My Understanding of Religion
Page 4
A brief outline of what has been mentioned so far seems appropriate. Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, believed in a possible union with an unimaginable and indescribable 'substance' called Tao. Buddhism originated with Siddhartha Gautama. He was born into a religious tradition now known as Hinduism. Scholars assert that Zen Buddhism is a synthesis of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhists view Buddha as a manifestation of a divine being. In Hindu tradition Buddha is claimed as a manifestation of the divine being Vishnu. It is legitimate to define Vishnu as a sun god. Also worthy of note is the fact that the eagle-like sunbird, upon which the sun god Vishnu rides, is the archenemy of the naga race.
Because Hinduism can be defined as everything the people of the land of the Indus have done and believed, a brief account of human activity on the subcontinent in ancient times is called for. Humans were busy on the subcontinent throughout the Old Stone Age, Middle Stone Age, and New Stone Age. The oldest artefacts found on the subcontinent are quartzite pebble tools that appear to date to at least 1.7 million years ago. Acheulian hand-axes that date to about 500 000 years ago have been found near Rawalpindi in northern Pakistan. In Rajasthan other Acheulian hand-axes that date to about 400 000 years ago have been found. Middle Stone Age sites, dated to about 30 000 years ago, are known from Sri Lanka. Hindu Kush caves yield evidence of occupation dating to between 15 000 and 10 000 BC - sheep and goats may have been domesticated in this area during this period. Rock paintings showing various subjects have been discovered in central India; this art may have developed from earlier Upper Palaeolithic traditions.
Understanding of early settlements on the Indo-Iranian borderlands (situated along the eastern edge of the Iranian
Plateau) has been enhanced by excavations at Mehrgarh. From the Mehrgarh group of sites comes evidence of some six thousand years of occupation. It began in the 8th millennium BC. The earliest finds were unearthed from a 23-foot-deep mound that was discovered underneath massive alluvial deposits (Alluvial deposits are generated by flooding.). The finds allow researchers to imagine an agricultural settlement in which several types of craft were established. It is probable that trade was conducted across the Iranian Plateau - the use of sea shells, turquoise, lapis lazuli and other semiprecious stones, is suggestive of trading connections extending from the coast to as far away as central Asia. Sometime around 5500 BC a tectonic event deformed the local landscape and caused the flooding which deposited great quantities of silt on Mehrgarh and the surrounding countryside. After the flood things changed at Mehrgarh: there was an increase in the use of pottery, granary structures grew in number and capacity, new crafts appeared, and the settlement grew to accommodate an increased population. Mehrgarh did not exist in isolation. There is evidence elsewhere on the Indo-Iranian borderlands to suggest other sites of a comparable age.
The earliest settlements yet known in the northern area of the Indus are much later than Mehrgarh and date to the end of
the 4th millennium BC. In peninsular India the earliest settlements date to about 2900 BC, and are associated with pastoralists who spread to many southern parts of peninsular India during the 2nd millennium BC. A group of sites in the hills to the south of the Ganges Valley give dates in the 2nd millennium BC. These sites are associated with circular huts made of timber posts and thatch - Koldihwa, one of the sites, might date to the 7th millennium BC.
Increasing numbers of settlements began to appear throughout the Indo-Iranian borderlands from about 5000 BC. These settlements are judged to have been village communities whose means of subsistence involved the cultivation of wheat and barley, and the keeping of sheep, goats, and cattle. Their technology was based on stone, copper, and bronze. From about the middle of the 4th millennium BC similar settlements began to appear more extensively in the Indus Valley. Over the next 500 years a process of convergence led to what has been named Early Indus or Early Harappan culture. It covered an immense area. The evidence indicates that the subsistence base of Early Harappan culture was pretty much the same as it had been at Mehrgarh two thousand years earlier.
Sir John Hubert Marshall, the archaeologist, began to uncover the Harappan civilisation in 1921. The find was under a series of mounds at a village (Harappa) in eastern Pakistan. A bigger site was discovered about 400 miles to the southwest of Harappa. This site was named Mohenjo-daro (mound of the dead). Work done at these two sites and elsewhere revealed that the Harappan civilisation had been bigger than either ancient Egypt or ancient Mesopotamia. Incredibly, this vast civilisation remained undetected until 1920. Much of what is accepted about Harappan civilisation is conjectural. Nevertheless, current evidence indicates that the civilisation reached maturity about 2500 BC and came to an end about 1700 BC. It is assumed that the two most important cities, each more than 3 miles in circumference, were Harappa (on the Ravi River) and Mohenjo-daro (on the River Indus). The exact relationship between these two cities is unclear. It has been suggested that Harappa succeeded Mohenjo-daro. Great floods devastated the latter on more than one occasion. As well as the two major cities the civilisation contained more than 100 towns and villages ranging over an area of 500 000 square miles. The Harappan civilisation is also known as the Indus Valley civilisation.
The language of the Harappan civilisation remains unknown. Most scholars believe it to have been related to Dravidian, which is spoken in southern parts of the Indian Peninsula. Meluhha appears to have been the name by which Mesopotamia knew the Harappan civilisation. Harappan seals found in Ur and other Mesopotamian locations attest to trade between Mesopotamia and Harappa. The political and social structures of Harappan civilisation remain unknown. Nothing concrete is known about the religion of the civilisation, and, apart from a few buildings found at Mohenjo-daro, there is no significant evidence of public places of worship. What is known about Harappan religion leads some scholars to conclude that a Great God (possibly Shiva) and a Great Mother (possibly Shiva's wife Durga-Paravti) were worshipped. Why Harappan civilisation came to an end is not fully understood. However, severe and repeated flooding is thought to have played a significant role. The city of Mohenjo-Daro met its end in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. Raiders sacked the city, left the dead lying where they fell, and then passed on - possibly the Aryan onslaught reflected in the Rig-Veda.
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