Indus Valley Civilization

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Indus Valley Civilization

• The Harappan
• Society
• Mohenjo-Daro
• Society
• Hydraulic
• Culture
• The Early Aryans
• The Vedas
• Caste System

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Harappan society and its neighbors, ca. 2000
B.C.E.
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Harappan Culture

• Indus valley
• not desert
• well-watered and heavily forested
• 500 miles along the river valley
• 10-20 times larger than Mesopotamia or Egypt

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Foundations of Harappan Society

• The Indus River
• Silt-enriched water from mountain ranges
• Major society built by Dravidian peoples,
  3000-2500 BCE
• Cultivation of cotton before 5000 BCE, early
  cultivation of poultry
• Decline after 1900 BCE
• Major cities Harrapa (Punjab region and
  Mohenjo-Daro (mouth of Indus River)

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India
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Harappan culture sites
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Hydraulic Culture

• like Mesopotamia
• agriculture and flood-control
• significant industry and trade
• cities were very common

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Major Cities

• Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
• surrounded by smaller cities, towns, and villages

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Mohenjo-daro
view of the Citadel
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Cities

• very densely populated
• houses two to three stories
• every house is laid out the same

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Culture and Society

• advanced agriculture
• surplus production
• textiles wool and cotton
• domesticated animals and fish

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Combination of Changes

• climate shift the monsoon patterns
• flooding
• destruction of the forests
• migrations of new peoples the Aryans

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The Aryan Invasion

• Aryans, lighter-skinned invaders from the north
• Dravidians, darker-skinned sedentary inhabitants
  of Harappa
• Color Bias
• Socio-Economic Implications
• Difficulty of theory no evidence of large-scale
  military conquest

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Possible route of the Aryan invasions
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The Aryans

• not to be confused with Hitlers Aryans
• these Aryans speak an Indo-European dialect
• related to other languages like Greek and Latin

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The Aryans, cont

• they called themselves Aryans
• their land Aryavarta
• land of the Aryans

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The Early Aryans

• Pastoral economy sheep, goats, horses, cattle
• Vegetarianism not widespread until many centuries
  later
• Religious and Literary works The Vedas
• Sanskrit sacred tongue
• Prakrit everyday language, evolved into Hindi,
  Urdu, Bengali
• Four Vedas, most important Rig Veda
• 1,028 hymms to gods

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Oral Tradition

• passed down from priests and singers
• written down in the 500s
• The Vedas
• Veda means knowledge

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The Vedas

• our primary source
• early Aryan tradition
• later Hindu religion
• four vedas
• the Rig Veda is the oldest

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Krishna with Arjuna on the battlefield of
Kuruksketra
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Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna in his manifold
aspects
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The Vedas

• oral poetry
• come to have a sacred character
• provide some historical information

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Caste System, 1000 BC

• skin color
• ritual purity
• divine order of four castes

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Caste System (Varnas)

• Brahmins the priests
• Kshatriyas the warriors
• Vaisyas merchants and peasants
• Sudras non-Aryans