fact that Shiva is associated with the phallus in the form of
Writing in 1976,
Alf Hiltebeitel noted in 2011 that, following Marshall's analysis, "nearly all efforts at interpreting the [Indus Valley] religion have centered discussion around [the Pashupati seal] figure".[25] A lot of discussion has taken place about this seal.[26] While Marshall's work has earned some support, many critics and even supporters have raised several objections.[6]
Herbert Sullivan interpreted the figure as a female goddess on the grounds that the so-called erect phallus actually represents the dangling end of a waistband or girdle, a feature found on many undoubtedly female terracotta figurines, and ambiguous on some other seals, including DK 12050 (mentioned above). Marshall himself had admitted this was possible. In the terracottas, males are always nude; in addition, the jewellery worn on the Pashupati seal is characteristic of female rather than male terracottas.[27]
Doris Srinivasan's reinterpretation
Doris Srinivasan, a professor of Indian studies, raised objections to Marshall's identification, and provided a interpretation for the figure, where she postulated the lateral projections were cow-like ears rather than faces, which had already been suggested by Sullivan and others.[28] In 1975–76, she published a journal article titled 'The So-Called Proto-śiva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro: An Iconological Assessment' in the academic journal Archives of Asian Art.[23] In 1997, she reiterated her views in a book titled Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art.
According to her, the two extra faces could be reinterpreted as possible ears, and the central face has predominant bovine features. She has drawn similarities between the central figure of seal 420, and other artefacts from the Indus Valley such as the horned mask from Mohenjo-Daro, the terracotta bull from Kalibangan, and the depiction of a horned deity on a water pitcher from the archaeological site of Kot Diji. She has also noted that the yogic posture of the figure is repeated on a number of other seals and sealings, some of which indicate that the figure receives worship. On the basis of these observations, she suggests that the figure of seal 420 could be a divine buffalo-man.[29]
Dravidian Interpretations
Scholars who consider the
Where Marshall's description had "the head is crowned with the horns of a bull", Hiltebeitel is emphatic that the figure has the very different horns of a buffalo, and that IVC people familiar with both species would not have confused the two species: "One might imagine a "proto-Siva" with bull's horns as a prefiguration of Siva's connection with his
The American archaeologist
Vedic Interpretations
M.V.N. Krishna Rao identified the figure with the Hindu god Indra. He argued that the tiger could be ignored since it is much larger than the other animals, and the two deer could also be ignored since they were seated under the table. Then he combined the first phoneme of each of the animals, and the word 'nara' meaning man, and arrived at the term 'makhanasana' which is an epithet of Indra.[33]
Not determinable
Some 21st-century scholars have urged caution in interpretation. The American Indologist Wendy Doniger wrote in 2011 that while "several generations of scholars"[7] had taken up Marshall's suggestion, and while there was "a general resemblance" between the figure on the seal and later Hindu images of Shiva, and while the people of the Indus could have had "a symbolism of the divine phallus",[7] all the same "we cannot know it, [and] it does not mean that the Indus images are the source of the Hindu images, or that they had the same meaning."[7] The scholar of religious studies Geoffrey Samuel wrote that the multiple interpretations "certainly cannot all be right".[8] Since, further, there was no obvious method for choosing between the interpretations, and little was known with certainty about Indus Valley religious practices, "the evidence for the yogic or 'Tantric' practices is so dependent on reading later practices into the material that it is of little or no use for constructing any kind of history of [such] practices".[8]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-7591-0172-2.
- ISBN 978-1-108-17351-3.
- ISBN 978-90-04-16819-0.
- ^ For example, Wendy Doniger, in The Hindus: An Alternative History, page 34, 2009, Viking: "... the Indus seal we all once interpreted as an ithyphallic Shiva Pashupati is probably just someone sitting cross-legged, as South Asians are inclined to do, with a bulging loincloth knot...".
- ^ Kenoyer, 403
- ^ a b See e. g. James G. Lochtefeld, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. 2: N–Z. The Rosen Publishing Group, New York 2002, p. 633, who doubts the connection of the seal to Shiva, given the supposedly late age of the god.
- ^ a b c d Doniger 2011, pp. 485–508.
- ^ a b c Samuel 2017, pp. 3–4, 6–8.
- ^ a b Werness 2006, p. 270
- ^ "stamp-seal", British Museum
- ^ Witzel 2008, pp. 68–70, 90: "It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE), ..." (p. 70) "a Vedic connection of the so-called Siva Pasupati found on some Harappa seals (D. Srinivasan 1984) cannot be established, this mythological concept is due, rather, to common Eurasian ideas of the "Lord of the Animals" who is already worshipped by many Neolithic hunting societies." (p. 90).
- ^ Kenoyer, 402–403
- ^ Singh (2015), 111–112
- ^ Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. "Mohenjo-daro: Introduction". Archived from the original on 1 December 2013.
- ^ a b Mackay 1928–29, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Mackay 1937–38, plate XCIV; no. 420.
- ^ Possehl, 141
- ^ Marshall 1931, p. 52.
- ^ Singh (2015), 111–112 (112 quoted)
- ^ a b Marshall 1931, pp. 52–57.
- ^ McEvilley 1981, pp. 45–46.
- ^ Sullivan 1964.
- ^ a b Srinivasan 1975–76, pp. 47–58.
- ^ McEvilley 1981, pp. 47–51.
- ^ Hiltebeitel 2011, p. 399.
- ^ Bryant, Edwin, p.163
- ^ Sullivan, 119–120; Hiltebeitel, 229–230 partly concurs
- ^ Sullivan, 120; Singh (2008), 172
- ^ Srinivasan 1997, p. 181.
- ^ Hiltebeitel, 406
- ^ Kosambi, 2–3
- ^ Hiltebeitel 2011, pp. 399–432.
- ^ ISBN 0199881332.
- ^ Hiltebeitel, 405, 430–431
- ISBN 9780195666038.
Sources
- S2CID 170065724.
- ISBN 978-90-04-19380-2.
- Kenoyer, J.M., entry by, in: Matthiae, P; Lamberg-Karlovsky, Carl Clifford, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, p. 403, 2003, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), google books
- Kosambi, Damodar Dharmanand, Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture, 1962 (2005 reprint), Popular Prakashan, ISBN 9788171548705, 8171548709, google books
- Mackay, Ernest John Henry (1928–29). "Excavations at Mohenjodaro". Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India: 67–75.
- Mackay, Earnest John Henry (1937–38). Further excavations at Mohenjo-Daro : being an official account of archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-Daro carried out by the Government of India between the years 1927 and 1931. Delhi: Government of India.
- S2CID 192221643.
- ISBN 978-81-206-1179-5.
- ISBN 978-0-7591-1642-9.
- ISBN 978-0521695343.
- Singh, Kavita, "The Museum Is National", Chapter 4 in: Mathur, Saloni and Singh, Kavita (eds), No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia, 2015, Routledge, PDF on academia.edu
- Singh, Upinder, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, 2008, Pearson Longman, ISBN 9788131716779
- JSTOR 20062578.
- Srinivasan, Doris (1997). Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art. Brill. ISBN 9004107584.
- Sullivan, Herbert P. (1964). "A Re-Examination of the Religion of the Indus Civilization". History of Religions. 4 (1): 115–125. S2CID 162278147.
- Werness, Hope B. (2006). Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in World Art. A&C Black. p. 270. ISBN 978-0826419132.
- ISBN 978-0-470-99868-7.
Further reading
- McIntosh, Jane (2001). A Peaceful Realm: The Rise And Fall of the Indus Civilization. Boulder: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-3532-9.
- McIntosh, Jane (2008). "Religion and ideology". The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-907-2.
- ISBN 978-0-520-24225-8.
- Witzel, Michael (February 2000). "The Languages of Harappa" (PDF). Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies.
- ISBN 978-0-521-57219-4.